Post | Feed | LinkedIn
By Destaney Wishon · October 20, 2025 · Curated by George's Blog
What percent of your total sales Amazon sales are you investing into your ads? It depends on who you are and what stage you’re in.
In 2020, “good” looked like 3–5%.
By 2022, most healthy brands landed around 8–10%.
In 2024 the new normal sat closer to 10–15% for growth-focused brands.
In 2025 we are seeing 7-10% of search, with more invested into social, DSP, or off-platform ads, but closer to 15% for Amazon only brands.
Here’s how to think about it:
🔶 Fast-growing brands (10–15%)
Growth requires visibility. These brands are actively buying market share, not just protecting it. We see a direct correlation between higher TACoS and long-term rank improvements.
(We also find that the correlation between ad spend and rank can be dependent on competitor activity. If your competitors are driving 10x the traffic you are, you may have to keep up)
🔶 Profit-first brands (5–8%)
If your goal is to stabilize, you can scale back ad spend, but expect slower growth. This range typically applies to brands optimizing for margin or managing cash flow.
🔶 Established brands with high branded search (7–10%)
Your awareness is already doing some of the heavy lifting. Just be mindful that declining TACoS can signal stagnation if you’re not reinvesting into new-customer discovery.
🔶 Amazon-only or new-to-market brands (20–25%)
At launch, you’re paying to earn organic rank. That’s an investment phase, not a loss.
💡 Pro tip: If your TACoS looks “efficient” (say 6%) but 60%+ of your sales are ad-driven, that’s not efficiency, that is risk. You’re over-reliant on ads, and rising CPCs will hit you hard. Organic rank is the moat.