The Amazon DSP Playbook: Advanced Tactics for Maximum Growth

1) Nailing Audience Precision with AMC

Gone are the days of guessing who your best customer is. With AMC, you can analyze:

• Market mix conversion pathways to understand the cumulative impact of Sponsored Ads and DSP on shopper behavior
• Audience overlap between Sponsored Ads and DSP to reduce cannibalization
• New-to-brand rate across ad types, campaigns, and products
• Geo-performance to localize media strategies
• Custom lookback windows up to 5 years for better defining shopper lifecycles and customer lifetime value (CLTV)

💡Use Case: A premium beauty brand we work with used AMC data to identify untapped audience segments based on pageview-to-purchase lag. We tailored creative and budget by stage in the customer journey, boosting branded search by 12% and DPVs by 62%.

 

2) Flexing the Full-Funnel Media Strategy

If you’re only retargeting with DSP, you’re leaving growth opportunities on the table. We lead clients with a diversified full-funnel DSP plan. 

Top of Funnel: The goal here is to create awareness among new, relevant audiences. We use category interest targeting and Amazon’s in-market or lifestyle audience lookalikes to reach potential customers who haven’t yet interacted with your brand.

These campaigns often run on high-impact formats like online video and streaming TV, which allow for richer storytelling and wider reach. The key performance indicators at this stage include reach and brand lift, which can be measured through Amazon Brand Lift studies or AMC-based exposure analysis.

Middle of Funnel: Here, the goal shifts to engaging users who have shown some level of interest – maybe they've searched for relevant terms or browsed similar products.

We target these users based on behaviors like ASIN views and keyword interactions. Formats may include responsive e-commerce creative (REC) display or shorter-form video ads to maintain visual impact while reinforcing product relevance. KPIs for this stage focus on detail page views and click-through rates, helping you gauge whether the creative and targeting are driving deeper engagement.

Bottom of the Funnel: Now it's about converting warm leads: people who’ve added to cart, visited your detail page or otherwise engaged meaningfully, but haven’t purchased.

These campaigns are highly product-specific, using retargeting and contextual display ads to remind shoppers of what they’re missing. Success in this phase is measured by ROAS, purchase rate, and, increasingly, new-to-brand customer acquisition.

Cross-Sell: Finally, we want to build lifetime value and basket size for each customer. Our campaigns use purchase signals and AMC insights to advertise complementary products most likely to be purchased by customers, old and new. We aim to turn one-time purchasers into subscribers and high-value multiple purchase loyalists. 

By orchestrating these stages together, brands can build a durable growth engine: reaching new audiences, nudging the curious, and closing the sale, all while building long-term brand equity.

💡Use Case: A Tier 1 apparel brand layered online video on top of lower-funnel DSP and Sponsored Product campaigns. The result? CTR doubled, and total sales jumped 35% within eight weeks.

 

3) Leverage Your Own 1P Data

Amazon isn’t your only data source. If you’re sitting on 1P gold mines like email lists, website behavior, and loyalty program data, you can upload it to AMC and activate it with DSP or Sponsored Ads to create tailored audiences. When combined with AMC insights, this gives you unparalleled control and customization.

💡TIPS: Brands leveraging external 1P data see significantly higher relevance scores and conversion rates because they’re no longer targeting hypothetical shoppers but their actual customers.

 

4) The Jump to Streaming

Amazon’s growing footprint in video (Fire TV, Twitch, Prime Video, plus the vast network of streaming apps such as CNN, Food Network, The Weather Channel, MLB, NFL) means more high-impact inventory for storytelling. These aren't just branding plays; they're measurable, shoppable, and often underutilized by mid-market brands.

What’s New:

• Prime Video interactive ads
• AI-generated video/audio via Creative Studio
• Video completion metrics + click-through tracking

💡Use Case: A gourmet food brand layered streaming TV ads with QR codes and unique messaging by region. They achieved a 2.5x lift in branded search in test markets compared to the control.

 

5) Go Beyond ROAS: Smarter KPIs

ROAS still matters, but it’s no longer the end-all.

Advanced brands are shifting focus to:

• New-to-brand %
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)
• Share of Voice (SOV)
• Media mix impact (via AMC)
• Brand recall and lift (through Amazon studies)

To help brands scale their use of Amazon DSP effectively, Acadia uses a three-tiered maturity model: foundational, intermediate, and advanced. This framework helps brands evaluate where they are today and identify the next steps to unlock greater performance and efficiency from their DSP investments.

Foundational Stage: Brands typically allocate a budget of $10,000 to $15,000 per month. The focus here is on lower-funnel objectives, like retargeting audiences who have already engaged with your brand on Amazon. Common audience segments include cart abandoners, detail page viewers, and contextual placements based on similar ASINs.

These campaigns are designed to drive conversions and generate an immediate return on ad spend. Key KPIs at this stage include ROAS, purchase rate, clicks, and purchases. It's a valuable and necessary starting point to capture low-hanging fruit, but it’s not where long-term brand growth happens.

Intermediate Stage: Brands move into the intermediate stage once they’re ready to expand beyond converting existing demand. With monthly budgets ranging from $15,000 to $50,000, the media strategy extends into the consideration and awareness stages of the funnel.

Targeting now includes broader audience segments, such as lookalike audiences, Amazon search-based audiences, and core AMC segments like people who searched for your category but didn’t convert.

Formats become more diverse, incorporating video ads and more sophisticated display placements. KPIs also expand to include CTR, detail page views, detail page view rate, add to cart, and new-to-brand purchases. At this stage, brands begin building momentum and data that can inform even more granular targeting.

Advanced Stage: This is where brands unlock the full potential of Amazon DSP. These brands typically spend more than $50,000 per month on media and run full-funnel campaigns that include a mix of streaming TV, online video, display, and emerging formats like Prime Video interactive ads. Audience strategy becomes deeply customized by leveraging first-party data uploads, custom AMC-built segments, and category-specific behavioral insights.

The KPIs also evolve to reflect more strategic brand outcomes, including incrementality, reach, share of voice, organic growth, and brand lift. Brands at this level are not just generating sales, they’re building long-term brand equity and future-proofing their Amazon channel performance.

This maturity model isn’t linear or one-size-fits-all. It’s a strategic guide to help brands evolve their advertising approach in sync with their business goals, operational capacity, and budget tolerance. By understanding where you are on the spectrum, Acadia can help chart a path forward by layering in the right tactics, formats, and measurement strategies to grow both now and into the future.