How Amazon deals with a cookieless world [Crew Review]

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Hey Reader,

While it’s a nice idea to get your Amazon product ads to as many people as possible, it’s costly, inefficient, and can actually harm your conversion rate. So it’s important to get your products in front of the right audience.

In this area, targeted marketing is extremely helpful.

But now that Google, the biggest search engine in the world, is getting rid of third-party cookies by the end of the year, how can sellers and advertisers cope?



As expected, Amazon is approaching the matter proactively. The company’s advertising revenue continues to increase, giving it a bigger share of the pie, bested only by Meta and Google.

To counter the effects of a “cookieless” web, Amazon recently struck a deal with UK’s largest publisher, Reach. The deal involves Reach giving Amazon so-called “contextual first-party data,” which is nerd talk for “just enough information about customers to target them with specific ads without necessarily revealing who they are.” 

For example, Reach will provide Amazon with data as to what articles are looking at, and the latter will use this data to enhance targeted advertising on Reach’s site.

It’s not unlike what Google is going to do. So in a way, customers’ privacy is getting more protection from Big Tech, but it still enables advertisers to choose where they’re displaying their ads and to whom.

Would you consider these first steps a win-win?

Don't Bore Your Customers

How many times have you stayed on a web page to answer an online quiz? 

It doesn’t matter how trivial the topic is. You’re gonna want to know which Friends character you’re most like or if they can really guess what state you’re from based on the food you’re drawn to.

Quizzes make your content or e-commerce site more interactive. It keeps potential customers engaged and makes them want to stay on the page longer.

Start creating more interactive content.

Amazon Top Terms

Explore the past two weeks and discover the Amazon top 10 search terms that have experienced a surge in popularity during the concluding weeks of the year, from January 21 to February 3.



In this week's Amazon top 10, phrases such as "valentine's day throw blanket" have earned a place, showing a significant surge in sales from 17 units per day to 79 units per day in the last two weeks. This rise is associated with the approaching seasonal event of Valentine's Day.

Learn more about How Seasonality Affects Revenue in our podcast episode.

Meet Rufus

Looking for decor and apparel for the Super Bowl? You can now ask Rufus, Amazon’s newest AI, to recommend a few. You can even ask follow-up questions about certain products that you’re considering. Whether you want to know the difference between a serum and a moisturizer or are looking for gift recommendations for Mother’s Day, Amazon’s Rufus can help you.

That’s all well and good, but Amazon sellers may be concerned about how Amazon chooses products to recommend to customers when they use this feature.



In a post, Amazon says “Rufus generates answers using relevant information from across Amazon and the web to help customers make better, more informed shopping decisions.”

It’s a vague statement that doesn’t really tell you how your product gets recommended to buyers. Rufus can recommend full categories, e.g., it will link to search results for relevant categories like “flowers” and “chocolates” if you’re looking for Mother’s Day gift suggestions. This may not be a problem since it’s just as if the customer is performing a normal search.

However, Rufus can also compare and recommend products. It can answer product-specific questions when the customer is on a product listing. And because this generative AI is pulling answers from relevant places like the reviews section, we don’t need to tell you how important having good reviews and ratings is.

Rufus is now in beta and is available in the platform’s mobile app to select customers in the United States. It’s expected to roll out to more customers soon.

Isn’t It Always Verified?

eBay buyers noticed a new feature on the platform’s feedback recently, which left them scratching their heads.

Feedbacks now come with the words “Verified Purchase,” something that is akin to Amazon reviews. While this may be helpful on Amazon, buyers are left questioning why it was implemented on eBay where you can’t leave feedback without an actual transaction on the platform.



“You can't leave FB [feedback] if you weren't the buyer or seller, so this is completely stupid. Must have been some busywork quota that a programmer saw on other sites. EBay should fire the remaining 91% of employees,” wrote a commenter on eBay Community.

Maybe eBay is planning something new, or maybe it’s just a way to ensure people not familiar with how the platform works that the feedbacks are legit. But then again, the commenter may also be right.

Etc.

$50 million less. We’re only two months into 2024, but Jeff Bezos has already decided he’ll sell up to $50 million in Amazon shares by January 31, 2025.

Store of the future. Walmart will be redesigning its stores to include more of what customers may need, including EV chargers.

Comeback. After getting banned from the largest e-commerce market in Southeast Asia, it’s back with a $1.5 billion investment.