Amazon launches AI ad product for brand campaigns on connected TV

Amazon released a new AI product in its demand-side platform focused on connected TV advertisers, helping them target brand awareness campaigns based on data that is typically applied to performance marketing. On Monday, Amazon Ads announced the update to the DSP, calling the new campaign type Brand+, which works in tandem with Performance+, an AI-powered product that launched last year. The new ad product was built to deliver video ad campaigns on Amazon and its properties, such as Twitch, as well as to third-party publishers, including Buzzfeed, Fox Corp. and Dotdash Meredith, Amazon said in its announcement. Advertisers will use machine-learning models within the DSP to target audiences that are “most likely to buy their products and services,” rather than serving ads to broad demographic profiles of consumers who might not be in the market for those brands, according to Kelly MacLean, VP of Amazon DSP. The new campaigns turn “brand awareness into a strategic driver of conversions,” MacLean said in the announcement. NextGen Marketing Summit Join us for a crash course on Gen Z, DTC marketing and the creator economy Register today Amazon and its competitors are all building AI-automated ad products that relieve brands and agencies of some of the work managing campaigns. The AI ad products, such as Google’s Performance Max, Meta’s Advantage+, and TikTok’s Smart+, identify the customers with the highest likelihood of conversion—meaning those people are primed to act on the ads. The ad products take some of the workload off the advertisers, but they also take some of the controls out agencies’ hands. There are some concerns that the rise of AI ad products decreases transparency in ad markets, because inscrutable AI handles the targeting and bidding for advertisers; the decision-making and reporting could be somewhat of a black box. Amazon said its AI ad platform has transparency and won’t minimize advertiser “oversight or strategic input.” As these ad platforms develop, they also provide more generative AI tools that assist with the creative design and copy within ads. Also, as Amazon is doing here, the AI campaigns are evolving to handle campaigns with brand-awareness outcomes, not just performance marketing. Google has paired Performance Max campaigns with Demand Gen, an ad product that targets consumers to increase their interest in a brand, before they are poised to make a shopping decision. 15 streaming TV predictions for 2025 AI decision-making is becoming more important, too, in advertising as marketers lose signals from cookies and other ad-tracking technology. For instance, Amazon has emphasized how its Performance+ campaigns match ads with people without needing third-party cookies, the web browsing tracker that is going out of vogue. Amazon’s DSP competes most directly with Google’s Display and Video 360 and The Trade Desk. In Amazon’s DSP, the brand-awareness campaigns take an advertisers’ first-party data and match it with customers on Amazon who have searched for relevant products or streamed shows that indicate the viewer’s interests, Amazon said in the announcement. The idea is to get streaming TV commercials in front of the most suitable audience. “The machine learning models continuously optimize the campaign by analyzing new signals and engagement insights, helping reach high-potential customers early,” Amazon said.

Amazon launches AI ad product for brand campaigns on connected TV

Featured Stories