4 Proven Tips for Amazon Sponsored Ads Management: SOV, Keywords, Sales

If you run ads on Amazon, you’ve likely come to the following conclusions:

• The number of ad placements on Amazon are increasing
• Brands must rely more on Sponsored Ads management to succeed on Amazon
• CPC, especially high value placements like Top-of-Search Sponsored Brand ads, is increasing.
• Your brand’s ad budget is increasing along with expectations.

So, to recap, ad placements are becoming more frequent, more important, more expensive, and there is more riding on campaigns to drive success for brands. No pressure! Well, we are here to help.

As budgets balloon along with expectations, here are 4 tips to improve the management of your Amazon sponsored ad campaigns to ensure they are actually driving incremental growth for your business.

Step 1: Specify What Successful Sponsored Ads Management Looks Like for Your Amazon Brand

Before adjusting a single bid, set a goal for your brand. There is no way to optimize campaign structure and spend without a clear definition of what success looks like.

Some common goals tend to be:

• Total Revenue – The most obvious goal; your brand needs more money coming through the pipeline. Regardless of other factors, marketing campaigns need to push organic sales and drive bottom line growth.
• Market Share Growth – This is ideal for brands within fluctuating markets which make revenue an inaccurate indicator of how you are doing in the market. Yes, your total sales might be increasing, but it’s not scaling as fast as the market. Set a goal relative to your size in the market vs where you would like to be.
• New Product Launches – Innovations, profitability changes from tariffs, or other factors may be forcing you to bring new products to Amazon. If left to fend for themselves, these product detail pages would go unseen. Define what these new products need to bring in – whether it’s views or sales to boost the brand, or replace products that are on their way out the door.

Step 2: Identify Amazon Sponsored Ads Management KPIs

Once you define success, determine if you are pacing towards it. There are a ton of metrics available via Amazon Ads, but these are the top 5 to keep an eye on:

Total Sales vs. Ad Sales

Ad Sales within your Amazon campaigns might be great, but they need to be put in context. If increasing Total Sales is your goal and you aren’t seeing growth along with Ad Sales, then your Amazon campaigns aren’t doing their job. Your Organic Sales (Total Sales – Ad Sales) growth is key. If your campaigns are performing well, Organic Sales will be growing along with your Ad Sales as your products see higher rankings and more shopper conversions outside of campaigns.

T-ACOS (Total Advertising Cost of Sales)

Similar to looking at Ad Sales vs Total Sales, T-ACOS (Ad Spend/Total Sales) measures the efficiency of your marketing budget in pushing Total Sales. The goal of this metric is not to get it as low as possible, but to make sure that as you lean more into Amazon marketing campaigns, you are not doing so beyond what you can afford (in terms of margin). With an increase in campaign spend, you will see T-ACOS increase in the short term and, if campaigns are running correctly, fall back to lower levels as products see the benefits of increased traffic.

NOTE: This is not a useful metric if your goal is launching new products as spend is going towards products that have a smaller and delayed effect on Total Sales.

SOV (Share of Voice)

When looking at where your brand fits into the overall market, Share of Voice (SOV) is your best friend. Based on selected Amazon keywords and represented as a percentage, SOV is the number of placements your brand has on the first page of search results.

This is only tracked through third-party platforms like Pacvue.

This metric can be tailored to fit your exact situation as you can break down your marketing share by page, looking at Paid SOV, Organic SOV, Top 5 SOV, SB SOV, SP SOV and more. It will help you figure out where your sponsored ads are ending up and which brands you are directly competing with for those placements. If looked at along with Organic Sales over time, Share of Voice can also tell you if holding those placements via paid marketing is a sustainable option or if your management strategy needs to pivot.

Keyword Click and Conversion Share Report

For brands with access to Vendor Central or third-party platforms, Amazon provides the top three ASINs and their associated percentage of clicks and conversions for all traffic on a given keyword. Tracking if your ASINs are breaking into the top three slots for any given keyword will show you where campaigns are succeeding at driving sales for a given product. This can also reveal if a keyword is dominated by a single ASIN with a majority of the conversions, or if a keyword is up for grabs. Using this information to adjust bids on specific keyword targets can help products massively increase their Organic Sales and potentially grab a “Best Seller” or “Overall Pick” tag on Amazon.

AMC NTB Trend Report

Accessed via Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), the NTB Trend Report will separate your Ad Sales by New-to-Brand (NTB) shoppers or repeat customers. This data, along with a well thought out Amazon marketing campaign structure, can show you which products/targets/campaign types are most successful at bringing in NTB shoppers.

Looking at ad spend along with these NTB Sales will help determine the most sustainable routes for incremental growth.

Step 3: Measure Amazon Marketing Campaign Momentum

None of the metrics outlined above have any weight unless there is something to compare them to. To give metrics context, look at both Period-Over-Period and Year-Over-Year comparisons.

What is a “significant” amount of time to be able to draw conclusions? Two weeks is the bare minimum for making sense of data, but large decisions should be made using a month’s worth of tracking. Short data windows can exaggerate performance swings caused by temporary factors like stockouts, price changes, or competitor reactions.

When comparing performance, always consider the context:

• Did your product go out of stock during that time?
• Was there a Lightning Deal or tentpole event like Prime Day?
• Did a competitor suddenly drop prices or ramp up bids?

It’s also smart to separate your Amazon marketing campaigns by target strategy: audience, branded, competitor, and generic. This helps you set realistic expectations and allocate spend appropriately.

• Branded campaigns should only include your own ASINs and marketing keywords that include your brand and Amazon product names (Example: “Adidas”).
• Competitor campaigns should only include your own ASINs and marketing keywords that include Amazon competitor brands and product names (Example: “Nike”).
• Generic campaigns contain all relevant marketing keywords that don’t include any brand or Amazon product names (Example: “Mens training pants”).

Group these logically—whether by Portfolios or a third-party tool—so you can track performance in a way that aligns with your brand goals.

Step 4: Prevent Amazon Sponsored Ads Management Pitfalls

Be Patient

Whether the pressure to succeed is coming from top executives or your own desire to improve, Amazon marketing campaigns must be left alone before adjustments can be made. They need to be given time to operate – to which it’s normal for fluctuations to occur from the market (and your competitors) reacting. If you’re baking a cake and are opening the oven every two minutes to check on it, you’re going to end up with a bad cake.

Keep All Metrics in Mind

Never focus on a single metric in a vacuum. If one number looks off, follow the breadcrumbs:

• T-ACOS rising? Check if CPCs are going up, clicks are dropping, or if Paid SOV is slipping. It could just mean a competitor got more aggressive.
• Amazon ad sales dropping? Look at organic sales, conversion rate, or product page health. A sudden dip could signal something like poor reviews, a bad “frequently returned” tag, or an issue with product variations.

Metrics are clues, not conclusions.

Don’t Get Complacent

Marketers are great at diagnosing problems when things go wrong but can rest on their laurels when ROAS is good and sales are high. AVOID THIS! Figure out why your sponsored ads are doing well. Try to debunk theories and double down on what is working. If you were able to problem solve how to get your products on top, there is likely another marketer working diligently to do the same for their brand.

Wrapping It Up

Amazon sponsored ads management is extremely complicated, nuanced, and expensive. Set well defined goals, track and interpret meaningful indicators, and avoid the common pitfalls to ensure your marketing spend is driving incremental, sustainable growth.

At Brandwoven, we specialize in ecommerce strategy, digital advertising, and product marketing. We help brands set up frameworks that turn ad data into actionable growth.