But Travis Johnson, global CEO of Amazon agency Podean, said that matching the context of a query typed into Rufus with an ad will be hard. For example, Rufus may recommend a women’s running shoe for a male shopper, causing advertisers to target the wrong demographic.
“If it were an ad, it would be a wasted opportunity,” Johnson said. “It could be embarrassing for brands where their products are displayed in places where they definitely don’t want to be.”
Advertisers will likely have to give up control
Advertisers could also struggle with measuring the performance of Rufus campaigns, said Laura Meyer, CEO and founder of Amazon agency Envision Horizons. Because Amazon said it will not include Rufus campaigns in the metrics advertisers get, it could be hard for brands to know if Rufus ads drove sales, she said.
“Brands will instead need to develop strategies to infer impact through overall performance changes,” she said.
Meyer also said that Rufus’ ability to spin up text for ads when needed on queries that need more context will give brands less control over the appearance of their ads.
Plus, ads may disrupt shoppers’ experience with Rufus.
“Brands testing this feature should plan on monitoring customer feedback and engagement rates to ensure ads enhance rather than detract from the Rufus tool,” she said.