Amazon DSP for Non-Amazon Sellers: How to Use It in 2026
Archit Arora
TL;DR
Key takeaways
Yes, you can use Amazon DSP without selling on Amazon. Amazon says brands outside its store can run Display, Video and Audio campaigns.
Ads reach Amazon audiences on Prime Video, Fire TV, Twitch, IMDb and thousands of third-party sites, then link to your own site or app.
Measure with the Amazon Ad Tag plus the server-side Events API, managed in Ads data manager, and analyze paths in AMC.
Self-service has no stated minimum; managed service typically starts at $50,000. Plan a four to six week test with one goal.
Yes. Amazon DSP works for brands that don't sell on Amazon. Amazon's own Ads Agent FAQ says advertisers who do not sell in its store "can run Display, Video, and Audio campaigns to audiences on Amazon and across the open internet."
You buy Amazon's shopping and streaming audiences, show them display, video or streaming TV ads, and send them to your website, app or store. Conversions are tracked with Amazon's tag and APIs instead of Amazon order data.
This guide is for D2C brands, apps, service businesses and local chains weighing Amazon DSP in 2026. It covers who it suits, what you get, how to measure off-Amazon results, how to get access and the first campaign we would run.
Can Non-Amazon Sellers Use Amazon DSP?
Yes, and they always could. Amazon's DSP page describes the DSP as "available to both advertisers who sell on Amazon and those who do not, with self-service and managed-service options."
What changed in 2026 is the name and the screens. On September 29, 2026, at unBoxed, Amazon renamed its unified platform Amazon Ads Agent, and DSP buying now runs as Display, Video and Audio (DVA) campaigns.
What a non-seller can't buy is just as clear. Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and display ads (formerly Sponsored Display) all promote products listed in the Amazon store. Without a listing, DVA campaigns are your way in, which is also the short answer to Amazon DSP vs Sponsored Display for a D2C brand.
Most people still call it Amazon DSP, so we do too.
What Is Amazon DSP?
Amazon DSP (demand-side platform) is Amazon's tool for buying display, video, streaming TV and audio ads programmatically, on Amazon's own properties and on third-party sites and apps. Ads are priced per thousand impressions (CPM) and targeted with Amazon's first-party signals.
For a brand that doesn't sell on Amazon, the point is the audience data. Amazon says its campaigns draw on signals from over 300 million authenticated users, built from what people shop, search and stream.
Our guide to what Amazon DSP is and how it works covers the mechanics in full. Here we stay on what changes when the sale happens somewhere other than Amazon.
Who Uses Amazon DSP Without Selling on Amazon?
Amazon calls these advertisers "off-Amazon brands" or non-endemic advertisers. In the accounts we see, they fall into five groups, and each one sends traffic to a different place and counts a different conversion.
Advertiser type | Example | Where the ad sends people | Conversion to track |
|---|---|---|---|
D2C brand on its own site | Mattress or skincare brand on Shopify | Product or landing page | Purchase, add to cart |
App or subscription | Fitness app, streaming service, meal kit | App store or sign-up page | Install, trial start, subscribe |
Services | Insurance, banking, travel, auto, education | Quote or booking form | Lead, quote, booking |
Local and multi-location business | Gyms, clinics, dealerships, restaurants | Location finder, booking page | Store visit proxy, booking |
Brand sold in physical retail | Beverage or grocery brand | Store locator, retailer page | Store locator use, offline sales |
The common thread is a buyer whose shopping behavior predicts interest in your product. A shopper in-market for running shoes is a good prospect for a running app; a household that just bought a crib is a good prospect for life insurance.
If you can't name the Amazon behavior that signals your customer, DSP will be expensive reach. That is the first question we ask any non-endemic brand.
Benefits of Amazon DSP for Non-Amazon Sellers
The old version of this post listed five benefits. They still hold, and in 2026 each one has more behind it.
1. Access to Amazon's Audiences
You can target the same audience types a seller can: in-market, lifestyle, interest, life event and demographic segments, plus contextual targeting on the content being viewed.
What you can't use is remarketing on Amazon product views, because you have no product pages. Your remarketing pool comes from your own site visitors and CRM lists instead. Our Amazon DSP targeting guide covers every option.
2. Premium Inventory On and Off Amazon
Amazon-owned inventory includes Prime Video, Fire TV, Twitch, IMDb, Thursday Night Football and Amazon.com itself. Amazon reported an average monthly ad-supported Prime Video reach of more than 130 million US viewers at unBoxed 2025.
Off Amazon, the DSP buys from partners such as Roku, Disney, Netflix and Spotify, plus open-exchange sites and apps.
For a brand that has only bought Meta and Google, Prime Video and live sports are often the reason to start. Our Prime Video ads guide covers formats and buying.
3. Formats From Display to Streaming TV
You can run display banners, online video, streaming TV, audio, interactive video and out-of-home screens from one account. Every format can link out to your own site.
Our Amazon DSP ad types guide has the specs and the funnel stage each format suits.
4. Local Targeting for Physical Locations
Radius targeting, launched in open beta in late 2025, lets you set areas of 2 to 100 miles or kilometers around up to 1,000 locations per line item, according to Amazon's announcement.
That matters for gyms, clinics, dealerships and restaurant chains. You can reach in-market or lifestyle audiences within five miles of each location instead of buying a whole metro area.
5. Your First-Party Data, Matched to Amazon
You can upload hashed customer lists to target, exclude or build lookalikes from, and match them to Amazon's users.
For a D2C brand with a large customer file, excluding existing customers from prospecting is often worth more than any targeting choice.
6. Amazon Marketing Cloud
Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is Amazon's clean room. Every Amazon DSP advertiser can register for AMC, including brands that don't sell on Amazon.
Since November 2025, AMC also carries Prime Video viewership signals, which Amazon says help "especially for non-endemic advertisers who don't sell on Amazon." We cover what to do with it in the measurement section below.
What Changed in 2025 and 2026 for Off-Amazon Brands
If your plan is based on a 2024 guide, these are the changes that matter for a brand selling elsewhere. Each is dated from Amazon's own announcement.
June 2, 2025: Interactive video advertisers that sell off Amazon now see QR code scan conversions in Off-Amazon conversion metrics (US).
Late 2025: The Amazon Ads Events API entered open beta, per Amazon's API release notes. It sends website and offline conversions server to server.
Q4 2025: Radius targeting entered open beta worldwide.
November 11, 2025: AMC added Prime Video viewership signals in open beta.
June 8, 2026: Unified reporting became generally available. Legacy DSP report pages go read-only on December 17 and retire on December 31, 2026.
September 29, 2026: Amazon Ads Agent replaced the DSP console, and DVA+ launched with a brand URL option for brands without products on Amazon.
Late September 2026: Amazon relaunched Ads data manager, with an upgraded Amazon Ad Tag and a no-code event builder.
Late October 2026 to Q1 2027: DVA+ moves to open beta in the US, with general availability across 35 markets targeted for Q1 2027.
The direction is clear. Amazon is making it easier for advertisers with no Amazon catalog to buy, track and optimize, and it now quotes off-Amazon results in its own launch material.
How to Measure Off-Amazon Conversions
Measurement is where non-seller campaigns succeed or fail. A seller gets purchase attribution automatically; you get impressions and nothing else until you send Amazon your conversions.
There are three layers, and we set up all three before the first impression.
1. Install the Amazon Ad Tag
The Amazon Ad Tag (AAT) is the JavaScript tag on your website that records page views, sign-ups, add-to-carts and purchases. Older guides call it the DSP pixel, and Amazon renamed the "Pixel" metrics to "Off-Amazon" metrics back in 2022.
Since the September 2026 Ads data manager relaunch, the tag has a no-code visual event builder. Amazon says it cuts setup "from weeks to minutes." You can also deploy it through Google Tag Manager.
Tag every step that matters, not only the final purchase. A lead-gen campaign optimizing on 20 form fills a week will learn far slower than one that can also see quote-page visits.
2. Add the Events API for Server-Side Conversions
The Amazon Ads Events API sends conversions from your server or customer data platform (CDP) straight to Amazon. Amazon's release notes describe it as "a complementary method to Amazon Ad Tag," because browser tags lose events to ad blockers and privacy settings.
It also takes offline events, such as a store purchase, a closed loan or a booked appointment. Many older guides call this the Conversions API; Amazon's newer documentation calls it the Events API. Check which name your connector uses.
Run both, with deduplication. When the tag and the API report the same purchase, send a shared event ID so it isn't counted twice.
3. Manage Everything in Ads Data Manager
Ads data manager is where your tags, server events and customer lists now live. It has three tabs: Sources (Ad Tag, API, file upload and connectors such as Google Tag Manager, Segment, Tealium and LiveRamp), Datasets, and Destinations.
Destinations send the data to DVA campaigns and to AMC. The new data quality insights show match rates and processed events, which is the first place we look when a campaign reports suspiciously few conversions.
4. Attach Conversions to the Campaign
In advanced settings, you choose which off-Amazon conversion events each campaign is measured and optimized on. In DVA+, brands that don't sell on Amazon "provide a landing page URL and define a conversion event," per Amazon's DVA+ guide.
For US campaigns, Amazon has, since August 2024, added modeled conversions for results it can't measure directly, reported together with measured ones. Keep that in mind when you compare DSP numbers with your own analytics.
5. Use AMC With Your First-Party Data
AMC is where off-Amazon measurement gets honest. You can bring your own conversion and CRM data into your instance and ask questions the campaign report can't answer.
The three queries we run first for a non-endemic brand:
Path to conversion: which mix of streaming TV, video and display preceded a sign-up.
Time to conversion: how many days from first impression to lead, which tells you how long to wait before judging.
Overlap with Prime Video viewers: how much of your customer base Prime Video actually reaches, before you spend on it.
Our AMC custom audiences guide shows how to turn those segments into targeting, and our Amazon DSP reports guide lists the columns to check weekly.
How a Non-Amazon Seller Can Access Amazon DSP
There are three ways in. Which one fits depends on budget and whether you have someone who can run programmatic campaigns.
Self-service | Managed service | Through a partner's seat | |
|---|---|---|---|
Who runs it | You or your agency | Amazon's team | The partner, or you on their platform |
Minimum spend | None stated; you set the budget | Typically $50,000, varies by country | Set by the partner |
Fees | Media plus a technology fee | Media, tech fee and a service fee | Media, tech fee and the partner's terms |
Control | Full | Limited, through your account team | Full or shared |
Best for | Teams with programmatic skills | Large brands that want Amazon to run it | Mid-size brands and agencies |
Amazon's Ads Agent page says Display, Video and Audio campaigns are "available self-service with budgets you set, or through managed service which typically requires a minimum spend that varies by country." Its DSP guide puts that managed minimum at $50,000.
Amazon describes the technology fee as a percent of media cost, disclosed when you set up the campaign. Ask for it in writing before you compare quotes.
These are the steps we follow to get a non-seller live.
1. Register an Amazon Ads Agent Account
Register to advertise at advertising.amazon.com and create an advertiser. Amazon's FAQ notes that advertisers who don't sell in its store run Display, Video and Audio campaigns, and suggests contacting an account executive to get started.
Two DVA+ details matter during the beta. Payment is invoice-only, with card payments planned for Q1 2027. New advertisers get DVA+ first and request advanced settings through their account manager.
2. Set Up Tracking Before Anything Else
Create the Ad Tag in Ads data manager, define your conversion events and confirm they fire. If you have a server-side stack, connect the Events API at the same time.
A campaign launched without working tracking can't optimize and can't prove anything. We've seen brands lose the first two weeks of a test this way.
3. Pick DVA+ or Advanced Settings
DVA+ takes four steps: objective, brand URL and conversion event, AI-generated creative, then budget. Amazon's AI picks the audiences, inventory and formats. It's US-only for now, in a beta that opens up from late October 2026.
Advanced settings give you manual audiences, supply, deals, bids and frequency caps. Outside the US, non-sellers still use the classic order and line item flow for now. Our guide to creating an Amazon DSP campaign walks through both flows.
Full-Funnel Campaigns, the third campaign type in Amazon Ads Agent, are in open beta for US advertisers who sell on Amazon, so they aren't an option here.
4. Build Audiences and Creative
Choose Amazon audiences that predict your customer, add your CRM list as an exclusion, and build a site-visitor audience from the Ad Tag for retargeting later.
For creative, have a 15- or 30-second video for streaming TV and a set of display sizes that link to a fast landing page. DVA+ can generate assets from your brand URL, but review every one before launch.
5. Check the Ad Policies
Amazon's ad policies quick reference separates prohibited categories from restricted ones, such as alcohol and pharmaceuticals, that are allowed with conditions. Financial services, health and dating ads often need extra review, so allow a few days.
A Realistic First Campaign Plan
This is the test we would run for a non-endemic brand with $15,000 and six weeks. The numbers are illustrative; your CPMs and conversion rates will differ.
The setup. One objective (sign-ups), one conversion event, three ad groups, with existing customers excluded from both prospecting groups.
Ad group | Budget | CPM | Impressions | Sign-ups | Cost per sign-up |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Streaming TV and video prospecting | $7,500 | $25 | 300,000 | 30 | $250 |
Display prospecting (in-market, contextual) | $4,500 | $6 | 750,000 | 150 | $30 |
Site visitor retargeting | $3,000 | $8 | 375,000 | 300 | $10 |
Total | $15,000 | 1,425,000 | 480 | $31.25 |
Read the table the way we would. Retargeting looks three times cheaper than display, but it only converts people the prospecting groups brought to your site. Cut prospecting and the retargeting pool dries up within weeks.
Our guide to excluding audiences in Amazon DSP shows how to keep the two pools apart.
Streaming TV looks worst on cost per sign-up, and it's the group most likely to be undervalued. At a frequency of three, 300,000 impressions reach about 100,000 households. Judge it on reach, branded search lift and AMC path data, not on last-touch CPA.
The timeline.
Week 0: tags live, events confirmed in Ads data manager, CRM list uploaded, creative approved.
Weeks 1 and 2: leave bids and audiences alone while the campaign learns. Check only delivery and pacing.
Weeks 3 and 4: cut audiences or sites with spend and no site visits. Move budget toward what drives visits, not just sign-ups.
Weeks 5 and 6: run AMC path and time-to-conversion queries, then decide whether to scale, change the mix or stop.
Set frequency caps from day one. We usually start at three to five impressions per person per week for prospecting and higher for retargeting; our frequency capping guide has the detail.
No minimum isn't the same as no practical floor. Below about $10,000 for six weeks, each ad group buys too few conversions to learn from, and we'd rather run one ad group well than three badly.
Mistakes We See With Non-Endemic Brands on Amazon DSP
Launching before the tag works. The campaign reports impressions, optimizes on nothing and the test is wasted.
Picking audiences by name, not by signal. "Fitness enthusiasts" sounds right for a protein brand, but an in-market audience for protein powder usually converts better.
Not excluding existing customers. Prospecting money ends up buying people already on your email list.
Judging streaming TV on 14-day CPA. Upper-funnel formats work over weeks. Use AMC and branded search to see it.
Comparing DSP numbers with Google Analytics one to one. Amazon counts view-through conversions and, in the US, modeled ones. Decide in advance which source settles the budget.
Retargeting with no cap. Ten impressions a day to one site visitor is how a brand gets known for the wrong reasons. Our retargeting guide has the lookback windows we use.
How We Run Amazon DSP for Off-Amazon Brands in Adbrew
Everything above can be done by hand in Amazon Ads Agent. Adbrew is an agentic retail media management platform for Amazon and Walmart, and we run DSP inside it for brands that sell on and off Amazon.
A team that has run DSP before. You can run Amazon DSP through Adbrew's seat, with no minimum spend, or connect your own account. Either way our team helps set up tracking, audiences and the first test.
AMC without SQL. Adbrew can create your Amazon Marketing Cloud instance, then run path to conversion, time to conversion and overlap reports without writing queries.
Automation with control. Rules you set for bids, budgets, audiences and frequency caps run on the schedule you choose, and every change is logged.
Adbrew Intelligence. Ask for "a weekly DSP summary with cost per sign-up by ad group" or "which audiences spent with no site visits", and the agent builds it from your data.
Brands on Adbrew cut ACOS by 46% on average, and more than 5,000 brands, agencies and aggregators use the platform. For a non-endemic brand, the value is a team and tooling that make a small DSP test readable.
Start With One Goal and Working Tags
Amazon DSP gives a brand that doesn't sell on Amazon the one thing other channels can't: reach built on what people actually buy. It pays off when tracking works before launch and the test has one goal.
Want help planning your first off-Amazon DSP test? Book a demo with our team and we'll walk through the audiences, tracking and budget with you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you use Amazon DSP if you don't sell on Amazon?
Yes. Amazon DSP is open to advertisers who don't sell on Amazon. Amazon's Ads Agent FAQ says brands outside its store can run Display, Video and Audio campaigns to audiences on Amazon and across the open internet, linking to their own website or app.
Is there any minimum spend required to start advertising on Amazon DSP?
Amazon DSP self-service runs on budgets you set, with no minimum stated by Amazon. Managed service, where Amazon runs the campaigns, typically requires $50,000, and the minimum varies by country. In practice, plan at least four to six weeks with enough budget for each ad group to learn.
Is Sponsored Display the same as Amazon DSP?
No. Sponsored Display, now called display ads inside Amazon Ads Agent, promotes products listed in the Amazon store and sends shoppers to Amazon pages. Amazon DSP buys display, video and streaming TV ads programmatically and can send people to any website, so it's the option for brands that don't sell on Amazon.
Where can your ads appear if you're not selling on Amazon?
Amazon DSP ads for non-sellers can run on Amazon-owned properties such as Prime Video, Fire TV, Twitch, IMDb and Amazon.com, and on third-party supply from Roku, Disney, Netflix, Spotify and thousands of open-web sites and apps. Each ad links to your own site, app or store.
How do you track conversions from Amazon DSP on your own website?
Install the Amazon Ad Tag on your website and define conversion events in Ads data manager. Add the Amazon Ads Events API to send server-side and offline conversions, with a shared event ID to avoid double counting. Then attach those events to your campaign as Off-Amazon conversions.
Are there any restrictions on what you can advertise on Amazon DSP?
Yes. Amazon's ad policies prohibit some categories outright and restrict others, such as alcohol and pharmaceuticals, which are allowed only under conditions. Beyond those rules, you can promote a wide range of products and services on Amazon DSP, including ones that compete with items sold on Amazon.
Can you use Amazon Marketing Cloud without selling on Amazon?
Yes. All Amazon DSP direct advertisers can register for Amazon Marketing Cloud, including brands that don't sell on Amazon. They can bring in their own conversion and CRM data, analyze paths to conversion across DSP formats, and use Prime Video viewership signals to see how much of their customer base Prime Video reaches.
Can I use DVA+ or Full-Funnel Campaigns as a non-Amazon seller?
DVA+ is open to off-Amazon brands, which enter a brand URL and conversion event instead of products. It's in a US beta that opens from late October 2026, with wider availability targeted for Q1 2027. Full-Funnel Campaigns are in open beta for US advertisers who sell on Amazon.
