Our benchmarks report reviews common Amazon Ads performance across brands using Triple Whale to monitor and maximize performance. This analysis includes over 2,800 brands for the period of August 1, 2025, to July 31, 2026.

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Additionally, we’ll break down the vertical-specific trends with data from the following industries:

• Beauty
• Home & Garden
• Food & Beverage
• Apparel & Accessories
• Sports & Outdoors
• Pets & Animals
• Electronics
• Toys, Art, & Collectibles 
• Health & Wellness

Overall Benchmarks for Amazon Ads

Amazon’s latest numbers reflect a platform with a structural advantage that few ad channels can claim: shoppers arrive with purchase intent already formed. You get to capture demand rather than build awareness on Amazon, and that dynamic is clearly visible in the data.

CPA fell -3.78% to $13.98, ROAS climbed +9.70% to 3.08, and CVR improved +7.67% to 10.77%, representing a convergence of declining acquisition costs and improving returns that is uncommon in the current advertising environment.

CPM, however, surged +39.18% to $8.08, which was the sharpest year-over-year increase of any metric in these benchmarks. More brands are competing for Amazon’s high-intent audiences, and the cost of reaching them is rising sharply. 

Click-through rate and conversion rate also improved, pointing to a better-aligned advertiser base. But as with most ad platforms, many trends are far more interesting when broken down by industry.

Ad performance benchmarks: by industry

Industry-level benchmarks show how Amazon advertising costs, conversion efficiency, and returns vary across categories. The sections below compare CPA, CPM, CVR, CTR, ROAS, AOV, and MER across the nine industries in this report, giving you a clearer baseline for evaluating your own performance.

Cost per acquisition (CPA) by industry

Amazon’s cost per acquisition (CPA) profile is competitive across nearly every industry in the dataset. Eight of nine industries acquire customers for under $18, and the spread between most categories is relatively tight. 

Toys, Art, & Collectibles posted the lowest CPA at $11.05, followed by Food & Beverage ($12.26) and Apparel & Accessories ($12.97). These consumable and gift-oriented categories are a natural fit for Amazon’s marketplace dynamic, where repeat purchase behavior and product discovery through search drive efficient acquisition. 

Electronics is the clear outlier at $25.02, nearly 2.2x the lowest CPA in the dataset. The category’s high AOV ($108.62) provides enough revenue per transaction to justify the elevated acquisition cost, but it signals that even on a high-intent platform, complex and expensive purchases require more advertising investment to close.

Cost per mille (CPM) by industry

The platform-wide +39.18% cost per mille (CPM) increase is significant, and industry-level data shows pressure landing unevenly across verticals. 

Apparel & Accessories stands out with the lowest CPM at $4.36, a meaningful cost-of-reach advantage that helps explain the category’s strong ROAS (3.46) despite not leading on CVR. Toys, Art, & Collectibles ($5.97) also offers affordable reach and pairs it with the lowest CPA in the dataset.

Health & Wellness ($11.48) and Pets & Animals ($10.71) carry the highest CPMs, driven by the dense advertiser competition in categories where Amazon’s search-based discovery is highly valuable. For brands in these verticals, the combination of elevated CPMs and lower AOVs creates a tighter margin environment that makes conversion efficiency, where both categories genuinely excel, even more critical to profitability.

Conversion rate (CVR) by industry

Amazon’s conversion rate (CVR) figures reflect the platform’s position as a purchase-intent destination rather than a discovery channel. Shoppers searching on Amazon have already made a category decision; the ad’s job is simply to win the transaction. That dynamic drives double-digit conversion rates across several industries — a profile that is specific to Amazon’s marketplace format. 

Pets & Animals leads at 16.33%, followed by Food & Beverage (14.96%) and Health & Beauty (14.10%) — all consumable or replenishment categories where Amazon’s Subscribe & Save dynamic and repeat purchase behavior support strong conversion rates. 

Electronics sits at the bottom at 5.04%, reflecting a longer consideration cycle even among high-intent Amazon shoppers. Across all industries, categories with frequent repurchase cycles tend to convert at the highest rates, while considered or high-ticket purchases trail behind.

Click-through (CTR) rate by industry

Amazon’s click-through rate (CTR) figures reflect the nature of its ad format. Sponsored ads appear within search results and product pages, where shoppers are actively comparing multiple options — meaning clicks carry strong purchase intent even at lower rates. On Amazon, a click is a more qualified signal than on most other formats.

Toys, Art, & Collectibles led with the highest CTR at 0.68%, followed by Sports & Outdoors (0.65%) and Electronics (0.60%). Apparel & Accessories posted the lowest CTR at 0.48%, which is notable given its leading CPM efficiency. This category earns cheap reach but converts a smaller share of impressions into clicks, leaning more on strong CVR and ROAS to deliver overall results.

Return on ad spend (ROAS) by industry

Return on ad spend (ROAS) is strong across the board, with every industry in the dataset delivering at least 2.46, and the top tier clustering between 3.44 and 3.93.

Electronics leads at 3.93, driven largely by its high AOV ($108.62) rather than conversion volume. Sports & Outdoors (3.56), Home & Garden (3.54), Apparel & Accessories (3.46), and Toys, Art, & Collectibles (3.44) round out the top tier, all benefiting from strong product-market fit within Amazon’s search-driven marketplace.

Health & Wellness sits at the bottom at 2.46, where high CPMs ($11.48) and a modest AOV ($41.20) compress returns despite a competitive CVR (11.56%). 

Even so, the range of ROAS outcomes within this dataset is relatively tight, suggesting Amazon’s purchase-intent environment creates a consistent efficiency floor that benefits most categories advertising here.

Average order value (AOV) by industry

Average order value (AOV) on Amazon skews toward everyday and consumable categories, reflecting the platform’s strength in replenishment and high-frequency purchasing. 

Electronics is the lone outlier at $108.62, more than 1.7x the next highest category. Electronics benefits from AOV that compensates for the platform’s highest CPA ($25.02) and lowest CVR (5.04%).

The cluster of categories between $33-$43 (Food & Beverage, Pets & Animals, Beauty, Toys, Art, & Collectibles, Health & Wellness, and Apparel & Accessories) reflects Amazon’s core purchasing dynamic: high-frequency, lower-ticket purchases where strong CVR makes acquisition economics viable even at modest transaction values. 

For brands in these categories, repeat purchase rates and lifetime value drive long-term profitability.

Marketing efficiency ratio (MER) by industry

Marketing efficiency ratio (MER) measures the ratio of total revenue to total ad spend. A higher MER indicates stronger blended efficiency—more revenue generated relative to ad spend.  Health & Wellness leads MER at 0.40, followed by Beauty, Food & Beverage, and Pets & Animals (all at 0.36)

These are all high-frequency replenishment categories where Amazon’s ecosystem of search discovery, Subscribe & Save, and repeat purchase loops generate revenue well beyond the attributed ad interaction. 

Electronics sits at the bottom with 0.24 MER despite leading on ROAS (3.93). The apparent contradiction reflects the category’s high AOV inflating platform-reported returns while the broader revenue-to-spend relationship remains less efficient.

Conclusion

Amazon’s 2026 data reflects a platform where purchase intent drives strong efficiency outcomes across most industries, with declining CPA, improving CVR and ROAS, and a relatively tight performance range between categories. The platform’s search-based format creates a consistent efficiency floor that benefits brands selling products with clear, searchable demand. 

The +39.18% year-over-year CPM increase is the most important number to carry into 2027 planning. Amazon’s auction is maturing, and the cost of reaching its audiences is rising faster than any other metric in this dataset. Brands should model acquisition economics at current CPM levels and watch whether that trend continues — particularly in lower-AOV categories where the margin for error is thinnest.

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