Amazon Native Shopping Ads Are Gone: What to Use Instead (and What Earns More)
If you searched for Native Shopping Ads hoping to add them to your site, the short version is that you can't. Amazon retired them in 2023, and a few months later it retired SiteStripe's image links too. The help pages are still online, which is why the format keeps turning up as if it were current.
This post covers what the ads were, what exactly stopped working and when, what Amazon still gives you, and, the part that matters, which of the remaining options earns the most on a content site. That last answer is better news than the retirement suggests.
The short answer
Native Shopping Ads stopped serving in late summer 2023. SiteStripe image and text-plus-image links stopped rendering at the end of 2023. What's left is text links carrying your tag, and product data from the Creators API for building your own product boxes and tables.
In-content text links and product boxes convert better than the old widgets did, so the replacement is an upgrade for any site that writes real recommendations.
What Native Shopping Ads were
Native Shopping Ads were a JavaScript snippet from Associates Central that rendered a block of Amazon products on your page, with images, live prices and star ratings. There were three flavours.
- Recommendation ads read the page and picked matching products automatically.
- Search ads showed results for a keyword you set, or one the reader typed.
- Custom ads showed the specific products you chose, by ASIN.
They paid the same as any other link: a click set the 24-hour cookie and a qualifying purchase earned the standard commission. Their appeal was effort. One snippet, pasted once, and every article had a product block without anyone choosing products or building links.
What was retired, and when
Amazon gave short notice by email in the summer of 2023, and the ad units stopped serving around the end of August. Pages that still carry the old code render an empty space where the block used to be. The related help articles were largely left in place, which is why the format still shows up in search.
The second cut came at the end of 2023: SiteStripe's Image and Text+Image link options were removed, and existing image links stopped rendering, leaving broken images on pages that used them. SiteStripe's plain Text link, and the short amzn.to version of it, kept working and still do.
Amazon didn't give a public reason. The practical effect was to move product images and prices behind the API, where they come with its terms about freshness and display, rather than through widgets Amazon had to maintain on other people's pages.
What still works
- Text links with your tag. Built with SiteStripe's Text option, the Link Builder, or by hand from an ASIN. These are the backbone of every affiliate page and nothing about them changed; the formats are in how to create Amazon affiliate links.
- Product data through the API. The Creators API (successor to the Product Advertising API) returns titles, images, prices, ratings and availability, which is what the old widgets were displaying. With it you can build product boxes, comparison tables and buyer guides that show current data and carry your tag on every link.
- Plugins and tools built on the API. Rather than call the API yourself, most sites use a plugin or a content tool that does it for them and keeps prices current.
What you don't get back is automatic product selection. Something, a person or a tool, has to decide which products belong on the page. That turns out to be the point.
Which option earns more
This is where the retirement stops being a loss. A Native Shopping Ads block usually sat at the end of the article, or in a slot the reader had learned to skip, showing products the page hadn't argued for. It got clicks from people who were going to Amazon anyway.
An in-content link works differently. It comes right after the sentence that explains why this product, for this reader, and it goes to that exact product.
The reader arrives at Amazon already convinced, which is why a well-placed text link or product box converts at a rate the automated blocks rarely matched. The pages that earn are the ones with a clear pick, a reason, and a link in the same paragraph.
A rough order, best to worst, for a content site:
- A product box or comparison table inside a buyer guide, built from live data, with a stated pick; the format is in how to write buyer guides that rank.
- An in-sentence text link at the moment of recommendation in any article.
- A "check price" button under a product heading.
- An automated product block, of the kind the old ads were, at the end of the page.
Sites that leaned on the widgets lost a small share of earnings in 2023. Sites that had put their links in the writing noticed almost nothing, and many of them earn more now because they replaced widget slots with real recommendations.
Fixing pages that still have the old code
Two things to search your site for. First, the Native Shopping Ads script (it references amazon-adsystem.com and an amzn_assoc configuration); delete it, since it renders nothing and still costs a request. Second, SiteStripe image links, whose image URLs come from ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com or similar; those now show as broken images.
Replace each with a text link or an API-driven product box at the same spot, and where the old block was a generic "related products" strip, write a one-line recommendation instead. A page with a single specific pick beats one with twelve unranked thumbnails.
Doing the replacement at scale
Rebuilding product boxes across a site by hand is the slow part, and it's what AffSERP's buyer-guide tool is for: it pulls live product data through the Creators API, writes the guide with a stated pick and a reason for each product, and publishes it with product boxes and your Associates ID on every link.
The intro, the comparison and the recommendation are written as one piece, so the links land where they convert, in the argument, rather than in a block at the bottom.
The Refresh option regenerates an older guide with current products and prices without changing its URL.
FAQ
Are Native Shopping Ads still available?
No. They were retired in late summer 2023 and the units stopped serving. Old code renders nothing; the help pages just haven't been taken down.
What replaced them?
Nothing directly. Text links with your tag still work, and product data comes from the Creators API for building your own boxes and tables, usually through a plugin or a content tool.
Did the ads earn more than text links?
Usually less. In-content links and product boxes sit where the reader has just been given a reason to buy; the automated blocks didn't.
What goes where the ad block was?
A specific recommendation with a text link, or a product box built from live data. Remove dead ad scripts and broken SiteStripe image links while you're there.
AffSERP writes buyer guides from the Creators API and publishes them with current prices and your Associates ID on every link.
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