How to Choose an Amazon Agency: Types, Fees, Red Flags.

Choosing an Amazon agency comes down to one question: which job are you hiring for? There are four kinds: full service account management, PPC only, brand protection and compliance, and content and creative. Most brands doing $1M to $50M a year need one of the first two, with the other two bought as projects or add-ons. Pick the type first, then interview for it. Shopping for "an Amazon agency" without that step is how brands end up paying a full service retainer for what is really an ads problem.

We run our own Amazon accounts alongside client work, so we have sat on both sides of this table. This guide covers the four types, the questions to ask, how agencies charge, the red flags, and the first 90 days. For the short version of what we do, start with our Amazon marketing agency page.

The four kinds of Amazon agency.

Full service account management. One team runs the whole account: catalog and listings, advertising, inventory and FBA logistics, account health, case management, pricing, promotions and reporting. The fit is a brand without an Amazon operator in house, or one whose Amazon person is drowning. The risk is paying for breadth you do not use, and never building internal knowledge of your own channel.

PPC only. These shops run Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display and often DSP, and nothing else. Specialists tend to be sharper on bidding and campaign structure because that is all they do. The fit is a brand with a competent in-house ops person whose weak spot is paid media. Our Amazon PPC management page describes the version of this we run.

Brand protection and compliance. This group handles Brand Registry, counterfeits, unauthorized resellers, hijacked listings, MAP enforcement, IP complaints and account suspensions. The fit is an established brand with a distribution network that leaks. If you are not enrolled yet, read how to get Amazon Brand Registry first, because almost everything in this category depends on it.

Content and creative. Listing copy, main images, A+ Content, Brand Store design, video and photography. This is usually project work rather than a retainer. The fit is a launch, a rebrand, or a catalog that converts badly despite decent traffic.

Which type your brand actually needs.

Start with the gap, not the vendor. If nobody on your team logs into Seller Central weekly and understands the account, you need full service, at least for the first year. If you have that person and sales are capped by ad efficiency, you need PPC only. If your product is genuine, your listings are good, and margin is still bleeding because unauthorized sellers sit 15% under list, you need brand protection. If traffic is fine and conversion is not, you need creative.

Pull your last 90 days of Seller Central data and write down the single metric that is wrong: TACoS, conversion rate, Buy Box percentage, stockout days, or account health. That tells you the type. Then ask what your team would do about it if nobody else was coming. That tells you whether a retainer or a project fits. Write both down before you take a sales call.

Questions to ask before you sign.

Send these in writing before the first call. The quality of the written answers tells you as much as the answers themselves.

• Who will work on my account day to day, and how many accounts do they carry? Why it matters: the person on the sales call is rarely the person in your account.
• Will the account stay in my Seller Central with your team added as users? Why it matters: anything else is a hostage situation. Your login, your email, your two-factor device.
• Will I have full access to the advertising console and every report at all times? Why it matters: an agency that hides the ad console is hiding something, usually spend quality or structure.
• What is your fee model, and what happens to your fee when my ad spend doubles? Why it matters: this exposes the incentive written into the contract.
• Which metric do you optimize to, ACoS or TACoS, and why? Why it matters: ACoS alone rewards cutting spend until growth stops. Read ACoS vs TACoS before the call so you can push back.
• Show me a 90-day plan for an account like mine. Why it matters: an operator has a sequence. A salesperson has a slide.
• How do you handle inventory and stockouts with my team? Why it matters: ads spending into a listing that goes out of stock is the most common waste on Amazon.
• What happens when the account gets a policy warning or a suspension? Why it matters: you want a process, a named owner and a response time, not "that rarely happens."
• What is the contract term and the notice period? Why it matters: month to month after a short initial term is normal. Twelve months with auto renewal is a warning sign.
• What do you need from me each week and each month? Why it matters: engagements fail when the brand does not ship product, approve creative or answer compliance questions.
• Who owns the creative, campaign structures and data when we part ways? Why it matters: you should leave with everything, since it all lives in your account anyway.
• What do you not do? Why it matters: a shop that claims to do everything equally well is usually average at all of it.
• Can I speak with a current client at my size in a non-competing category? Why it matters: references at your scale catch problems that case studies hide.

How Amazon agencies charge.

There are four common models and each one rewards a different behavior. We are not quoting figures here because they move with scale and category. Ask every shortlisted agency for a sample invoice instead.

Percentage of ad spend. The agency earns more when you spend more. That aligns with growth if the spend is efficient and misaligns badly if it is not. Pair it with a TACoS target in the contract or it quietly rewards bloat.

Percentage of sales. The agency earns more when total Amazon revenue grows, which is closer to what you want. The catch is attribution. Brand growth from your TV buy or a viral clip shows up in Amazon sales and the agency gets paid on it. Define the baseline and what counts.

Flat retainer. Predictable for you, and it removes the spend incentive. The downside is the agency has no upside for growing you, so service can drift toward maintenance. Flat works when scope is tight and reviewed quarterly.

Hybrid. A lower retainer plus a performance component tied to incremental sales or profit. This is the most common structure in the $1M to $50M range because it shares risk both ways, as long as the baseline period and excluded SKUs are defined. Whatever the model, ask for the fee as a percentage of your Amazon contribution margin, not revenue. That is the number your CFO will ask about.

Red flags.

• Guaranteed rankings or guaranteed sales. Nobody controls Amazon's ranking algorithm. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or planning to break terms of service inside your account.
• They want your Seller Central login. Your account, your primary email, your two-factor device. Agencies get added through User Permissions with the roles they need. If they insist on the primary login, walk.
• No access to the advertising console. Reports in a PDF are not access. If you cannot log in and see every campaign, bid and spend line, you cannot audit the work.
• Lock-in contracts. Twelve-month terms with automatic renewal and a long notice period protect the agency from its own churn. A 90-day initial term and then month to month is fair.
• Review manipulation. Incentivized reviews, review swaps, review clubs, or any plan to suppress negative reviews violates Amazon policy. The account that gets suspended is yours, not theirs.

What the first 90 days should look like.

If 90 days pass and you have not seen the findings document, the restructure, and a quarterly review with numbers you recognize, the problem is the agency, not Amazon. Our piece on what to expect from an Amazon marketing agency goes deeper on the month by month cadence.

What usually goes wrong.

• The brand runs out of stock in month two and the agency gets blamed for the sales drop.
• Nobody agreed on a target metric, so the agency reports ACoS, the CFO wants profit, and every monthly review is an argument.
• The agency manages the ads and nobody manages the listings, so conversion decays while spend climbs.
• A hijacker takes the Buy Box. The brand assumes the agency handles it. The agency assumed it was out of scope.

Most of these are fixed by a one-page scope document and a shared weekly dashboard. Insist on both before kickoff.

Where the agency stops and your team begins.

An agency can run your ads, fix your listings, manage your cases and protect your brand on Amazon. It cannot make product, set your pricing strategy, fund inventory, decide which retail partners you are willing to lose, or sign the distribution agreements that cause or prevent unauthorized sellers. Those stay with you. The best engagements have one accountable person on the brand side who answers questions within a day and makes decisions within a week.

If you know which type you need and want to see if we fit, Hire Theory Road.