Amazon is testing external links in its search results, which link out to products on external websites. The change is not an ad move, but it shows how non-endemic links could be a potential growth engine for retail media networks.

Amazon has been experimenting with new growth engines for its ad business, recently making its Retail Ads Service available to other retail media networks (RMNs). Now it’s expanding its non-endemic ads business.

“Non-endemic is one of the ways that retailers are looking to really accelerate and add incremental growth,” said our analyst Sarah Marzano on a May 2024 episode of “Behind the Numbers.”

• Amazon’s US ad business will expand by 19.4% YoY in 2025, per our November 2024 forecast.
• That double-digit growth is impressive, but pales in comparison with the over 50% growth it saw in 2020 and 2021.
• And while Amazon’s projected $47.52 billion in US ad revenues will be much smaller than the $530.88 billion it will see in US ecommerce revenues this year, the ad business is growing faster.

“Retailers who have more mature, developed retail media networks are recognizing that they might be reaching a level of saturation among their endemic brands,” said Marzano. “Even though they might be looking at growth from those programs over the next few years, it's not as significant of growth as they might like to see.”

If Amazon were to create ad inventory for brands Amazon does not carry, it could provide some of that growth.

Editor's Note: A previous version of this article described the external links Amazon is testing as non-endemic ads and part of a larger ad strategy. The article has been updated to show that Amazon's external link testing is not paid advertising.