Amazon Native Search Ads wanted to sell dog food to nonprofits!

byLaurieP2219

303 followers

8 years ago

Today, I'm working on the Certification lesson about how to add Amazon ads to my pages and posts. And for the purpose of just quickly adding a link to Amazon from an existing post, I decided to use the Native Shopping Ads, which are attractive and fun!

But then I ran into a little snag:

I picked the first Native Ads type I saw - the Recommendations Ad - which initially gave me the results I wanted:

Books about copywriting for nonprofits, because my post was about letter writing to ask for donations, something my readers want to know about.

But then I refreshed my browser... and instead of the designated books that I wanted to promote on my post topic (how to write donation request letters), what did Amazon recommend instead?

High-end DOG FOOD!

After a little mumbling and grumbling and playing around with the other ad types, I settled on the Search Ad, which consistently gave me the results I wanted for that ad at the bottom of my post.

So be careful that you select the Search Ad type (or the Custom Ad) to tell Amazon exactly what type of products you want that ad to display.

Otherwise, your readers may end up with dog food ads after learning how to write a donations request letter ;)