Native Shopping Ads vs inline text links: text wins on EPC by 2.3x

Native Shopping Ads vs inline text links: text wins on EPC by 2.3x
Native Shopping Ads (the auto-recommendation widgets) are being sunset, but the lesson holds for any widget vs text choice. n=3,200 sessions, matched pages:
— Inline contextual text link: 4.1% click-through, EPC $0.34
— Recommendation widget: 9.6% click-through, EPC $0.15
Widgets get more clicks but from lower-intent browsers — they inflate the click count and dilute your 24-hour cart window with tire-kickers.
So what: optimize for EPC, not click-through. A buried-but-relevant text link out-earns a flashy widget on the same traffic.