Commerce Media Product Display Best Practices

When it comes to building clients’ commerce media ad programs, Koddi is known for our customization and flexibility. Whatever the client imagines, we can bring to life. One of the most common questions we get when building or expanding an ads program is: when a listing is promoted to a premium (top) position, should it be shown again in its organic position? There are several approaches to this question, but two generally rise to the top: 1) Only show the listing once (as sponsored), and 2) Show the listing twice (as both sponsored and organic).

Approach 1: Show the Listing Only Once (Sponsored)

With this approach, if the listing wins a sponsored slot, the listing is only shown in the sponsored slot and not in its organic slot. The advertiser gets premium placement on the page, which generally leads to more visibility.

Pros:

• Content is not duplicated
• Potentially less cluttered user experience
• Some advertisers prefer only one listing

Cons:

• Less visibility (and value) for advertisers
• Reduced ad revenue for you

Approach 2: Show the Listing Twice (Both Sponsored and Organic)

With this approach, if the listing wins a sponsored position, the listing is shown once in the sponsored position and once in its organic position. The advertiser gets premium placement and also retains their organic position.

Pros:

• More visibility for advertisers
• More ad revenue for you
• Some advertisers prefer two listings

Cons:

• Content is duplicated
• Shoppers see a listing they have already “passed on”

What does Amazon do?

Amazon is the undisputed brand leader in the commerce media space – and when we look at these types of questions with our marketplace partners, the discussion often starts with ‘what does Amazon do?’ With this problem set, Amazon has chosen to show the listing twice.

One can assume that there is a financial benefit there based on their ad revenue and strategy generally – though there is little public data to support that. There is, however, strong evidence to support that Amazon has maintained relevance with this strategy:

• Research from Skai in June 2022 found that only 11% of shoppers found Amazon ads disruptive
• Research from Feedvisor in 2021 found that 31% of shoppers find sponsored ads in search results on Amazon helpful

Both these studies found that about 1 in 2 consumers don’t even notice that there are ads in Amazon’s search results. The takeaway here is that the ads experience can be so native and so relevant that half of consumers don’t even notice that their purchasing decisions are being influenced by advertising.  

What about others?

Koddi’s Recommendations

We’ve tested this exact question for several years and across different sites and marketplaces’ relevancy, revenue, and feedback (from shoppers and advertisers) are often the most important drivers in making this decision. In our experience, if the sponsored position shows a highly relevant listing for the shopper (endemic, high relevance, respects filters, highly targeted) then duplicating the listing can work.

If done right, the relevancy is high, the consumer experience isn’t adversely impacted, the ad revenue increases, and the revenue per user session is better. This option is implemented by many of our partners. We’ve also seen many of our partners choose to only show the listing once. This decision is driven by feedback from shoppers and advertisers.

This isn’t to say the sponsored position isn’t highly relevant –it is– but that the partner has chosen to weigh the contributing factors and results differently, which drives a different strategy. The best thing to do is define a strategy and test – try both options and let the data and your strategy help drive your decision and your next steps.

The experts at Koddi would love to talk you through any other questions you might have. Reach out today!