Amazon sponsored product ads will appear on Pinterest, BuzzFeed and other sites

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. Also read: Amazon Ads triggers creatives in recent spot 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. Pinterest described the integration with sponsored ads as the next phase of its partnership with Amazon Ads. It’s a way to bring more “shoppable content” to Pinterest, according to Martha Welsh, Pinterest’s chief strategy officer. Amazon’s advertisers will be able to have “their products appear in our search results,” Welsh said in an email statement. Amazon also said Raptive, which is a creator-focused media network; Ziff Davis brands; Lifehacker; and Mashable were in the first group to get sponsored product ads. Earlier this month, Amazon reported that its ad business generated $10.7 billion in the second quarter, a 22% year-over-year increase. Amazon’s ad strategy includes its work with Amazon Publisher Services, which helps websites make money by taking in bids from advertisers using Amazon’s DSP. Amazon also is creating more data tools through Amazon Marketing Cloud, which advertisers use to analyze the effectiveness of campaigns running through Amazon Ads. “We’ve been building and evolving Sponsored Products in our store for more than 10 years,” Colleen Aubrey, senior VP of Amazon Ads products and technology, said in the announcement, adding that Amazon is “leveraging advanced machine learning algorithms to show advertising that’s highly relevant.” Also read: A guide to retail media networks The sponsored product campaigns are automated as an extension of campaigns that marketers set up in Amazon’s ad platform—which are already slated to run on Amazon’s own site—but now the pool of available inventory is expanded to include the third-party sites and apps. Amazon has a roster of marketing technology partners that work with e-commerce-focused brands, including Skai, which was quoted in Amazon’s announcement. Amazon’s sponsored product ads link back only to Amazon’s store. The expansion of sponsored products lets advertisers helps advertisers scale their campaigns off Amazon, “while enabling them to track their performance” and track the “business impact through Amazon's store,” Guy Cohen, chief product officer at Skai, said in the announcement. ~ ~ ~ CORRECTION: Amazon Sponsored Products ads are available to advertisers through Amazon Ads console. An earlier version of this story misstated what tool marketers use for the sponsored product ads.

Amazon sponsored product ads will appear on Pinterest, BuzzFeed and other sites

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