Sponsored Brands (once called Headline Search Ads) are the banner-style ads at the very top of Amazon search results that carry a brand logo, a custom headline and three or more products, or a short video. Unlike Sponsored Products, which promote one listing, Sponsored Brands promote the brand and can send shoppers to a Brand Store or a custom landing page. They are the main tool for owning the first screen on your category's search terms.
How Sponsored Brands work
Amazon lists eligibility as vendors, book vendors, KDP authors, agencies and professional sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry. Enrolment needs a registered or pending trademark, and Amazon accepts filings with the Indian Trade Marks Registry. As of September 2026 there are three creative formats: Product collection (logo, headline and three or more ASINs), Store spotlight (sends shoppers to sections of your Brand Store) and Video (a short autoplay clip for a single product, or a brand video linking to the Store).
Targeting is by keyword (broad, phrase, exact) or by product and category, as with Sponsored Products. Pricing is cost-per-click by default; Amazon also offers cost per thousand viewable impressions (vCPM) for awareness campaigns, and neither carries a minimum spend. Attribution for Sponsored Brands sales is 14 days, and the campaign manager also reports "new-to-brand" orders, meaning purchases by shoppers who had not bought from the brand in the previous twelve months.
Worked example: a skincare brand spends ₹30,000 on a Sponsored Brands video campaign for "vitamin c serum". It attributes ₹1,05,000 in sales (ACoS 28.6%), of which 60% is new-to-brand. Even though the ACoS is higher than the Sponsored Products campaign, the seller keeps it running because it is bringing in first-time customers.
Why Sponsored Brands matter for sellers
The top-of-search banner is the most visible real estate on the results page, and only brand-registered advertisers can compete for it. On a competitive query it also pushes rival Sponsored Products further down. Sending shoppers to a Brand Store lets you cross-sell the range, which raises order value and protects against the price-comparison behaviour a single product page invites.
How to run Sponsored Brands well
- Write a headline that answers the query, for example "Dermatologist-tested serum, made in India", rather than a slogan.
- Lead with the best-rated product. The first ASIN in a collection gets most of the clicks.
- Test video early. Video ads need only one ASIN and often earn a higher CTR than static collections.
- Use category and competitor product targeting to appear on rival detail pages, not only on search.
- Judge by new-to-brand rate and TACoS, not by ACoS alone.
Blooprint builds Brand Stores and Sponsored Brands campaigns under Amazon account management; the Amazon ads guide for India covers Brand Registry set-up.