With the rise of cross-border e-commerce platforms such as TikTok, Shopee, Temu, and Shein, although Amazon is still the industry "big brother," its market share and user traffic are inevitably being divided.
Since this year, Amazon has been making frequent moves, especially in advertising:
1. Stopping Google Ads
Starting July 23, 2025, Amazon completely ceased running Google Shopping Ads in its three core markets-the U.S., the U.K., and Germany. Previously, about 30% of Amazon's traffic came from Google ads. After stopping them, sellers saw a sharp drop in organic traffic, while the share of ad-driven orders rose. Competition on-site intensified, ad bids and budgets kept increasing, but conversion rates declined.
2. Partnership with Netflix
On September 16, 2025, Amazon Ads and Netflix announced a partnership, giving advertisers using Amazon DSP direct access to Netflix's ad inventory. The collaboration covers 11 countries, including the U.S., the U.K., and France. Amazon DSP marketers will officially be able to use and access this in Q4 of 2025.
3. Testing the new ImageSmith ad mechanism
On September 18, 2025, news broke that Amazon is testing a new Sponsored Products (SP) ad mechanism in the U.S. site called "ImageSmith." Powered by AI technology, it upgrades ad displays from static main images to "dynamically matched images." This system deeply analyzes image content and, based on buyer search keywords, shows the most relevant product images, improving ad targeting and effectiveness.
Previously, Amazon covered the costs when working with Google, but this time with Netflix, it's the sellers footing the bill. Netflix is one of the world's largest streaming platforms, with over 130 million subscribers worldwide-13 million+ in the U.S. alone. Global hits like Squid Game and Stranger Things were Netflix originals.
The cooperation between Amazon and Netflix will be carried out through Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform). Traditionally, ads placed via Amazon Seller Central (Sponsored Ads) focused on generating traffic inside Amazon. DSP, however, can push ads outside Amazon-to Prime Video and other third-party websites. Once the cooperation details go live, the process will be similar to running other DSP ads-just select Netflix as the "ad inventory source."
As for the new ImageSmith mechanism, the system will intelligently pick images from product detail pages that best match the buyer's search intent, which may mean using secondary lifestyle images instead of the main image. This breaks the convention of always showing the main image. Based on this change, cross-border sellers are advised to explore new strategies, referencing how leading competitors optimize title keywords. Unlike traditional tools and methods that rely on known keywords for related searches, sellers may no longer need to filter heavily by BSR rankings.
Tools like ShopRadar's Amazon Bestseller List consolidate four dimensions-top-selling products in the last 30 days, new arrivals, newly ranked items, and fastest-rising products-making it easier to identify hot-selling items in a given category. Since higher rankings indirectly reflect sales performance and overall competitiveness, these top sellers' titles offer valuable insights.
This ImageSmith test is expected to run until October 7, right before the Fall Prime Big Deal Days, and will only affect certain ASINs. If sellers experience a significant drop in click-through rates, they can file a Case to opt out. This move shows Amazon is actively incorporating image data into its AI search logic. In the future, main and secondary images will need to be optimized together to strengthen lifestyle presentation and keyword relevance-visual strategy will become the new battleground in advertising.
