Sponsored Products

What are sponsored products?

Sponsored products are paid advertising placements that promote individual product listings within a retail or commerce platform, typically appearing in search results or category browse pages. They look like organic product listings but are surfaced based on advertiser bids rather than purely on relevance algorithms. Sponsored products are one of the foundational formats of retail media advertising.

Sponsored products in a commerce media context

As commerce media expands beyond traditional retail environments, sponsored product-style formats are appearing in post-transaction contexts, loyalty platforms, and recommendation modules across the open web. The format's strength — its integration into the natural browsing and shopping experience — makes it well-suited to high-intent commerce media placements.