Amazon DSP Ad Types in 2026: Formats, Specs and Uses

Amazon DSP ad types are the creative formats you can buy programmatically through Amazon Ads: display, online video, streaming TV (including Prime Video), audio, interactive video and out-of-home screens.

Each one runs in different places and needs its own scorecard. This guide covers every format as it works in late 2026, after Amazon folded the DSP into Amazon Ads Agent.

You'll get the specs Amazon publishes, when we use each type, and how we judge whether it worked.

What Are the Amazon DSP Ad Types?

Amazon DSP is Amazon's demand-side platform: software for buying display, video, audio and streaming TV ads on Amazon properties and on thousands of third-party sites and apps, targeted with Amazon's shopping and streaming signals.

You can use it whether or not you sell on Amazon. These are the ad types it buys today.

Every format is sold on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis. That is the first big difference from Sponsored Display, which can still be bought per click.

What Changed in 2026: Amazon DSP Is Now Part of Amazon Ads Agent

If you last looked at Amazon DSP in 2024, the formats are familiar but the buying screen is not.

At unBoxed on September 29, 2026, Amazon renamed its unified platform Amazon Ads Agent. It now offers three campaign types: sponsored ads; Display, Video, and Audio (DVA+); and Full-Funnel Campaigns.

Amazon's own Amazon DSP page now says the DSP "has evolved into Amazon Ads Agent". Existing campaigns, audiences, deals and reporting carry over, and existing DSP certifications stay valid.

The road there took a year:

• unBoxed 2025: Amazon announced a Campaign Manager beta that merged the ads console and the DSP, plus a conversational assistant.

• February 2026: Brand+ reached general availability worldwide, joining Performance+, which went generally available in 2025.

• April 30, 2026: Amazon added seven Brand+ and Performance+ capabilities, including audio for Brand+, an AI video generator and automated responsive eCommerce creatives.

• May 2026: At its Upfront, Amazon announced Dynamic TV Creative, which personalizes interactive Prime Video ads by where the viewer is in their shopping journey.

• September 29, 2026: Amazon Ads Agent, DVA+ and Full-Funnel Campaigns. Sponsored TV now lives inside DVA+ as "Streaming TV".

The formats themselves did not disappear. What changed is how you buy them: one campaign type that can spread a budget across formats, with "advanced settings" for buyers who still want line-by-line control.

The Amazon DSP Ad Formats, One by One

The specs below come from Amazon's ad specs library, checked in October 2026. Specs vary by marketplace, so confirm yours before you brief a designer.

1. Display Ads

Display ads are banner and image ads that run on Amazon.com, Amazon's shopping apps, IMDb and third-party sites. They are the workhorse of retargeting and the cheapest way to stay in front of a shopper who has already viewed your product.

There are three flavors:

• Static display: your own image creative. Standard desktop and mobile sizes are 300x250, 728x90, 160x600, 300x600 and 970x250, at a maximum of 40 kb for static files in the US.

• Mobile banners: 320x50 (built at 640x100) and the 414x125 mobile detail and search placement (built at 828x250).

• Responsive eCommerce creatives (RECs): Amazon builds the ad from your product listing, with price, deal badge, star rating and an Add to Cart button, and pauses out-of-stock ASINs.

For RECs, Amazon recommends uploading three custom images: 1200x1200 square, 900x1600 tall and 1200x628 wide. No text beyond 10 words, no logos baked in, no CTA buttons, no white background.

Since April 2026, Automated REC generates these creatives from your ASINs worldwide. We still upload custom lifestyle images for hero products, because the default packshot looks like every other ad on the page.

Use display when: you are retargeting detail page viewers, cart abandoners or past buyers, or conquesting a competitor's shoppers. Our Amazon DSP retargeting guide covers the audience windows we use.

2. Online Video Ads

Online video (OLV) ads play in-stream (before, during or after video content) or out-stream (between text and images) on Amazon properties and the open web. Unlike streaming TV, they are clickable, so they can drive a shopper straight to a detail page or Brand Store.

Amazon's OLV specs allow 6 to 120 seconds, with 6, 15, 20, 30 or 60 seconds recommended. Video is 16:9, or 9:16 vertical on Twitch and Amazon Publisher Direct only, at a minimum of 1920x1080.

We default to a 15-second cut. Shorter videos earn higher completion rates, and Amazon notes that 6-second inventory is limited.

Use OLV when: you have a product that needs demonstrating and want consideration you can click on. In its April 2026 update, Amazon reported a 210% lift in detail page view rate for campaigns that combined OLV with display.

3. Streaming TV and Prime Video Ads

Streaming TV ads are full-screen, non-skippable video ads on connected TVs, mobile and desktop. They run on Prime Video, Twitch, Thursday Night Football and other live sports, Fire TV Channels and third-party broadcaster apps through Amazon Publisher Direct.

Prime Video is the headline inventory. Amazon reports 315 million-plus monthly ad-supported viewers worldwide, and it is the reason most brands come to the DSP in the first place. Our Prime Video ads guide walks through setup in five steps.

The streaming TV and Prime Video specs are stricter than OLV:

On cost, Amazon's streaming TV page lists a $10,000 recommended campaign minimum for self-service and a $50,000 minimum for managed service.

Use streaming TV when: you want reach among people who are not yet looking for your category. Do not expect it to pay back inside a 14-day attribution window.

4. Interactive Video and Pause Ads

Interactive video ads (IVAs) are streaming TV ads with a clickable overlay. A viewer can press a button on the remote or scan a QR code to add the product to their cart, get details sent to their phone or visit a Brand Store, without leaving the show.

Amazon's interactive video guide says interactivity is now on by default across streaming TV inventory. Shoppable versions pull live deal badges from the Amazon store during events like Prime Day.

Amazon reports that streaming TV ads with interactivity drove 36% more orders than the same ads without it. Our advice is simple: leave it on, and make sure the first two seconds of your video carry the product clearly enough for the overlay to make sense.

There are three variants worth knowing:

• Interactive pause ads: a translucent ad with Add to Cart or Learn More appears when a viewer pauses Prime Video. Brands that do not sell on Amazon can use a send-to-email option.

• AI-generated pause ads: announced at the 2026 Upfront, these build a pause ad that matches the scene on screen.

• Dynamic TV Creative: changes the CTA, headline and product shown by viewer. At launch it was limited to select US advertisers who sell on Amazon.

Use interactive video when: you are already buying streaming TV. It turns an awareness impression into a measurable consideration action.

5. Audio Ads

Audio ads are non-skippable spots that play between songs or segments on the free tier of Amazon Music, Alexa-enabled devices, podcasts, Twitch and third-party publishers such as iHeart and Pandora. A companion banner shows on devices with a screen.

Amazon's audio specs call for 10 to 30 seconds, a file under 3 MB in WAV, MP3 or OGG, and a 1024x1024 companion image. Audio running on Twitch must be 12 to 15 or 27 to 30 seconds.

Interactive audio ads let listeners answer with their voice: "Alexa, add to cart" or "Alexa, remind me". Never script "click here" in an audio ad; it runs on smart speakers too.

Audio for Brand+ entered open beta in April 2026, and Amazon reported audio campaigns delivered 43% more incremental reach than streaming TV campaigns.

Use audio when: you have already bought streaming TV and want to reach the same audience in screen-free moments, at a lower CPM.

6. Out-of-Home (OOH) Ads

Amazon out-of-home ads put your brand in the physical world: on screens in Whole Foods Market, on Amazon locker wraps and on Amazon boxes and grocery bags. Businesses can buy them whether or not they sell on Amazon.

Only one OOH format is bought programmatically today. The rest go through an Amazon account executive.

According to Amazon's out-of-home page:

• Digital signage: over 10,000 screens in more than 600 US grocery stores, at entrances, endcaps and aisles. Bought self-service through DVA campaigns on a CPM, US only. Reporting covers estimated impressions, ad playbacks, stores with playbacks and CPM.

• Locker wraps: eye-level wraps on Amazon pickup lockers on campuses and in retail spaces. The recommended US minimum is 100 lockers for a four-week flight, with an eight-week lead time.

• On-package ads: your brand on Amazon boxes and Fresh and Whole Foods grocery bags. Lead time is 10 weeks, boxes ship nationally, bags can target by DMA, and there is no customer targeting.

We treat OOH as an amplifier. The best use we've seen is in-store screens for a grocery brand that already sells in Whole Foods, timed with a streaming TV flight in the same weeks.

The New Campaign Types: DVA+ and Full-Funnel Campaigns

The formats above are what shoppers see. DVA+ and Full-Funnel Campaigns are how you buy them in Amazon Ads Agent, and they change how much control you keep.

1. DVA+ (Display, Video, and Audio)

DVA+ is one campaign type that replaces what used to be separate Amazon DSP, Sponsored Display and Sponsored TV campaigns. You pick an objective (sales, traffic or awareness), add products or a brand URL, review AI-generated creative and set a budget.

Amazon's AI then picks the format mix across streaming TV, online video and display, with audio listed as coming soon. Brand+ powers awareness goals and Performance+ powers sales goals.

"Advanced settings" gives experienced buyers the old controls: targeting, deals, supply sources, frequency caps and bidding strategy. Billing is CPM with no minimum spend.

Availability is still rolling out. In October 2026, Amazon says DVA+ with advanced settings is available to limited US advertisers, while DSP users in Canada, the UK, Germany, India, Japan and 16 other countries keep the existing Amazon DSP experience for now.

2. Full-Funnel Campaigns

Full-Funnel Campaigns put sponsored ads, display, video and streaming TV into a single campaign with one budget. You supply products, budget, creative and an optional ROAS threshold; Amazon's AI chooses formats and moves budget between funnel stages in real time.

It launched in open beta on September 29, 2026 for US advertisers who sell on Amazon. Amazon reports beta advertisers saw 67% higher long-term ROAS and 29% lower cost per new-to-brand purchase than the same formats run separately.

Those are Amazon's own figures on its own measurement, so we test before we believe them. Our approach: run Full-Funnel Campaigns alongside, not instead of, your existing structure, with a budget you can afford to learn from, and compare total sales and new-to-brand customers for the period against a holdout.

Link-In vs Link-Out Campaigns

Every DSP ad type can send the shopper to one of two kinds of destination, and older guides call these the "two types of Amazon DSP campaigns".

Amazon's display specs require Amazon pixel integration for any unit that links off Amazon and is measured against a performance goal. Install it before launch, or the campaign reports impressions and nothing else.

Sponsored Display cannot send traffic off Amazon. That alone settles the DSP vs Sponsored Display question for direct-to-consumer brands.

Which Amazon DSP Ad Type to Use at Each Funnel Stage

Pick the format for the job, not the job for the format. This is the mapping we start from in the accounts we manage.

The audiences behind each row are covered in our guide to Amazon DSP targeting, and the goal settings in Amazon DSP campaign goals.

Here is how that turns into a budget. The numbers below are an illustrative example for a brand starting with $20,000 a month.

At a $30 CPM, $7,000 of streaming TV buys about 233,000 impressions. At a frequency cap of three per week, that is roughly 78,000 households reached.

That pool is what your $5,000 of retargeting draws from two to four weeks later. If you skip the top, the bottom has no one to retarget.

Smaller budgets should start at the bottom with display retargeting, prove it, then add one upper-funnel format at a time. Our full-funnel DSP strategy covers the sequencing.

How to Measure Each Amazon DSP Ad Type

The fastest way to kill a good streaming TV campaign is to judge it on the same 14-day ROAS as retargeting.

Each format has its own job, so it needs its own scorecard.

• Display and RECs: ROAS, cost per purchase, detail page view rate and the new-to-brand share of purchases. A retargeting line with a great ROAS and 5% new-to-brand is mostly buying sales you would have made anyway.

• Online video: video completion rate, viewability, detail page view rate and branded search lift.

• Streaming TV and Prime Video: reach, frequency, completion rate, new-to-brand detail page views and branded search lift. For larger flights, add a brand lift study.

• Interactive video: engagement rate on the overlay, add-to-carts and send-to-phone actions on top of the streaming TV metrics.

• Audio: reach, incremental reach over your video buy and brand lift. Companion banner clicks are noise.

• OOH: estimated impressions and playbacks for signage, foot traffic and brand lift for lockers, and sales lift in the stores and DMAs you bought.

Two Amazon metrics make upper-funnel formats fair to judge. Long-term sales estimates the 12-month value of the new-to-brand detail page views, searches and add-to-carts an ad drives, so awareness gets credit for purchases that come months later.

The second is Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC). Path-to-conversion and overlap queries in AMC show whether shoppers who saw your streaming TV ad later bought through Sponsored Products. Our Amazon DSP reports guide lists the standard reports to pull first.

Mistakes We See With Amazon DSP Ad Types

• Judging streaming TV on last-touch ROAS. It will lose to retargeting every time. Judge it on reach, new-to-brand and long-term sales.

• Running retargeting with no prospecting. The audience shrinks every week, CPMs climb and frequency hits 15 or more.

• Reusing a TV ad with a "Shop now" button. Non-interactive streaming TV is not clickable, and Amazon's policy rejects click CTAs on it.

• Launching link-out campaigns without the pixel. No pixel, no conversions, and no audience of site visitors to retarget later.

• Handing the whole budget to an automated campaign on day one. Run DVA+ or Full-Funnel Campaigns beside a structure you control, and compare.

• Uncapped frequency. Without caps, the same household sees your ad 20 times while new households see nothing.

How We Run Amazon DSP Ad Types in Adbrew

Everything above can be done in Amazon Ads Agent directly. The hard part is doing it across many brands, formats and reporting windows without losing the thread.

Adbrew is an agentic retail media management platform for Amazon and Walmart, and DSP is one of the channels it runs alongside Sponsored Ads, AMC and Walmart Connect:

• DSP without the seat minimum. Run Amazon DSP through Adbrew's seat with no minimum spend, or connect an existing DSP account. Display, online video, streaming TV and Prime Video are all available.

• Automation you can read. Rules on bid, budget, audience and frequency cap, with the thresholds and lookback windows you set.

• AMC audiences without SQL. Build custom audiences such as cart abandoners or video viewers and activate them in DSP and Sponsored Ads.

• Adbrew Intelligence. Ask for "new-to-brand rate by DSP line item, last 30 days" or "which streaming TV campaigns drove branded search", and an agent builds the report from your data.

Brands on Adbrew cut ACOS by 46% on average, and more than 5,000 brands, agencies and aggregators use it today.

Pick the Format, Then the Metric

Amazon DSP in 2026 offers more formats and more automation than ever, but the core decision hasn't changed: which shopper you want to reach, and how you will know it worked.

Want to see DSP, AMC and Sponsored Ads managed side by side on your own account? Book a demo with our team and we'll map your products to the right ad types.