Influencer traffic can bring shoppers to Amazon, but the click is only the beginning. Once shoppers land on your product detail page, your conversion rate, advertising costs, category dynamics, and retargeting strategy determine whether that traffic turns into profitable sales.
SellerApp’s category benchmarks 2026 report gives brands a useful baseline for evaluating what happens after the click. For influencer-led brands, these benchmarks can help answer a practical question: Is the traffic you’re generating actually performing well once it reaches Amazon?
Amazon Advertising Costs Increased, But Efficiency Improved
Amazon’s average CPM increased 47.46% in 2025, from $5.30 to $7.82, according to the data analyzed in SellerApp’s 2026 benchmark report. At the same time, several efficiency metrics improved:
- CPA fell 5.65% to $13.35
- Conversion rate increased 9.97% to 11.02%
- ROAS increased 10.16% to 3.14x
For influencer-driven brands, this creates an important distinction. Higher media costs do not automatically make a campaign unprofitable. If the product detail page converts efficiently, brands can still generate stronger returns from the traffic they acquire.
That makes listing readiness important before scaling creator campaigns. More traffic will not fix weak conversion.
Category Benchmarks Tell You What Good Performance Looks Like
Amazon performance varies significantly by category, so comparing your results with a platform-wide average can be misleading.
SellerApp’s 2026 benchmarks show:
- Grocery & Gourmet: 15.57% conversion at $0.58 CPC
- Pet Supplies: 15.26% conversion
- Beauty & Personal Care: 14.56% conversion
- Electronics: 4.60% conversion with a $104 average order value
- Automotive: 5 to 8% conversion
Consider a creator sending 1,000 visitors to a supplement listing. If 40 shoppers purchase, the resulting 4% conversion rate may look reasonable in isolation.
But the ad-driven conversion benchmark for Health & Wellness is 12.34%, so there may be room to investigate the listing, offer, audience, or traffic quality. Creator traffic from outside Amazon can convert differently, so this benchmark should be used as a reference point rather than a direct target.
The same 4% result would look very different in Electronics, where the benchmark is 4.60%.
That’s why category-level benchmarks are more useful than chasing one universal conversion target.
Health & Wellness Needs A Different Profitability Strategy
Health & Wellness combines strong conversion potential with relatively high advertising costs. SellerApp’s benchmarks put the category at a $1.50 CPC, $11.13 DSP CPM, and 2.46x ROAS.
For brands working with creators in this category, the focus should not necessarily be on reducing CPC at every opportunity. Subscription programs, repeat purchases, and bundles can increase customer value enough to support higher acquisition costs.
That also gives creators a stronger role. Content that explains product use, benefits, and repeat-purchase value can help shoppers understand why the product is worth buying rather than simply generating another click.
Amazon DSP gives influencer traffic another path
Creator campaigns are useful for generating demand, but brands still need a way to reach shoppers who showed interest without purchasing.
Amazon DSP can support that second layer. SellerApp’s benchmark data shows the growing role of DSP in Amazon advertising and highlights how brands can use it to reach shoppers beyond lower-funnel search activity.
SellerApp’s report puts DSP’s new-to-brand purchase rate at 36.5%, with Pets and Beauty reaching approximately 35 to 42%.
A practical funnel could look like this:
Creator content → Amazon product page → DSP retargeting → Sponsored Products → purchase
The creator creates the initial interest. Amazon advertising helps capture and convert that demand.
Attribution Tells You Whether Creator Traffic Is Working
External traffic is difficult to evaluate if you only look at Amazon’s standard campaign reports. Amazon Ads provides Amazon Attribution to help brands measure how external channels such as social, email, and creator campaigns contribute to Amazon conversions.
This matters when allocating budgets. If creator traffic is generating assisted or direct sales, cutting it simply because the creator’s link does not look like the highest-converting channel can lead to a misleading conclusion.
Use attribution alongside category benchmarks. If creator traffic converts below the category norm, investigate the audience, product page, offer, and traffic quality before deciding that the creator campaign is underperforming.
Advertising Efficiency Changes Throughout The Year
Seasonality also affects how far an advertising budget goes.
SellerApp’s report found that October 2025 had the lowest ACoS at 28%, while January 2026 had the highest at 32.5%.
That 4.5-point difference can matter when you’re planning a major creator launch. If a brand knows it will need paid support to convert the demand generated by creators, campaign timing should account for expected advertising efficiency rather than treating every month the same.
Larger Budgets Can Improve Efficiency
SellerApp’s spend-tier analysis shows ACoS declining from 30 to 45% for advertisers spending under $10K per month to 18 to 28% for advertisers spending $250K or more.
That does not mean smaller brands should simply increase spend. Larger advertisers can spread spend across more campaigns, collect more performance data, and optimize allocation with greater precision.
For smaller influencer-led brands, the practical takeaway is different: concentrate spend where the product, audience, and campaign already show signs of working.
Creator campaigns can support that strategy by generating demand while paid campaigns capture shoppers who are already showing purchase intent.
Five Ways Influencer-Driven Brands Can Use These Benchmarks
- Update your cost assumptions. CPMs have moved significantly, so older campaign models may underestimate acquisition costs.
- Check the listing first. Creator traffic cannot compensate for poor conversion fundamentals.
- Benchmark against your category. A 4% conversion rate can mean very different things across categories.
- Measure external traffic. Use attribution to understand how creator campaigns contribute to Amazon sales.
- Plan around efficiency changes. Consider seasonal ACoS patterns when scheduling larger creator pushes.
The Takeaway
Influencer marketing and Amazon advertising work better when they are treated as connected parts of the same customer journey. Creators generate attention and demand. The Amazon ecosystem determines how efficiently that demand converts.
The 2026 benchmarks give brands a way to put that performance into context, from category conversion rates and CPCs to DSP performance, seasonal ACoS, and spend-tier efficiency.
For the complete data across all 12 categories, explore SellerApp’s State of Amazon Advertising 2026 report.