Amazon is your second store. Most brands run it like a side hustle.
Catalog hygiene rotting. A+ content half-built. Sponsored Products eating Brand Defence budget. AMC sitting unused. We treat marketplaces with the same operational rigour as your DTC site — because they're 30–50% of your revenue and you know it.
Marketplace advertising is retail-media management on third-party storefronts — primarily Amazon (Sponsored Products, Brands, Display, DSP, AMC), Walmart Connect, Target+, Instacart Ads, and Criteo Retail Media Network. It blends merchandising (catalog hygiene, A+ content, image stack, Brand Registry) with media buying (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, DSP audiences, AMC custom attribution). The defining metric is TACoS — Total Advertising Cost of Sales — which models organic halo from paid placements, unlike ACoS which flatters numbers by ignoring lift. Treating Amazon as 'a side hustle' is the biggest source of leaked margin in mature DTC; for $10M+ brands, marketplaces are typically 30–50% of total revenue.
What's broken in most marketplace accounts
Variant relationships broken. Bullet points written for SEO that nobody reads. A+ content modules half-deployed. Brand registry compliance issues throttling impression share without anyone noticing.
Most agencies optimise to ACoS targets that ignore organic lift. We model TACoS (Total ACoS) including organic — because Sponsored Products that lift organic rank are worth more than Sponsored Products that don't.
$5M+ brands have access to Amazon DSP and AMC and aren't using them. Audience-level retargeting, custom attribution, lookalike modelling — all available, all unused.
Auto campaigns running for 18 months and nobody has graduated the winning queries to manual. Negative keyword harvesting is once-a-quarter when it should be weekly.
The marketplace mix is now 5+ networks deep. Walmart Connect alone is a $4B+ ad business. Brands missing this are leaving share to competitors who aren't.
What we run
Amazon (Sponsored Products, Brands, Display, DSP, AMC)
Walmart Connect (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Search, DSP)
Target+ (curated marketplace + ads)
Instacart Ads
Criteo Retail Media Network
Macy's, Kroger, Albertsons (where relevant)
Helium 10 / Jungle Scout for catalog research
Catalog hygiene + A+ content production
How we audit & operate
Catalog forensics
Variant integrity, A+ content depth, brand registry compliance, image stack quality, bullet copy audit. Most accounts have 3–8 P0 catalog fixes that lift rank before we touch ads.
TACoS targeting
Set TACoS targets per ASIN tier (hero / margin / clearance). Build campaign segmentation that protects branded share while harvesting non-brand efficiently.
DSP + AMC activation
Audience-level remarketing for cart-abandon, brand-loyalist, and competitor-conquest. AMC custom attribution to model true halo from Sponsored Products into organic.
Cross-marketplace orchestration
Walmart, Target+, Criteo run with the same architecture. Cross-marketplace performance compared against DTC site to model channel-mix decisions at the P&L level.
What lands in your inbox.
- Catalog audit + A+ content rebuild plan
- TACoS targets per ASIN tier
- Search-term harvesting cadence (weekly)
- Cross-marketplace performance dashboard
- DSP + AMC activation roadmap (where applicable)
- Monthly review + quarterly marketplace strategy call
Where this worked.
Amazon revenue +84%, TACoS held at 11%
- Catalog rebuild lifted organic rank on 14 hero ASINs
- DSP retargeting captured $420K incremental in 6 months
- Walmart Connect launched and scaled to $80K/mo at 4.2× ROAS
Sponsored Brands organic halo +63%
- AMC attribution proved Sponsored Products drove halo
- Killed 18 ASINs with negative contribution margin
- Q4 Prime Day strategy delivered 3.2× normal-week volume
Questions we actually get asked.
Do you handle Amazon SEO and listing copy?
Yes. Catalog hygiene + A+ content + image stack are part of every marketplace engagement. You can't out-bid bad listing copy.
What about Brand Registry and trademark issues?
We work with your legal counsel on trademark filings if needed, then activate Brand Registry, Sponsored Brands eligibility, and A+ Premium where qualifying.
Do you do Amazon-only or cross-marketplace?
Both. Amazon-only retainers exist for brands not yet on other networks. Most $10M+ brands run Amazon + Walmart minimum, often with Target+ and Criteo on top.
How do you handle marketplace cannibalisation of DTC?
We model it explicitly. Some categories (replenishment, low-AOV) cannibalise heavily. Others (premium, configurable) don't. We run quarterly cannibalisation analysis and adjust channel-mix decisions accordingly.