One of Amazon’s foundational offerings—the display ads that appear in search results pages on Amazon and other parts of the online store—are about to show up on third-party websites including Pinterest, BuzzFeed and Hearst Newspapers.
On Wednesday, Amazon announced the expansion of sponsored product ads, which will start with a small group of publishers who are among a growing roster of sites that use Amazon’s demand-side platform (DSP) to fill ad inventory. Amazon’s DSP already delivers display, banner and video ads to third-party sites. Advertisers buy sponsored product ads through the Amazon Ads console. Sponsored product ads are cost-per-click campaigns, meaning the advertiser pays only when a consumer engages with the ad, which links to product pages on Amazon.
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The ads are similar to search ads, which allow brands to show up when a viewer is browsing products on Amazon. They show product details including the number of stars it has from reviews, pricing and in-stock status, and can be clicked to send people to an Amazon page where shoppers can add the items to their carts.
The announcement included Pinterest, which has recently been working more closely with Amazon. In April, the companies announced an ad partnership but gave few details about what types of ads they would prioritize. Pinterest activity mostly revolves around searching for products. “Sponsored Products ads will automatically show up when we think a customer is likely to be interested in [a brand’s] product, based on relevant page context, the campaign, and cost-per-click parameters that you have already established,” the Amazon Ads team wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.