seller
Key takeaways
- A strong Amazon marketing agency runs ads, listings, creative and operations as one system.
- Flat retainers keep the agency focused on profit, not on spending more.
- Ask every agency the same 10 questions before you sign.
| % of ad spend | Flat retainer | |
|---|---|---|
| Price known before you sign | ||
| Agency rewarded for cutting waste | ||
| Cost stays flat as you scale spend | ||
| Easy to budget month to month |
PPC Spider uses flat retainers only: PPC from $995/mo, full-service from $1,950/mo.
What an Amazon marketing agency does
The best Amazon marketing agencies treat your account as one system. Advertising buys visibility, listings convert that visibility into sales, sales build organic rank, and rank lowers the cost of the next sale. If any one of those parts is weak, the others underperform.
In practice that means an agency should be able to manage Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display, write and test listings for search and for Rufus, design images and A+ Content, protect your brand, and keep inventory healthy enough that ads never push budget behind products that are about to stock out.
- Advertising: Sponsored Products, Brands, Display and often DSP
- Listing optimization and Amazon SEO
- Creative: images, A+ Content, Premium A+, Brand Story and Brand Store
- Account health, catalog fixes and case management
- Inventory planning, FBA and reimbursements
- Reporting that ties ad spend to total sales and profit
Amazon marketing agency vs Amazon marketing services
You will see both phrases. Amazon Marketing Services was the old name for Amazon's advertising console, now Amazon Ads. Today, when brands search for Amazon marketing services they usually mean exactly what an agency sells: someone to run the ads and the growth work around them.
A specialist PPC agency only runs advertising. A full-service Amazon agency runs advertising, listings, creative and operations together. Neither is better by default. The right model depends on how much of the work your own team can handle well.
How Amazon agencies charge
Pricing is where agencies differ most, and where brands most often get surprised. There are three common models.
- Percentage of ad spend, usually 10 to 20 percent, which rewards the agency for spending more rather than spending well
- Percentage of sales, which rewards the agency for revenue even when profit falls
- Flat monthly retainer, which is the easiest to budget and keeps the agency focused on results instead of spend
What PPC Spider charges
PPC Spider publishes every price. Amazon PPC management starts at $995 a month, with Growth at $1,250 and Scale at $2,200 based on monthly ad spend. Full-service Amazon management starts at $1,950 a month for up to 25 ASINs and $30k of monthly ad spend, with Growth at $3,100 and Scale at $4,750.
Every plan is a flat retainer with a 90-day initial term, never a percentage of ad spend, and every plan includes SpiderOS, our AI platform for live reporting, profit per product and 24x7 ad monitoring. You can see each plan on the pricing page before you ever speak to us.
Red flags when choosing an Amazon marketing agency
- Prices only available after a sales call
- Pay tied to ad spend, which quietly rewards waste
- Reports full of ACoS but no TACoS, organic share or profit
- Long lock-in contracts with no exit after the first term
- No clear owner for your account, just a ticket queue
- Promises of guaranteed rankings or results
10-point checklist to choose the right agency
Use this checklist on every agency you speak to, including us. A good partner will answer every point without hesitation.
- Who will run my account day to day, by name and role?
- How do you set ACoS targets: from margin, or from a flat number?
- Do you report TACoS and organic share of sales next to ad metrics?
- How often are bids and budgets reviewed, and what triggers a change?
- How do you handle listings, images and A+ Content?
- What happens when a product is about to stock out?
- How do we communicate: Slack, calls, written action items?
- What does month one look like, step by step?
- What is the exact monthly price, and what is not included?
- Can I see a live demo of your reporting?
How a good Amazon marketing agency runs month one
The first month decides the next twelve, so ask every agency to walk you through it in detail. A strong onboarding looks less like a sales handover and more like a diagnosis followed by fast, low-risk fixes.
Week one is access and audit: Seller Central, Amazon Ads, Brand Registry and any inventory or accounting data needed to calculate margin per product. Week two turns the audit into a written plan with targets for profit, rank and stock. Weeks three and four start the work: wasted search terms negated, campaigns restructured by intent, the weakest listings rewritten and stock risks flagged before they hurt rank.
By the end of month one you should have a baseline report you understand, a list of what changed and why, and a clear view of what happens next. If an agency cannot describe this plan before you sign, it will not run it after.
- Week 1: access, audit and margin per product
- Week 2: written plan with profit, rank and stock targets
- Week 3: ads restructure and waste removed
- Week 4: listing fixes, stock risks flagged, first report
The metrics a good agency reports
Reports are where weak agencies hide. A long table of impressions and clicks says nothing about whether the business is healthier. Ask for a short report that leads with outcomes and explains the change in plain language.
At minimum you want total sales and profit after ad spend, TACoS next to ACoS, organic share of sales, organic rank on the category keywords that matter, and days of stock cover on your best sellers. Those five numbers tell you whether advertising is building the brand or just renting traffic.
- Total sales and profit after ad spend
- ACoS and TACoS together
- Organic share of sales
- Organic rank on target category keywords
- Days of stock cover on top products
Specialist PPC agency vs full-service Amazon agency
If your listings already convert, your creative is strong and your operations team keeps stock healthy, a specialist PPC agency can be the right fit. You keep control of everything else and pay only for advertising expertise.
If any of those pieces is weak, a PPC-only agency will hit a ceiling quickly. Ads cannot fix a listing that does not convert, and spend is wasted when a product is close to running out. That is when a full-service Amazon agency, with ads, listings, creative and operations under one plan, usually returns more for the money.
What makes PPC Spider different
PPC Spider runs Amazon accounts on SpiderOS, our own AI platform. It monitors bids, budgets, search terms and stock 24x7 and changes them only when the data shows a product is off its profit target. Every target ACoS is set from the product's real margin after fees, so no bid can buy a loss by accident.
Around the software sits a dedicated team: an account manager who owns your goals, an ads manager, an operations team and a creative team. You work with them in a shared Slack channel, meet every two weeks and receive written action items after every meeting, plus weekly and monthly reports.
When to hire an agency, and when not to
An agency makes sense when Amazon is a meaningful share of revenue and your team cannot give it daily attention, when you are launching and need speed, or when growth has stalled and nobody can explain why.
It makes less sense when your catalog is tiny and sales are very low, because a retainer can outweigh the upside. In that case, start with a one-time audit or a listing rewrite and revisit full management once the basics convert.
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