Amazon Ads agency in Illinois
Amazon Ads is the largest retail media network in the world — and the most undermanaged. We run it with the rigor of a Search account and the inventory hygiene of a Shopping account.
What Amazon Ads actually is in 2026
Amazon Advertising — now formally Amazon Ads — emerged from product placement experiments inside Amazon.com in the early 2010s, opened to broader self-serve advertisers around 2012, and was renamed from Amazon Marketing Services in 2018. The growth has been explosive: from a roughly $3B advertising business in 2017 to $47B in 2023, making Amazon the #3 digital ad business globally after Google and Meta. The product stack now spans Sponsored Products (the workhorse), Sponsored Brands (banner ads above search), Sponsored Display (programmatic display in and off Amazon), Amazon DSP (programmatic display + video including Prime Video and Twitch), and Amazon Marketing Cloud (a clean-room measurement platform). Prime Video ads launched in 2024, adding 200M+ monthly Prime subscribers to Amazon's ad-supported reach.
Start here. RGM handles Amazon Ads for Illinois brands as a remote, senior-led engagement built on measurement: audit, hypothesis, execution, and a candid account of what actually drove the numbers.
Where Amazon Ads sits in the modern paid mix
FIG. 01 — Amazon Ads across the funnel
Amazon Ads' core position is at the point of purchase on Amazon — Sponsored Products captures search queries inside Amazon at the highest commercial intent on the internet. The platform has expanded upward: Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display capture mid-funnel discovery inside Amazon; DSP and Prime Video extend Amazon's audience targeting (built on $700B+ in annual purchase data) to upper-funnel video and display across the open web. For brands selling on Amazon, the platform is non-negotiable; for brands selling off Amazon, DSP + Prime Video is increasingly viable as a Meta / YouTube complement.
How Amazon's auction and ad products mechanically work
Sponsored Products runs a second-price auction on keywords and product targets within Amazon search. The signals: bid, relevance score (based on click and conversion history for the keyword-product pair), and product detail page quality (Buy Box, ratings, reviews, inventory). Sponsored Brands runs a similar auction with creative considerations. Sponsored Display targets either Amazon audiences (purchase intent based) or product / category targets, and serves both on and off Amazon. DSP is full programmatic — RTB-based, audience-targeted, served across Amazon properties and the open web with Amazon's first-party purchase data as the targeting backbone. AMC (Amazon Marketing Cloud) is a clean-room analytics environment where advertisers can join their own data with Amazon's data inside SQL queries.
The Amazon auction and AMC measurement
FIG. 02 — Sponsored Products auction signal flow
Sponsored Products in 2026 is driven by relevance scoring — bid × predicted CTR × predicted CVR × product quality factor. The product detail page (PDP) is functionally a quality signal: high-quality images, A+ content, strong review velocity, in-stock inventory, and Buy Box ownership all lift placement win rate without a bid change. The auction rewards advertisers who: (1) maintain clean inventory and Buy Box, (2) build PDP A+ content with comprehensive image stacks and bullet points, (3) layer Sponsored Products + Sponsored Brands + Sponsored Display for full-funnel coverage on owned keywords, (4) use AMC for cross-channel attribution including DSP halo lift to Sponsored Products conversion.
RGM Experts Say
The single biggest Amazon ROAS lift we deliver in audits is fixing PDP quality before touching bids. Most accounts spend $50K-$500K/month on Sponsored Products without optimizing the product detail page for conversion. A+ content, the image stack, the title structure, and review velocity drive placement win rate and CVR more than incremental bid changes do. We rebuild PDPs first, then audit search-term reports, then optimize campaigns. Doing it in the other order leaves money on the table.
Amazon's reach and the retail media advantage
Amazon.com reaches 230M+ US monthly visitors with 200M+ Prime subscribers globally and 158M+ in the US. Average shopper sessions exceed 11 per month. Sponsored Products has 73%+ of total Amazon Ads spend; Sponsored Brands ~10%; Sponsored Display ~7%; DSP ~8%; emerging products ~2%. The unique competitive advantage is purchase data: Amazon knows what consumers actually bought, not just what they clicked. DSP audience targeting built on purchase history outperforms equivalent open-web programmatic by 30-80% on attributed conversion for relevant CPG and consumer categories.
Performance benchmarks by vertical
FIG. 03 — Amazon Ads spend allocation by product
Typical 2026 benchmarks: Sponsored Products ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sale) targets 12-22% for established categories, 18-30% for new launches. Sponsored Brands ACoS typically 8-15% (lower because it captures branded queries). DSP attributed ROAS 3-8x for in-Amazon attribution, varies wildly off-Amazon. Average click-through rate on Sponsored Products 0.4-1.0%; average CVR 8-18% (the highest CVR of any major paid channel — by far). New-to-brand percentage typically runs 30-50% for healthy programs; below 25% suggests over-reliance on brand defense.
Top-performing verticals
Amazon Ads performs strongly for: CPG (groceries, household, personal care), beauty, fashion, electronics, home and kitchen, toys, books, pet products, and most consumables with strong repeat-purchase patterns. DSP and Prime Video extend reach to non-Amazon brands in financial services, auto, insurance, and consumer services. It underperforms for B2B (mostly), high-consideration durable goods that aren't sold on Amazon, and ultra-luxury where Amazon brand presence works against the positioning.
The Amazon Ads product portfolio
FIG. 04 — Amazon Ads product portfolio
Product portfolio: Sponsored Products (the workhorse — keyword and product targeting, auto and manual campaigns); Sponsored Brands (banner above search results with custom creative); Sponsored Brands Video (15-30s video in search results); Sponsored Display (Amazon audiences or product targeting, on and off Amazon); Sponsored TV / Prime Video (CTV with Amazon's purchase-data targeting); Amazon DSP (programmatic display + video across Amazon properties and the open web); Amazon Marketing Cloud (clean-room analytics for cross-channel attribution and audience modeling).
Amazon Ads programs that defined the playbook
Notable Amazon Ads programs: Liquid Death scaled Sponsored Products with PDP optimization and creator-driven brand traffic that lifted Amazon organic ranking. Olipop's Amazon program coordinated DSP upper-funnel with Sponsored Products bottom-funnel to demonstrate cross-product halo effects measurable in AMC. Native Deodorant's Amazon scale prior to acquisition demonstrated CPG-on-Amazon economics. Stanley's 2023-2024 explosive growth was substantially driven by Amazon Ads + viral TikTok demand. Most large CPG brands now run Amazon Ads as a top-three paid channel by spend.
Our process
Days 1-30: audit Amazon account — PDP quality, inventory health, Buy Box ownership, search-term reports, campaign structure, AMC subscription status. Rebuild PDPs (A+ content, image stacks, titles, bullet points) before touching campaigns. Days 31-90: rebuild campaign architecture (Sponsored Products auto + manual, Sponsored Brands defensive + offensive, Sponsored Display on-Amazon audiences + product targeting), deploy DSP for upper-funnel if applicable, install AMC for cross-channel attribution. Days 91-180: scale validated campaigns, run quarterly AMC analyses for halo effects and new-to-brand measurement, expand to Prime Video where MMM justifies it.
Funnel design and behavioral triggers
Funnel architecture: DSP + Prime Video for upper-funnel awareness with Amazon-audience targeting; Sponsored Brands for category and competitive defense; Sponsored Display for mid-funnel re-engagement; Sponsored Products for bottom-funnel intent capture with full keyword and product coverage. AMC ties them all together: cross-channel attribution, new-to-brand measurement, audience overlap analysis, incrementality testing.
Creative and execution moves that lift performance
- Optimize the PDP before optimizing campaigns. A+ content + image stack + reviews drive CVR more than any bid change.
- Run Sponsored Products auto + manual side-by-side for keyword discovery. Auto campaigns surface high-converting search terms manual campaigns miss.
- Layer Sponsored Brands + Sponsored Products + Sponsored Display on owned branded queries. Full-coverage defense crowds out competitor bidding.
- Use AMC for new-to-brand reporting. Brand health depends on NTB %; report it weekly.
- Audit search-term reports weekly. Negative keywords prevent waste and protect ACoS.
- Match DSP audience targeting to specific Amazon product categories. Generic open-web audiences underperform Amazon-purchase-data audiences by 30-80%.
RGM Experts Say
Amazon Marketing Cloud is the most underused tool in paid media. It's a clean-room SQL environment where you can join your DSP exposure data, your Sponsored Products conversion data, your Sponsored Brands clickthrough data, and Amazon's purchase data — and write queries that measure halo, incrementality, and new-to-brand performance that nothing else in the ad industry can measure. We've replaced multi-touch attribution dashboards with AMC analyses for every Amazon-heavy client. Once an operator sees AMC results once, they don't go back.
When we scale a campaign
We scale Amazon campaigns when: ACoS holds at or below target for 14+ days, conversion volume per ad group exceeds 10/week, Buy Box remains owned, inventory is healthy, and AMC analysis confirms incremental contribution. Scale by 15-25% per week with weekly bid and budget adjustments.
When we kill a campaign
We kill when: ACoS exceeds target by 30%+ for 14+ days, Buy Box ownership drops below 80%, inventory stocks out (ads are paused automatically but campaigns lose history), or new-to-brand drops below 20%.
Tracking, data feeds, and tools
Tracking stack: Amazon Ads native reporting, Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) for clean-room cross-channel attribution, Helium 10 or Jungle Scout for category competitive intelligence, BigQuery for AMC data export, Looker for cross-channel reporting.
Tools we run: Amazon Ads Console, Amazon DSP, Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), Helium 10, Jungle Scout, Pacvue or Skai for Sponsored Products bid management at scale, custom Python scripts for keyword harvesting and negation.
The KPIs that drive ad-ops decisions
Daily: ACoS by campaign type, conversion volume by ad group, Buy Box status, inventory health, search-term waste rate. Weekly: negative keyword cadence, bid adjustment cadence. Monthly: AMC analysis for halo and NTB.
The KPIs we report to clients
Total Amazon revenue from advertising (TACoS in addition to ACoS), new-to-brand percentage, blended attributed ROAS, halo effect from DSP / upper-funnel into Sponsored Products conversion, share of voice in priority category queries.
RGM Experts Say
Most brands underbid DSP and overbid Sponsored Products. The reason: SP feels measurable (clean ACoS) while DSP feels speculative. AMC reveals that DSP-exposed customers convert at 30-60% higher rates on Sponsored Products and have 2-3x higher LTV. Without AMC, you can't see this — so DSP looks worse than it is and SP looks better than it is. Once you see it via AMC, the right allocation shifts meaningfully — typically 20-30% of total Amazon Ads budget toward DSP for established brands.
How we work with Illinois businesses
We work with businesses headquartered in Illinois and across Aurora, Chicago, Naperville and across the state. The engagement model is consistent regardless of geography — strategy, execution, measurement, and operating discipline applied to whichever channels and tools fit your business. Illinois brands choose us because we bring the depth that compounds. Coffee is on us if you happen to be local; everything else is remote, asynchronous, and built to ship.
The work we do for Illinois clients is the same work we do everywhere else — full-portfolio Amazon Ads management — Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, DSP, Prime Video — plus PDP optimization, AMC analytics, and the inventory-and-Buy-Box discipline that lets us tell you honestly what's working. Learn more about our take on Amazon Ads and how it fits a modern growth and performance marketing stack.
Apply for an engagement
We take a small number of clients each year. If our approach feels aligned, apply for an engagement.
Frequently asked questions
Is Illinois inside RGM's service area?
Yes. RGM works with Illinois companies on Amazon Ads and runs the engagement the same way it would anywhere: a remote-first team, a clear plan, and measurement that does not bend to flatter the result. Location changes nothing.
Is there an RGM office located in Illinois?
RGM does not operate a Illinois location. The agency is remote-first by design, so a Illinois client is served by the same practitioners who handle accounts across the country.
How does RGM approach Amazon Ads for a client?
Diagnosis first, then a plan, then execution. RGM instruments the account, runs the work hands-on, and closes the loop with measurement that names the real driver of any result.
What is the first step to hiring RGM from Illinois?
Start by applying. Because RGM works with only a handful of clients annually, the first step is a brief discussion of where the business is and where it wants to go.