Dive Brief:
- Amazon will begin selling video ads on the Amazon Advertising Platform for all of its owned properties that run video ads, including Twitch, IMDb, the Amazon homepage and Fire TV, per a report from Ad Age.
- Currently Twitch sells its own ads while the main Amazon brand typically has lower-quality video ad inventory. Marketers view the Amazon Advertising Platform as a more typical exchange with access to websites beyond Amazon's properties, per the report.
- By placing more emphasis on Amazon's own properties, the shift will enable the company to better deploy its first-party data for advertisers.
Dive Insight:
The move simply makes sense, especially as Amazon is growing into more of a key player in digital advertising. While the online ad world is still very much a duopoly of Google and Facebook in terms of spending, Amazon has a major asset in drawing in advertisers in the form of its user data, which includes transactional data — purchase history can be a powerful source of customer insight for many marketers — as well as viewing habits on Prime Video. Another advantage is that ads on Amazon appear within an ecosystem where consumers are already primed to make a purchase.
Google and Facebook each has its own large trove of first-party user data, but with a difference in focus. Google's data is based around online search, browsing history and possibly even email content for Gmail users. Facebook's data is much more tied to user behavior on its various social media and messaging platforms.
Throughout 2017, Amazon has taken steps to ramp up its advertising game from meeting with industry insiders on expanding its video content to better compete with Google's YouTube and Facebook's Watch to signing a deal for a New York City-based advertising office near the heart of the ad industry. Amazon is expected to reach $1.65 billion in ad revenue this year, putting it ahead of both Snapchat and Twitter.
