Amazon puts Sponsored Products in Alexa’s shopping texts

The ad sits at one moment only. A Sponsored Product can appear in the shortlist Alexa sends before a purchase, and Amazon charges nothing for that slot so far. No ads run on orders Alexa places by itself, and that covers auto-buy, where it purchases once a price reaches the shopper’s target.

Alexa can place the order itself once a shopper picks from what it finds, and the request can be a text description or a photo (The Verge). Waitlist sign-ups are open and Amazon says wider access follows in the weeks ahead, TechCrunch reports, which also notes Amazon cut Meta’s Muse agent off from its site in September. Amazon counts more than 400 million Alexa for Shopping users over the past 12 months.

Amazon’s own creative tools cost $0 with an ads account on our Amazon ads page, our 31 October check. That page lists Video Generator as tuned for Sponsored Brands video, a different ad type from the one entering these texts.

Auto-buy stays ad-free, so this placement reaches only shoppers who are still comparing, in a thread Digiday says has room for a handful of products at most.