Shortly after news broke that Amazon had stopped bidding on Google Shopping Ads, the ecommerce giant began testing ad tools of their own, suggesting a desire to grow within digital marketing.
The new display ad offering, potentially rivalling multibillion-dollar revenue streams at Google and Criteo S.A., will allow Amazon sellers to retarget consumers with ads around the web to lure them back to the marketplace.
Currently, merchants are only able to purchase ads on Amazon that exist in the marketplace. The ad tech tool will allow for a greater reach, however, the websites and apps the ads will appear on has not been revealed.
Both Criteo’s U.S. and Alphabet’s traded shares fell after the ad tests were revealed, according to Bloomberg:
“Criteo’s U.S.-traded shares fell 1.6 percent Tuesday, after declining 2.6 percent Monday in New York. Alphabet shares were down 2.2 percent at 1:57 p.m.”
A select few merchants are being invited later this month to trial the tool.
Dynamic retargeting has been a great success across channels such as Facebook, Google AdWords and Criteo. Consumers who have been retargeted with an ad are 70% more likely to convert to your website.
In addition, 72% of consumers abandon their shopping carts without making a purchase. The percentage of those who will return is a measly 8%. Retargeting, however, draws back 26%. Read more about retargeting stats here.