Podcast: Amazon DSP - Why it’s the next step for many
July 15, 2026
Reading Time - 2 min
Kamelia Pusheva
Author
There's a ceiling in Amazon PPC. Every brand hits it eventually — more budget in, same profit out, bid strategies maxed, ROAS flat. Most brands misread that signal completely. Sam Lee says it's not a bidding problem.
It's not a creative problem. It's a channel problem. What they're missing is Amazon programmatic advertising.
Sam Lee is VP of Amazon DSP at Trivium Group and one of the few people in Europe who's built DSP operating systems from scratch — starting with a blank canvas at Thrasio, where he rolled out DSP across 200+ brands before most agencies had even requested a seat.
In this episode, he joins Lucas Bassa to demystify the platform that's still widely misunderstood across European marketplaces: what DSP actually does that PPC can't, why the €50K/month minimum is a myth (the real number is €5K), and what a full-funnel Amazon advertising strategy actually looks like before you switch it on.
This is the episode for any Amazon brand sitting at a PPC plateau who wants to understand — concretely — what a full-funnel ad stack looks like and whether they're ready to build one.
Key Takeaways
- The PPC ceiling: More budget stops producing more profit — and it's not a bidding problem, it's a channel problem
- The $50K myth: You don't need Amazon's managed service. Through a partner, a real DSP test starts at $5,000
- Capture vs. generate: PPC targets people already searching. DSP reaches the right person before they start
- The readiness checklist: 100+ reviews, 4+ stars, $20–30K/month in PPC. Hit these — then allocate 20–25% of PPC spend to DSP.
- The viewability trap: DSP charges per impression. If you're not checking viewability rates, you're paying for ads no one ever saw.
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Read transcript
Lucas Bassa (00:10)
All right, welcome to a new episode of Marketplaces Growth, the podcast, where I'm joined by
Sam Lee from Trivium, all the way from the East Coast, right? Long Beach, California.
Sam Lee (00:21)
Let's go.
Lucas Bassa (00:23)
West Coast. I was close. we're talking about DSP, Amazon DSP, one of those acronyms that in
Europe is not as well known as it should be. but yeah, Sam, kick it off, introduce yourself.
Sam Lee (00:37)
Yeah, of course. Appreciate you having me. so yeah, DSP, one of thousands of acronyms from
Amazon. I'd say still one that even if the acronym itself is known not as well as it should be in
the US. And you know what's funny about that? There are actually two Amazon DSPs. Amazon
uses the same acronym for two very different things. The one that we're referring to is Amazon's
demand side platform, so the programmatic marketing solution. However, Amazon DSP can
also stand for Amazon's delivery service providers.
Meaning people like if you think about like Uber Each drivers, Amazon has a system where
people can deliver packages for Amazon. So I get messages less frequently than I used to, but
I'd still say at least once or twice a month. People reaching out to me to ask me questions about
Amazon's delivery service provider program. I do not specialize in that. So Amazon's demand
side platform. So audience based programmatic display and video.
Lucas Bassa (01:33)
Yeah, cool. Okay, good to clarify that.
Sam Lee (01:36)
More a little more about me and Trivium then. So yeah, I'm vice president here at Trivium
Group. my background. So I've been in the digital marketing space, the specifically the Amazon
space for about God, eight and a half years now. I've been working specifically with Amazon
DSP for a little bit over six. so Trivium, we're full service Amazon agency. Me and Elias founded
Trivium Group, I believe, in twenty twenty one. I started there pretty early on as a consultant just
to help him.
kind of tackle the whole mystery that was Amazon DSP. did my own thing for a while, a lot of
consulting across different agents agencies teaching them Amazon DSP. And then I came in full
time here at Triving Group as the vice president about a year and a half ago. One thing that I
think is interesting and sort of why I know so much about DSP, it's a little bit unique. If you know
anything about Amazon DSP, one of the things you know about is that it's not readily accessible
at
it's not something that you can just toggle into Seller Central, click DSP, run ads, and go on with
your day. it's it's pretty it's gate kept by Amazon. Not quite as much as it used to be, but
definitely still gate kept. so I started doing it because I was one of the first employees ever at
Thracio. If you're familiar with the big Amazon aggregator, I actually came in, I was offered a job
as a PPC manager there because that was my background before DSP.
and then they asked me if I wanted to figure out this new ad platform called Amazon DSP and
run the show on that side for them. I said yes. So I kind of got the the unique opportunity to
access a DSP seat, figure it out without a lot of guidance across what at the time was maybe
40-50 brands that scaled up to 200 plus brands, and roll out DSP, figure out how it worked and
build a team around it. So I got a lot of
free reign to make mistakes and figure out the platform for myself. it's definitely changed a lot in
the past six years, but the core foundational principles are pretty much the same. so I got the
opportunity to do that. Otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here. And since then it's been
predominantly running and working with brands on the DSP side, but also a lot of coaching both
to brands and agencies alike just to figure it out because there are a lot of ways to do it wrong
and just generally not as
Quite as much literature out there compared to something like traditional P P C.
Lucas Bassa (04:03)
Yeah, so that's also my experience with DSP. coming from an agency where we saw DSP as an
opportunity, but indeed it was very gate kept. I think in the Netherlands only well a bunch of
agencies have a seat and we requested our seat. We had to do a bunch of paperwork,
forecasting, all that sort of stuff, and we got a seat eventually. but me, I was also doing PPC
mostly.
It was a completely different world. It was more like social campaigns. and it was just something
like if we didn't have a social part in in the agency, I wouldn't have been able to to jump right in.
Because the budgets are also larger, right? At least for
Sam Lee (04:47)
Yeah, that's I mean that's something we could talk about. I think that it's a misconception, but
one that ends up being true just due to perception of the platform and how it should be
operated. That's that's kind of spearheaded by Amazon. Meaning, for example, if you don't have
a DSP seat but you want to run DSP, your options are essentially to work with an agency, to
work with a tech partner, or to work with Amazon directly. And that's what's Amazon, that's
called Amazon's managed service.
program for Amazon DSP. In order to tap into Amazon's managed service program, it's moved a
lot over the years, but the most common one I've seen is you have to commit at least $50,000 a
month in order to qualify for that. So that's kind of where the the whole high spend thing stems
from. And I think since then agencies, brands alike have had this common misconception that if
you want to run DSP, you have to spend a ton of money in order to do it.
Or it's not worth it unless you can spend $50,000 a month. The minimum spend is $50,000 a
month, whatever it is. And that's that's honestly just not true. I usually find success with brands. I
mean, so many people, it's it's intimidating to launch a platform that you've never experimented
with, you don't know a ton about, and to commit that sort of money, even if you're a big brand, to
commit that sort of money to to to the unknown, right?
so I usually find that when I tell brands we can start with as little as like five thousand dollars a
month, they're usually pretty shocked by that because they didn't know it was an option, but it
very much is.
Lucas Bassa (06:20)
So and maybe a step back because you mentioned PPC, one of the acronyms I know a lot
better than than DSP. pay-per-click advertising, sort of the bread and butter retail media where
you bid on keywords. What is the difference with PPC and DSP? Just the the basic breakdown.
Sam Lee (06:42)
Yeah, this the simplest way to look at it is it's audience-based as opposed to query-based. So if
we're not talking about sponsor display, which I'll touch on the difference between sponsor
display and DSP in a few, but it's ultimately PPC, it's pretty intuitive. I think Google search ads,
it's key terms. you show up as a sponsored product or sponsored brand listing predominantly.
but sponsor display is is more akin to DSP, which is audience-based. So for DSP, it's not about
queries, but it's about
browsing behavior. So what are you looking at? What are you buying? That sort of thing with
custom look back windows. So it's about the person and not the query.
Lucas Bassa (07:23)
And is it also outside of Amazon's platform?
Sam Lee (07:27)
Yeah, it's on and off Amazon. So you build the audiences. It's programmatic display and video.
So the prominently display ads. you can run video using those audiences as well. it can it's
eligible to run both on Amazon and off Amazon to those audiences when you're logged into
Amazon on that mobile device or computer or even TV.
Lucas Bassa (07:48)
Yeah, yeah. And because when I started looking into DSP at the HC side, I was I think at first
under the assumption that outside of Amazon also means there are sort of daughter companies
like IMDb, Yahoo Finance, those sort of companies. But later on, I thought it was also able to put
you onto like, for example, news outlets in the Netherlands, like specific local news outlets. Is
there like a limit to where you can show up?
If you do DSP ads.
Sam Lee (08:19)
Yeah, so the the important thing to remember with DSP is it's as much about who as it is where.
So it's not one of those, I mean, there are exceptions to this with like private marketplace deals,
which is just way too specific. But you bid on the person and then you select generally the
location. So what a demand side platform is, what a DSP is. So if you've heard of platforms like
Trade Desk, that's a DSP. Google technically has its own DSP.
All it means is this is a demand side platform where a media buyer will signal demand. I'll set a
bid, tell them who I want to show my ad to and how much I'm willing to pay. It communicates
with a supply side platform, which owns ad real estate and inventory. They communicate with
each other, and that's how it determines where your ads will show. So Amazon has its own DSP
and SSP. So that's how you basically say I'm willing to pay this much on Amazon. It also
connects to like 50.
Other SSPs, a ton of different ones. And all that means really is like every individual SSP is not
that important. But all that basically means is those SSPs are how you buy ad placements off
Amazon. So think about if I'm selling a product on Amazon, I want to run retargeting, meaning
somebody that viewed but did not purchase my product. I can start by just serving it on Amazon.
If I see some success there, I select the other SSPs like Google, like Media, BidEx, all these
different ones.
And that just means they buy the ad real estate off Amazon. So that means if I'm on Amazon, I
look at a product, I go to ESPN.com, I go to look, read the news, whatever I'm doing. Then as
long as that supply side platform has access to that inventory, then you can buy ads there. And
between all the supply side platforms, you can pretty much cover every portion of the internet.
Lucas Bassa (10:08)
Yeah, I think one of the big media houses in the Netherlands is is affiliated as well, which does
tweakers, NOS, like for Dutch people, this these are familiar familiar websites. so it's audience
based for so that's why on when I experienced DSP, it was the social part of the agency who
picked up DSP because it was closer to how they use Meta already, or other social yeah. So
If you're currently like I think everyone listening with an Amazon account is running some sort of
PPC campaigns, could be small scale, could be large scale, could be using tools. besides sh
swifting shifting from a query-based to audience-based, what is the biggest shift when you move
from PPC to DSP?
Sam Lee (11:00)
Yeah, well, so one important thing is that DSP is never really meant to be replacing PPC in any
capacity. They're meant to be complementary. And the the question is always when is it time to
launch it? Like when am I ready for Amazon DSP? And usually what I say is in the event that
you're a brand that's selling on Amazon, you're spending on PPC, you've hit a plateau where
maybe
You're not getting additional ad dollars out or additional profit dollars out when you're putting
additional ad dollars in on the top. What do I do? I've adjusted my bid strategies. I've tried every
targeting type I can think of. Where do I go from here? DSP is something that you're not at the
mercy of query volume and you're always not, and you're also not always stacked up against
your competitors in real time. So if you think about I am, especially if you're selling a niche
product or a highly competitive product.
What you think about is okay, there are only X amount of people looking for this type of product
on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. And my conversion rate is Y. I've spent 30 grand a month for
so long. And if every time I've tried to spend 35 or 40, my return goes down and it's not
sustainable for me. The nice thing about DSP is that A, I can clean up my traffic, meaning I have
$30,000 worth of people going to my page. Obviously, not all of them are buying. And once they
leave, they're gone.
Retargeting is a great way to get those people back in the funnel. Cross-selling if you have
multiple products. So if you have a hero product that's driving 90% of your sales and you have
five, six, twenty other products that don't seem to get as much traction, a good way to do that is
let me make an audience of all the people that have brought bought my main products and
show them our other products. They're already familiar with us. They don't know we have these
other 19 products. Let's do that. Additionally,
You can serve your ads to the type of person that would be interested in your ad, even when
they're not actively looking for you. So let's say to the easiest example for this, because and
especially as I've worked across a lot of brands like this, is let's talk about the supplement
space. So I'm a protein powder, I have 200 reviews, I'm on Amazon, I'm stacked up next to a
bunch of products with 10,000, 20,000 reviews and seemingly unlimited media budgets. How do
I get
People to look at my product, consider my product, and ultimately buy my product without just
waiting for somebody to look for protein and being stacked up next to all these other
competitors. Well, a couple of ways you can do that. We can find audiences, we can create
audiences based on people that have recently looked at protein, but maybe they're not looking
at it right now. Or people that have shown that they're a fitness enthusiast and a supplement
user over repeated purchases on Amazon, but maybe they're on Amazon for something else
right now, but maybe there's still
They're actually in the market for protein powder as well. That's just not what they're looking for
right now. So we can find those people and we can serve the mads on and off Amazon because
we know that they're, I guess we can use the term ICP for that. and we can we can show them
ads beyond just the search engine results page because we know this person, maybe they're
looking at creatine or amino acids right now. I can put my protein powder on that page in real
time.
I can also serve them an ad for protein because they recently bought creatine and that's usually
the same type of person. So it basically just extends your reach beyond the search engine
results pages and it can put your products in front of people when they might not be actively
looking, but they're relevant to you, or it in general less competitive environments compared to
just a crowded search and results page.
Lucas Bassa (14:40)
Yeah, because the the thing you mentioned at the beginning is you know there's a limit to
search on Amazon. Like you have the four first spots are sponsored. In highly competitive
categories, those are just sort of reserved for a few high paying brands that can also finance
those spots with clicks going up to you know five euros a a click in in some instances, depends
on the category, of course. But it's very I've seen that as as well. It's very hard to
break free from that sort of thing and and what happens is I think the the first thing people do is
they optimize for the ROI. So they'll they'll cut out those sponsored positions before they add to
it just because you know they they pay too much for them. so this is in the supplement space of
course is I think among the most competitive. So the retargeting thing
How does that differ from sponsored display? Because there we can also retarget right on
Amazon. is this like fundamentally different?
Sam Lee (15:45)
Yep. So to touch on one thing you mentioned really quick and then I'll dive into the difference
between the two. so you hit the nail on the head with like it's no matter what, even if it's an incre
incredibly high volume search term like protein powder is, there's still a limit, right? Like there
are only so many times that people are are searching for protein powder and you're stacked up
next to your competition. The important differentiator between PPC and DSP is that PPC is a
demand capture tool.
Whereas DSP is both a demand capture and a demand generation tool. So for PPC, there's
only so much you can do to push your product because there's only so many queries you can
target and only so many people looking for those queries. On DSP, you it can be used to
retarget non-converters, cross-sell people, but you can also prospect people and create
demand and brand awareness based on.
your typical customer profile and not just a query. So you can actually generate demand with
DSP, which is what makes it unique. So the difference between sponsor display and DSP. If
you're familiar with sponsor display, then you have a fundamental understanding of what DSP is
and how it works. I like to look at sponsor display as kind of like DSP Junior or DSP with training
wheels. I usually recommend the brands t test at least some degree of sponsor display before
they graduate to DSP. And the simplest term, there are a lot of
small differences and a lot of nuance to it. But the best way to look at it is DSP can just do way
more, get more specific, and has more placements than sponsor display. So for sponsor display,
you can retarget, you can target specific pages in real time. However, your ability for things like
customization of look back windows, building customized audience, and most importantly
purchase negations is very limited. So one thing with DSP that's very important is that we can
set audiences as negations. We can set negative audiences, meaning if somebody looked at my
page, I only want to serve them an ad if they didn't just buy from me because I'm wasting ad
dollars if I'm retargeting somebody that already bought it. So in sponsor display, you end up with
a lot of ad. A lot of ad dollars get wasted on people that already purchased. You can also negate
competitor purchases. So you end up wasting money if somebody just bought from your
competitor two days ago, they're not going to buy another tub of protein powder. So
a lot less wasted at add dollars in that regard. DSP has placements on and off Amazon that are
unavailable to sponsor display. And you basically can create ASIN you can create audiences in
the DSP using any ASIN on Amazon with any custom look back window you want, provided it is
within their constraints, meaning the audience has to be big enough and there's a max to the
number of days look back you can set per audience. But you just have more granular control
over look backs, over which ASINs, over placements and over negation. So
I usually say test out sponsored display first. and then once you're you're ready to get more
specific, once you've graduated to spending a little bit more on the PPC side and want to test
DSP, DSV just generally works better provided it's in the right hands.
Lucas Bassa (18:55)
Okay, that that's an interesting and and a small question. Is DSP sorry, sponsored display is
limited to on Amazon only, right? It doesn't go outside of Amazon.
Sam Lee (19:06)
I believe so. I I think they've tested out some like light off Amazon stuff. Like for example, even
the PPC side has expanded to Pinterest and things like that. Full transparency, I don't run
sponsor display hands-on. So if they update something really recently, I don't know. But for the
most part, sponsor display is specific to Amazon, whereas DSP can reach everywhere.
Lucas Bassa (19:25)
But it's a good analogy that it's sort of the junior version. I I tested this play quite a bit myself. an
interesting thing you mentioned is you can negate comp competitor bias. Can you go that
incremental that you can say if they bought like within two weeks ago, I don't want to target
them?
Sam Lee (19:44)
Yeah, you just set the you set a custom look back window. So we basically take the list of ASINs
of our competitors that are very similar to us. We make a audience based on that. In this
instance, that'd be a fourteen day look back, and we negate that audience.
Lucas Bassa (19:59)
Okay, yeah, so you can get pretty incremental because I remember with display, I think at some
point they had some sort of targeting option that was limited to or it it's it's along the lines of they
frequently visit this category, which is already quite interesting because indeed with
supplements but bike parts or whatever, there's a higher likelihood of purchases. but from a
consumer perspective.
I find that it it triggers my latent need if I get emails outside of my you know outside of Amazon.
I'm getting an email, hey, this might be interesting for you. Those already work quite well and
just triggering my consumerism and
Sam Lee (20:41)
Totally. It's about finding a balance between brand awareness and lifetime value and bottom of
funnel targeting. And then when you're prospecting, it's about finding a balance between
complementary and competitive, meaning I can go after my competitors by putting my products
on their pages in real time, by targeting past purchasers of theirs, but not recent purchasers. So
like if they bought from a competitor in the past year, but not the past 90 days, servant ad there,
or I can go after complimentary products, meaning
If I am a supplement company, I can target people that are buying workout equipment. I can
target people that, you know, are building a home gym and they're 99% of the time also taking
supplements if they're buying workout equipment. So you can get pretty creative with the way
that you use it beyond just conventional, here's a competitor list, here's that. Like you can you
can get creative with the way that you do it. And Amazon also has 10,000 plus.
pre-created audiences, things like in market segments, lifestyle segments, demographic
segments, third party audiences that you can tap into as well beyond just the the custom
audience creation feature.
Lucas Bassa (21:48)
Yeah, from an agency perspective, that's the dream that you have all these options, you know,
to to be creative, test new stuff, new new cases, where PPC, you know, a lot of a lot of people
here are are very far with Google and Amazon tends to board them out at some point because
it's just more limited. so that alone is is an interesting take. So
My my next question would be, you know, at the beginning you talked about the the big
misconception that you need sort of big budgets to start DSPing. so how do you start if you're if
you're a Dutch brand, I would say average size, how do you start with DSP? And when do you
know that you should be starting with DSP?
Sam Lee (22:37)
Yep. So to start with DSP, you need to most likely find a partner to run it with you or for you. in
the event that you are dead set on running it yourself, which I don't usually recommend because
I find often brands will want to do it themselves. They'll want to task their PPC manager or their
marketing person that also runs Facebook and also runs everything else with this. I recommend
finding somebody that has done it and does it because A
They can give you the best advice on when to run it, how much to spend. B, there are a lot of
nuances to this platform that people don't realize. Things like viewability rates, meaning, here
are all the impressions I saw, here's or the ice that were served, how many were actually seen.
Or here's what we're targeting, and we want to negate this, not add it as an additional targeting
segment. A lot of little bells and whistles and things that if you do wrong, you can end up
targeting exactly the opposite of who you're targeting, serving invisible ads, taking credit for ads.
DSP didn't actually drive, things like that. So to get live with DSP, either find a partner to
manage it hands-on, or a lot of tech partners will create a seat for you. companies like Pac View
or Xnerva, or I partner with GGAI, they can help with that sort of thing. and in terms of figuring
out when it's the right move, when it's the right decision for you. So I have brands inquire about
DSP all the time. And sometimes it's a no-brainer fit and they should have been running it
yesterday.
Other times it's just a bad fit and they're not ready. So when I usually say it's time for brands to
look into it is as I alluded to earlier, you're spending on PPC. You're focused on ideally bottom
line profit, as most brands I work with are. There are obviously exceptions. Some big brands
only care about top line, which is great too. But you're gonna hit a point eventually where your
listings are optimized, your PPC is optimized, you're spending $20,000, $30,000 a month. But if
you add in any more budget right now,
sales won't go up enough to justify the expense. Your bottom line's gonna decrease with that
incremental five thousand dollars or whatever it is. Yeah. That's usually that it's time to test it.
Lucas Bassa (24:42)
Yeah, and then DSP is your way of diversifying away and and using that budget in a in a in a
different way.
Sam Lee (24:49)
Exactly. Cause it's it's putting your ads in front of people, it's generating demand, not just
capturing it. it's charged on a CPM basis, so cost per thousand impressions as opposed to cost
per click.
couple other general rules of thumb that I look for for brands that are looking to launch DSP. I
usually will not touch DSP for a brand that doesn't have any products with over a hundred
reviews and at least four stars. the reason behind that is that, as I just said, DSP is charged on
an ECPM, which is effective cost per mile, which is effective cost per thousand impressions
basis.
As opposed to cost per click. So the reason that matters as it relates to reviews is that you get
charged for impressions, which can either work in your favor or can work against you. In the
event that you don't have that many reviews and people are going to be less likely to be
interested in your product as a result of that. On the PPC side, it still of course matters. It's
everything on Amazon. But often on the search engine results page, if you have 20 reviews and
three and a half stars, people just aren't going to click.
Because you're right next to one with five four and a half stars and 10,000 reviews, why would
they click on you? And you can get that impression and you don't pay anything if they don't click
on you. On the DSP side, you're paying for those impressions. So for brands that have a really
attractive product, a really attractive offer, and as such, a high click-through rate, DSP can drive
more efficient clicks than PPC in that instance if you're getting a lot of them with a high
click-through rate. Yeah. However, if you're not getting a high click-through rate,
You're paying for those impressions and no one's even going to your page. So you want to be,
you want a product that is priced competitively, has competitive review, quantity, and quality, and
a great main image. And then because if you don't have those things, people aren't going to
click and you're just going to be wasting your money on those impressions.
Lucas Bassa (26:39)
Yeah, makes makes sense. So we now know when when you're sort of eligible to to look into
DSP. I think Amazon has a a big partner site on their their website that houses everyone that
can do DSP, like the agency partners, because those differ depending on where you live, of
course. so what we would like to do is is sort of the the golden nugget segment.
Where it would be nice to have actionable like nuggets for the people listening that they can
implement, you know, when they when they did become excited about DSP. You mentioned the
the testing with sponsored display, right? That it's a sort of entry level test environment if you're
interested about DSP. So would you recommend people listening that that's feel like they've hit a
plateau on Amazon to to test that out first?
Sam Lee (27:40)
Definitely. that being said, if sponsored display doesn't work, that doesn't definitively mean the
DSP won't, just because there are more ways that we can refine DSP and make it more
targeted. That being said, it's good to test sponsor display first. If you're if you've plateaued and
you've never tested sponsor display, test sponsored display. Like there's no reason not to. And
because you can just task your PPC manager with sponsor display, because it's a lot easier to
run. They're probably relatively familiar with it.
Whereas once you get into a more complex, well, it's not, I don't want to say it's more complex
than PPC. It's just different. So you don't want to just ask your PPC guy with DSP. They're not
going to know how to do it. it's the same thing with agencies. Like in the event that you're
working with an agency and they have a DSP offering, maybe they're not bringing it up as much,
but you ask them once you hear this and they say, yeah, we can do that. I would, I would dig
into that and understand how their DSP team is structured, who runs it.
how much experience they have, because a lot of agencies treat it as an afterthought, or they
just task their PPC team with it, who's frankly winging it. you need somebody that's that's
dedicated to that platform, or at the minimum, somebody that's been, if they're running PPC too,
a minimum somebody that's been running DSP for a few years. Because often agencies will
have it, they don't really broadcast it that much because they're not super confident in it. And
then you'll be kind of a guinea pig.
Lucas Bassa (29:03)
Yeah, so you want an expert o opposed to someone who who does it with a PPC mentality, if
you will.
Sam Lee (29:10)
Exactly.
Lucas Bassa (29:11)
Okay, so so I would say those are already two two good nuggets. Do you have a third one? Like
what what do people what can people do today?
Sam Lee (29:21)
So I would say in the event that you've never run DSP before and you're interested in learning
more about it, for one, I would check out I have a lot of videos on YouTube about this that are
DSP for beginners, DSP fundamental explained. If you look up Trivium Group, Sam Lee, DSP,
they'll come up. I would check those out. I hate making them. I I hate watching them more than
anything, but it the it is a lot of there's a lot of info in there that's good for beginners. So I check
that out.
Two, I would cross-reference your brand with everything I've said today, meaning do what am I
spending on PPC? What happens if I spend $5,000 more on DSP? Have I tested sponsored
display? Do I have at least one product with 100 reviews? Do I have a competitive price? If all
these boxes are checked, then it might be time to experiment with DSP. And then what I would
say about budget allocation for DSP, I usually recommend brands start with at least $5,000 on a
monthly basis to test it.
However, part of the reason that I say that is because usually they're also paying us to run the
ads. And I want to make sure that it's worthwhile. Like you don't want to pay somebody two or
three grand just to spend two, three grand because it's kind of a waste of time. You might as
well just plug that all back into something else. So I'd say you want to spend at least 5,000 to
run a real test. when you're gauging that test, keep in mind what your KPIs are. Because if
you're spending 100K a month on PTC, you want run a 5K DSP test.
Your main KPI is top line growth, probably gonna be disappointed because the numbers just
aren't there. so the smaller you're spending, the more you want to rely on just is this efficient?
Can I prove out the ROAS with the small budget and then we scale it? Look at it that way. And
then my other recommendation is usually when brands are up running and fully optimized, there
are exceptions to this. Like I have some brands, for example, that have a really low price point.
So PPC is just very difficult to be profitable for them because.
If your product costs five bucks and your clicks put cost two bucks, your margin is two bucks,
you got to convert it 100% to be profitable. DSP is a good solve for that because we can get we
pay for impressions, we can get people the listing cheaper. So that's one general rule. If that if
that fits the bill for you, DSP's an interesting play. the other thing is for the average brand, just
numbers to keep in mind.
They're fully up to optimized Dsp spend is usually about 20 to 25 percent of PPC spend. So for
brands that are spending 100k a month, I'd say on average their DSP budget's anywhere from
20 to 25,000 a month. and just it can flow in either direction depending on how well DSP works
for them.
Lucas Bassa (31:57)
Cool. Okay. So so summarizing in order, that would be cross-reference your brand to everything
you've said. Like, are you eligible for DSP? Should you even be looking into this? If you are
interested, play around with sponsored displays, see what that brings you. And then if you're
eager to get it going, get a professional, check their you know, do some reference checking and
make sure that they actually know DSP. okay, thanks for those.
So
Sam Lee (32:27)
Yeah,
one last thing I'll say with that, sorry to cut you off, is if you're a brand that has any products with
over 500 or especially over a thousand reviews, and you're spending over 20k a month on PPC,
you should absolutely be running DSP. if you're spending 40, 50k on PPC, there's a lot of money
being left on the table if you're not running DSP, A through retargeting, plain and simple, B
through cross-selling, and C, because by
generating more brand awareness using DSP, that actually will often improve your PPC
conversion rates because people have seen you. So then when they're going to the search and
results pages for your type of product, they've seen you before, either subconsciously or
consciously. And it will help to improve your click-through rate and your conversion rate. So if
you're spending 40, 50,000 plus a month, DSP should be a no-brainer for
Lucas Bassa (33:20)
Yeah, they strengthen each other. That's that's a good point as well. and it's also a good point
because Amazon in Europe, you know, that's I think slightly different from the US. It's often used
as a as a sort of new market explorer as a sort of channel, right? Where you're selling in
Germany, you want to try out France, but your brand is lesser known there. So they'll use
Amazon as a way to get your brand known.
And DSP sounds like a a huge accelerator because it just draws more eyes, basically.
Sam Lee (33:50)
Yeah. What I will say is that if you're launching in a new market and you don't have a lot of
brand awareness, can DSP be a valuable lever for increasing brand awareness? Yes. However,
I wouldn't expect a high ROAS with that out of the gate because A, the audiences for your
retargeting are very small, B, your previous customer pool is very small for lapse purchase and
cross selling. But as long as your goal is awareness and not conversions, then that can be a
strong play.
Lucas Bassa (34:18)
Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point to add. All right.
Sam Lee (34:23)
Just general caveat. video through sponsored display can be very powerful for that too. So
through DSP, I'll just 10 seconds this. We can run what's called online video. So tapping into
Amazon's first party data to serve videos, think about like a YouTube ad, but instead it's other
places on the internet. Like if you go to Amazon and then you go to ESPN.com to watch sports
highlights, get interrupt with an ad, DSP can do that. Even like
Lucas Bassa (34:25)
Which one video?
Sam Lee (34:51)
in platform and mobile like browsers like if you're playing a game you can get interrupted with a
video ad so DSP can do that and then the other thing which we could have a whole other hour
long conversation on is streaming TV through Amazon DSP well as well. So Prime Video, they
have a partnership with Netflix now, Freebie, Twitch, all these things you can serve ads to
streaming TV platforms as well.
Lucas Bassa (35:15)
wow. Yeah. I I only knew about Amazon Prime, but that's that's interesting. so rounding up,
Sam, a f a few quick fires, right? A quick fire questions for you. just to to to finish on a on a high
energy note. What's the biggest waste of budget in DSP campaigns?
Sam Lee (35:36)
not checking inventory reports and viewability. what I see a lot of so if you think about the way
that a page loads on your browser, you go to an Amazon listing or you go to another listing. The
page is this long, your mobile device or your browser are right here. And sometimes people go
all the way down here. Other times they just look at the top, look at the images, look at the
description, and they leave. This part down here still exists.
Which means ads are serving down here. So what a lot of people will do is they'll launch their
ads, they'll bid really low because they're testing it and they're not sure yet. They'll get an
incredibly low CPM. They might even get a decent return because it's a view through conversion
window. And then you look into their viewability rates, both in aggregate and especially at the
inventory report level. And so I've seen many, many times single digit viewability rates, meaning
they're spending $10,000 a month and only 5% of their ads are even ever on somebody's
screen.
So be very cognizant of viewability rates, set viewability minimums, absolutely. and then the
other big waste that I see is people that are launching DSP campaigns and they're just going all
lifestyle and in market segments from the jump without doing any core foundational conversion
related activity. That's that's a very common one I see as well. and then the last one is not being
cognizant of where your ads are being shown.
I did an audit of a brand one time that had no idea all of their display ads were only being shown
on fire TVs. Huge waste of money. So it's these these little things that you might not notice that I
notice and you could be setting money on fire if you don't pay attention to.
Lucas Bassa (37:18)
Okay, so next one. What's an essential tool every every marketplace seller or Amazon seller
needs, in your opinion?
Sam Lee (37:27)
An essential tool. Are we just talking in general, like outside of DSP?
Lucas Bassa (37:32)
In general, yeah.
Sam Lee (37:34)
I mean, the the basic is an Amazon analysis tool like Helium 10, Jungle Scout. Those are going
to be your best friend. Absolutely can't go without those. I think that for brands that are running
PPC and DSP, tapping into AMC is incredibly important, Amazon Marketing Cloud. So once you
launch DSP, AMC is now obviously available directly in Seller Central for PPC as well, just for
like audience-based bid adjustments.
Once you start running both, using AMC to tell you the story of how BPC and DSP are
interacting is become quickly becoming kind of a non negotiable. those those are the those are
the two that come to mind first.
Lucas Bassa (38:14)
Cool. Hey and maybe final question, what's your what's the go to supplement brand for you on
Amazon?
Sam Lee (38:22)
You know what's funny is I'm not loyal. I am I am exactly like the people that I talk about that
might fall out of your funnel despite having purchased a couple times. And I need reminders
because I I'm I I take a lot of supplements, honestly, proteins, creatines, amino acids, pre
workouts. And almost every time I'm out, I go to Amazon and I start a new search and see if
there's anything new or see if there's anything I like. So I'm a I'm what?
Lucas Bassa (38:50)
You're never disappointed.
Sam Lee (38:52)
I mean, there's always new stuff. I've been disappointed in products, never in the selection. But
yeah, I'm a good example of somebody that I've bought from you before in the past year, but not
the past ninety days. I tried something else. Be good to remind me you exist. So
Lucas Bassa (39:08)
Yeah. That's that's a good one. That's a that's a good final take. I mean, we should we should
like as marketeers, you should probably think as a consumer more than a marketeer most of the
time.
Sam Lee (39:19)
That's that is the singular biggest piece of advice I give to brand owners is you are a consumer,
right? Like you're a brand owner, but you're also a consumer. So if you're somebody that shops
on Amazon, pay attention to the way that you interact with Amazon. Like, do you go through all
of the page, all of the images on listings that you're looking at? What like you just bought a
product, right? Why did you buy it? Was it the price? Was it the review count?
What about their images really spoke to you? Every time you buy anything, take me mental
inventory of why you bought it and see if there's anything you're missing with your own brand
that you could tap into that this brand did to convince you to buy.
Lucas Bassa (40:01)
Yeah, that's a that's a good one. That's a good final take, Sam. And I fully agree. So I mean it
was a great conversation. I I learned quite a bit, and and you know it's a shame that I'm not
running any DSP campaigns because most of it is actionable as well. Not not yet. But yeah,
thank you so much for the conversation. I'm I'm like I said in the the first time we met, it's it's a
bit of a I don't hear a lot of people talking about DSP here in the Netherlands.
I'm not sure for the rest of Europe, but I think it could be something that just needs a lot more
attention. what would be
Sam Lee (40:40)
Yeah, so you were mentioning the the available partners on Amazon, right? I like use it, but
that's not a complete list because for example, I run DSP for like 10 brands that only sell in
Europe. You can access like there's separate entities within DSP, but you can access North
America, Europe, and Asia Pacific through there. So I wouldn't, in the event that you're in an
area where maybe DSP isn't as popular.
But you're looking for somebody with strong experience to run your ads, you don't want to, you
don't, you shouldn't feel like you are limited to somebody in your area, meaning like I run, I can
run those ads. I'm just not gonna show up in the Amazon partner section within the Netherlands,
probably. So keep your options open. Look up things on YouTube, look at LinkedIn, look for
thought leaders in the DSP space, people that say things that seem to resonate with you. and
talk to a few people before before choosing partners.
Lucas Bassa (41:38)
Okay. Your your DMs are open, I hope, Sam.
Sam Lee (41:42)
Yeah,
I mean my LinkedIn inbox is a mess though. I I barely check it because I get fifty AI messages a
day. yeah. You message me there, I will get to it eventually, but it's easier to email.
Lucas Bassa (41:55)
Okay, that's a good good note. Yeah. So again, thanks for the conversation. let's round it up.
final question from my side is what would be, you know, considering we're we're a podcast on
everything marketplaces, what would be an interesting topic or an interesting guest for us to to
look into?
Sam Lee (42:13)
I would say AMC would be would be a fantastic one to do. there that's that's really expanding in
a serious way and it has been for a couple of years. AMC podcast would be interesting. And
then I'd say one dedicated to Amazon partnerships would be interesting. I mean, Amazon just in
the past year has rolled out a partnership with Netflix, a partnership with Spotify. They've taken
over Thursday night football, they've taken over a number of basketball games.
Partnerships is Amazon just keeps expanding its tentacles into every fucking corner of the
world. That in itself is worth worth a discussion.
Lucas Bassa (42:47)
Yeah, yeah.
And MC is another good acronym that that sees that has quite a deep sort of space behind it.
Yeah, it's good yeah. Good suggestion. Okay, let's wrap it up. Thanks, Sam, for for the talk.
Sam Lee (43:04)
Appreciate you having me. Bye-bye.
Kamelia Pusheva
Author
Kamelia Pusheva is a Demand Generation Manager at Channable, passionate about building marketing that balances strategy, creativity, and impact. She focuses on demand generation initiatives that educate and engage B2B SaaS audiences, collaborating closely with brand, product marketing, and sales to turn ideas into campaigns that drive measurable growth.
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