The Dangerous Amazon Ad Optimization Trap Nobody Talks About


Last-Touch Sales Attribution.

It seems small, but it changes everything about how you optimize.

Imagine this:
A customer searches "Sandals for Women." Your Sponsored Product Ad (#1) appears. They click and view your listing. On your product page, they spot another Sponsored Product Ad (#2). Curious, they click on Ad #2, but quickly lose interest. They go back and buy the first product.

Guess which ad gets the credit?
Sponsored Ad #2, which didn’t lead to the sale.

The problem is clear.
When optimizing, Ad #1—the one that truly brought the sale—gets no credit.

You might wrongly reduce its spend or even pause it. Meanwhile, Ad #2 looks like a winner, though it didn’t help much.

This misleads your decisions and hurts sales.

Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) fixes this. It could offer different multi-touch attribution that shows the real impact of each ad.

But AMC can feel complex, even out of reach.

Good news:
Amazon is releasing Multi-Touch Attribution right in Seller Central.

You can now clearly see both Last-Touch and Multi-Touch results side by side. Ads you thought were costly might actually be driving your sales.

Will you use multi-touch attribution or stick with Last-Click?

I believe how we measure ROAS and optimize ads will change greatly.