Amazon sellers report hidden off-Amazon ad spend quietly draining budgets, with spend only visible in invoices and often producing ROAS below 1%.
Amazon sellers invest heavily in advertising, with daily spends averaging over $298,000. But what if a large chunk of that investment is vanishing on placements you can’t easily track or control?
Sellers are discovering that thousands of dollars are being funneled into low-performing ads across the internet, all without appearing in their primary performance metrics. The toggle to “limit” this spend offers little protection, leaving sellers powerless as their real ACOS skyrockets.
This budget leak stems from hidden off-Amazon ad spend, and understanding how to fight it is now essential.
A Seller's $300,000 Hidden Off-Amazon Ad Spend Battle with Amazon
Prue Millsap, Founder of Beauty by Earth, has posted several times on X about her off-Amazon PPC spend problem, which ate up almost 20% of their ad spend. She reported that beginning in June 2025, Amazon spent over $217,000 of her budget on these external placements, which yielded an extremely low 0.35% Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
Since June 2025 Amazon has spent over 217K of my ad spend on "off Amazon" ad placements through PPC. This isn't shown in Campaign Manager & has an average ROAS of about 0.35%. This is despite my having all campaigns toggled to "limit off-Amazon spend".@amznsellerhelp @amazon pic.twitter.com/xhAasP4FBM
— Prue Millsap (@MillPrue) September 23, 2025
This spending, which was not visible in Campaign Manager, eventually grew to nearly $300,000. Her attempts to stop it by pausing campaigns failed, as the spend simply shifted to new ones, and she reported the deny list feature would not allow an upload.
After she escalated the issue, Amazon’s Advertising Leadership Team provided a final, canned response denying her refund request. The company’s official position stated that an opt-out was not available and refunds would not be processed.
Amazon’s representatives noted that sellers should use the placement report for monitoring and the deny list tool for control. The key points from their final response were:
- A complete list of publisher websites is not shared due to the dynamic nature of the network.
- Performance metrics for these placements are available in the Sponsored Products Placement Report.
- Charges are considered valid because they result from customer clicks and will not be refunded.
- The primary management tool available to sellers is the brand safety deny list to block specific domains.
Multiple representatives from the leadership team sent the exact same word-for-word response, stating that their position was final. They then indicated they would not address the issue any further.
After spending almost 300K that I can't stop on off-Amazon ads through PPC (yes they do this) and asking for something to be done and the case being escalated to the exec team - I get the EXACT response from 3 people. So its not escalated to an exec, its a canned response. pic.twitter.com/XcfszKJ2yb
— Prue Millsap (@MillPrue) September 29, 2025
A breakthrough occurred on October 2nd, after Millsap connected with an Ads Support Executive and an Ads Engineer. They identified a unique technical error specific to her account and confirmed they were taking steps to resolve the situation.
Sellers Report Wasted Budgets From Off-Amazon Placements
Millsap’s experience is not an isolated case. Other sellers have reported similar problems with ad budgets being drained by Hidden Off-Amazon Ad Spend.
One seller, posting under the name bendo111 on Reddit, shared that nearly half of their total PPC budget was going to off-Amazon placements. These ads delivered poor performance, with ACOS well over 100%, making overall campaigns unprofitable.
The seller noted that the real problem lies in visibility. Spend from these placements does not show in Campaign Manager and is only visible on the advertising invoice, which makes it easy to miss.
After reviewing a placement report, they discovered that seemingly healthy ACOS figures in Campaign Manager were misleading. The hidden off-Amazon charges had been driving up costs while delivering minimal sales.
Attempts to use the “limit off-Amazon spend” toggle provided little to no relief. Even after adjustments, the charges continued to flow, leaving the seller with two choices—reduce bids significantly or pause campaigns entirely.
The seller also expressed frustration with Amazon’s support teams. Responses offered no solutions, and the lack of transparency left them struggling to manage costs effectively.
This growing trend shows that sellers face more than isolated glitches. Off-Amazon ad placements have become a widespread challenge, forcing advertisers to watch invoices closely and question the effectiveness of available tools.
Developing Manual Strategies to Combat Hidden Spend
Another Reddit user, Away_Suspect_656, also has the same problem, confirming that they have seen the issue across multiple accounts. They report that off-Amazon placements quietly consume the budget for terrible returns and that the “Limit off-Amazon spend” toggle has a minimal impact.
With no direct way to opt-out, experienced sellers are now creating their own manual workarounds to regain control over their ad spend. These multi-step strategies focus on tighter campaign controls and diligent use of reporting data.
The user shared several tactics that have proven effective for their accounts. These proactive measures include:
- Switching exclusively to manual campaigns that are tightly segmented.
- Using placement and search term reports to target poor-performing ASINs and placements negatively.
- Shifting focus to Sponsored Brands campaigns for certain products to avoid the issue.
- Scaling down bids while using placement modifiers to boost top-of-search visibility.
This user also confirmed that the spend is not transparent within the main Campaign Manager dashboard. Comparing the final invoice against the placement report remains the only reliable method for sellers to verify the full extent of the charges.
The Importance of Manual Audits and Spend Verification
Echoing the sentiments of other sellers, user Waste_Astronaut8644 on Reddit said the impact of the hidden spend can be brutal. They also confirmed that Amazon’s “Limit off-Amazon Spend” setting does not always reflect what is actually happening with an account’s budget.
The user recommended a workaround that involves diligent, manual auditing of advertising data. They advised sellers to regularly review their placement reports and cross-check them against invoices to catch any gaps or unexpected charges.
For those who need assistance, some sellers may look to third-party services for help. The user mentioned seeing a company named Impact Wolves do a solid job at spotting the off-Amazon leakage that is often easy for sellers to miss.
Strategies to Minimize Hidden Off-Amazon Spend
According to Jon Derkits, the practice of placing ads off-Amazon is not new, but it has recently accelerated, leaving many advertisers unsure how to minimize the wasteful spending. He noted that public discussions from sellers made it clear that a more effective solution was not widely known.
Derkits outlined a manual process that offers more control than simply toggling the “Limit Off-Amazon Spend” setting. The solution involves a proactive, step-by-step approach using Amazon’s Placements Report and deny list feature.
To get the spending under control, sellers should follow this procedure. The steps are as follows:
Pull the Placements Report: Navigate to the Sponsored Ads Reports section in the ad console and generate a Placements Report for the last 30 days. You must then filter this report to show only off-Amazon entries.
Build a Deny List: Review the list of external URLs and identify any irrelevant or underperforming websites. Save these domains into the required template file format (.CSV, .TSV, or .XLSX).
Upload the Deny List: Go to the “Deny list” setting within the administration section of the ad console. Upload the file you created to block your ads from appearing on those sites going forward.
This is not a one-time fix and requires ongoing maintenance for the best results. Derkits advises that sellers, or the Amazon agency managing their account, should repeat this entire process every 30 days to keep the deny list updated and effectively manage external placements.
Alarm Raised Over Hidden Spend and Data Gaps
In one episode of That Amazon Ads Podcast, the hosts raised urgent questions about a sudden and dramatic spike in off-Amazon spend for Sponsored Products campaigns. They noted that the previously inconsequential placement was now consuming large portions of their clients’ budgets with little explanation.
While Amazon began allowing Sponsored Products to run off-site around 2023, most sellers saw negligible spend, often less than 3% of their total budget. Due to the historically poor performance of off-Amazon ads, this feature was not a major concern until the recent, unexplained increase.
The hosts observed a drastic decline in performance from this new wave of external placements. They shared several alarming metrics from their accounts, including:
- Conversion rates dropping by as much as 83% compared to on-Amazon placements.
- Off-Amazon ACOS reaching as high as 80% in campaigns with much lower overall targets.
- Off-Amazon placements becoming the highest-spending portion of a campaign seemingly overnight.
The most alarming discovery was a major data discrepancy between different reporting sources. In one example, the Amazon Ad Console reported about $900 in campaign spend, while data pulled from the API revealed the true spend was closer to $1,800, with the difference being unreported off-Amazon costs.
This data gap raised serious questions about billing and attribution. The hosts questioned where the spend was actually going and whether brands would later be charged for thousands of dollars in ad spend that was never visible in their campaign dashboards.
The hosts also discussed a new “Minimize spend” toggle, noting that campaigns were defaulted to “Maximize reach,” a term they equated with wasted spend. Even after changing the setting, its effectiveness in curbing the unwanted placements was unproven at the time of the recording.
Kevin Sanderson, Marketing and Partnerships Manager at My Amazon Guy“There is a ton of wasted ad spend hiding in your account and you probably don’t even know it. In many cases, these unnoticed targets quietly drain hundreds, if not thousands of dollars before sellers realize what’s happening.”
