Amazon internal tests find AI-generated advertising imagery produces average 5% sales lift for participating brands
Internal Amazon testing of its AI Image Generator tool between October 2023 and June 2024 found that brands using AI-generated lifestyle imagery in advertising campaigns saw an average of nearly 5% more sales per advertiser — with click-through rates up to 40% higher for lifestyle versus plain product images.
Background
Product advertising on Amazon has traditionally relied on product-only images against white backgrounds. Research and Amazon's own data consistently show that lifestyle imagery — showing products in real-world contexts — outperforms plain product images on click-through rate, but producing lifestyle photography is expensive and time-consuming, particularly for the long tail of smaller Amazon sellers.
What Was Implemented
- Deployed Amazon AI Image Generator to participating advertisers in the Amazon Ads platform
- Tool generates lifestyle background settings for product images using Generative AI, without brand-supplied backgrounds
- Advertisers can generate multiple lifestyle image options and test which drives best performance
- Added aspect ratio scaling capabilities for cross-placement use
- Tool deployed across Sponsored Brands ad format for mobile placements
Results
Internal Amazon testing (October 2023–June 2024): brands using Image Generator saw on average nearly 5% more sales per advertiser . Lifestyle images in mobile Sponsored Brands ads achieve CTR up to 40% higher than standard product images. Campaign submission volume among Image Generator users increased by over 20% , indicating increased creative testing. All metrics are self-reported by Amazon.
Lessons
- Lifestyle context in advertising imagery consistently outperforms plain product images on CTR, which in turn drives measurable sales lift — even a modest lift (~5%) across a large advertiser base represents meaningful aggregate revenue impact
- AI image generation democratizes lifestyle advertising for smaller brands by removing the design resource barrier
- Increased creative testing volume (20%+ more campaign submissions) is itself a signal of improved advertiser efficiency — more A/B tests mean faster optimization cycles
- Platform-level AI tools benefit from network effects: as more advertisers use and optimize the tool, aggregate data improves ad targeting and format guidance