By Operator One Editorial, 5 October 2026
Kaufland Ads, which Kaufland calls Sponsored Ads, are self-service pay-per-click (PPC) ads run from the Kaufland Seller Portal: Sponsored Product Ads for every seller, and Sponsored Brand Ads for trademark owners and their authorised partners. Both are sold in a second-price auction, with a minimum bid of €0.01 per click for Sponsored Product Ads and €0.50 for Sponsored Brand Ads. This guide covers the auction, budgets, billing, reporting, break-even ACoS and a first campaign, using Kaufland's own figures as of October 2026.
Key takeaways
- On Kaufland, Sponsored Product Ads are charged per click only, the minimum bid is €0.01, and the winner pays the second-highest bid.
- Kaufland Sponsored Brand Ads cost at least €0.50 per click, need at least three products and are reviewed within two working days; they are currently not available on Kaufland.fr and Kaufland.it.
- Kaufland counts an ad conversion when the shopper orders within 14 days of the click, including orders later cancelled.
- Kaufland automatic bidding works to a target ACoS set between 5% and 50%.
- Kaufland bills ad clicks in the following month's commission statement: February clicks appear in the March statement, available in early April.
- The Kaufland Plus plan costs €59.95 a month plus VAT and includes a €30 monthly Sponsored Product Ads credit; the €39.95 Basic plan does not.
- Kaufland commission runs from 7% to 16% by category on every storefront except Kaufland.pl, where it runs from 4% to 12%, and is the starting point for any break-even ACoS.
What advertising Kaufland offers marketplace sellers in 2026
Kaufland sells marketplace advertising as Advertising by Kaufland, built on two self-service formats in the Seller Portal: Sponsored Product Ads (SPA) and Sponsored Brand Ads (SBA). According to Kaufland's Sponsored Ads general information page, Sponsored Product Ads are available to all Kaufland Global Marketplace sellers, while Sponsored Brand Ads are open only to verified brand owners and their authorised partners.
Kaufland also sells managed placements on request: homepage and deals page spaces, newsletter placements, offsite display campaigns on Facebook, Instagram and Google, and paid brand shops. Kaufland's marketing options page says these are fixed prices based on each channel's reach, and Kaufland does not publish them. Kaufland seasonal campaigns such as Black Week carry no additional cost, and Kaufland vouchers cost €0.49 per redemption for products under €100 and €0.99 from €100.
One Kaufland Global Marketplace registration covers eight live marketplaces: Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, France, Italy and the Netherlands, which Kaufland opened on 8 September 2026. Kaufland has announced Spain (Kaufland.es) as a ninth marketplace, but it was not yet live on 5 October 2026. Kaufland sponsored ads can run on all active Kaufland marketplaces, but each campaign is created and reported per marketplace, for products the seller offers there.
Kaufland Interact is a separate retail media offer
Kaufland Interact is Kaufland's retail media platform, launched on 25 March 2026 and sold through a retail media sales team, not the Seller Portal. Kaufland's launch press release says it serves industry partners and advertisers from tourism, telecommunications, automotive and finance across the Kaufland app, web, digital prospectus, messenger, social media, digital out-of-home and digitised in-store radio in more than 780 German stores. It draws on Kaufland Card XTRA, which Kaufland puts at more than 30 million members in Europe. The Kaufland retail media page lists the online marketplace among its channels and offers incremental ROAS (iROAS) measurement.
| Option | Format and placement | Targeting | Cost model | Who can buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsored Product Ads | Auto-generated product ad on search, category and product pages and the app | Automatic or manual keywords (exact, phrase), negatives | CPC, second-price auction, minimum bid €0.01 | All sellers, self-service |
| Sponsored Brand Ads | Headline, logo, image and 3+ products above search and category results | Automatic or manual keywords (exact, phrase) | CPC, second-price auction, minimum €0.50 | Trademark owners and authorised partners; not on .fr or .it |
| Homepage and newsletter spaces | Homepage banner, deals page, marketplace or brand newsletter | Fixed booking, not rotated | Fixed price by reach (not published) | Sellers, on request |
| Display campaigns | Meta and Google display ads, offsite | Interest audiences, including Google and Meta data | Fixed price or package (not published) | Sellers, on request |
| Kaufland Interact | App, web, prospectus, social, in-store screens and radio | Kaufland first-party data | Not published | Brands and advertisers, via sales |
Source: Kaufland Global Marketplace Sponsored Ads, marketing options and brand marketing pages (updated May to July 2026) and Kaufland retail media page; as of October 2026.
Where Kaufland Sponsored Product Ads appear
Kaufland Sponsored Product Ads appear on search result, category and product detail pages on the Kaufland marketplaces and in the Kaufland app, and a click goes straight to the seller's product page. Kaufland generates the Sponsored Product Ads creative from the listing and the seller cannot edit it, so the listing's title, main image and price are the ad. Kaufland Sponsored Brand Ads sit above the search results on search and category pages and link to a Kaufland landing page such as a seller shop or brand shop; Kaufland rejects external links or links to a single product page.
How Kaufland ad auctions and minimum bids work
Kaufland Sponsored Ads use a cost-per-click auction in which the winner pays the second-highest bid. In Kaufland's example on its Sponsored Product Ads page, a seller bidding €1.50 against a next-highest bid of €0.95 pays €0.95 per click. The minimum bid for Kaufland Sponsored Product Ads is €0.01; the €0.50 minimum for Sponsored Brand Ads reflects their more prominent placement, according to Kaufland's Sponsored Brand Ads page.
The highest bid does not guarantee a Kaufland ad slot. Kaufland's algorithm weighs relevance, price, page context, keywords, the product's past click-through and conversion rates, and the bid, and may skip an irrelevant ad even when it bids highest. For manual bids, Kaufland recommends bidding at least 10% above the average winning bid.
Kaufland automatic bidding takes a target ACoS between 5% and 50% and sets bids from that target and category competition; it is available only with automatic keyword targeting. With manual bidding, the seller sets the maximum price per click, per product or per keyword, and can change it at any time.
Kaufland campaign types, targeting and budgets
Kaufland offers preset and custom Sponsored Product Ads campaigns. Preset campaigns are pre-filled with recommended products, a daily budget and a target ACoS; the seller can remove suggestions but not add products, and an optional autopilot (one per sales channel) keeps adding newly recommended products. Custom campaigns give full control over products, targeting, bids, CSV uploads and negative keywords.
Kaufland targeting is keyword-based. Automatic targeting matches ads to any query that fits the product data; manual targeting uses the seller's keywords in exact match (same words, same order) or phrase match (extra words allowed before or after). Negative keywords work with both. Kaufland's Seller University does not describe targeting of competitor product pages.
Kaufland budgets are daily or total, and a total budget can carry a daily cap. The minimum Kaufland campaign duration is one day, there is no account-level spending limit, products can be paused but not removed, and an ended campaign cannot be reactivated. Kaufland's budget rule is at least 100 clicks per advertised product: five products at a €1 bid need €500. Kaufland adds that a reliable data set takes around 2,000 clicks and that campaigns should run three to four weeks before conclusions are drawn.
Which offers Kaufland will advertise
Kaufland only shows ads for offers the shopper can buy from the advertiser: no ads for sold-out products, and on shared listings only while the advertiser holds the BuyBox. Stock and delivery performance, covered in our guide to Kaufland fulfilment options, are therefore a precondition for advertising.
- Kaufland activates Sponsored Product Ads once the seller accepts the separate SPA terms via "+ Create your first campaign"; campaigns go live without manual review, but Kaufland deactivates any that breach legal provisions.
- Kaufland Sponsored Brand Ads require a trademark registration in the seller's name, or the trademark owner's signed authorisation, valid in every country where the campaign runs.
- A Kaufland Sponsored Brand Ads campaign needs at least three products in stock with the BuyBox (Kaufland recommends five), and infant formula is excluded.
- Kaufland Sponsored Brand Ads creative allows at most 60 characters of copy, a 180 x 84 px logo and a 750 x 652 px image with no overlaid text or prices; seasonal campaigns may start no earlier than six weeks before the event.
How Kaufland bills advertising
Kaufland charges for ad clicks only and issues no separate invoice for them. Kaufland Sponsored Ads costs appear in the commission statement for the following month, under Accounting, Invoices in the Seller Portal, calculated separately per marketplace; Kaufland vendors receive a monthly invoice instead.
Kaufland's Plus plan includes €30 of Sponsored Product Ads credit a month (750 Kč or 130 zł), pro rata for a part month, usable across marketplaces and lost if unused. Kaufland's Performance Coach programme (€399 a month for six months) adds a €30 monthly credit valid only on Kaufland.de. Kaufland's conditions page quotes subscription fees plus VAT and applies the Plus credit to "the net invoice amount for SPA services".
Kaufland ad reports, attribution and metrics
Kaufland attributes an order to an ad when the shopper clicks and orders within 14 days. Each order counts as one conversion, and Kaufland's figures include orders later cancelled, so reported ad sales can exceed kept sales. Kaufland splits conversions into direct (the advertised product), indirect (another product in the same category tree) and halo (another product from the seller's range).
Kaufland Seller Portal reports cover search terms, campaigns, days, EANs, brands, categories, daily costs and budget use, with costs in euros, and show impressions, clicks, CTR, average CPC, conversions, sales, ACoS and ROAS. Kaufland defines the ratios as follows:
- ACoS = ad spend / ad-attributed sales. Kaufland's example: €100 of spend generating €1,000 of sales is an ACoS of 10%.
- ROAS = ad-attributed sales / ad spend, so 10 on the same numbers. ROAS is always 1 / ACoS.
- TACoS = ad spend / total sales, ad-driven plus organic.
Kaufland's Seller University does not say whether report sales include VAT. Compare one advertised order in the report with the same order in the Seller Portal to confirm the basis.
How to calculate break-even ACoS on Kaufland
On Kaufland, break-even ACoS is the margin per order before ad spend divided by the selling price; at that ACoS, advertising consumes the whole margin. Break-even ROAS is its inverse, and any target ACoS below break-even leaves profit on each ad-driven order.
Illustrative example (assumed figures, not Kaufland data): a kitchen product sells on Kaufland.de for €40.00 including VAT, with free delivery.
- Net revenue at Germany's 19% standard VAT rate (section 12 of the German VAT Act): €40.00 / 1.19 = €33.61.
- Kaufland commission for Kitchen & Household: 14% of the €40.00 gross price = €5.60 (Kaufland adds VAT to its commission; treated here as a net cost).
- Assumed product cost €14.00, shipping and packaging €4.50.
- Margin before ad spend: €33.61 - €5.60 - €14.00 - €4.50 = €9.51.
- Break-even ACoS: €9.51 / €40.00 = 23.8%; break-even ROAS: 4.2.
If your Kaufland report shows sales net of VAT, divide by €33.61 instead: break-even ACoS becomes 28.3%. A target ACoS of 18% would spend €7.20 per €40.00 order and leave €2.31 of margin. The monthly basic fee is a fixed cost, so it belongs in the monthly P&L, not the per-order break-even.
Kaufland fees that feed the calculation
Kaufland charges a monthly basic fee plus a commission on each sale, per its conditions page updated on 2 September 2026. Kaufland Basic costs €39.95 a month plus VAT (990 Kč or 175 zł) and Plus €59.95 a month plus VAT (1,500 Kč or 260 zł), and one fee covers all Kaufland marketplaces. Plus costs €20 more than Basic but includes the €30 Sponsored Product Ads credit, so a seller spending at least €30 a month on ads pays €10 less on Plus. Kaufland calculates commission on the gross sales price including delivery charges, plus VAT, and only on actual sales, not returns or cancellations.
| Category (Kaufland naming) | DE, AT, CZ, SK, FR, IT, ES, NL | PL |
|---|---|---|
| Computers, Consumer Electronics, Robotic Vacuum Cleaners, Tyres, Rims | 7% | 4% |
| Household electronics (large appliances) | 7% | 7% |
| Tools & garden tools | 10% | 7% |
| Perfume | 10% | 8% |
| Small appliances, Computer and Electronics Accessories, Bicycles & E-bikes | 13% | 7% |
| Personal Care & Health, Cars and Motorbikes | 13% | 8% |
| DIY | 13% | 9% |
| Furniture & Home, Lighting, Sport & Outdoor, Baby, Toys, Groceries | 13% | 10% |
| Media | 13% + €0.70 per item | 9% + 3 zł per item |
| Garden | 14% | 9% |
| Kitchen & Household, Clothing, Footwear, Pet Supplies, Mattresses | 14% | 10% |
| Jewellery | 16% | 12% |
| All other categories | 13% | 10% |
Source: Kaufland Global Marketplace conditions page, updated 2 September 2026 (category names shortened); commission on the gross sales price including delivery, plus VAT. As of October 2026.
For onboarding, language rules and EPR, see our guide to selling on Kaufland Global Marketplace.
How to set up a Kaufland Sponsored Product Ads campaign
- Get the offer ready. Make sure the product is in stock, holds the BuyBox, sits in the right category with the category name in its title, and has good images, reviews and a competitive price.
- Activate Sponsored Product Ads. In the Seller Portal, open Marketing Tools, select Sponsored Product Ads and accept the SPA terms via "+ Create your first campaign".
- Set the marketplace and budget. Create one custom campaign per Kaufland marketplace with no end date and a budget that buys at least 100 clicks per product.
- Add products grouped by category. Add products by EAN or the Recommended tab, filter for in-stock BuyBox winners, and keep each product in one campaign only.
- Start with automatic targeting and bidding. Set a target ACoS between 5% and 50% that sits below your break-even ACoS.
- Let the campaign collect data. Run it for three to four weeks, or until each product has about 100 clicks, before judging it.
- Optimise every week. Add non-converting search terms as negative keywords, move converting terms into a manual campaign bid at least 10% above the average winning bid, and pause weak products.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum bid for Kaufland Ads?
On Kaufland, the minimum bid for Sponsored Product Ads is €0.01 per click and the minimum for Sponsored Brand Ads is €0.50. Kaufland runs a second-price auction, so the winner pays the second-highest bid, never more than its own.
Can every Kaufland seller run Sponsored Product Ads?
Yes. Kaufland says Sponsored Product Ads are available to all Kaufland Global Marketplace sellers once they accept the SPA terms, while Sponsored Brand Ads need proof of trademark ownership or the trademark owner's written authorisation.
How does Kaufland bill advertising costs?
Kaufland issues no separate invoice for ad clicks: the costs appear in the commission statement for the following month, so February clicks show in the March statement, available in early April. The Plus plan offsets the first €30 of Sponsored Product Ads spend each month.
What attribution window does Kaufland use for ad sales?
Kaufland counts a conversion when a shopper clicks an ad and orders within 14 days. Each order counts once, and the figures include orders later cancelled.
Which Kaufland marketplaces support sponsored ads?
Kaufland says sponsored ads can run on all active Kaufland marketplaces. In October 2026 eight are live: Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, France, Italy and the Netherlands, with Spain announced. Sponsored Brand Ads are currently not available on Kaufland.fr and Kaufland.it.
Is Kaufland Interact the same as Kaufland Ads?
No. Kaufland Interact is Kaufland's retail media platform, launched in March 2026 and sold to brands and advertisers through a sales team. Sponsored Product Ads and Sponsored Brand Ads are self-service tools in the marketplace Seller Portal.
How Operator One handles Kaufland advertising for brands
Operator One sells on Kaufland as the legal seller, the Merchant of Record, for the brands it works with, across 100+ marketplaces in 28 countries, and Kaufland advertising is part of that marketplace service. Operator One runs Sponsored Product Ads for each Kaufland marketplace a brand sells on, and Sponsored Brand Ads where the brand gives the written trademark authorisation Kaufland requires. See our advertising and content service.
Ad spend is reported transparently in O1 Suite next to sales for each marketplace, so a brand sees ACoS and TACoS from the same figures Kaufland bills. If you are weighing which Kaufland storefronts and categories fit your range, talk to Operator One.