In this guide
- Amazon's ad products include Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display and the Amazon DSP.
- Amazon Attribution measures how traffic from other channels leads to sales on Amazon.
- If you sell on both Amazon and your own site, track them separately and compare profit.
Amazon is both a marketplace and an advertising platform. For brands it is often the largest single source of online sales, and its ad system works differently from Google or Meta. This page gives an overview for sellers and brands and explains how it relates to tracking on your own site. Amazon changes its products and names often, so check its documentation. For the site side see ad tracking and attribution tracking.
The main ad products
| Product | What it is |
|---|---|
| Sponsored Products | Ads for individual products in search results and product pages, bought by keyword or product targeting |
| Sponsored Brands | Brand banners and video, with a logo and several products |
| Sponsored Display | Display ads on and off Amazon, including retargeting |
| Amazon DSP | A demand-side platform for programmatic display, video and audio, on and off Amazon |
| Amazon Attribution | Measurement for traffic you send to Amazon from other channels |
Runs on your domain, anywhere
Your tracking runs on your own domain, so a visit from any country is handled the same way.
Amazon Attribution
If you send traffic from Google, Meta, e-mail or influencers to your Amazon listings, Amazon Attribution gives you tagged links and reports on clicks, detail page views, add to carts and purchases on Amazon from that traffic. Use it to see which outside channels drive Amazon sales. It does not measure sales on your own site.
Amazon and your own site
- Separate measurement. Sales on Amazon do not appear in your shop's analytics, and the reverse.
- Different margins. Amazon fees reduce profit per sale. Compare channels by profit.
- Overlapping audiences. The same shopper may see your ads on several platforms.
- Server-side tracking for your site. It improves your own-site numbers. Amazon's numbers come from Amazon.
Check your tracking in one pass
This is an example. Run the check on your own site to see where yours stands.
A conversions API
Amazon has been adding ways for advertisers to send conversion data from their own sites and systems, including a conversions API. Availability and details change, so check Amazon Ads documentation. The principles are the same as elsewhere: send events from your server with hashed customer data and a shared ID, with consent.
How to decide where to spend
Calculate profit per sale on each channel
Include Amazon fees and fulfilment.
Track Amazon and own-site results separately
Use Amazon Attribution for outside traffic.
Compare POAS
Profit per ad dollar by channel.
Test budget moves
In steps, and check the result.
Measurement tips
- Tag every outside link to Amazon with Amazon Attribution.
- Use UTMs for traffic to your own site.
- Keep one sheet comparing channels by profit.
A realistic example
A small brand sells the same product on Amazon and on its own site. Amazon brings most of the volume, and the brand runs Sponsored Products there. It also runs Meta ads to its own site. The brand tags its Meta links to Amazon with Amazon Attribution for a test and finds that a fifth of its Amazon sales that week came from Meta traffic that its own-site reports never saw. It also calculates profit per sale: after Amazon fees, a sale on Amazon earns about 30 percent less than a sale on its own site. Together the two numbers change the budget. The brand sends fewer Meta clicks to Amazon and more to its own site, and keeps Amazon search ads where the margin still works. Neither channel looked wrong in isolation. Together they told a clearer story.
Watch events arrive, live
A sample feed. In Open Tracked you see the same stream for your own store.
Frequently asked questions
What types of Amazon ads are there?
Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display and the Amazon DSP.
What is Amazon Attribution?
A measurement tool that links traffic from other channels to sales on Amazon.
Does server-side tracking help Amazon ads?
It improves tracking on your own site. Amazon sales are measured by Amazon.
How do I compare Amazon with my own site?
By profit per sale and profit per ad dollar, with fees included.
Does Amazon have a conversions API?
Amazon Ads has been adding conversion data options. Check its current documentation.
Do I need spreadsheets to read my results?
No. Once tracking is live, the Open Tracked analytics shows spend, revenue, ROAS and profit, and you can ask Ari, the built-in AI assistant, questions about your own numbers in plain words. Ari's allowance depends on your analytics plan.
Is Open Tracked different from Open Track or Open Space Track?
No. Open Tracked is the official name of our server-side tracking platform, and the website is opentracked.io. Many people search for it as Open Track, OpenTrack or Open Space Track. All of them lead to the same product: server-side Google Tag Manager hosting, first-party analytics and a CRM pipeline.
Fix your tracking at the source
Open Tracked hosts your server-side Tag Manager, keeps first-party cookies alive and shows what each ad is really worth.
The Open Tracked team
We build Open Tracked: server-side tracking hosting, analytics and the tools around them, for stores that spend on ads. Questions about this guide, or an idea for the next one?
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