Hi, glad you’re here! If you’re selling on Amazon (or planning to), you know how quickly things change. Every year brings new tools, strategies, and opportunities, and 2024 was no different. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the key updates you need to know and how they should shape your 2025 strategy.

The truth is, while Amazon continues to give brands more tools to succeed, many are not taking full advantage. This is your opportunity to get ahead. The brands that adapt quickly will rise, while others risk losing market share to competitors who are faster to act. So grab a coffee, settle in, and let’s get started. 

What Brands Should Continue to Focus On

Earlier this year, I shared some of the top Amazon Advertising priorities for 2024, emphasizing strategies and practices that are still relevant today. But here’s the thing, while these foundational principles remain critical, it’s equally important to adapt to the latest updates and integrate new tools into your approach.

Let’s revisit some key points from that post and tie in why they’re still essential. 

Structure and Organization

How you structure your Amazon account and campaigns can make or break your ability to scale. From budget distribution to performance reporting and SOP building, proper setup is non-negotiable.

For a deeper look, check out my video on how we structure and setup campaigns. Additionally, one of our cornerstone practices is organizing your campaigns into six main categories to align with the strategy: Awareness, Rank, Efficiency, Branded, Conquesting, and Auto. This setup creates clarity and efficiency across all aspects of your campaigns. Want to learn more about why we utilize this method? Read our post on managing your ad budget like a retirement plan or listen to the podcast episode on it here.

Conversion Rate (CVR) and Return on Ad Spend (RoAS)

Understanding the relationship between conversion rate (CVR) and return on ad spend (RoAS) is fundamental for refining your Amazon advertising strategy. Imagine a scenario where your product is priced at $30, you receive 30 clicks, and 3 orders, with a bid of $2. The results would show a RoAS of 1.5 and a CVR of 10%.

At first glance, this might suggest reducing your bid to improve RoAS, but there’s a better solution: focus on enhancing your listing’s CVR.

Now consider improving your listing - whether by using high-quality images, optimizing product descriptions, or adjusting pricing to make your product more competitive. With the same $30 product and 30 clicks, but now 5 orders instead of 3, your RoAS increases to 2.5, and your CVR rises to 16.7%. By making the product more appealing to shoppers, you achieve greater profitability without sacrificing traffic volume.

Rather than immediately lowering your bids, prioritize improvements to your product presentation and relevance.

Bid Management

Your bid is one of the most powerful levers in your PPC strategy. With strong bid management, you can make even challenging targets profitable. Make sure you are spending time refining your bid strategies.

Here’s what to get down:

• Bid vs. CPC: Understand the difference and how each affects your results.
• Bid Impact on Impressions: Recognize how competitive bids drive visibility and traffic.
• CVR Dependency: A competitive bid paired with poor CVR will result in unprofitable campaigns.

Long-Tail Keywords Utilization

While it’s tempting to focus on high-volume keywords, long-tail keywords often drive more profitable sales. These keywords typically have less competition and higher efficiency, making them ideal for scaling without falling into the pay-to-play trap.

Use tools like Impression Share, CVR, and CPC to identify and prioritize these opportunities. By balancing long-tail keywords with your top performers, you can optimize your budget and achieve more sustainable growth.

Expanding Into New Ad Types and Creative Opportunities

Did you know Sponsored Products account for about 80% of total sales on Amazon? That leaves a significant 20% up for grabs through Sponsored Display (SD) and Sponsored Brands (SB), including video formats like Streaming TV Ads. To gain a competitive edge, you need to diversify you ad mix and take full advantage of these additional formats.

If you’re unsure which ad type is right for your strategy, check out this post I made on "What is the Best Amazon Advertising Ad Type"?

In particular, Sponsored Brands Video (SBV) and Streaming TV Ads are emerging as high-impact options for engaging audiences. Video ads allow you to showcase your products dynamically and connect with customers at every stage of the buying journey. For more on this, check out my post on SBV and Streaming TV best practices.

On the other hand, Sponsored Display (SD) ads are perfect for retargeting and reaching shoppers both on and off Amazon. Increase your visibility and re-engage customers who didn’t convert the first time. Is Sponsored Display is right for you?

Biggest 2024 Updates to Apply in 2025

As we approach 2025 (or if it's already here as you’re reading this), it’s crucial to focus on the tools and strategies that will drive the most impact. While there are countless updates we could discuss, I’ve streamlined the list to highlight the most significant ones to keep you on track. View and read all Amazon Advertising updates here. Amazon Ads has introduced some HUGE updates this year, and integrating these into your strategy can give your brand the competitive edge it needs. Let’s explore the four key areas I believe brands should prioritize heading into 2025.

#1 - Video: A Non-Negotiable in 2025 Advertising

Video ads have become a must-have for brands advertising on Amazon. This trend isn’t limited to Amazon. It reflects a broader shift across the entire industry, where video consistently delivers higher engagement and remains the preferred format. A few years ago, smaller brands had limited opportunities to leverage video, but that has changed. Amazon has leveled the playing field, giving brands of all sizes access to premium video placements that captivate audiences like never before.

Streaming TV Ads

Amazon’s Streaming TV Ads on platforms like Fire TV and Freevee are no longer just about brand awareness. They’re becoming a performance driver. These placements allow brands like yourself to pair high-quality video creatives with advanced targeting, creating a seamless pathway from awareness to action. Reaching an audience of 175MM+ during their favorite streaming shows, directing them straight to your product pages.

Sponsored Brands Video (SBV)

Amazon has expanded SBV placements, offering brands the chance to showcase products directly in search results and on product detail pages. This format is particularly effective for engaging shoppers as they browse.

Tip: Vertical video, inspired by social platforms like TikTok and Reels, is proving to work well on Amazon. It doesn’t just drive views but also conversions. We’ve also noticed brands using educational and informative SBV campaigns have seen a significant lift in customer engagement and new-to-brand (NTB) acquisition. Combine video with a clear brand message and NTB-focused keywords

Example: A customer searches “wall planters” and encounters an SBV ad showing how your product supports climbing plants. This quick, informative video captures their attention, leading them to click through and explore your store.

Why does this matter? Motion naturally draws the human eye, making video ads a high-impact placement.

#2 - Utilizing Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC)

Amazon Marketing Cloud has been huge for advertisers, offering unprecedented insight into campaign performance and customer behavior.

AMC Analytics and Reporting

AMC now provides granular, cross-channel attribution, letting brands map the entire customer journey. This allows you to optimize budgets based on what’s driving results at every stage of the funnel.

AMC Audiences

Build hyper-targeted custom audiences without needing SQL knowledge. With Amazon’s no-code solutions, even smaller teams can leverage AMC to refine targeting. Examples include retargeting shoppers who viewed a product but didn’t convert or focusing on NTB customers for Prime Day campaigns.

AMC Sponsored Ads

Advertisers can now easily find high-value segment groups, visualize the groups’ impact, and turn the groups into reachable audience list using AMC high-value audiences solution (beta). Combine AMC’s rich audience data with Sponsored Products’ performance power. This enables you to tailor your bidding strategies for your custom audiences.

Tip: Start small with AMC playbooks or templated queries. As our team likes to put it, “AMC is incredible but still underutilized.” The time to start implementing it or learning how to implement it is now.

#3 - AI Creative Studio = Scalable Creativity

Amazon’s AI Creative Studio is revolutionizing how brands approach creative production, combining creativity with efficiency. For smaller brands or those managing large catalogs with limited resources, this tool is one to keep your eye on.

Why It Matters:

• Automates repetitive creative tasks, freeing up valuable time to focus on strategy.
• Simplifies the process of creating videos and images, making high-quality assets accessible even for teams without in-house designers.
• Ensures all creatives meet Amazon’s specifications, helping you avoid errors that can derail campaigns.

Picture this: you design an image of a coffee mug in a cozy kitchen, add motion to animate steam rising from the mug, and then adapt and enhance it—all within a single tool. That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AI Creative Studio.

As Amazon continues to refine and expand this tool, staying updated will be key to leveraging its full potential. Whether you’re a small brand or an enterprise-level business, AI Creative Studio offers scalable solutions to elevate your creative output.

#4 - Amazon Placement Controls and Campaign Segmentation

Granular control over placements and better campaign segmentation are among Amazon’s most impactful updates this year. Not only does Amazon allow you to adjust bids based on ad placements such as Top of Search (TOS), Product Pages, and Rest of Search, we now have the opportunity to adjust bids specifically for B2B customers AND AMC audiences. Let's take a look at how they can help:

Placement Controls

Amazon now allows you to adjust bids based on ad placements, such as Top of Search (TOS), Product Pages, and Rest of Search. This flexibility lets brands focus their budgets where performance is strongest.

• TOS Placement Benefits: Ads at the top of search drive higher visibility and conversion rates. By increasing your bid for these placements, you can dominate high-intent searches.
• Product Page Placement: Ideal for cross-selling and upselling within complementary product categories.
• Rest of search refers to Sponsored Products ads on the middle or the bottom of search results. Also, refers to Sponsored Products ads in the second page of search results and beyond.
• Amazon Business placements (beta) refers to all Sponsored Product placements that appear on Amazon Business including Amazon Business Top of Search, Amazon Business Product Pages, and Amazon Business Rest of Search.

Tip: Combine placement adjustments with AMC insights to identify where your audience is most active and tailor your strategy accordingly.

Campaign Segmentation

Segmenting your campaigns by intent is one of the most impactful strategies you can implement. It allows you to track performance against specific goals for each segment, ensuring your advertising spend aligns with your strategic priorities.

But what happens when segmentation is combined with placement controls? Together, they enable highly targeted and efficient ad structures, ensuring your budget is allocated where it makes the most impact. By tailoring bids and strategies for each segment, you can maximize performance across the board.

Our Head of Product, Dustin, has incorporated advanced reporting tools into our in-house tech, allowing us to analyze and refine strategies with greater precision for each brand we partner with. These tools include:

ToS Impression Share Performance: Provides insights into how campaigns perform at the Top of Search (ToS) placement, critical for driving visibility and conversions.

Performance by Segment and Strategy: Tracks and compares how each campaign segment and strategy contributes to overall performance, empowering smarter decision-making and optimization.

Integrating These Updates Into Your 2025 Strategy

Knowing about Amazon’s 2024 updates is one thing, but true success depends on execution. Now, let's cover how you can integrate these tools and strategies into your campaigns for 2025. 

Build a Video-First Strategy

Video has officially taken center stage, and ignoring it is no longer an option.‍

• Start with Sponsored Brands Video (SBV): Use SBV at the top of the search (TOS) to educate and engage your audience. Highlight your product’s unique benefits while targeting NTB (new-to-brand) customers. Keep it short, 30 seconds or less and make the opening frame count.‍
• Expand Into Streaming TV Ads: Combine premium placements with precise targeting to create awareness and drive conversions. Pair Streaming TV campaigns with AMC insights to retarget viewers who interact with your ads.

Tip: Use seasonal and event-based opportunities (like Prime Day or holiday sales) to maximize ROI on your video campaigns.

Start Using the Full Potential of AMC

Amazon Marketing Cloud is powerful but underutilized. Here’s how to integrate it into your strategy:

• ‍Leverage AMC Audiences: Create custom audiences based on engagement, such as shoppers who clicked but didn’t buy or NTB customers who need a nudge. These granular segments allow for tailored campaigns that drive meaningful results.‍
• Test and Optimize: Pair AMC insights with DSP campaigns for multi-touch attribution. For example, use AMC to track how Sponsored Brands and Display Ads work together to push customers down the funnel.‍
• Use Playbooks: Start with templated queries or AMC playbooks if you’re unsure where to begin. These resources provide real-life examples of how brands are using AMC to answer critical questions and drive results.

Tip: Even if you’re a small brand, AMC’s no-code tools make it accessible. Start simple and scale as you learn.

Prioritize Creative and Automation with AI Creative Studio

AI Creative Studio is a lifeline for teams juggling limited resources and large workloads. While there may still be work to be done, here’s how to integrate it into your workflow:

• ‍Streamline Creative Production: Use AI to create dynamic videos and images that stand out on Amazon’s crowded platform. Start with templates that align with your brand, and let AI handle repetitive tasks like resizing and adapting for different formats.‍
• Test, Refresh, Repeat: Regularly update your creatives to stay fresh and relevant. Test new formats like vertical video or short animations to keep audiences engaged.

Have questions? 

If you’re looking for expert guidance tailored to your brand’s unique goals, BTR Media is here! Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or reach out with any questions. And if you’re ready to take your Amazon strategy to the next level, contact us or check out our capabilities to see how we can support your growth!