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The way Amazon Advertising utilizes dark patterns to boost search revenue is by setting default bids artificially high. The UX preselects "suggested bids" at th

The way Amazon Advertising utilizes dark patterns to boost search revenue is by setting default bids artificially high. The UX preselects "suggested bids" at the top of the bidding range and daily budgets for some ad types at $100. Even if you choose "custom bids" for keywords the default will be $1 or $3 depending on the ad type. Of course, thousands of people accepting the defaults results real-time bid levels rising across the board for everyone.

gretch 3y ago
They just accept the defaults even when it means more money comes out of their pocket? How is anyone supposed to design products when customers don’t consider their money to be scarce? And why do we not expect Amazon to not take advantage of it? It’d be like if I was selling a used bike on Craigslist and I said “default price $10k” and then people were like okay guess I’ll just pay way too much money
- ilamont 3y ago
  You'd be amazed at how many junior people at an SMB or publishing imprint who are thrown into the deep end and told to spin up an Amazon ad campaign with zero knowledge of the platform. It's not their money, and their bosses don't get it either, so they accept the defaults and the suggested bids, and blow through a pile of cash. Some realize the mistakes and quickly optimize, and learn how to set up future campaigns the right way. The other group getting burned are desperate passive income newbies sitting on a pile of junk from Alibaba and grasping at anything which might move the needle on sales. To pay for campaigns, they'll even take out loans from Amazon Lending or predatory finance partners like Parafin Cash Advance, which take a percentage of your gross sales every other week. Self published authors are also getting tricked by Amazon suggested bids, high default budgets, and ridiculous default levels for custom bids. Amazon is laughing all the way to the bank.
  - sagarm 3y ago
    That doesn't seem sustainable. Amazon's advertisers seem like the type to want to sell something directly rather than bolster their brands, and if they aren't getting a return on their spend they'll stop.

gretch 3y ago

They just accept the defaults even when it means more money comes out of their pocket? How is anyone supposed to design products when customers don’t consider their money to be scarce? And why do we not expect Amazon to not take advantage of it? It’d be like if I was selling a used bike on Craigslist and I said “default price $10k” and then people were like okay guess I’ll just pay way too much money

ilamont 3y ago
You'd be amazed at how many junior people at an SMB or publishing imprint who are thrown into the deep end and told to spin up an Amazon ad campaign with zero knowledge of the platform. It's not their money, and their bosses don't get it either, so they accept the defaults and the suggested bids, and blow through a pile of cash. Some realize the mistakes and quickly optimize, and learn how to set up future campaigns the right way. The other group getting burned are desperate passive income newbies sitting on a pile of junk from Alibaba and grasping at anything which might move the needle on sales. To pay for campaigns, they'll even take out loans from Amazon Lending or predatory finance partners like Parafin Cash Advance, which take a percentage of your gross sales every other week. Self published authors are also getting tricked by Amazon suggested bids, high default budgets, and ridiculous default levels for custom bids. Amazon is laughing all the way to the bank.
- sagarm 3y ago
  That doesn't seem sustainable. Amazon's advertisers seem like the type to want to sell something directly rather than bolster their brands, and if they aren't getting a return on their spend they'll stop.