What Is an Amazon Advertising Agency?
An Amazon advertising agency manages the entire advertising ecosystem around Amazon. That goes well beyond standard PPC management. While a pure PPC agency focuses on Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display, an advertising agency thinks broader: Amazon DSP, external traffic sources pointing to Amazon, brand campaigns, and the strategic integration of all channels.
The difference is comparable to a social media manager versus a marketing director. Both have their place, but the scope is different. If you are doing over $300,000 in monthly revenue and treat Amazon as a strategic channel, you need more than someone who runs campaigns. You need someone who develops and executes your advertising strategy as a whole.
This post explains what an Amazon ad agency concretely covers, how it differs from a PPC agency, and how to tell whether a provider delivers what they promise.
Amazon Advertising: More Than Just PPC
Amazon has massively expanded its advertising ecosystem in recent years. If you only run Sponsored Ads today, you are using maybe 40 percent of the available options. The full spectrum covers significantly more.
Sponsored Ads (Self-Service): Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display. This is the foundation every agency must master. These formats run directly through the Advertising Console and are the entry point for most sellers. Solid PPC management of these formats is mandatory, but it is not the whole picture.
Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform): Amazon DSP enables programmatic display and video advertising that extends beyond Amazon. You reach customers on external websites, in apps, and on streaming platforms, all based on Amazon purchase data. DSP requires minimum budgets and specialized expertise. Not every agency can do this, and not every one that claims to does it well.
Amazon Attribution and external traffic sources: More and more brands drive traffic from Google Ads, social media, or influencer campaigns to their Amazon listings. Amazon Attribution enables tracking of these external campaigns. An advertising agency develops strategies that go beyond the Amazon platform and deliberately use external channels to increase Amazon sales.
Sponsored Brands Video: Video ads are one of the fastest-growing formats on Amazon. They achieve higher click-through rates than static ads and enable storytelling directly in search results. A good Amazon marketing services agency not only develops the campaign strategy but also coordinates video creative production or handles it directly.
Brand building on Amazon: Amazon Posts, Brand Story in A+ Content, Brand Store as a landing page for ad campaigns. These elements are not traditional ads, but they belong to the advertising strategy because they amplify the impact of paid campaigns. An optimized Brand Store serving as a landing page for Sponsored Brands can significantly increase campaign conversion rates.
Sponsored Ads, DSP, External Channels: The Full Spectrum
The real art is not mastering each channel individually but orchestrating them as a system. Each channel has a different function in the marketing funnel, and a good advertising agency deploys them accordingly.
Top of Funnel (Awareness): DSP display and video ads, Sponsored Brands Video, external channels. The goal here is reach and brand awareness. ROAS is typically low, but the investment pays off through rising branded searches and higher conversion rates on performance campaigns.
Mid Funnel (Consideration): Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display (audience targeting), DSP retargeting. Customers who already know your product or category are targeted specifically. This is the sweet spot for many brands because cost per acquisition is lower than pure awareness and reach is greater than pure performance marketing.
Bottom of Funnel (Conversion): Sponsored Products (exact match on converting keywords), Sponsored Display (product targeting), Brand Store as conversion hub. This is where sales are generated. Most sellers start and stay here, but without the upper funnel stages, growth eventually caps itself.
An advertising agency understands this funnel and allocates budgets accordingly. Typically, 60 to 70 percent of budget flows to bottom-of-funnel, 20 to 30 percent to mid-funnel, and 10 to 15 percent to top-of-funnel. The exact split depends on your brand, your market, and your growth stage.
PPC Agency vs. Advertising Agency: What's the Difference?
The terms are often used interchangeably, but there is a real difference in scope and competency.
An Amazon PPC agency focuses on self-service ad formats: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display. They optimize campaign structure, bids, and search terms within the Advertising Console. That is a clearly defined and important area.
An advertising agency does all of that too but goes further. They integrate DSP, plan external traffic strategies, develop video creatives, and think about advertising as part of a brand strategy. The difference is most visible in three scenarios.
Scenario 1: You want to scale beyond search volume. Sponsored Products are search-based. Once you cover all relevant keywords and your impression share is at 80 percent or above, there is little room to grow. An advertising agency finds additional reach through DSP, video, and external channels.
Scenario 2: You are launching in a new category. If nobody is searching for your product, search campaigns perform poorly. You need awareness formats that create demand rather than just capturing existing demand. That is advertising strategy, not PPC optimization.
Scenario 3: You are building a brand, not just a product catalog. Brand building on Amazon requires consistent messaging across all touchpoints. Sponsored Brands, Brand Store, A+ Content, DSP campaigns, and external channels must tell a coherent story. An advertising agency coordinates that, not a PPC agency.
Does that mean a PPC agency is bad? No. If you primarily need Sponsored Ads and DSP, video, and external channels are not yet relevant for you, a specialized PPC agency may actually be the better choice because they go deeper in their core area. The decision depends on what you need, not what sounds most impressive.
How to Identify a Good Amazon Advertising Agency
The market for Amazon advertising is growing, and with it the number of providers. These criteria help with the selection.
Broad format expertise: The agency should have demonstrable experience with all relevant formats. Ask for case studies on Sponsored Ads, DSP, and if relevant, external traffic. If the agency can only do Sponsored Products and sells the rest as "coming soon," it is a PPC agency with ambitions, not an advertising agency.
Strategic budget allocation: Can the agency explain why each portion of the budget flows to each channel? Is there a funnel logic behind the distribution? Or is everything dumped into Sponsored Products because that delivers the most obvious ROAS? The latter is short-term thinking.
Creative competency: Advertising is increasingly visual. Video ads, Sponsored Brands creatives, Brand Store design. An agency that only manages campaigns but cannot develop creatives depends on external suppliers. That works but extends feedback loops and increases costs.
Reporting beyond ACoS: A good advertising agency reports TACoS, new-to-brand metrics, impression share, organic ranking development, and performance by funnel stage. If reporting consists only of ACoS and revenue, the strategic perspective is missing.
DSP access and experience: DSP is not accessible through the standard Advertising Console. You need either a direct Amazon contact or an agency with DSP access. Ask specifically whether the agency has their own DSP seat or accesses through a third party. An own seat means more direct control and typically better terms.
Hiring an Amazon Marketing Agency: What Matters
When you decide on an advertising agency, several practical points significantly influence the success of the partnership.
Define your goals clearly: "More revenue" is not a goal. "Revenue increase of 20 percent at stable TACoS within 6 months" is. The more specific your goals, the better the agency can align their strategy, and the clearer the success measurement becomes.
Start with an audit: Before the agency sets up new campaigns, they should analyze your existing advertising structure. What is working? Where is budget being wasted? Which formats are missing? A good audit takes one to two weeks and already gives you insight into the agency's working style.
Plan the ramp-up realistically: An advertising strategy needs time to reach full impact. DSP campaigns require learning phases, funnel strategies build on each other, and seasonal effects must be accounted for. Do not expect transformation in 30 days. A realistic timeframe for first reliable results is three to six months.
Keep the big picture: The more channels in play, the more important a centralized report becomes. Demand a consolidated overview that summarizes all advertising channels and makes the interactions visible. If DSP is driving organic traffic increases, that must be visible in the overall picture, not just the DSP report.
Choosing the Right Agency for Your Business Size
Not every advertising agency fits every seller. The right choice also depends on your company size and your maturity level on Amazon.
Sellers doing $100,000 to $300,000 in monthly revenue: You probably do not yet need a full-scale advertising agency. Focus on solid PPC management and maximize Sponsored Ads. DSP and external channels come later. A good PPC agency or a specialized freelancer is sufficient at this stage.
Sellers doing $300,000 to $1,000,000 in monthly revenue: This is where advertising becomes strategically relevant. You have enough budget for DSP testing, Sponsored Brands Video becomes worthwhile, and the question of external traffic becomes pressing. An advertising agency that masters all formats delivers the most value at this stage.
Sellers doing over $1,000,000 in monthly revenue: You need an agency that operates at the enterprise level. Complex DSP setups, multi-marketplace strategies, close coordination with your internal marketing team, and the ability to integrate Amazon advertising into your overall marketing strategy. At this level, it is not just Amazon expertise that matters but also understanding of cross-channel marketing.
Regardless of size: a full service Amazon agency that integrates advertising, SEO, and design has a structural advantage over a pure advertising agency. The feedback loop between ad data, listing optimization, and visual content is the lever that multiplies individual agency services. If you have the choice, favor the integrated approach.
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