Amazon DSP unveils next-gen ad tech for precise reach and performance

On October 15, 2024, Amazon Ads announced a series of innovations for its Amazon Demand-side Platform (Amazon DSP) at the unBoxed 2024 event in Austin, Texas. These advancements aim to provide advertisers with more precise full-funnel audience reach, streamlined campaign planning, and improved optimization capabilities. The announcement, made four days ago, showcases Amazon's commitment to evolving its advertising technology to meet the changing needs of the digital advertising landscape.

Amazon DSP is introducing a new user experience designed to simplify campaign creation and management. The platform now offers a consolidated display line-item feature that combines desktop, mobile, and app display inventory into a single line item. According to Amazon Ads, this enhancement has reduced campaign setup time by 75% in early tests, significantly improving advertiser efficiency.

The updated campaign health overview page now includes new insight cards and machine learning recommendations. These features allow advertisers to quickly audit their campaign performance and make data-driven adjustments. For instance, if a campaign is underdelivering, the system will provide a recommendation that can be automatically applied with a single click.

Frequency management has also been improved with new controls and reporting features. The frequency groups feature enables advertisers to manage frequency caps across multiple campaigns, channels, and devices holistically. Amazon Ads reports that advertisers using these controls have saved up to 26% of their campaign budgets from spending on duplicate impressions and achieved up to 21% incremental reach.

Megan Pagliuca, Chief Activation Officer at Omnicom Media Group, praised the new frequency management capabilities, stating, "Amazon DSP's frequency management and target frequency capabilities exceed those of other DSPs. In particular, the frequency cap insights report is the most thought-through report we have seen among all DSPs."

Improved interoperability across Amazon ad tech

A significant addition to Amazon's advertising ecosystem is the new ads data manager. This interface allows advertisers to securely upload their signals once and use them across Amazon DSP and Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC). The ads data manager is integrated with providers such as Treasure Data, Salesforce, and Tealium, facilitating the import of first-party data from various storage locations.

The combination of AMC, Amazon DSP, and Amazon Publisher Cloud now enables advertisers to create custom audiences tailored to their business goals. These audiences can be overlaid with signals from Amazon Ads and third-party publishers to increase their effectiveness. This collaboration creates a new pathway for advertisers to launch enhanced deals with premium third-party publishers using their custom audiences, enriched with precise signals to increase relevancy and campaign performance.

A recent case study involving Xmars and Bedsure demonstrated the power of this integration. By activating a campaign using AMC audiences and Amazon Publisher Cloud, enhanced with publisher signals from a leading publisher, Xmars achieved a 2.2X uplift in reach among the brand's desired audiences and approximately 50% more efficient cost to reach their target customers.

Tony Wang, Xmars Co-founder, commented on the results: "Ensuring that media dollars are driving maximum results is a top priority for our clients. We're able to unlock even more value on Amazon DSP using our brand partners' proprietary data in secure collaboration with Amazon Ads signals plus insights from top broadcasters to create enriched deals. This increases the effectiveness of our campaigns across the funnel and delivers even greater value for advertisers."

Amazon Ads has also enhanced its Performance+ feature within Amazon DSP. This always-on, automated optimization capability uses advertiser-provided signals and predictive AI to automate audience relevancy and campaign optimization for lower-funnel goals such as conversion and customer acquisition.

New Performance+ tactics, currently in open beta, expand campaign strategies to include remarketing and retention, in addition to the existing prospecting tactic. The workflow has been streamlined to require as few as four clicks while still providing flexible optimization controls and transparency. Advertisers can choose their campaign goal (conversion, awareness, or consideration), KPI (such as cost-per-acquisition or return on ad spend), and Performance+ tactic (prospecting, remarketing, or retention).

According to Amazon Ads, Performance+ has driven a 51% improvement in customer acquisition costs on average. Fiverr, a company connecting businesses with freelancers, utilized the Performance+ prospecting tactic and saw impressive results within a month: a 66% reduction in cost-per-acquisition versus their goal target and a 72% increase in click-through rate compared to campaign average benchmarks.

Amazon Ads' expanding reach

Amazon Ads now boasts a monthly ad-supported audience of over 275 million customers across its owned and operated properties in the United States. This extensive reach, combined with the platform's first-party insights and ability to connect and measure campaign tactics across awareness, consideration, and conversion, positions Amazon Ads as a powerful player in the digital advertising space.

Kelly MacLean, Vice President of Amazon DSP, emphasized the importance of these innovations in the evolving digital advertising landscape: "The digital advertising landscape is rapidly evolving, with streaming TV becoming mainstream and full-funnel, cross-channel reach and measurement taking center stage. We're inventing ad tech that makes it easier for all advertisers to navigate this evolution with precise reach, deeper insights, and direct measurement."

Key Facts

• Announcement date: October 15, 2024
• Event: unBoxed 2024 in Austin, Texas
• Amazon Ads monthly ad-supported audience: 275 million+ customers in the U.S.
• Consolidated display line-item feature reduced campaign setup time by 75%
• Frequency cap controls saved up to 26% of campaign budgets and drove up to 21% incremental reach
• Performance+ drove a 51% improvement in customer acquisition costs on average
• Fiverr case study: 66% reduction in CPA and 72% increase in click-through rate using Performance+
• Xmars and Bedsure case study: 2.2X uplift in reach and approximately 50% more efficient cost using AMC audiences and Amazon Publisher Cloud