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Amazon Adds Offsite Controls to Sponsored Products: What You Need to Know
SUMMARY
Amazon quietly added a new Sponsored Products setting to maximize reach off Amazon. Learn the risks, rewards, and how to take control of spend.
Rachel Horner
Without much fanfare, Amazon updated all Sponsored Products campaigns with a new setting: “Maximize reach” for ads served off Amazon.
Since 2023, Sponsored Products placements have quietly expanded beyond Amazon’s own ecosystem, appearing on third-party sites to broaden reach. Until now, advertisers had no control over this off-Amazon distribution; it was simply baked into campaigns by default. That’s changing.
Now, every Sponsored Products campaign includes a new option called “Settings for ads served off Amazon,” giving advertisers a clear choice between two approaches:
- Maximize reach, which prioritizes impressions across off-Amazon placements like TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, and publisher sites such as Buzzfeed, or
- Minimize spend, which restricts budget and impressions on off-Amazon placements, helping advertisers better control costs. By reducing exposure outside Amazon’s core sites, this setting focuses spend on high-intent, Amazon-native placements, trading volume for greater efficiency and stronger return.
What’s notable isn’t just the addition of the setting; it’s that most advertisers didn’t opt into it themselves. According to many brands, Amazon auto-applied the “maximize reach” option to many existing campaigns, defaulting ad spend toward placements outside of Amazon’s core marketplace.
So why is Amazon expanding Sponsored Products offsite now, and what does it signal about the future of retail media?
It’s all about scale and control. Off-Amazon SP ads let Amazon grow its reach and capture upper-funnel budgets, without sending brands elsewhere. But the move also reshapes what Sponsored Products are, and what advertisers should expect from them.
We unpack what this shift means for your campaigns and your bottom line.
The Tradeoff Behind Offsite Reach
Sponsored Products have long been a lower-funnel workhorse, built to capture purchase-ready shoppers already searching on Amazon. The format thrives on intent. When a customer sees your ad while actively browsing Amazon, there’s a good chance they’re already in the consideration phase.
But off Amazon, that intent evaporates. Your Sponsored Product may now surface in a Pinterest scroll, a TikTok feed, or a content site sidebar, reaching shoppers who aren’t necessarily looking to buy. In this environment, your ad can become a distraction, not a solution.
That makes “maximizing reach” a risky bet. You have no control over where your ad shows up, who sees it, or what creative is served. There’s no way to layer on audience targeting, tailor messaging, or shape the buyer journey. These aren’t DSP placements; they’re automated extensions built for scale, not for strategy.
Still, Amazon’s move isn’t without logic. For brands that have saturated their on-Amazon growth, these offsite placements offer a lightweight path to test awareness without building out full DSP campaigns. With low creative lift and automatic campaign integration, the barrier to entry is virtually nonexistent. And for some, that may be exactly the right next step.
Done right, this new setting opens the door to:
- Expanding reach beyond Amazon’s walls
- Capturing new-to-brand audiences
- Testing lightweight upper-funnel exposure at scale
But brands shouldn’t treat this as a default setting; they should treat it as a deliberate tactic. That means measuring offsite performance separately, monitoring spend closely, and applying “maximize reach” only where it makes strategic sense.
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Final Thoughts
Amazon wants its ad products to span the full shopper journey—on and off platform.
From Buy with Prime to Buy for Me, Amazon is actively turning its ecosystem into a connective tissue for all of e-commerce. That includes its ad units.
The Sponsored Products checkbox is just the beginning. The line between Amazon ads and off-Amazon placements is starting to blur. And that means advertisers need to stop thinking of SP as a purely bottom-funnel tactic.
It’s time to manage Sponsored Products strategically, holistically, and with an eye on where your ads actually show up.
Take Control of Offsite Performance
If you’re ready to stop guessing and start managing your Sponsored Products like a full-funnel strategy, Feedvisor’s AI-powered optimization tools can help.
Start your 14-day free trial and gain visibility, control, and smarter campaign performance—on and off Amazon.
