Amazon quietly extended its DSP Campaign Management APIs on June 11, 2026, adding audio as a supported ad group inventory type - completing the format set that developers and programmatic buyers can now control entirely through code, without touching the console.

The update closes a gap that had persisted since Amazon began rolling out the new DSP Campaign Management API structure. According to Amazon's Advanced Tools Center release notes, the DSP Campaign Management APIs now support the audio ad group inventory type, meaning advertisers can programmatically create and manage audio campaigns alongside Display, Streaming TV, and Online Video inventory types. The release is a documentation update to a technical interface, not a consumer product launch, but its implications for ad tech teams managing Amazon DSP programmatically are considerable.

What the June 11 update actually changes

Before June 11, the ad group inventory types available through the DSP Campaign Management APIs were limited to Display, Streaming TV, and Online Video. Audio existed as a format within the Amazon DSP console but had no programmatic equivalent in the new API structure. The gap mattered because developers building automated campaign workflows had no way to create or modify audio ad groups through the API - those campaigns required manual console intervention.

The June 11 addition brings audio into parity with the other supported formats. According to Amazon's documentation, the update covers three distinct functional areas: campaign management, creative management, and deals and inventory group management.

On the campaign management side, AUDIO is now a supported ad group inventory type for creating and managing campaigns via the DSP Campaign Management APIs. The workflow follows the same pattern as other inventory types: a campaign must first exist, then an ad group is created with the inventory type set to AUDIO, and finally an AUDIO creative is associated with that ad group.

On the creative management side, the AUDIO ad creative format type can now be associated with the AUDIO ad experience. This connects to the broader Amazon DSP Ad Creative Management API structure, where two objects govern creative behavior. The first is the Ad Creative itself - a parent-level object that holds metadata, assets, and product information. The second is the Ad Experience, which represents how the creative renders in its final form. Each ad creative requires at least one associated Ad Experience to serve on an Amazon DSP ad group.

The creative format type to ad experience mapping now includes AUDIO matching to the AUDIO ad experience. Other mappings in the current documentation are: DISPLAY to STANDARD_DISPLAY, VIDEO to ONLINE_VIDEO or STREAMING_TV_VIDEO, COMPONENT to RESPONSIVE_ECOMMERCE, and THIRD_PARTY to THIRD_PARTY_VIDEO or THIRD_PARTY_DISPLAY.

On the deals and inventory groups side, the AUDIO inventory type is now available for deal and inventory group management. This matters for buyers who use preferred deals, private auction, or programmatic guaranteed structures to access audio inventory - those deal objects can now be set up and associated programmatically rather than through the console.

The fourth area noted in the release documentation is reporting: audio reporting is now available through the Reporting API, with engagement metrics specifically built for audio ad attention.

The audio engagement metrics in the reporting API

The reporting component is technically the most detailed part of the update. According to Amazon's documentation for the Reporting API, the Attention (audio ad) metric family contains 16 fields. Each measures a distinct listener behavior and maps to a specific field identifier in the new API.

The core playback metrics are: Starts (audio ad), reported as metric.startsAudioAd and corresponding to audioAdStart in the legacy Version 3 DSP reporting name; First quartile (audio ad), captured at the 25% listen mark via metric.firstQuartileAudioAd; Midpoint (audio ad), recorded when 50% of the ad has played, via metric.midpointAudioAd; Third quartile (audio ad), captured at the 75% threshold via metric.thirdQuartileAudioAd; and Complete listens (audio ad), defined as plays through the full duration, via metric.completeListensAudioAd.

From these core fields, two derived metrics are available. Completion rate (audio ad), with field ID metric.completionRateAudioAd, is a percentage calculated as complete listens divided by starts. Cost per completed listen (audio ad), field ID metric.costPerCompletedListenAudioAd, is a decimal value calculated as total cost divided by complete listens - and it requires the budgetCurrency.value field to be included in the report query.

The interaction metrics go further, capturing how listeners actively engage during playback: Pauses (audio ad) via metric.pausesAudioAd, Resumes (audio ad) via metric.resumesAudioAd, Mutes (audio ad) via metric.mutesAudioAd, Unmutes (audio ad) via metric.unmutesAudioAd, Rewinds (audio ad) via metric.rewindsAudioAd, Skips (audio ad) via metric.skipsAudioAd, and Plays (audio ad) via metric.playsAudioAd - defined specifically as the number of times an audio ad was played for 2 seconds or longer, making it distinct from Starts.

A final metric, Progress (audio ad) via metric.progressAudioAd, counts the number of times an audio ad was played until the time marker assigned by the publisher - a field that depends on publisher-defined parameters rather than a fixed percentage threshold.

All 16 fields share the same compatibility and incompatibility rules with report dimensions. Compatible dimensions include Ad, Ad group, Campaign, Country, Date, Device type, Placement, Supply source, and dozens of others. Incompatible dimensions include Content genre, Content rating, Content title, Content type, Live event fields, and Product relevance, among others. None of these 16 fields carry a Version 3 Sponsored Ads reporting name - they are DSP-only metrics.

What is still excluded

The June 11 update does not extend the API to all audio formats. According to Amazon's ADSP Campaign Management API FAQ documentation, Podcast and Digital Out-Of-Home remain excluded from the new API's supported ad group inventory types. Podcast inventory was accessible through legacy API structures but is not supported in the current DSP Campaign Management API. The documentation does not specify a timeline for adding Podcast support.

Amazon Guaranteed deals also remain limited. The FAQ documentation states that creating or updating campaigns targeting Amazon Guaranteed deals is not supported, with only read-only access enabled. The documentation notes that Amazon Guaranteed deals are on a deprecation path and will be replaced by Programmatic Guaranteed deals.

The FAQ also notes that several legacy inventory type values are on a deprecation path: STANDARD_DISPLAY, AMAZON_MOBILE_DISPLAY, AAP_MOBILE_APP, and VIDEO. Amazon recommends not creating new ad groups with these values as they will be removed in the next major version. The current replacements are DISPLAY, ONLINE_VIDEO, and STREAMING_TV - with AUDIO now joining that list as a first-class inventory type.

Where audio fits in Amazon DSP's programmatic infrastructure

This API update does not introduce audio advertising to Amazon DSP. It brings the programmatic management layer into alignment with what the console has supported for some time. The significance is architectural: audio campaigns can now be part of fully automated workflows.

The DSP Campaign Management API structure uses "campaign" and "ad group" terminology rather than the "order" and "line item" language used in the Amazon DSP console UI. According to Amazon's documentation, campaigns and ad groups are alternative names for orders and line items, designed to align more closely with Sponsored Ads API conventions. The objects and underlying data are the same across both interfaces; only the names differ.

Budget allocation behavior has its own nuances in the API. According to the FAQ documentation, automateBudgetAllocationis independently set at both the campaign and ad group levels. For automated budget allocation to be enabled, it must be set to true at both levels separately. This differs from the console, where setting the field to false at the order level automatically changes the line item to manual budget mode.

The targets API, which governs audience and contextual targeting for ad groups, has atomic behavior: if any single target fails in a request, the entire operation fails. However, partial success is supported across different target types within a single request. If a geo target and a domain target are submitted together and one fails, the other can still succeed. Within a single target type on a single ad group, no partial success is supported.

Amazon's programmatic audio advertising infrastructure has been expanding rapidly since mid-2025. Amazon and SiriusXM expanded programmatic audio reach through strategic DSP integration in September 2025, giving buyers access to SiriusXM Media's 160 million monthly digital listeners. Amazon DSP added Spotify's global audio and video inventory in October 2025, bringing Spotify's 696 million monthly users into the addressable programmatic pool. Amazon DSP later unlocked podcast ads with Art19's audience intelligence in January 2026, extending programmatic audio further into on-demand content.

The June 11 API update comes after Amazon opened DSP inventory management APIs in March 2026, which brought deals, supplier proposals, and inventory groups under the unified API v1 framework. That March update noted that audio inventory from Spotify had been accessible since October 2025 but managing deals around it programmatically required the new inventory management endpoints. The June 11 audio campaign management addition closes the remaining loop: not just the deal structure, but the campaign and creative pipeline, is now accessible via API.

Programmatic audio trends documented on PPC Land in December 2025 identified a structural shift toward treating audio as an identity-powered, omnichannel channel rather than a siloed format - measured with the same commerce, behavioral, and cross-device signals used for CTV and video. The API update reflects that direction: audio is no longer a special case requiring different tooling. It fits the same POST /dsp/v1/adGroups endpoint structure, the same ad creative hierarchy, and the same reporting infrastructure as every other inventory type.

For ad tech developers specifically, the practical workflow is now as follows. First, a campaign object is created. Then, an ad group is created with inventoryType set to AUDIO. An audio creative is built through the Ad Creative Management API, specifying adCreativeFormatType as AUDIO, and then associated with the AUDIO ad experience via the PUT /dsp/v1/adExperiences endpoint. Once the ad creative passes moderation, it can be associated with the audio ad group. Reporting can then use any of the 16 audio attention metrics to measure campaign performance across the supported dimensions.

Context for the marketing community

The practical value of this update depends on how an organization manages Amazon DSP. Advertisers using the console to set up campaigns manually see no change - audio was already available there. The change matters for agencies and technology providers who build automated campaign management systems, manage large advertiser portfolios through API integrations, or connect Amazon DSP to third-party platforms.

Amazon opened its advertising APIs to AI agents in February 2026 through the MCP Server launch, enabling natural language interactions with advertising workflows through tools like Claude and ChatGPT. As agentic advertising systems mature, the completeness of API coverage becomes more important. An AI agent building a cross-format programmatic campaign cannot include audio ad groups if the API does not support them. The June 11 update removes that constraint.

Amazon's DSP forecasting API reached general availability in October 2025, providing campaign-level projections for spend, reach, CPC, CPA, and ROAS. Whether audio campaigns are now included in forecasting support was not specified in the June 11 release documentation.

The audio inventory type exclusion from the API has also been a practical barrier for buyers managing programmatic guaranteed and preferred deals around audio supply. Amazon added Spotify, SiriusXM, and Art19 inventory through deal structures that require both the deal management layer and the campaign management layer to be accessible through code. The March 2026 inventory management API update addressed the deal side. The June 11 update addresses the campaign and creative side.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Amazon Ads, specifically the team managing the Advanced Tools Center and DSP Campaign Management API documentation, issued the update. The intended audience is self-service Amazon DSP advertisers and the developers and ad tech providers building programmatic campaign management systems on top of the Amazon Ads API.

What: Amazon added AUDIO as a supported ad group inventory type in the DSP Campaign Management APIs, enabling programmatic creation and management of audio campaigns. The update also extended the Ad Creative Management API to support the AUDIO format type and AUDIO ad experience, added audio to the Deals and Inventory Group API, and introduced 16 audio-specific engagement metrics in the Reporting API - covering playback milestones, interaction events, completion rates, and cost efficiency measures.

When: The release was published in Amazon's Advanced Tools Center release notes on June 11, 2026.

Where: The changes appear in the Amazon Ads Advanced Tools Center at advertising.amazon.com, specifically in the DSP Campaign Management API documentation, the Creative Management API documentation, the Deal Management overview, and the Reporting API metrics library.

Why: Audio was the only major inventory type supported in the Amazon DSP console that lacked a programmatic management equivalent in the new DSP Campaign Management API. As Amazon expanded its audio inventory partnerships through Spotify, SiriusXM, and Art19 between September 2025 and January 2026, the absence of API support for audio campaign creation became an operational gap for developers building automated workflows and agentic advertising systems.