Bulk operations for Sponsored Brands campaigns

The campaign type with the creative dependency

Sponsored Brands campaigns are the banner-style ads at the top of search results — your brand logo, a custom headline, and 1–3 of your products in a horizontal layout. They're powerful for brand awareness and for defending your own branded searches. They also have unique requirements that make bulk operations more complicated than for Sponsored Products: brand registry assets (logo, custom images, video) that must exist before you can reference them in a bulk sheet, and a separate worksheet with different columns than SP.

This article walks through what's involved in managing SB via bulk operations: when the bulk approach pays off, the unique cells you'll deal with, why most SB work still touches the UI for creative upload, and how to think about the bulk workflow for SB.

Why SB bulk operations are harder than SP

Three things make Sponsored Brands trickier:

• Creative assets must be pre-uploaded. Your brand logo, custom images, and any video you want to use exist in Amazon's Brand Registry asset library. The bulk sheet references them by Asset ID — but you can't create the assets via bulk sheet. They must already exist. So the workflow is: upload assets in the UI → then use bulk for campaign management.
• The sheet structure differs from SP. Sponsored Brands lives on its own worksheet ("Sponsored Brands Campaigns" or "SB Multi Ad Group Campaigns" depending on which format your campaigns use). It has different columns, including Brand Entity ID, Brand Name, Brand Logo Asset ID, Custom Image Asset ID, Creative Headline, Creative ASINs, Video Media IDs, Landing Page URL, and Landing Page ASINs.
• Bid optimization options differ. SB campaigns can choose between automated bid management and manual bids, with different optimization goals (Conversions, Page Visits, Brand Impressions). The bulk sheet captures these settings in cells unique to SB.

For these reasons, most sellers do their first SB campaign in the UI to upload assets and learn the structure, then use bulk operations for ongoing management. Pure bulk-only SB creation is possible but uncommon.

The two SB sheet formats

Amazon supports two SB campaign formats with two different worksheets in the bulk download:

• Sponsored Brands Campaigns — the legacy format. One campaign = one creative + one ad group with keywords or product targets. Most older SB campaigns are here.
• SB Multi Ad Group Campaigns — the newer format, introduced in 2023. One campaign can have multiple ad groups, each with its own creative and targeting. More flexible.

New SB campaigns generally go in the SB Multi Ad Group format. Existing legacy SB campaigns stay on the older sheet. Both are supported indefinitely as of 2026.

What you can manage via SB bulk operations

For existing SB campaigns:

• Adjust daily budgets
• Change campaign state (enable, pause, archive)
• Update bid optimization strategy
• Add/remove keywords (with positive and negative match types similar to SP)
• Add/remove product targets
• Adjust per-keyword and per-product-target bids
• Change start and end dates

For new SB campaigns (less common but possible):

• Create the campaign shell with references to pre-uploaded creative assets
• Add ad groups (for Multi Ad Group format)
• Add keywords and product targets

You can't do via bulk operations:

• Upload new brand logos, custom images, or videos (must be done in Brand Registry UI)
• Approve or modify creatives undergoing review
• Change brand registration details

Key columns unique to SB

The Sponsored Brands sheet has several columns that don't appear in the Sponsored Products sheet. The most important:

• Brand Entity ID: Amazon's internal ID for your brand. Visible in your existing SB campaigns once you've created at least one.
• Brand Name: The display brand name.
• Brand Logo Asset ID: Reference to your uploaded logo. Required for most SB ad formats.
• Custom Image Asset ID: For SB ads that use a custom image instead of (or alongside) product images.
• Video Media IDs: For Sponsored Brands Video. Reference to the uploaded video asset.
• Creative Headline: The text headline that appears in the ad. Constraints on length and prohibited words.
• Creative ASINs: The product ASINs that appear in the ad (comma-separated for multi-product ads). Usually 1–3 ASINs.
• Landing Page URL: Where the ad clicks lead. Can be an Amazon Store page, a custom URL on Amazon, or a curated product list.
• Landing Page ASINs: If the landing page is a list, the ASINs that make up the list.
• Ad Format: "product collection," "store spotlight," "video," etc. Determines which other cells are required.
• Bid Optimization: "Conversions," "Page Visits," or "Brand Impressions." Different from SP's Bidding Strategy.

The realistic SB bulk workflow

Most sellers managing SB through bulk operations follow this pattern:

1. First-time setup in the UI. Upload your brand logo to the Brand Registry. Create your first SB campaign through the UI to get familiar with the creative format, the Ad Format options, and to confirm your creative passes Amazon's review.
2. Download the bulk sheet after your first SB campaign is approved and running. The downloaded sheet has the SB Campaigns worksheet populated. Look at it — note the Brand Entity ID, the Asset IDs, the Ad Format strings. These are values you'll reuse.
3. Build new SB campaigns by copying the working row. The fastest way to create a second SB campaign via bulk is to copy the first campaign's row in the sheet, change the unique fields (Campaign ID, Campaign Name, Daily Budget, Keywords, etc.), and upload as Create. Reusing the same Asset IDs means you don't need to upload new creative.
4. Manage targeting and bids in bulk. Once the campaign is live, all the keyword/product-target/bid management for that SB campaign happens in bulk just like SP. The sheet structure for these rows is similar to SP keyword and product-target rows.

This hybrid approach — UI for creative, bulk for management — is the standard.

Strategic notes specific to SB

A few SB-specific considerations:

• SB campaigns are slower to optimize than SP. The creative quality drives a lot of performance — if your headline isn't right or the image isn't clicking, no amount of bid tuning fixes it. Iterating on creative requires UI work, not bulk.
• Branded keywords are SB's sweet spot. SB on your own brand name (defensive branded) often delivers exceptional ROAS — shoppers searching your brand convert at high rates, and SB's prominent placement defends against competitors. This is often the first SB campaign sellers run.
• SB Video is a separate format with its own creative. If you have video content, SB Video can outperform static SB significantly. But video creative is even more involved to produce and approve. Many sellers skip it; those who don't often see strong results.
• Daily budgets on SB tend to run higher than SP. SB CPCs are typically $0.80–$2.50 (versus $0.50–$1.50 for SP), and the click volume per campaign is lower. Plan for budgets that match.

Common SB bulk mistakes

• Referencing an Asset ID that's been deleted or replaced. If you've removed a logo from your Brand Registry and try to upload a bulk row referencing its ID, the upload fails. Always work with current Asset IDs from your latest Brand Registry state.
• Wrong Ad Format strings. Amazon's accepted values are specific. Get them from a working row in your downloaded sheet rather than guessing.
• Creative Headline violations. Headlines have constraints — character limits, prohibited words, no superlatives without proof. A row with a non-compliant headline uploads but the creative goes into pending review, and may be rejected. Use headlines you know pass Amazon's policies.
• Creative ASINs that don't belong to your brand. The ASINs you reference in Creative ASINs must be ASINs your brand owns (per Brand Registry). Trying to reference unowned ASINs fails or causes creative rejection.
• Mixing SB and SB Multi Ad Group formats. The two worksheets are different; you can't move a row between them. If you have campaigns of both types, work on each worksheet independently.

Should you use bulk for SB at all?

Honest answer: for small accounts with 1–3 SB campaigns, the UI is fine. The overhead of mastering SB-specific bulk-sheet columns isn't worth it.

For larger accounts with 5+ SB campaigns and ongoing optimization needs (bid adjustments, keyword harvesting, etc.), bulk is meaningfully faster — for the management work, not the initial creative.

For agencies managing SB across many brands, bulk is essential. The per-campaign overhead of UI work doesn't scale.

Next steps

Related articles:

• Sponsored Display via bulk operations — coming next. Similar pattern of having its own worksheet and unique requirements.
• Bid adjustments — applies to SB keywords and product targets just like SP, once the campaign is live.
• Negative keywords — also applies to SB campaigns. The bulk row structure is the same idea, just on the SB sheet.

Amazon's SB ecosystem is more involved than SP — managing brand assets, creative review, and the broader brand strategy. BulkSheet Pro handles the management side (keyword updates, bid adjustments, negative additions for SB) but creative work remains in Amazon's UI as it should. The split is: creative in UI, optimization in bulk. Try it free →