How to Launch Your First Amazon DSP Campaign: Setup and Basic Strategy 

Launching a successful advertising campaign on Amazon goes beyond just Sponsored Ads. Enter Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform)—a programmatic advertising solution that allows brands to reach audiences both on and off Amazon with precision. Unlike traditional ad campaigns, DSP enables advertisers to target shoppers based on behavior, interests, and purchase history, all through automated, data-driven processes.

Why should you care about DSP in 2025? For starters, it helps you:

• Reach audiences programmatically: Show ads to the right people at the right time.
  
  
• Retarget potential buyers: Re-engage shoppers who viewed or considered your products.
  
  
• Boost brand awareness: Extend your presence beyond Amazon to apps, websites, and streaming platforms.
  
  

What is Amazon DSP?

Amazon DSP is Amazon’s Demand-Side Platform, a tool that lets advertisers programmatically buy display, video, and audio ads both on Amazon properties and across the web. Unlike Sponsored Ads, which appear only on Amazon search results or product pages, DSP allows brands to reach audiences off Amazon, opening the door to broader visibility and more sophisticated targeting.

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Key differences between Amazon DSP and Sponsored Ads:

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Step-by-Step Guide to Launch Your First Amazon DSP Campaign 

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If you’ve used Amazon’s Campaign Manager before, you’ll notice some familiar patterns. DSP organizes campaigns in a way that makes sense once you get used to it—but it adds extra layers so you can reach more people, retarget them, and build your brand more effectively.

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Understand the DSP Campaign Structure

Navigating DSP can feel like stepping into a new city for the first time. The layout is designed to guide you through campaigns step by step:

• Account Level / Advertisers: This is where you select your seller account. Within each account, you can create multiple advertisers to manage campaigns across different markets or countries.
• Orders: Comparable to campaigns in Sponsored Ads, orders are where you define the overall objectives, budget, and KPIs for your campaigns.
• Line Items: Each order contains line items, which are the actionable components of your campaign. Each line item needs audiences and creatives to actually run.

So, the structure looks like this: Account → Advertisers → Orders → Line Items → Audiences & Creatives. Once you understand this “roadmap,” moving through DSP starts to feel much more natural.

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Configure Your DSP Order Settings

After you’ve created a new order in Amazon DSP, the next step is to fine-tune its settings. These choices determine how your campaign will run, what it’s aiming to achieve, and how much you’ll spend along the way.

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Naming and Goals

Start by giving your order a clear, descriptive name. Instead of something generic, make it specific—like “Remarketing – Q4 2024” or “Awareness – New Product Launch.” A descriptive name makes it easier for you and your team to track performance later. 

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Next, select a campaign goal. 

DSP offers three options: awareness, consideration, or conversions. 

While this step doesn’t directly change performance, it helps prefill certain fields and aligns the campaign with your intended objective. Many advertisers lean toward conversion campaigns, but the best choice depends on what stage of the funnel you’re targeting.

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Set KPIs and Strategy

You can define a KPI, such as ROAS, and even set a target. DSP can then optimize automatically toward that KPI, or you can manage it manually for greater control.

Another option is choosing an advertising strategy, which determines how your budget is paced. You can spread your spend evenly over time for steady performance, or go all-in during critical periods like Prime Day or Black Friday.

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Budgets and Flights

Budgeting in DSP can be confusing at first because it happens on two levels: the overall budget and flights. The budget is the total amount you’re willing to spend, while flights are smaller allocations tied to specific timeframes.

Think of flights as smaller “installments” of your budget. For instance, you might set a campaign budget of $2,000 for the quarter, then divide it into two flights of $1,000 each—one for October and one for November. If you forget to create flights beyond your chosen dates, the campaign will automatically stop delivering, even if there’s unspent budget left.

If your company has strict spending rules, you can also apply monthly or daily caps. These help prevent overspending and keep the campaign aligned with internal budgets.

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Add Products and Frequency Caps

Next, you’ll choose the products your order will promote. This step works much like Sponsored Ads—you simply search and add the ASINs you want to advertise.

Finally, set a frequency cap. This limits how often an individual shopper sees your ad. Without a cap, you risk overwhelming your audience, which can lead to negative brand associations. A balanced frequency keeps your ads visible without becoming repetitive. If your order contains multiple line items, the total cap will be spread across them, helping avoid oversaturation.

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Configure Your DSP Line Items

Inside every order, you’ll find line items—think of them as folders or building blocks that give structure to your campaign. Each order can contain multiple line items, and this is where you can really fine-tune performance and reporting.

You’ll need to define where the ads will serve. For instance, if the line item is set to “Amazon desktop display,” your ads will only show on desktop placements within Amazon.  Placements can surface in several locations—the homepage, search results, or product detail pages, depending on the settings you choose.

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Audience Targeting

You can build custom audiences directly inside DSP. For example,  imagine a shopper who browsed your premium headphones but didn’t add them to cart—you can retarget them with a reminder ad. On the other hand, if someone already purchased, you might exclude them to avoid wasted impressions (Of course you should not exclude them with high repeat purchase potential)

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Beyond past purchasers, you can create lookalike audiences based on your customer data, reach people who are engaged with your brand on Amazon, or even tap into third-party segments to target lifestyle categories (such as “tech enthusiasts” or “parents of young children”). Geographic filters let you focus only on the markets where your products are actually available.

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Targeting Competitor Audiences

One of the most powerful features of DSP is the ability to target people who have viewed competitor products but haven’t purchased yet. For example, you can create an audience of shoppers who looked at competitor listings in the past seven days but didn’t buy, and show them your ads instead. You can even refine this further by excluding shoppers who have already seen your own listings—ensuring you focus only on untapped potential buyers.

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Budget and Delivery Controls in Audience Targeting

Each line item also comes with delivery controls. Extending delivery dates well into the future ensures your campaigns don’t suddenly pause, and you can layer in budget settings. For example, if your total monthly budget is $20,000, you might allocate $12,000 to prospecting new shoppers and reserve $8,000 for remarketing. You can let DSP automatically distribute spend toward the best-performing line items, or manually direct it based on your priorities.

Bidding adds another layer of control. You can set your maximum CPM to balance visibility with cost-efficiency, and use pacing to manage how your budget rolls out. A steady pacing works for always-on campaigns, while accelerated pacing makes more sense around seasonal peaks like Black Friday or Prime Day.

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Creative Options in DSP

When it comes to creatives, DSP offers a straightforward option: responsive, dynamically created ads. You simply add your product, define a headline if needed, and Amazon automatically resizes and optimizes your ad for multiple placements.

Dynamic creatives are particularly useful because they allow Amazon to show your ads where the likelihood of a sale is highest. While custom creatives are possible, many advanced DSP features—like certain placements or optimization tools—require the use of Amazon’s responsive dynamic format. This simplifies campaign management and helps maximize return on ad spend.

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Easy Set up Amazon DSP Campaigns with m19

Amazon DSP can feel overwhelming at first, but m19 makes it more approachable.

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Simplify the Complex and Save 90% of your Time

Setting up orders, line items, and creatives in DSP used to take hours. m19 is designed to simplify DSP, making programmatic advertising accessible to all sellers, brands, and agencies. 

Complex tasks like adjusting budgets, setting pacing, and optimizing audience targeting are handled by m19’s AI in real time. So you can step back and take the role of strategist and start with a solid foundation in just a few clicks.

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Smarter Audience Targeting

m19 helps you reach the right audiences at the right time. You can target new shoppers, retarget visitors who showed interest, or engage competitor audiences, all while cutting through the noise and focusing on what truly matters for your campaigns.

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Better Control, More Freedom

Budgets, pacing, and bids can be tricky to manage manually. m19 provides suggestions and automation that give you maximum performance while keeping control in your hands. This way, PPC managers can feel like captains of their campaigns, steering toward growth and freeing up time to focus on strategy rather than day-to-day tweaks.

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Conclusion

Launching your first Amazon DSP campaign might feel like stepping into uncharted waters. From setting up orders and line items to choosing audiences and creatives, there’s a lot to navigate. But once you understand the structure and key elements, it becomes much easier to see how each piece works together to reach the right shoppers at the right time.

m19’s DSP solution can help simplify the journey, automating complex steps and offering AI-powered insights, while still letting you retain control and focus on strategy. By combining a solid understanding of DSP fundamentals with tools that streamline execution, you can confidently run campaigns that drive awareness, consideration, and conversions—without getting lost in the details.