Most sellers pour PPC budget almost exclusively into keyword-targeted Sponsored Products. That leaves interest- and lifestyle-audience targeting inside Sponsored Display Audience Types (In-Market vs. Interest & Lifestyle) largely uncontested, since competitors aren't bidding there at all.
Tactic: research the brand's actual buyer demographics and lifestyle affinities (e.g., golfers and other athletes for a topical pain-relief roll-on) and build Sponsored Display audience campaigns aimed at those segments instead of only defending keyword territory. Pair this with retargeting campaigns aimed at past visitors, to recapture browsers before they buy a competitor's product instead.
The strategic logic: cheaper, more tailored traffic comes from finding where competitors aren't playing, not from out-bidding them on the same shared keywords.
Rationale restated: most competitors in a niche concentrate spend on Sponsored Products keyword targeting, leaving Sponsored Display audience/interest targeting and Sponsored Brands video comparatively cheap and uncontested. Prescribed for a stagnant hemp-cream listing: add Sponsored Display retargeting plus interest/audience campaigns, and launch Sponsored Brands video targeting the 3-5 historically best-converting keywords and pain points surfaced in reviews.
Helium 10 "Scale Stories" mentors audited a ~$140K/year hemp pain-relief cream business and argued most niche competitors pile spend into Sponsored Products keyword auctions, leaving Sponsored Display lifestyle/interest audiences (golf, other sports, adjacent pain conditions) and Sponsored Brands video under-contested. Framed explicitly as finding a "loophole" for cheaper traffic rather than out-bidding rivals on the same keywords.