Amazon will let sellers ship electronic mail messages to extra prospects in enlargement of promoting instruments

Amazon plans to give third-party sellers a series of new marketing tools, including the ability to send emails to customers who’ve made repeat or recent purchases, or spent large amounts with specific sellers over time.

Until now, sellers have only been able to send marketing emails through Amazon’s system to customers who’ve chosen to follow their brands on the e-commerce site.

Amazon says the new tool, called Tailored Audiences, responds to sellers’ requests for more ways to market to customers who’ve purchased items from them before.

The tool will give sellers the ability to send loyal customers “reminders of things like your hot deals or your new product launches,” said Carla Vernón, a vice president overseeing Amazon’s consumables category, introducing Tailored Audiences during the opening session at the Amazon Accelerate conference for sellers in Seattle.

Bloomberg News described the move as “a risky bid to boost sales,” noting that the tool will work even if customers haven’t opted-in to follow a particular brand. It comes on the same day that California filed an antitrust suit alleging that Amazon forces third-party sellers and suppliers into “anticompetitive agreements on price.”

Other marketing tools introduced by Amazon at the conference:

• Sellers participating in the Buy with Prime program, which integrates Prime benefits and shipping into non-Amazon sites, will be able to promote and send customers to their direct-to-consumer products and sites from within their brand’s store on Amazon.com.
• Amazon also says it will fund and manage co-branded Buy with Prime ads on Facebook and Instagram to drive customers to direct-to-consumer sites involved in the program.
• Brands registered with Amazon Brand Registry will be able to submit answers to common questions that customers ask the company’s Alexa voice assistant, to be considered for use in answering those questions in the future.

Amazon Accelerate continues Thursday morning with a session featuring Amazon executive Doug Herrington in his first public talk since he was named the new CEO of Amazon Worldwide Stores in June following the departure of Dave Clark as the company’s top consumer exec. Tennis legend Venus Williams is also scheduled to appear at the Amazon conference Thursday.