Sponsored Display bid strategies — CPC, vCPM, and the cost-type trap.
Sponsored Display has two cost types: CPC and viewable-CPM. Optimisation goals on top of those. The trap is picking the cost type once and never revisiting it — it changes what you measure.
Sponsored Display does not behave like SP or SB. It is the closest Amazon Sponsored Ads gets to a real display network: detail-page placements, off-Amazon placements, audience targeting, and two cost types — cost per click (CPC) and viewable cost per thousand (vCPM).
CPC cost type
Pay per click, similar to SP / SB. Use when your goal is response-driven — clicks that lead to product detail page visits or conversions. Most Sponsored Display product-targeting campaigns (the SP-equivalent setup, just running on SD) should be CPC.
vCPM cost type
Pay per thousand viewable impressions, regardless of clicks. Use when the goal is reach or brand awareness — top-of-funnel campaigns on lookalike or in-market audiences where the click-through rate is structurally low and clicks are not the conversion event.
The trap: picking vCPM without realising that ACOS and click-based metrics become almost meaningless under it. A vCPM campaign optimised against ACOS will look terrible — that does not mean it is failing; it means you picked the wrong KPI for the cost type.
Optimisation strategy
On top of cost type, SD asks for an optimisation strategy: optimise for reach, optimise for page visits, or optimise for conversions. Pick the one that matches the cost type you picked: vCPM with reach, CPC with page visits or conversions.
Bid floors and behaviour
SD bid floors vary by audience and placement, and Amazon will tell you in the UI when your bid is below the floor for a given target. Realised CPC on SD tends to sit much closer to your bid than on SP — the SD auction is thinner, so the second-price discount is smaller.
Defaults
Remarketing SD campaign (viewers / cart abandoners): CPC, optimise for conversions, bids near the top of the suggested range. Brand-awareness SD on in-market audiences: vCPM, optimise for reach, bids on the lower end. Competitor-page SD (product targeting on competitor ASINs): CPC, optimise for conversions, bid derived from the same calculation as the SP equivalent.
Watch Episode 12: Sponsored Display bid strategies (German)
The German walkthrough — Sponsored Display bid strategies and the CPC vs vCPM choice.
Display ads, measured like display ads should be.
AMALYZE pulls Sponsored Display impression and click data into the same dashboard as SP and SB so you can compare like with like.