🛑 Attention Amazon Sellers

Rufus just moved closer to the Buy Box and is now visible inside the cart experience triggering a pre-built comparison prompt.

It defines which products are similar, what attributes matter and how items are evaluated. This is no longer discovery. This is assisted decision-making.

And how can I prevent my customers from choosing another product at the bottom of the funnel?

• Sponsored Products defensive campaigns within the shopping cart summary

• Sponsored Products defensive campaigns targeting product comparison prompts.

As I've been saying for years, not a single pixel will go unsold on Amazon.

📰 What you need to know

👉 Rufus now frames product comparisons, not shoppers, so when shoppers tap “Compare with similar items,” Rufus structures the comparison, decides what qualifies as similar, and highlights the attributes it considers relevant. If your differentiation is not explicit, you lose control of the narrative.

👉 “And now for something completely different”. Rufus now supports deep, agentic research flows. AI shopping assistance is moving from suggestions to execution.

👉 COSMO and Rufus readiness report is a new feature ZonGuru just launched. It scans your ASIN and shows where your listing fails to meet AI-driven standards:

• AI-readiness score

• Semantic gaps blocking Rufus recommendations

• Missing buyer intent signals

• Optimized rewrite examples based on your actual ASIN

👉 Temu debuted an official Shopify App Store integration, allowing merchants to list products, sync inventory and manage fulfillment across 30+ global markets. This move massively expands Temu’s supply base and lowers friction for Shopify sellers testing new channels.

👉 Shopify’s new cross-merchant Product Network lets stores surface other sellers’ products when inventory runs out. Discovery happens at the network level, with commissions and incentives baked into the UX. Marketplace economics without calling it a marketplace.

💡 Weekly tip: brand defense campaigns done right

If you are not defending your brand, your competitors are.

How to execute it properly:

1. Create a Sponsored Products campaign exclusively for brand defense.

2. Use brand keywords in exact and phrase, including:

   • Brand name

   • Brand + product

   • Common misspellings

3. Add a separate discovery layer using modified broad:

   • +brand +product

4. Bid aggressively but efficiently. Brand defense should deliver:

   • Very high CTR

   • Extremely low ACoS

5. Add these brand terms as negative exact in all other campaigns to avoid cannibalization.

Why this works:

• You block competitors from hijacking your branded traffic.

• You protect conversion rate and Buy Box share.

• You control the message at the BOFU stage, where decisions happen.

Rule of thumb:
Losing branded traffic is not a budget problem. It is a structure problem.

Extracted from my ebook
Amazon Advertising Hacks

⚒ Software & services

As we do every week, here are two links that actually move the needle:

• Helium 10 just got an end of the year promo with 40% off 12 months of Helium 10 Platinum.

• Data Dive includes a blind spend report in Rank Radar showing where your ad budget is leaking or winning.