Merchants who advertise products on Amazon got some confusing news on Tuesday. Amazon is discontinuing the Product Ads program, and it’s replacing it with a new Text Ads program. A spokesperson told EcommerceBytes that Amazon Text Ads are a new pay-per-click offering that is currently in private beta – it enables advertisers to create and run text ads on Amazon.com, she said.
The move follows the closure of its web-hosting service called Amazon Webstore in March, a solution that let sellers build their own standalone website.
With Amazon putting so much of its resources into its Prime membership program to get shoppers to sign up and spend more on its own marketplace, it may have decided the time was right to weed out such legacy programs that drove shoppers off of its own marketplace.
Asked about why it was discontinuing Product Ads, the spokesperson said, “At Amazon we are constantly reviewing the services we offer partners to help them best reach our customer base and grow their businesses. We’re assisting Products Ads advertisers with other opportunities to reach Amazon customers, including Selling on Amazon (for businesses that aren’t already) and Sponsored Products.”
The Wall Street Journal said the Product Ads, which it noted appear with product photos under Amazon search results, is being replaced by simple text ads running alongside product searches, and it thinks the reason has to do with Google.
“Amazon has sought to cut into Google’s online advertising market share, including a program to place more ads on sites other than its own,” the newspaper wrote, saying the new Amazon Text Ads would “presumably push Google off the site.”
Amazon still promotes two ad programs for sellers on its site: Product Ads (which is going away by the end of October); and Sponsored Ads, which send shoppers who click on the ads to the merchants’ listings on Amazon.com.
In addition, Amazon has ad programs for “vendors” – those are brands who sell through Amazon, and they have the following options to advertise their on-Amazon wares:
- Amazon Pages are brand landing pages at Amazon.com created by the brand owner. “Amazon Pages are a free way to create a unique brand experience at Amazon.com. With Amazon Pages you get an amazon.com URL for your brand, pick the products you want to merchandise and customize your Amazon Page with your brand’s creative.”
- Product Display Ads are cost-per-click display ads offered through Amazon Marketing Services. They allow brands to create advertising campaigns to reach potentially millions of Amazon shoppers and drive traffic to a product’s detail page.
- Headline Search Ads are cost-per-click search ads offered through Amazon Marketing Services. They allow brands to create keyword targeted ad campaigns to drive traffic to landing pages at Amazon.
But those three options above are available only to vendors who register their brands with Amazon.
Here’s the letter Amazon sellers who use Product Ads to advertise their off-Amazon products received on Tuesday:
Dear Amazon Product Ads Advertiser,
Effective October 31, 2015, we will be discontinuing Amazon Product Ads. While your ads will no longer be visible on Amazon as of that date, you may access your performance reports through December 31, 2015. We know this may be a disruption and we value your business, which is why we would like to recommend you explore these options:
- Selling on Amazon: If you are not already an Amazon Seller and you are interested in selling your products on Amazon, we encourage you to consider Selling on Amazon, with the opportunity to advertise using Sponsored Products.
- Amazon Text Ads: If driving traffic to your own website is important to your business, we would like to introduce you to Amazon Text Ads*, our newest Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising solution that enables you to run text ads on Amazon. Amazon Text Ads is already enabled in your account. Simply sign in to your existing Product Ads account (login required) to learn how to get started.
From all of us at Product Ads, we thank you for your business and regret any inconvenience this transition may cause. Our Seller Support team is on hand to answer your questions about Product Ads and help you transition to Text Ads.
Sincerely,
The Amazon Product Ads Team
We’ll continue to cover this developing news.
Updated on 8/12/15.
