DSP Automation

DSP Automation repeats decisions you would otherwise make by hand in DSP Manager: lower a max bid when a line item stops returning, raise a cap that keeps running out, add the next flight before the current one ends. A rule states what has to be true, what it changes, and the limit it may not cross.

It is separate from Automation, which works on Sponsored Ads. Open it from Amazon DSP › DSP Automation in the App sidebar.

How it fits together

Part	What it is
Rule	One condition and one change, of one type: Bidding, Frequency or Budget. Each rule has its own on/off switch
Objective	A named set of rules. A rule can sit in several Objectives
Order assignment	An order with an Objective is automated: its rules check the order and its line items, including line items added later. An order has at most one Objective
Exclusion	An order or line item the rules skip, for some or all rule types, for a time or with no end date

Only orders with an Objective are checked. An order without one is never touched. See Objectives, orders and exclusions.

The parts of a rule

Every rule, whatever its type, has these:

Part	What it does
Name	Up to 120 characters, different from the seller’s other rules
Priority	0 to 1000. When two rules would change the same thing on the same line item or order, the higher number wins; on a tie, the rule created first wins. The other is logged as Stopped by “…”
Conditions	All of these are true — up to 10, each a metric, ≥ or ≤, and a number
Look back (days)	The window the conditions are measured over: 1 to 90 days, ending yesterday — or earlier, by the days skipped
Skip latest days	0 to 14 most recent days left out of the window, because DSP purchases keep arriving for 14 days. 3 to start with
Minimum impressions	Below this many impressions in the window, the rule doesn’t check that line item or order. 1,000 to start with
Cooldown (days)	After DSP Automation changes something, how long before the rule may change the same thing on the same line item or order again

The type decides which conditions are required and what the rule changes: see the Bidding, Frequency and Budget rules. A rule’s type can’t be changed after it is saved; create a new rule instead.

Metrics a condition can use

Impressions · Clicks · Spend · Total cost · Purchases · Sales · ROAS · Total ROAS · ACOS · eCPM · CTR · DPVR · ATCR · Purchase rate · eCPDPV · eCPP · NTB sales % · Viewability

Rates come from the totals of the window, not an average of days: ROAS is sales ÷ total cost. Spend is total cost minus the Amazon DSP fee — the same spend Delivery rate uses — and Total cost includes the fee. A line item that spent with no sales has an ACOS of ∞, so ACOS ≥ 100% catches it rather than skipping it.

Frequency rules add three reach and frequency metrics; see Frequency rule.

Set up in five steps

The Automation Overview page lists the same steps and ticks off the setup steps that are done:

1. Create a bidding, frequency or budget rule. New rules start switched off.
2. Group rules into an Objective.
3. Assign the Objective to orders.
4. Check what would change in Preview.
5. Turn the rules on.

Switching a rule on asks first — Turn On Rule? — and says what the rule will do by itself and for which orders. A rule whose settings need fixing can’t be switched on.

The pages

Section	Page	What it holds
	Automation Overview	Rules on, Objectives, orders automated, exclusions, and the last run
Scope & Assignments	Order Assignments	Every order, its Objective and any exclusion. Assign or exclude several at once
	Objectives	Your Objectives, their rules and their orders
	Excluded	Everything the rules currently skip
Automation Rules	Bidding · Frequency · Budget	The rules of each type
Monitoring	Preview	What the rules would change now, with Apply on rows that will change
	Runs & Change Logs	The last 30 runs and every change in them, with Roll Back

On a phone only the Overview opens; the other pages need a computer.

Who can use it

Access is set per person, per seller, with the DSP Automation permission:

Level	Means
None	DSP Automation and the Objective column in DSP Manager are not visible
View	Read every page and run Preview. No DSP Automation setting can be changed: “Read-only mode — you can view DSP Automation, but cannot change it for this seller.”
Edit	Create, change and switch rules; create Objectives and assign them to orders; exclude orders and line items

The seller owner has Edit. Two things go through DSP Manager’s send window, so they need DSP Manager · Edit and an advertiser that allows sending: Apply in Preview, which needs only View on DSP Automation, and Roll Back in Runs, which needs Edit on both. See Roles and permissions.

DSP Automation needs a linked Amazon DSP advertiser. Without one, its pages say “This seller has no Amazon DSP advertiser linked.”

When changes are sent

DSP Automation runs once a day, after the DSP sync. A run checks every switched-on rule against the orders its Objectives are assigned to, then sends the changes it found.

Automatic sending is not switched on by default. It runs only when Vendlen has switched the DSP Automation job on, and not off for your seller. Until then nothing runs by itself: Preview works, and you can send a change from it yourself. A line at the top of every DSP Automation page says which case you are in:

The line says	Means
“Automatic sending is on. Rules that are switched on run daily at … Pacific, after the DSP sync, and send their changes to Amazon DSP.”	Rules send by themselves
“The DSP Automation job is not set up yet, so rules do not run on a schedule.”	Nothing runs by itself
“Automatic sending is off: the DSP Automation job is switched off in Admin › Jobs.”	Nothing runs by itself. Only Vendlen can switch the job on
“Automatic sending is off for this seller in Admin › Jobs.”	The same, for this seller only
“Automatic sending is off: this advertiser does not allow changes from Vendlen.”	Sending is switched off for the advertiser
“Automatic sending is paused: the Amazon apply switch is off. Scheduled runs are dry runs until it is back on.”	Vendlen’s emergency stop is on. Runs check and log, and send nothing

Even with sending on, each change also needs what DSP Manager needs to send: a connection and plan that allow live sending. If one is missing at send time, the change is logged as Skipped — Not sent (…) with the reason.

A run is skipped when the DSP data is not fresh: “DSP data not synced in the last 26 hours”. Rules do not act on old numbers.

What a run does, in order

1. Checks the data. The last DSP sync must have succeeded within 26 hours.
2. Evaluates every rule, the same way Preview does, and logs each match — to send, blocked with a reason, or stopped by a higher-priority rule.
3. Sends in a fixed order: status, then max bid, then frequency cap, then budget caps, then flights.
4. Checks again before each change. The rule must still be on and unchanged since the check, its Objective still assigned to the order, and the order or line item not excluded. Otherwise the change is skipped: “Rule, Objective or exclusion changed during the run”.
5. Reads Amazon DSP first. If the value changed in Amazon DSP since the check — someone edited it in the console or in DSP Manager — the change is skipped: “Changed on Amazon since the check”. A change you made by hand is left alone; the next run starts from the new value.
6. Logs the result in Runs and in DSP Change history, with the rule’s name.

Only one run per seller happens at a time.

Safeguards

• Nothing runs on an order without an Objective, or on anything excluded.
• Every change has a limit you set. Max bids stay between the rule’s lowest and highest values, frequency caps between its lowest and highest caps, budget caps under its ceiling, and new flight budgets between its lowest and highest budget. A Budget rule that adds flights must also have a stop date or a most-flights limit.
• A change never reverses direction. A rule that lowers a value never raises it to reach its lower limit, and the other way round.
• New line items are left alone for 7 days. Bidding and Frequency rules skip a line item that started less than 7 days ago, while Amazon is still learning.
• Each field changes at most once per run, and cooldowns keep a rule from changing the same thing again too soon.
• Nothing is archived or deleted, and targeting is never changed.
• Setting a max bid to Automatic is never sent by a run. It removes the CPM limit, so it can only be applied by hand from Preview.
• Flights it adds cannot be removed, by Vendlen or by Roll Back — only changed in Amazon DSP.
• Sellers on a seat managed by Vendlen need enough balance for each new flight, or the flight is skipped.

A reasonable way to adopt it

Start with one rule, in one Objective, on one order. Leave it switched off and read Preview for a few days: the rows it would change, and the numbers beside them, tell you whether its conditions mean what you intended. Switch it on, then read Runs after its first run.

Be slowest with Budget rules. A raised cap lets an order spend more each day, and a flight it adds keeps the order spending after the current flight ends.