The bay area Amazon.com Inc quietly shuttered a PPC promotion training program that permitted corporations to reroute traffic that are caused by the retailer’s network to their personal web content on Tuesday, saying it could enduringly interrupt this system in October. Targeted ads for specific items would pop up on Amazon’s website and drive shoppers to the retailer or manufacturer’s own site.

Amazon will no longer allow retailers to advertise their products and take users away outside of the Amazon website.

Wingo added that the program was famous for its large conversion rate and advertisers were startled when they got an email from the e-commerce giant informing them of the change.

“We can confirm that Product Ads will be discontinued from October 31, 2015”.

Under the programme many businesses that were not necessarily sellers on the retailer’s online marketplace could buy ad space on its website and divert the traffic to their own sites. The company said to Reuters in an email that at Amazon they were continually analyzing the services they provide to associates in order to assist them best reach their customer base with growing their businesses.

The Wall Street Journal believes the Product Ads, which appeared with product photos under Amazon search results, is being replaced by simple text ads running alongside product searches, and it thinks the reason has to do with Google. The ads themselves were displayed much like regular Amazon listings – picture, price and shipping option included – and with the tagline “Product Ads from External Websites”.

Amazon’s overall advertising business is estimated globally to bring in $1.26bn in 2015 and grow to $1.83bn by 2018, according to eMarketer.

“We are disappointed with the news”, said Angela Hsu, vice president of Internet business and marketing at Lamps Plus, a home decor company that used the product ads program. The firm was featured in an Amazon case research in May and stated the programme elevated its gross sales by greater than eighty %.