Reviews have always been the moat on Amazon. They are also the thing brands have had the least control over. You could optimize the listing, enroll in Vine, click Request a Review, and then hope. At unBoxed on September 29, Amazon announced a product that changes that equation: Review Requests, a new Amazon Ads campaign type that puts review collection on media budget. It enters open beta in the US in late October.
How it works is refreshingly simple. Instead of showing an ad for your product, the campaign shows a native one-tap prompt to a verified buyer, at least seven days after delivery, while they browse high-traffic Amazon pages like the homepage. The buyer taps a star rating and can optionally add a written review, photo, or video. You create and manage the campaigns in the Amazon Ads Agent with the same bidding and budget controls you already use.
The eligibility rules matter. Your product must have fewer than 1,000 total ratings and reviews when the campaign is created, and Amazon checks continuously, pausing the campaign automatically once you cross 1,000. Your advertising account needs to be in good standing with no active policy violations. And no, you cannot buy positivity: buyers can leave any rating or none at all, and incentives like samples or discounts are not allowed. The campaign only increases how many verified buyers get asked.
This is not Vine with a price tag. Vine puts free units in the hands of pre-approved Vine Voices before or shortly after launch, and every review carries a Vine Customer Review of Free Product label. Review Requests runs after the sale with real paying customers, and the resulting reviews carry no special label. They look like any other review on your detail page, because they are.
The billing detail is worth reading twice. Amazon bills cost per click, the same mechanic as Sponsored Products: you pay when a shopper clicks through to the review flow. What Amazon has not fully clarified is the exact billable event, with some reporting suggesting you pay on the click even if no review follows. Budget for paying per click until the beta console tells you otherwise. A demo campaign showed a 75 cent bid and a $100 daily budget as Amazon's starting point, but expect real bids to move with competition for the ASIN.
Early numbers are strong. In a closed beta run from June 3 to 21, products collected roughly three times as many ratings and reviews per week as before the test. That is a company-supplied figure, so treat it as directional, not gospel. Still, agency operators are paying attention: at unBoxed, Review Requests was reportedly the breakout product, with one retail media director giving it a 10 out of 10 and brand-side managers already carving out 2027 budget for it.
The operator's take: this belongs in your launch playbook, not your always-on budget. The 1,000-review cap means the window closes on its own, which makes it a tool for new products and slow starters, not for mature listings. Pair it with a listing that is ready to convert the attention, because paid prompts will surface your product's real quality, good or bad, faster than organic ever did. And keep your Request a Review automations running. Free review asks and paid review asks stack.
If you launch products on Amazon, late October is your cue to get the campaign built. Reviews compound. The brands that start collecting them on day one will spend 2027 defending a moat instead of digging one.
