Amazon Sponsored Brands creative: shooting and checking custom images and video

Great detail-page images don't automatically make good ads. Sponsored Brands ads sit at the top of search, mid-page or on product pages, in a small space, in front of people who haven't decided to look at you yet. They need creative that reads at a glance, not creative that rewards close inspection.

This piece is only about the creative — not bids or keywords.

Know your formats

Sponsored Brands currently has three main formats, each with different creative needs:

Common specs (always defer to what the campaign builder shows):

• Logo: at least 400 × 400 pixels, white or transparent background, more than just an icon;
• Custom image: at least 1200 × 628 pixels, no text overlaid on the image;
• Video: 16:9 landscape, commonly 1920 × 1080, generally 6–45 seconds — check the builder for current length and file-size limits;
• Headline: character-limited, around 50 characters on English-language marketplaces.

Custom images: put the product in a life

The custom image is there to add context next to a row of white-background products. The difference from a detail-page lifestyle shot is display size. In an ad, the image might render a few hundred pixels wide, and every fine detail disappears.

So the rules for this shot:

1. Big subject, simple background. The product should take at least a third of the frame.
2. No text in the image. Overlaid text is a frequent rejection reason. Let the headline do the talking.
3. Leave a safe margin. Placements crop to different ratios; keep the subject central.
4. Only your products. Nothing in the frame should carry a recognisable third-party brand.

One easily missed detail: the product in the custom image should be the product you're advertising. A scene featuring product A on an ad promoting product B creates a disconnect after the click.

Video: design for silence

Sponsored Brands video usually autoplays muted in search results. Your video has to work with no sound at all. A lot of videos repurposed from social platforms rely on voiceover and music for pacing, and they fall flat here.

The structure we script against:

Things that get videos rejected or make them underperform:

• Black frames, fades or a long logo animation at the start;
• Prices, discounts or "limited time" language;
• URLs, QR codes or anything pointing off Amazon;
• Blurry footage or the wrong aspect ratio (a vertical video letterboxed into a landscape frame);
• A product in the video that doesn't match the advertised product.

On-screen text

With sound off, on-screen text carries your extra information — but keep it lean: one short line per shot at most, large enough to read on a phone, placed centrally or in the lower third, away from corners where player controls may sit.

Example: an electric toothbrush

One toothbrush brand's original ad was a 30-second brand film: a wide bathroom shot, a smiling model, slow-motion water. The product first appeared clearly at second eight. The rebuilt version:

• 0s: the brush on the sink, a hand picks it up, the display lights;
• 2s: brush head close-up, vibration visible;
• 6s: into the travel case, case snaps shut;
• 10s: charging base with battery life shown (using real figures);
• 15s: colour range side by side, end.

Fifteen seconds, every point made visually, nothing dependent on sound. Whether it performs better is a question for the campaign data, but it now meets the basic test of reading at a glance.

Testing creative

You can run ads with different creative inside the same campaign. Change one variable at a time — only the video, or only the custom image — and keep keywords and budget constant. Wait for enough impressions and clicks before drawing conclusions; small samples swing wildly.

If you need several scene variants for testing, AI generation can produce different settings from one product photo, output at 1200 × 628. When a square scene needs to become landscape, AI outpaint keeps more of the subject than cropping. Before anything goes live, run it against the rejection list above, especially text and third-party objects. Keep the style consistent with your detail page and your Brand Store, so the click doesn't feel like landing in a different shop.