We explore why relying on too few ad formats limits your scale, and how DSP can complete the picture…
While we do know why so many Amazon Ads strategies are built entirely around one or two formats, this – as our award-winning Paid Ads team explains – can often limit your brand’s long-term growth.
While formats like Sponsored Products are familiar, measurable and often deliver strong short-term returns, this kind of strategy is exactly where many brands hit a growth ceiling.
Because, no matter how efficient your lower-funnel activity is, relying on too few channels limits reach, restricts audience development and makes your performance more vulnerable – especially if the competition in your sector is fierce.
The Case for Diversified Media
This is why diversified media buying is so essential as a key requirement for sustainable growth.
There’s been so much evolution across Amazon Ads that sticking to one or two formats just doesn’t work with the system anymore.
Instead, strong performance in today’s marketplace environment is shaped by how well brands can:
- Build awareness before shoppers search.
- Warm audiences across multiple touchpoints.
- Capture demand when intent is strong.
- And measure incremental impact across the journey.
Learn why incrementality is the performance metric you need here
And formats like Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform) work well to strengthen Sponsored Ads; expanding reach, feeding the funnel and driving outcomes you just won’t see from search-only activity.
Used strategically, DSP spend isn’t about scale for scale’s sake, it’s about unlocking demand that other formats can’t reach.
“This is why diversified media buying still matters: Strategic DSP spend amplifies reach, drives incremental clicks, and adds revenue you simply don’t capture elsewhere.”
Elfie Brocklehurst, Paid Ads Expert at Venture Forge
What Amazon DSP can deliver
When DSP is used intentionally, working in harmony with Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display, we see brands benefit from:
- Incremental reach that goes beyond search-driven shoppers.
- Stronger mid and upper-funnel engagement that helps prime audiences for conversion.
- Incremental clicks and sales that don’t cannibalise existing demand.
- And more resilient performance during competitive or high-CPC periods.
In short: diversified media adds volume and stability, two things single-format strategies struggle to deliver over time.
And the real opportunity isn’t even about budget size, it’s about media architecture.
From the point of view of our experts, the brands that grow confidently on Amazon are the ones who stop treating DSP as an “extra”, design their media plans around the full customer journey, allocate spend strategically based on role as opposed to familiarity and measure their success using incrementality rather than focusing on ROAS alone.
The Bottom Line
If your Amazon Ads strategy is still heavily concentrated around just one or two channels, now’s the time to:
- Review where your current media mix could be limiting your reach.
- Identify where DSP could support awareness, consideration or re-engagement for your brand.
- Align your formats to funnel roles.
- And start measuring your performance beyond last-click attribution.
2026 is the year to start thinking about diversified media buying in terms of unlocking growth that more concentrated channel strategies leave behind, and to stop viewing it as just another way to spend more*.
*For more on this, read this LinkedIn post from Venture Forge’s Elfie Brocklehurst
And if your team needs expert help to build out a commercially disciplined, full-funnel Amazon Ads strategy that’s made to deliver growth, resilience and incremental performance, we can help.
Click here to book a call with our award-winning Amazon Ads specialists today.