Amazon just let creators choose which ads they run, and it's a small shift with a big catch

Amazon just handed creators the steering wheel on sponsored content, and quietly left a lot of advertisers holding a bill they did not sign up for.

Since 10 August, Amazon has been serving Sponsored Products campaigns directly through creator content in its Influencer Program. Instead of a brand dictating exactly where and how their product gets pushed, eligible creators can now browse available campaigns and opt into featuring products that actually suit their audience. Amazon surfaces recommendations based on relevance and past engagement, and the creator makes the call from there.

For creators, this is a genuine win. It flips the usual affiliate dynamic where brands decide the placement and creators just execute it, giving creators actual say over what they are seen promoting. That matters for anyone who has ever had to plug a product that clashed badly with their content or their audience.

Here is the catch. Advertisers running Sponsored Products campaigns with the "Amazon and beyond" setting were automatically enrolled into this, no action required. Existing bids and budgets carried straight over unchanged, which means a campaign nobody actively reviewed before 10 August started paying for clicks from creator placements on day one. Two new settings sit under "Settings for ads served off Amazon," with "Increase reach" switched on by default and a "Limit off-Amazon spend" option buried underneath it for anyone who wants to opt out.

It gets messier for anyone trying to manage spend closely. Bid adjustments for Top of Search or Product Pages simply do not apply to these off-Amazon placements, and maximum bids apply uniformly across the board regardless of where the click comes from. Dynamic bidding still works on this new inventory, so budgets can move faster than expected if nobody is watching.

If you run Amazon ads, this is the week to actually open your campaign settings rather than assume everything is still working the way it did last month. Creators get more control, brands need to double check theirs.