It’s past your bedtime, and you’re scrolling through your favorite news site. Suddenly, an ad for a luxury retirement cruise pops up in the middle of your screen. You pause—retirement isn’t even on your radar yet. Maybe you laugh at the ad, or perhaps you’re slightly confused, but either way, this ad is clearly misplaced. It presents a poor experience for you as the consumer and a wasted investment for the brand promoting the cruise.
Bridging the relevancy gap by focusing on performance
Find comfort that you’re not alone. According to a 2024 report from Epsilon, 91% of consumers see at least one irrelevant ad per day, leading to frustration, negative brand perceptions or even discouraging potential purchases. As consumer sensitivity to ad relevance grows, so does the expectation that advertisers will get it right. However, the signals for digital advertising have changed dramatically, and how we previously connected with consumers online is no longer feasible. The key question now is: How can brands close this gap?
At a minimum, effective advertising fosters a positive brand perception, but at its highest potential, relevant ads drive meaningful engagement and lead to product or service purchases. Relevancy has always been the glue that connects customers with brands, but how we drive and measure it is evolving. Some argue that “relevancy scores” can validate how effectively an ad resonates with its audience, but these scores often lack transparency and vary across platforms, leading to inconclusive results for advertisers.
Instead, performance should be the ultimate measure of relevancy. If your ads aren’t driving improved performance, they aren’t delivering the right message at the right moment. Whether it’s better reach for brand awareness, improved cost-per-acquisition for lower-funnel campaigns or an increase in new-to-brand customers—true relevancy is reflected in real results.
Defining a clear framework for achieving relevancy
Focusing on performance and impact is a key focus of Amazon DSP Ad Relevance, which launched this past June. This reimagined approach to delivering relevant ads is built on advanced machine learning models and leverages durable, unique signals from Amazon’s diverse consumer interactions, from shopping to entertainment. Ad Relevance ensures that meaningful, relevant ads are served across inventory sources and channels, even without ad IDs, driving greater effectiveness and engagement.
However, achieving this level of relevancy in today’s landscape requires more than just innovative tools; it demands a strategic framework. The 4Cs of relevancy framework serves as that guiding principle, shaping the algorithms and models used to drive impactful ads.
- Consumers: A deep understanding of how consumers engage with content and where they are in their purchasing journey.
- Context: The supply or publisher in which they are interacting and the content they are consuming in the moment.
- Creative: Personalized creative that resonates most effectively with where audiences are in their shopping journey.
- Cadence: The optimal timing of actions to drive engagement or conversions.
By focusing on these core pillars, in a recent stress test to evaluate Ad Relevance, we fully blocked third-party cookie traffic to see how our systems would handle a worst-case scenario. Remarkably, campaign performance remained unaffected, with up to 65% of delivery powered by advanced modeling techniques. This significantly expanded the pool of addressable supply and led to a 14% spend shift toward previously non-addressable audiences on Safari, Firefox and iOS. Additionally, leveraging direct publisher relationships and hashed durable ad IDs resulted in an 85% boost in return on ad spend for impressions delivered on Amazon Publisher Direct (APD). These findings underscore the importance of advanced modeling and direct publisher relationships in maintaining strong performance and unlocking new opportunities for advertisers, even as the landscape shifts away from non-durable ad IDs.
How relevant ads are powering brand success
Brands are also seeing substantial results, combining the 4Cs framework with the right tools to drive relevancy.
Take Unilever Blueair as an example. Their Prime Day campaign, managed by Tinuiti, aimed to expand their customer base by reaching new audiences interested in competitor products. By using similar audiences, they extended their reach to new consumers with similar behaviors. The result? A 20% increase in new-to-brand customers and an 80% decrease in cost per purchase compared with the brand’s campaign average.
Similarly, PepsiCo, in their Prime Day strategy, aimed to connect with consumers beyond Amazon.com by using keyword contextual targeting on third-party websites. Their approach resulted in a three-times better ROAS, a 62% reduction in CPA and a 60% decrease in CPMs, showcasing the power of relevancy in a cost-efficient manner.
A final word on relevancy
Let’s travel back to where we started—mindlessly scrolling on your smartphone before bed. Imagine if, instead of an irrelevant ad, you were shown an offer for a Caribbean resort because your prior searches indicated you were looking for a perfect New Year’s holiday destination. You might have clicked on the ad or made a mental note to follow up. That’s the power of relevancy—connecting consumers with meaningful content in moments that matter, ultimately maximizing ad spend and driving the best outcomes.
