New sellers often face a common dilemma: when launching a new product in an unfamiliar category, how can they run targeted advertising campaigns without wasting time and money? Amazon's recently introduced "Sponsored Products with Preset Campaigns" feature might offer them a glimmer of hope.
Understanding Preset Sponsored Product Campaigns
This new feature aims to solve the challenge sellers face when promoting new products without historical data to guide their advertising strategy. Traditionally, sellers had to experiment through trial and error to gradually accumulate experience and optimize their ad placements. The "preset" approach means Amazon's system will automatically populate campaign settings, including daily budgets, bidding strategies, targeting methods, and related bids. These settings aren't arbitrary—they're customized based on historical advertising data from similar products.
For example, a seller preparing to list a "blue insulated tumbler" would have their campaign automatically configured using successful keywords, appropriate budget ranges, and effective bidding strategies from similar products already on the platform.
Currently, this feature only supports Sponsored Products ads and isn't available for Sponsored Brands or Sponsored Display campaigns.
How to Use the Preset Campaign Feature
Access path: Amazon Seller Central → Advertising → Campaign Manager → Create Campaign (dropdown).
On the advertising platform, sellers will see opportunity cards listing up to 10 products that the system identifies as having strong promotional potential. Notably, sellers can only view new products (those launched within the last 90 days) in this list.
The setup process involves:
- Opening "View Campaign"
- Reviewing specific campaign settings
Preset campaigns include these key components:
- Basic campaign settings: Similar to manually created campaigns, including campaign name and duration.
- Bidding and budget: System-recommended budgets based on similar products' campaigns, using "Dynamic Bids - Up and Down" as the default strategy.
- Keyword targeting: System-selected keywords with competitive bids, varying in quantity by product.
- Performance estimates: Projected clicks and conversions based on historical data.
Sellers can launch all preset campaigns with one click or disable specific campaigns before activation. Currently, preset campaigns don't support negative targeting—sellers can't manually exclude irrelevant keywords.
Analyzing the Benefits and Limitations
Amazon's preset campaign feature represents a significant advancement in new product promotion, using big data to provide scientifically grounded starting points that reduce trial-and-error costs. However, the feature has notable limitations.
Advantages:
- Lowers the barrier to entry for new sellers
- Saves time and effort in campaign setup
- Provides data-driven decision-making support
- Potentially improves advertising efficiency
Limitations:
- Lacks personalized customization for unique products
- Cannot replace manual optimization entirely
- No negative targeting capability
- Effectiveness depends on historical data quality
The Future of Smart Advertising
Preset campaigns mark Amazon's first step toward intelligent advertising, shifting from manual to data-driven approaches. Future developments might include:
- Automatic product feature analysis for customized strategies
- Real-time bid optimization based on market conditions
- Smarter keyword recommendations using buyer behavior data
- Automated ad copy generation tailored to products and audiences
Recommendations for Sellers
While not all seller accounts currently have access to preset campaigns, those expanding into new product lines should consider this feature as a valuable reference point. Even sellers who choose not to activate preset campaigns can use the recommendations to inform their manual campaign setups. Actual performance will require testing and ongoing optimization based on real-world results.
Amazon's preset campaign feature offers new sellers a promising tool for product launches, reducing initial hurdles while improving advertising effectiveness. Though imperfect, the technology shows significant potential for future development in e-commerce advertising solutions.