Amazon’s new ad tech tool measures post-cookie advertising IDs for publishers

Amazon is expanding its ad tech program for publishers, with a focus on connected TV apps, and releasing a measurement product called Signal IQ that lets publishers track how third-party data affects their ad deals. The updates, announced Monday during the Amazon Publisher Services Summit in New York, are part of an evolving ad tech ecosystem that publishers are testing to move beyond internet-tracking cookies to target and measure ads. With Signal IQ, Amazon aims to make it easier for publishers to try third-party IDs, or the advertising identity products that are replacing cookies. Amazon also opened its publisher cloud—which allows publishers and advertisers to use data for planning and measuring ad campaigns—to all streaming TV apps and websites in the U.S. and Canada. Amazon’s role in ad tech has expanded in recent years, driven by the growth of its advertising business on its e-commerce site and Prime Video streaming platform. Amazon’s publisher services give it a direct link to third-party publishers that also use header bidding to run advertising auctions parallel to their traditional ad manager, typically Google. Read about Ad Age’s 2024 Leading Women here Internet advertising is changing, however, with the rise of connected TV and the loss of data signals from browsers and devices. Apple has ditched cookies and made ad IDs less effective, and Google plans to follow a similar roadmap on Chrome and Android. Publishers and advertisers are looking for new paths to use appropriate, privacy-respecting data signals to carry out common ad functions. Google, for instance, recently developed PAIR—which stands for “publisher advertiser identity reconciliation”—linking first-party data between participants in ad tech auctions. Amazon has been developing its own ad tech and publisher offerings, including a team called “ID++” within its organization, which is working on advanced addressability. Also read: How Amazon focused on ad tech for brands at upfronts On Monday, Amazon discussed work with publishers, including Dotdash Meredith, Hearst Magazines, NBCUniversal, Newsweek, Warner Bros. Discovery, The Washington Post and Fox, which owns streaming app Tubi. Publishers use the cloud to build audiences, based on their data and third-party signals, and then sell that to advertisers in Amazon’s demand-side platform. At first, Signal IQ will measure the effectiveness of third-party ad IDs available through Amazon’s Connections Marketplace, which is an online shop for publishers to test alternative IDs from ad tech vendors such as LiveRamp, Yahoo and LiveIntent. These vendors have data signals that publishers use to enhance the value of their ad inventory. Signal IQ is meant to give publishers a way to see how well those IDs perform. Amazon said Signal IQ helps “publishers quantify the impact of their supply-side signals,” and it is “starting with third-party ad identifiers,” suggesting it could be used to measure other signals as it evolves. “Hearst Newspapers gained valuable insights into the impact of third-party IDs and signal fidelity across our inventory,” Mike Irenski, VP of programmatic revenue, Hearst Newspapers, said in Amazon’s announcement on Monday. “This allowed us to advance our entire addressability strategy, focusing on deal creation, floor optimization, and investments in first-party attributes to enhance the bid stream.”

Amazon’s new ad tech tool measures post-cookie advertising IDs for publishers

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