If you change the format of the title of this article into a question, you’ll surprisingly find that the answer is YES: you can launch AMS ads with products that are only available for Pre-orders.

As you may already know, all three types of AMS campaigns (HSA, SPA, PDA) have different requirements when it comes to the number of ASINs that you can promote in a single ad. SPA allows you to add as many products as you wish (I don’t recommend adding more than 10 products), PDA allows you to promote a single ASIN at a time, and with HSA it is a requirement to promote at least 3 ASINs (the last time I checked, you can go as high as 100).

Every time your products go out of stock, they become ineligible and they stop running in your campaigns. Sometimes you get email notifications in regards to products that have become ineligible, but it is safer to always check if all the ASINs from your ads are being served. If they aren’t, contact your Amazon Account Manager and find a solution to add them back (most of the times, the solution is just getting stock).

As you can see, there are a few disadvantages with this, so it is surprising that they are allowing vendors to promote their ASINs when they are only available for Pre-orders.

One situation that you may face with any of the 3 types of your campaigns is that they suddenly stop running with no real explanation. For example, if you are running a headline search campaign with only 3 ASINs on the landing page and one of these three products becomes ineligible (out of stock), then your entire ad is going to be automatically stopped. As soon as the ASIN comes back in stock, the campaign will restart by itself.

It’s even more bothersome when you have a headline search campaign with three ASINs available only for Pre-Orders. You can get the Pre-order message to appear on your ASINs only a couple of weeks before you are supposed to get stock to Amazon. If you fail to deliver the stock by the date promised, they will take off the Pre-Order message. As soon as they do that, you cannot promote your ASIN anymore until you get it in stock, or you convince them to add the Pre-order message back.

The lesson here is that YOU CAN promote ASINs that are available only for Pre-Orders. As soon as this message is taken off though, your products will become ineligible.