Amazon agency UK: what agencies do and how to choose one

Search for an Amazon marketing agency in the UK and you will find hundreds of firms saying much the same thing. Mr. Prime is one of them, so read this guide with that in mind. We have written it the way we would want any founder to approach any agency, including us: work out what you need done, find out who can actually do it, and check every claim against Amazon’s own records before you give anyone access to your account.

What an Amazon agency actually does

“Amazon agency” covers firms that do very different jobs. The clearest way to compare them is by function. In the accounts we manage, almost all of the value, and most of the risk, sits in six areas.

Two examples show why the operational side matters as much as the ads. Amazon now limits product titles to 75 characters including spaces for most product types, with a separate Item highlights field of 125 characters, and says non-compliant titles may be corrected automatically or left out of search results¹³. An agency still writing long, keyword-stuffed titles is working from an old rulebook.

Account health is the other. Amazon scores every seller account from 0 to 1,000: 200 or more is healthy, 100 to 199 is at risk, and 99 or below means the account is eligible for deactivation or already deactivated¹². A critical violation turns the score to zero and gives you three days to address it before the account is deactivated¹². So ask every agency the same question: who reads our account health notices, and how quickly?

Not every brand needs all six. A brand with a strong in-house designer may only need advertising; a manufacturer new to Amazon may need catalogue work most. Decide which functions you are buying before you compare anyone.

The five kinds of UK Amazon agency

Most firms fall into one of five groups. None is better in general; each suits a different situation.

The type matters because of what nobody is asked to cover. Here is a pattern we have seen in audits, with invented figures.

When an Amazon advertising agency is enough

An Amazon advertising agency, sometimes called a PPC agency, runs Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and display campaigns and reports on them, and usually nothing else. That is enough when the rest of the account is in good shape: listings that convert, stock that keeps up with demand, and someone in your team who reads account health notices. It is not enough when the ads keep running into problems outside the ad console, such as suppressed listings, the wrong FBA size tier or a product that runs out of stock every few weeks, because an advertising agency has no brief to fix them.

If advertising is the only function you need help with, our guide to Amazon PPC management: in-house, agency, freelancer or software compares those options in detail, including how to choose an Amazon PPC agency in the UK.

Amazon consultant vs agency

An Amazon consultant advises and an agency executes. That is the simplest way to tell them apart, although many firms do some of both.

In our experience, a consultant works best when someone inside the business will carry out the plan, and an agency works best when nobody will. The risk with a consultant is a good plan that never gets done; the risk with an agency is work done without anyone in your business understanding why.

The access rules are the same for both. Amazon treats agencies, consultants and contractors alike as service providers: you authorise them for only the roles they need, the access lasts 365 days, and you can remove it at once⁷⁸. Never hand either your login. A paid audit, the starting point we suggest at the end of this guide, is a consultant’s job, which is one way to test a firm before you give it the account.

Do you need an agency at all?

Not every brand does. A founder with a few products, time to learn and unit economics that work can run an account well with Amazon’s own tools. Outside help starts to make sense when mistakes cost more than a fee would: a wide catalogue, several marketplaces, or advertising that has stopped adding profit.

The test is the same for every option: how much extra profit would the agency need to produce to cover its fee, and is that realistic? Our agency pricing guide explains the fee models, and the agency ROI calculator runs the sum for any quote.

How to build a shortlist

Three sources are worth using together:

• The Amazon Ads partner directory. Amazon’s own list of agencies and tool providers that support advertisers, searchable by name². Any verified or advanced status appears on the listing¹.
• The Service Provider Network (SPN). Amazon’s directory of third-party providers for sellers, with categories including account management, advertising optimisation, cataloguing and imaging⁴. You find it in Seller Central under Partner Network, then Find a provider, and can filter by service, location, language or reviews⁵.
• Referrals from brands you trust, ideally at a similar size but not direct competitors.

Then treat the first call as an interview. We would ask any agency, including our own:

1. Who will run our account day to day, and can we meet them before we sign? How many other accounts does that person handle?
2. Which of the six functions do you do yourselves, and which do you subcontract?
3. What do you need to see before you propose a plan? An agency that quotes and plans without looking at your data is selling a template.
4. How do the plans for two of your current clients differ?
5. What is the biggest mistake you see on accounts like ours? People who have done the work give a specific answer quickly.
6. What would you not do for us? Good agencies turn work down, and can tell you why.
7. Which numbers will you report, and where do they come from? Look for total sales, TACoS and profit after advertising from your own Seller Central reports, not only ACoS and ROAS.
8. What happens to our campaigns, data and creative files if we leave?
9. Who reads our account health notices, and how fast do you act on them?

If an agency hasn’t told you something you didn’t want to hear in the last 60 days, they’re managing optics, not your P&L.

How to verify what an agency tells you

Badges and certificates are useful, but only once you know what each one actually certifies. Amazon publishes the criteria.

One timing point. Amazon says partner status decisions are paused through Q4 2026: current statuses stay as they are through the year, and it will share a new structure and criteria before the programme relaunches¹. Until then, a badge tells you less about an agency’s recent activity than it did a year ago. Check again in 2027.

Beyond the badges, three checks take minutes:

• Companies House. Search the agency’s legal name to see its incorporation date, directors, previous names, filed documents and any insolvency information, free¹⁴.
• Case studies. Ask whether the client agreed to be named, and ask to speak to one. A result you cannot check is marketing, not evidence.
• Their numbers. Ask for a before-and-after trend in total sales and profit after advertising for a comparable account, anonymised, rather than a screenshot of ACoS.

Access and ownership: your business keeps the keys

The safest agency relationship is one you can end in a minute without losing anything. Amazon’s permission systems make that possible if you set them up correctly.

Seller Central. Adding users needs a Professional selling plan⁶. Amazon separates two kinds of access⁷:

• Employees are people inside your organisation. You add them under Manage Employees, choose their permissions, and their access has no expiry.
• Service providers are anyone external, including agencies, consultants and contractors. You authorise them by a link they send you or through their SPN listing, approve only the roles they need, and can restrict access by country. Access lasts 365 days and then has to be reauthorised. The provider must be registered in Amazon’s Solution Provider Portal.

You can remove a service provider at any time, and Amazon says removal takes effect immediately⁸. Never share your login instead: Amazon says account credentials are unique, should not be shared, and that you are responsible for the actions of any user you add⁶. A Seller Central account also cannot be transferred⁶, so the primary user, who registered the account and holds every permission, should be someone in your business, never an individual at the agency.

Amazon Ads. The console has four permission levels. Admin can change payment settings, manage users and link accounts; Editor can create and edit campaigns and view billing and reports; Viewer can only look; Custom lets you pick specific tools⁹. Only Admins can invite, change or remove users¹⁰. Keep Admin yourself, with your own payment method, and give the agency Editor. Agencies often manage clients through their own manager account; when they link yours, they choose an access level¹⁰. Ask which level, and check the Users tab under Account access and settings yourself.

Brand Registry. The Rights Owner role goes to the account of the trademark owner that enrolled the brand, and Administrators can assign roles to others¹¹. Amazon’s advice is to give protection roles only to employee accounts or others internal to the brand, and to have more than one Administrator¹¹. The guidance is on Amazon’s US seller blog, but it applies just as well in the UK.

Contract terms that protect you

Fee models, and what a fee should and should not include, are covered in our pricing guide. Whatever the price, these terms are worth having in writing:

• Scope by function. Which of the six areas the agency covers, and the named people who will do it.
• Measures from your own data. Total sales from Seller Central, TACoS and profit after advertising, against the same months a year earlier. Our break-even ACoS guide shows how to work out the margin those numbers depend on.
• Approval for changes that matter. Price changes, new products, listing content on hero products and any budget increase above an agreed ceiling.
• Ownership of everything built for you. Campaign structures, negative keyword lists, search term archives, reports, and creative source files with the rights to use them.
• A clean exit. A short notice period after the first term, a handover pack within an agreed number of days, and confirmation that all access has been removed.
• Policy compliance. A commitment to work within Amazon’s policies. Amazon lists soliciting reviews, non-compliant inserts and manipulating search results or sales rankings among its critical violations¹², and it is your account that pays for them.
• Conflicts. Disclosure of work for direct competitors in your category.

Red flags

• Guaranteed rankings or sales. Nobody controls Amazon’s search results or your competitors.
• A request for your password, or to be the primary user, or to hold your Amazon Ads account or Brand Registry in the agency’s name.
• Badges that do not match the directory, or claims to be a “certified agency” when certifications belong to people³.
• Anything that touches reviews or rankings: review schemes, inserts asking for reviews, or ways to “boost” rank. Amazon treats these as critical violations¹².
• A plan before they have seen your data, or the same plan for every client.
• Reports that only show ACoS and ROAS, with no total sales or profit.
• Nobody can name the person who will run your account, or the contract locks you in with no way out if agreed measures are missed.

A simple way to decide

Narrow the field to two or three agencies, then score each from 1 to 5 on five things: the functions they cover, the people you met, the evidence you could verify, the access and exit terms, and whether the fee passes the break-even test in the agency ROI calculator. If an agency will not let you check something, that tells you what you need to know.

If you are still unsure, buy a small piece of work first, such as a paid audit or a 90-day plan with agreed measures. Mr. Prime is one of the agencies you could put through this process, and if you do, we expect to be held to every test on this page.