Is pay-per-click advertising dead? One company doesn't think so--Amazon.com.
Clickriver Ads, now in beta, was developed by a9.com, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.com. Clickriver allows advertisers to display sponsored links on Amazon.com search results pages and product detail pages. Thus, companies of any size can tap into Amazon's immense audience of shoppers for their PPC campaigns.
In the beta test, Amazon is would seem to include just about everybody--Amazon's books alone cover every topic conceivable.
It will be interesting to see how Clickriver fares. The program has a few things working in its favor.
1. Amazon's successful marketing track record;
2. Exposure to a large audience in a mood to buy something; and,
3. Ad placement on pages highy revelevant to the viewer's interest.
On the other hand, Clickriver limits ads to the Amazon Web site, and no doubt lacks the precision and flexibility of AdWords, MSN adCenter and Yahoo! Search--at least for now. But you can never count Amazon out. Marketers should stay tuned for further developments.
