Amazon Is Deprecating Product Collections in February 2027. Here Is What to Migrate and When.

Amazon launched Sponsored Brands Collections in April 2026 as the direct replacement for the legacy Product Collections format. The old format stops being supported in February 2027. If you are still running Product Collection campaigns, the migration window is open now, and the performance case for moving is strong. What Changed and Why It Matters The legacy Product Collections format allowed up to three ASINs per ad, required a custom headline, and let advertisers upload lifestyle images for top-of-search placements. That format is being retired. Sponsored Brands Collections replaces it with two formats, Automatic and Manual, both supporting three to ten ASINs per ad instead of three. Early test data from Amazon shows the new format delivers 3.3x higher click-through rate, 14.2% higher ROAS, and 81.9% more orders per search compared to legacy Product Collections. The reason for that lift is structural. More products per ad unit means broader catalog exposure in a single placement. And when shoppers reach the continuation experience, either a dynamically created landing page or a Brand Store, same-brand conversion reaches 25.8% versus 15.9% on a single product detail page, with 2.4x more products from the brand viewed per session. Automatic vs. Manual Collections The two formats serve different needs. Automatic Collections let Amazon's AI dynamically group the most relevant products from your catalog based on keyword targets and shopper search queries. Titles and landing pages are auto-generated and update continuously. You do not need to manually select ASINs or build multiple campaigns. Use this when you want scale with minimal ongoing management, particularly across large catalogs where manually maintaining collection groupings is operationally impractical. Manual Collections let you choose which three to ten ASINs appear in the ad, with the option to write your own headline or let Amazon generate one. Targeting supports both keyword and product targeting, unlike Automatic Collections, which are keyword-only. Use this when you want control over which products are grouped, for thematic collections, hero product groupings, or category-specific campaigns. Both formats link individual products to their product detail pages, with the brand logo and ad title linking to the landing page or Brand Store. The Migration Timeline You can start migrating now. In September 2026, Amazon will add recommended migrations directly inside Campaign Manager with a bulk migration option. Go to the Sponsored Brands tab to review and launch recommended replacements. In February 2027, Product Collections stop being supported entirely. Eligible campaigns with exactly three ASINs will be automatically transitioned to Manual Collections. Campaigns with fewer than three ASINs will not auto-migrate and will simply stop running. That last point is critical: any Product Collection campaign built around one or two ASINs will go dark in February 2027 with no automatic fallback. If those campaigns are still live and unreviewed, they disappear without warning. What to Do Now Three actions before September's bulk migration tool arrives. First, audit your active Sponsored Brands Product Collection campaigns and flag any with fewer than three ASINs. These need manual attention, either add ASINs to qualify for migration or shift the strategy to a different ad type before February. Second, decide which campaigns warrant Automatic versus Manual Collections. High-volume keyword campaigns across a broad catalog are natural candidates for Automatic. Curated groupings, seasonal collections, bundled products, and category leaders are better suited to Manual, where you control the ASIN selection. Third, review your ASIN pool for each campaign. Since Automatic Collections dynamically select from your catalog, the quality of what goes in matters. Include products with strong conversion rates, competitive pricing, and solid review counts. Weak ASINs in the pool dilute the AI's ability to surface the best combination. The September bulk migration tool will make the mechanical part easy. The strategic decisions- which format, which ASINs, which groupings- are the work that needs to happen before then. If you want to stay updated on Amazon changes, subscribe to our blog. If you need support with PPC, DSP, AMC, analytics, or a long-term growth strategy, contact the ANavigator team at info@anavigator.co  Book a call to get a FREE AUDIT by the link below:     Book a call – FREE AUDIT   Follow my Weekly Newsletter on LinkedIn:  / amazon-digest-for-brands-7232361008185372672   Follow me on LinkedIn:  / ookovalov Follow ANavigator on social media:  / anavigator    /@anavigator_official  / anavigator7    / @anavigators     LinkedIn page to contact us:   Author: Oleksandr Kovalov Role: Founder & CEO @ ANavigator — The ANavigator Team

On August 31, 2026, the FTC and 22 state attorneys general filed suit against Amazon in federal court. The complaint alleges that for over seven years Amazon secretly inflated the prices that more than one million brands and sellers paid to advertise on its platform, extracting tens of billions of dollars from advertisers who believed they were participating in a fair auction. This does not change how you run campaigns today. But it changes what you know. What Amazon Told Advertisers - and What the FTC Alleges Amazon described its advertising auctions as generalized second-price (GSP) auctions. The promise: you bid your maximum, and if you win, you pay just enough to beat the next highest bidder, not your full bid. That framing appeared on Amazon's website, in training materials, and in direct presentations to advertisers. The FTC alleges that starting in 2019, Amazon changed how the auction actually worked without telling anyone. Amazon introduced what it internally called a "soft reserve price", a hidden minimum calculated after the auction determined the winner. If the soft reserve exceeded the price generated by competition, Amazon charged that amount instead. One internal document described the result as a "surchargedSecondPrice" with "a surcharge hidden in it." Another referenced what Amazon called an "invented auction participant", effectively a shill bid to push prices higher. By 2024, Sponsored Products advertisers were allegedly paying their own bid amount approximately 80% of the time, up from 30-40% in 2021. A nominally second-price auction was functionally operating as first-price the vast majority of the time. Internal documents quoted in the complaint show Amazon acknowledged that revealing the surcharges would cause "irrevocable damage to advertiser trust." A 2024 discussion between senior Amazon executives described the approach as a "clever non-transparent way to charge first price" that had been "incredibly effective" at driving revenue. Amazon's Response Amazon called the lawsuit "misguided" and disputed every core allegation. Its main arguments: average winning bids for Sponsored Products fell 50% from 2019 to 2025. Average cost-per-click remained flat adjusted for inflation from 2019 through 2024, while conversion rates grew 24%. Advertisers paid the same or less and got better results. In 2026, Amazon estimates advertisers will deliver 58% higher sales and 46% better ROAS compared to a bid-only ranking model. On soft reserve pricing, Amazon says it is a standard industry tool reflecting the true market value of a placement, similar to minimum prices on physical retail shelf space. It says advertisers never pay more than their bid, and that the materials the FTC calls misleading were low-reach training content with a combined 1,849 enrollments across three courses over their entire lifetimes. What Is Actually in Dispute Both sides agree on the core facts: Amazon introduced soft reserve pricing in 2018-2019 and did not proactively disclose this to advertisers. The dispute is whether that constituted deception and caused measurable harm. The FTC says advertisers bid higher than they would have known the auction was effectively first-price. Amazon says advertisers optimize on real-world performance, not auction format descriptions, so the mechanism did not change behavior or outcomes. These are genuine legal disputes that will be resolved in court over months or years. What This Means for Your Campaigns The lawsuit does not change how the auction works today. The soft reserve pricing has been operating throughout the entire period of your campaign history. What it does raise: if Amazon's auction functions closer to first-price than second-price for most transactions, the optimal bidding strategy differs from a second-price assumption. In a genuine second-price auction, bidding your true value is rational; you only pay the next bidder's price. In a first-price environment, that means consistently paying your full bid. The rational response is bid shading, lowering bids to find the actual clearing price. Look at your account data. If you pay close to your maximum bid most of the time, your bidding strategy may not be calibrated for the auction you are actually participating in. The case is filed, and Amazon will contest it. Follow the developments; the outcome could affect how Amazon is required to operate and communicate its advertising auctions going forward. This post reflects publicly available information from the FTC complaint, Amazon's official response, and reporting as of August 31, 2026. It does not constitute legal or financial advice. If you want to stay updated on Amazon changes, subscribe to our blog. If you need support with PPC, DSP, AMC, analytics, or a long-term growth strategy, contact the ANavigator team at info@anavigator.co  Book a call to get a FREE AUDIT using the link below:     Book a call – FREE AUDIT   Follow my Weekly Newsletter on LinkedIn:  / amazon-digest-for-brands-7232361008185372672   Follow me on LinkedIn:  / ookovalov  Follow ANavigator on social media:  / anavigator    /@anavigator_official  / anavigator7    / @anavigators     LinkedIn page to contact us:   Author: Oleksandr Kovalov Role: Founder & CEO @ ANavigator — The ANavigator Team