Retail & commerce · also called Sponsored listings, onsite search ads
Sponsored products
Sponsored products are ads that promote specific products within a retailer's or marketplace's search results and product pages, looking like regular listings but labelled as sponsored.
Search for "running shoes" on a big marketplace and some of the top results carry a small "sponsored" tag. Those are sponsored products: brands and sellers bid, usually per click, for their products to appear in prominent positions for relevant searches and on related product pages.
They are the largest format in retail media, because they reach shoppers at the moment of purchase. They work much like search advertising, with keyword or product targeting, auctions that consider bid and relevance, and cost per click pricing, but results are measured directly in sales on the platform through closed-loop measurement.
For sellers on marketplaces, sponsored products can feel mandatory: if competitors advertise, organic listings may be pushed down. That raises questions about how much of the "sales lift" is incremental versus defensive spending, and about marketplace fees. Clear labelling of sponsored listings is required by consumer protection rules in many markets. Click fraud and competitor clicking also affect sponsored products, so marketplaces filter invalid clicks.
Think of it like this
Sponsored products are like paying a bookshop to put your novel on the table by the front door instead of on a shelf at the back.
An example
A kitchen-appliance seller in Mexico bids MXN 6 per click on "air fryer" searches on a marketplace; its product appears in the top three results and generates 900 orders at a ROAS of 7 in a month.
Related terms
Retail media
Retail media is advertising sold by retailers, on their own websites, apps and stores or elsewhere using their shopper data, letting brands reach customers close to the point of purchase.
Search advertising
Search advertising is placing paid ads alongside search engine results, triggered by the words people search for and usually charged per click.
Closed-loop measurement
Closed-loop measurement links ad exposure directly to actual sales data for the same people, typically within a retailer or data owner, showing whether ads led to purchases.
CPC (cost per click)
CPC (cost per click) is a pricing model where the advertiser pays only when someone clicks the ad, and also the average amount paid per click.
Invalid click
An invalid click is an ad click that is not the result of genuine user interest, such as bot clicks, accidental double-clicks, clicks by publishers on their own ads, or manipulated clicks.
Sources: IAB: retail media