Preferred Brand Recommendation Ads

The Problem

Brand selection was a guessing game.

The Amazon Business Ads team identified several critical issues:

• Customers found the guided buying policy setup "wasn't user friendly" and explicitly requested UX improvements.
• Of 2 million active policies, only ~10% were associated with Preferred Brand policies.
• Business buyers wanted better discovery — to "see related brands and brands preferred by others," with ratings and product information displayed comparably.

User Pain Points

One brand at a time, one tab at a time.

"I have to type the brand name and search them one by one — there are no recommendations."

Buyers were opening multiple browser tabs to manually compare brand information, and repeatedly expressed a desire for AI-driven recommendations that could anticipate their needs instead of making them do the digging.

Process & Solution

A lightweight widget, a heavyweight improvement.

We designed a lightweight ads-widget experiment deployed directly on the Preferred Brand policy page:

• Reused the existing Sponsored Brand ad widget format, staying aligned with Amazon Ads guidelines.
• Returned sponsored brand recommendations sharing common attributes with the searched categories.
• Provided side-by-side brand comparison so buyers no longer needed multiple tabs.
• Integrated recommendations directly into the policy-creation workflow — discovery happens where the decision happens.

Outcomes

Discovery built into the workflow.

The lightweight widget approach enabled customers to discover alternative brands during policy setup — addressing both the usability friction buyers complained about and the low adoption rate of Preferred Brand policies, while opening a new discoverability surface for sellers.