Case Study · Amazon Ads
Urban Skin Rx on Amazon
Cutting Amazon ACoS by a third on a quarter of the budget.
Client Overview
Urban Skin Rx is a clinical skincare brand built for melanin-rich skin, treating hyperpigmentation, dark spots and uneven tone. It sells DTC on Shopify, at Ulta Beauty and Target, and on Amazon.
ADFIX has run paid media for Urban Skin Rx since 2017 and its Amazon advertising since 2019.
Challenge
By January 2025, efficiency on Amazon had slipped. A review found campaigns chasing ACoS and short-term revenue while new-to-brand customers fell away. Two things then made it harder:
- Hero products went out of stock on Amazon through 2025. Several weren’t due back until November 2025, and two were only restocked in July 2026.
- The Amazon budget was cut hard: spend in the 12 months to July 2026 was about a quarter of the 12 months before.
Strategy
- Cut what wasn’t earning: pause campaigns that had run over target for three months and move that budget to the most efficient tactics.
- Rebuild around high search intent: brand defense with product and category targeting became the largest line in the account and one of its most efficient.
- Keep the top of the funnel alive on a small budget: Sponsored Brands vertical video, a “shop by concern” Sponsored Brands campaign, and category targeting to reach shoppers browsing competitors.
Execution
- New products and bundles got their own campaigns.
- Restocked hero products went back into the campaigns as soon as they returned.
- Budgets paced daily in a dashboard that shifts spend toward each campaign’s recent ROAS.
- Weekly reporting that tracks new-to-brand customers, not just ROAS.
Results
ACoS (advertising cost of sales) is ad spend divided by the sales those ads drove; lower means each ad dollar brings in more sales. TACoS (total ACoS) is ad spend divided by all Amazon sales, organic included, so it shows how much of the whole Amazon business the ads cost.
Key Takeaways
When the budget gets cut, efficiency is the job.
Stop paying for what doesn’t convert, protect the brand’s own traffic, and give launches their own room. That cut Urban Skin Rx’s ACoS by a third year over year, on about a quarter of the spend.
See also: Urban Skin Rx, hitting 102% of the 2025 revenue forecast despite supply setbacks.
Figures come from the Amazon Ads console (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display, as reported by Amazon, including view-through conversions) and, for TACoS, from total ordered product sales in Amazon Seller Central. Both 12-month windows include one Prime Day.