Amazon has turned its online store into an advertising powerhouse in just a few years, but that booming business can frustrate consumers.
But instead of showing him the Synology router he was searching for at the top of his results, Amazon bombarded him with ads for hard drives and routers that he didn’t want.
Amazon’s ads show up at the top, middle and the bottom of its search listings, as well as within pages for other products. They look exactly like regular product listings except for the word “Sponsored” in gray. Holiday shoppers may notice more of them: In September, Amazon began putting three sponsored ads at the top of its search results, up from two,to Marketplace Pulse, a market research firm that focuses on Amazon and other online marketplaces.
The company said its sponsored ads are a way for customers to find products they may be interested in. And it uses machine-learning technology to try to show ads that are relevant to shoppers. But that doesn’t always happen. The Harvard Medical School professor said the supplement ads made it look like he was somehow linked to the pills, which he is not.After the Associated Press asked about the vitamin ads, Amazon said it wasn’t a good customer experience and removed them.
That could in turn drive some customers away from the site — but perhaps not enough for Amazon to change its behavior.
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