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zDirect explained: how Zalando's partner portal works
Account setup, article onboarding, orders, reporting and benchmarks on the Partner Program portal, with the most common mistakes.
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Zalando Ads: how Sponsored Products and Marketing Services work, and how much to invest.
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On Zalando, organic visibility is no longer enough: catalogue rows and product pages carry paid placements, and your competitors are already buying them. This guide covers how advertising works for Zalando partners, what it costs, how much budget Zalando itself recommends, and how to read the results on margin, not just revenue.
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Two routes: Ad Manager or campaigns managed by ZMS
Advertising on Zalando runs through Zalando Partner Marketing Services (ZMS), which Zalando presents as its 360° marketing offering: around 50 million active customers across 25 European markets. A partner has two routes:
- Ad Manager (self-service). The tool inside zDirect where you create and run Sponsored Products and Sponsored Collections campaigns yourself. The tool is free to use: you pay the campaign budget.
- Campaigns managed by ZMS. Campaigns set up by the ZMS team, plus media services (including beyond Zalando: social, display, paid search, YouTube) and creative services. You start with a service request to Zalando.
For most Partner Program partners the starting point is Ad Manager, and the rest of this guide mostly covers that.
The formats: Sponsored Products and Sponsored Collections
Sponsored Products
The conversion format. Ads appear in catalogue rows, on product detail pages and in the first position of the similar-items carousel. There are two modes:
- Dynamic Sponsored Products: promotes your whole assortment, and new articles join automatically.
- Selected Sponsored Products: promotes only the articles you choose, and new ones have to be added by hand.
Sponsored Collections
The consideration format: homepage teasers and carousels. A collection created in zDirect also appears on your Brand Home and stays there after the campaign ends.
What it costs
- Sponsored Products: cost per click (CPC). You pay for ad clicks. CPC is dynamic and varies with competition, category and country.
- Sponsored Collections: cost per view. You pay each time the collection is shown on the homepage.
- Monthly billing based on spend.
You can cap the cost per click with MaxCPC: it's optional and off by default, set per campaign or per country (if you enable it, every active country needs a value), and can be changed while a campaign runs. Careful: with a cap that's too low, the system skips auctions where the estimated cost to win is higher, and the campaign may not deliver at all. If delivery is low, Zalando suggests raising it by 20–25%.
How much to invest: Zalando's recommendations
7%
of sales target (NMV) on Sponsored Products, as a minimum
12%
for high growth targets, stock pressure or sales events
€35
minimum recommended daily budget per market
3–4
weeks of recommended campaign runtime
For Sponsored Collections Zalando suggests about €5,000 per market per week, for at least three weeks, and no less than €150 per market per day. On budgets you have two options: a global budget across the selected markets, automatically redistributed by performance (Zalando's recommendation), or country budgets with a fixed maximum per market. Budget and runtime can be changed, paused or stopped at any time.
Do the maths before you start: a 7% ad budget comes on top of Zalando's commission, returns and logistics. On a thin-margin product, those seven points can be the whole profit.
Which articles get promoted
- Low-stock articles may not be promoted, and articles that sell out stop being promoted automatically.
- Only one SKU per product appears on the first catalogue page, even if other merchants offer the same item.
- With Dynamic Sponsored Products new articles join on their own; with Selected they have to be added by hand.
How to switch it on
Log in to zDirect
Ad Manager is only available from zDirect, the Partner Program portal. If you're new to it, start with the zDirect guide.
Activate the Marketing module
Click Activate in the Marketing module: confirmation arrives by email within 24 hours. Access is set per merchant account, and administrators can grant it to colleagues through user profiles.
Check the starter incentive
Partner University describes a "Kickstarter" incentive for partners new to Zalando or ZMS: saving 20% on Sponsored Products campaigns in the first 100 days after Ad Manager activation. Check the current terms in your account before planning the budget.
How to read the results
Ad Manager reporting lists your campaigns (with a "Managed By" column separating yours from those run by ZMS), the breakdown by country and the KPIs. For conversion campaigns the KPIs are ROAS and items sold; for consideration campaigns, product page views, wishlists and add-to-carts.
ROAS, though, measures revenue against spend, not profit. On Zalando, where commission and returns weigh more than on your own site, a ROAS that looks good can be losing money. That's why results should be read on margin: the reasoning behind POAS, the return on profit instead of revenue.
How I would set it up
- Start with Dynamic Sponsored Products and a global budget, to see which articles respond.
- Move budget to high-margin winners with Selected Sponsored Products, dropping items that sell but don't earn.
- Don't promote fragile stock: broken size runs and nearly sold-out items burn clicks and create cancellations.
- Concentrate budget on events (sales, Cyber Week), where Zalando itself suggests moving towards 12%.
- Use MaxCPC carefully: as a guard on expensive countries, not as a way to pay less.
"On Zalando, advertising isn't an extra: it's part of the selling price. If a 7% budget doesn't fit inside a product's margin, that product needs repricing or removing from Zalando."
Frequently asked questions
How much does advertising on Zalando cost?
Ad Manager is free to use: you pay for the campaigns. Sponsored Products are paid per click (dynamic CPC by competition, category and country), Sponsored Collections per homepage view.
How much budget do I need?
Zalando recommends at least 7% of the sales target (NMV) for Sponsored Products, 12% for high growth targets or events, and at least €35 a day per market for 3–4 weeks.
Can I cap the cost per click?
Yes, with MaxCPC, per campaign or per country. But if it's too low the campaign may not be shown at all.
Ad Manager or campaigns managed by ZMS?
Ad Manager gives you control and transparent costs, and is where most partners start. Campaigns managed by ZMS make sense for launches, collections and broader brand campaigns, including beyond Zalando.