Amazon Sponsored Brand Video ads: specs, script, and examples

Amazon publishes the full technical list on its own ad specs page, and it is worth reading from the source rather than from a roundup, because the numbers move. These are the values Amazon states as of September 2026.

Two of those lines decide whether a shoot succeeds or has to be redone, and they are the two that briefs usually leave out: the aspect ratio and the safe area. The lower right corner is where Amazon draws its own interface over the ad, so a caption parked there gets covered. Everything else on the list is something an editor fixes on export.

Amazon allows 6 to 45 seconds and recommends 20 or less. The more useful question is how much script that actually buys you, and almost nothing written about this placement answers it. On-camera delivery for ads runs around 150 words a minute, which is 2.5 words a second, so the runtime converts straight into a word budget.

So the recommended length holds about 45 spoken words. That is one sentence of hook, one of benefit, one of proof and one short call to action, and there is no room for a brand story or a second feature. Sellers who write a 120 word script and then ask an editor to fit it into 20 seconds get a video that sounds rushed, which reads as an ad rather than as a recommendation.

The practical move is to write to the word budget from the start, then cut. If you want the arithmetic done for you, the brief generator writes the scene list to the runtime you pick rather than to a page count.

Not without damaging it. Amazon accepts 16:9 square pixel only, and its own design guidance says to avoid the black, colored or blurred bars that appear when a clip is the wrong shape. A 9:16 phone video placed in a 16:9 frame is pillarboxed by definition, which means the two things Amazon asks for are in direct conflict.

This matters more than it sounds, because vertical is the default everywhere else a brand buys creator video. TikTok, Reels and Shorts are all 9:16, so a creator who is not told otherwise will film vertical, and the footage that works for every other placement is the one footage that cannot run here.

The fix costs nothing if it is in the brief and a reshoot if it is not: ask the creator to film the whole sequence twice, once framed 16:9 and once 9:16, in the same session with the same setup. Some creators will instead shoot 4K 16:9 and let you crop a vertical cut out of the center, which works when the action stays central but loses the tight vertical framing that makes creator video look native. Either way the decision belongs in the brief, before anyone presses record. Our Amazon UGC creators page covers the wider set of Amazon placements, and short-form video ads covers the vertical side.

The units that hold up share a shape rather than a style. The product is on screen in the first frame, not after a logo animation, because the ad autoplays into a scrolling search results page and the shopper decides in about a second whether to keep looking. One feature is demonstrated rather than four described. The captions carry the whole message on their own, since the unit starts muted and a large share of shoppers never turn sound on. And the end card is a real card with the brand name and logo, not a fade to black.

Be careful with the performance numbers that circulate about this placement. Agency posts routinely quote lifts in sales or conversion from adopting Sponsored Brands video; those figures come from the agencies, not from a published Amazon study you can check, and they describe a mixed bag of accounts and categories. What Amazon does state plainly on its own specs page is the technical and design guidance in the table above. We would rather give you the checkable half than repeat a percentage we cannot source.

A useful test before you approve a cut: mute it, watch it once, and see whether you can still name the product and the reason to buy. If not, the captions are doing too little and the voiceover is doing too much.

There are three routes and they are priced an order of magnitude apart. Adding a finished video to a listing does not itself cost anything for eligible sellers, though which sellers are eligible has changed and is reported inconsistently, so check what your own Seller Central account offers rather than trusting a blog post about it. The production is where the money goes.

The ranges above are the going market rates we see quoted across seller-facing guides, not figures from a single vendor price list, and they move with category and licensing. Treat them as a budgeting starting point and get real quotes.

The number that actually decides value is cost per usable placement, not cost per video. One 16:9 shoot briefed only for Sponsored Brands gives you one asset. The same session briefed for coverage, a 16:9 master, a vertical cut, feature close-ups and a silent A+ loop, costs barely more and fills four placements, because the expensive parts are the creator's time and the shipping of your product, not the extra minutes of recording. Brief for all of it up front or pay twice.

UGCMarketplace prices the briefing step only: the first brief is free with no account, and Pro is $29 a month for unlimited briefs and scripts with clean downloads. What the creator charges to film it is separate and agreed directly with them. The pricing page has the detail, and how much UGC content costs breaks down the wider market.

A Sponsored Brands brief is shorter than a normal UGC brief and stricter, because the placement has hard constraints and a tiny word budget. Six things have to be in it, and the first two are the ones that get left out.

Film 16:9 horizontal, at 1920x1080 or better. Keep captions and key text out of the lower right corner. Open on the product in the first frame with no intro card. Target 20 seconds of finished runtime, which is about 45 spoken words. Deliver burned-in captions or a caption file, because the unit plays muted. Finish on an end card with the brand name and logo.

Everything else is the ordinary creative half: which single feature to demonstrate, which objection from the negative reviews to answer on camera, what the product must look like next to something familiar so scale reads correctly, and what the creator must not say. That last one matters on Amazon, where claims about competitors and unverifiable health or performance benefits create listing risk rather than just a weak ad.

One thing this brief is not is a request for a review. Commissioning a creator to film content you own and place in your own ads is ordinary brand production. Paying anyone for a review in the Amazon reviews section is against Amazon's community guidelines, and the two must stay separate in the brief and in the contract. The rights side is covered in UGC usage rights, and the listing placements are covered in our guide to UGC for Amazon listings.