Amazon advertisers probably noticed a new arrival in their Ad Console last week: a tab for Sponsored Prompts ads.
Amazon has now officially rolled out Sponsored Prompts, a new kind of ad format that integrates with Rufus, its AI shopping assistant.
These ads have been surfacing in tests for some time now, but the arrival of the Prompts tabs means they’re about to go wide on Amazon.
Plus: Advertisers are soon going to get hard data about the performance of Sponsored Prompts.
We’re going to know a lot more about Sponsored Prompts ads soon. But for now, here’s the quick and dirty on what to watch for with Sponsored Prompts as they roll out.
What are Sponsored Prompts ads on Amazon?
A Sponsored Prompt is essentially a suggested question for Rufus that ties back to a specific product or brand.
Right now, on a product page, shoppers already see a list of “Customers ask” questions—all of which are prompts to converse with Rufus.
If you’re browsing TVs, for example, a suggested question might be, “Which TV features are essential for gaming?”
Now, a select few of these suggested questions are going to be ads (denoted by a little “sponsored” notice in gray text).
Back to the TV example: under the list of “Customers ask” questions, one of the suggestions might be a lot more brand-specific, such as “Which Samsung TVs are good for gaming?”
When shoppers click the Sponsored Prompt, they’ll see a response generated by Rufus. After that, the ad appears, with a built-in add-to-cart button.
For now, Sponsored Prompts only appear on product detail pages, although it isn’t hard to imagine that they will expand to search results soon.
There are two types of Sponsored Prompts available so far: Sponsored Products Prompts and Sponsored Brands Prompts.
Sponsored Products Prompts are product specific—they focus on specific features of the product you’re pushing. A Sponsored Products Prompt might be, “Why choose Product Y as my coffee machine?”
By contrast, a Sponsored Brands prompt is much more widely focused on your coffee brand.
Where does Amazon get the data for Sponsored Prompts?
For now, Amazon creates and surfaces Sponsored Prompts for you. Sponsored Prompts draw on data from the first-party information you upload about your product.
That means, in order to generate Sponsored Prompts and written responses to those Prompts, Rufus is pulling in data from your product page, your Brand Store, and your campaign keywords.
As an advertiser, you’re opted into Sponsored Prompts by default. They’re like an extension of your pre-existing Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands campaigns.
You can either turn off Sponsored Prompts completely, or you can turn off specific prompts that have started surfacing: in the Prompts tab, you’ll have an option to enable or disable each ad.
How do I track my Sponsored Prompts?
Amazon is just beginning to report back to advertisers which prompts led to clicks.
In the Ad Console, you’ll now see a list of all the Sponsored Prompts that have surfaced, and then the performance for each. Amazon will give you data about impressions, clicks, and purchases from Sponsored Prompts.
So far, these ads are limited in reach. Few account managers appear to have much data in the Prompts tab, meaning that Amazon has yet to generate many Prompts for them yet.
Are prompt-based ads the future of advertising?
Amazon is not the only major e-commerce platform that is piloting the prompt-based ad format.
Last week, Walmart also announced that it is testing sponsored prompt ads in search results. When shoppers click a sponsored prompt, Walmart responds with a click-to-buy ad.
Walmart admitted to the Wall Street Journal that the number of people clicking on Sparky ads in tests is low. But that could change soon.
And that’s the thing: there are still plenty of questions about how customers will receive this.
In theory, shoppers are turning to AI to get actual product recommendations based on the best information. Sponsored Prompts have a built-in bias, obviously—they’re suggesting a product that the brand paid them to suggest.
It’s certainly worth keeping an eye on the data to see how prompt-based ads perform. And if Sponsored Prompts do take off, the key to maximizing performance is going to be ensuring you have strong input data.
Make sure you’re tracking and harvesting high-performing keywords, and that your product content is as strong as possible. All of these things are easy to keep an eye on with a 360-degree software solution like Intentwise.
