Benefits of buying Fire TV ad inventory from Amazon Ads

November 17, 2020

By Kat Vasilopoulos
Sr. Product Marketing Manager

We sat down with Joe Pinsky, who leads the video advertising product management team at Amazon Ads, to talk about why there is no better place to buy Fire TV ad inventory than from the creators of Fire TV.

OTT (over-the-top) video, also known as streaming TV, is mainstream behavior today. What are some of the trends that Amazon Ads has seen in the video streaming industry?

Cord-cutting is taking place in living rooms across the country. In 2019, eMarketer predicted that OTT and linear TV households would hit an equilibrium in 2023, but today it’s looking like that convergence could be accelerating and defying even those bullish estimates.1 In fact, there are now 70MM US households that are using OTT, and they are watching an average of 102 hours per month.2 Fire TV is no exception to this phenomenon. With more than 40MM Fire TV monthly active users worldwide, advertisers are increasingly turning to Fire TV’s ad-supported content to reach an incremental audience whose viewing behaviors have shifted from traditional cable viewing.3

There are lots of different streaming providers out there. What makes Fire TV unique?

Fire TV provides simple and fast access to thousands of movies and TV shows from multiple providers, making it an excellent entertainment option for streamers. With over 150MM Fire TV devices sold globally, it’s no surprise to see that audiences are streaming billions of hours of content every month.4 If advertisers aren’t thinking about Fire TV, they could be missing out on this huge, hard-to-reach audience.

What ad-supported content does Amazon Ads offer brands and agencies on Fire TV?

Available through Amazon DSP and powered by Amazon Publisher Services (APS), Amazon Streaming TV ads provide brands and agencies with access to premium content. This includes top TV networks, like Fox, Discovery, AMC, CNNGo, Bloomberg and CBS; live sports, like Thursday Night Football; IMDb TV*, a free streaming video service available to all users on Fire TV; and our curated News app.

How can accessing Fire TV ad-supported streaming TV inventory through Amazon DSP increase a brand’s reach?

When you buy directly from a publisher, you’re not able to reach the scale of the Fire TV audience. Individual publishers can reach an average of 5.5% of ad-supported streaming TV viewers on Fire TV, while other DSPs that access inventory through third-party SSPs can reach up to 55%.5 Not only that, but many of these apps have high audience duplication, which impacts your ability to control frequency. On the other hand, you can reach up to 95% of ad-supported streaming TV viewers on Fire TV when you buy Fire TV ad inventory through Amazon DSP. When you work with us, we help you to spread your buy optimally across apps so that you can maximize your reach, manage frequency, and experience all the other unique benefits of Fire TV.

What are some things that advertisers may not know about accessing Fire TV ad-supported inventory through Amazon DSP?

Firstly, there are no supply side fees with Amazon DSP because we’re accessing the inventory directly. Not only that, but our direct publisher relationships allow advertisers to bid on nearly 100% of Fire TV impressions available through APS, while other DSPs that access Fire TV inventory though third-party SSPs can only bid on up to 70% of available impressions.

Another great benefit of buying Fire TV ad-supported streaming TV inventory from Amazon Ads is the direct relationship we have with the Fire TV audience. Amazon Streaming TV ads leverage first-party behavioral signals that help you better understand and engage relevant audiences, and deliver a consistent and holistic ad experience.

And of course, we have an array of first- and third-party measurement offerings so you can learn how Amazon Streaming TV ad campaigns impacted shopping behaviors both on and off of Amazon.

Can you share a sneak peek of what advertisers can look forward to?

Advertisers can look forward to our growing reach. In 2020 alone, we increased our monthly ad-supported viewers from 20MM+ to 50MM+. And IMDb TV continues the expansion of original content with Amazon Studios developing new original programming for the free streaming service, starting November 2020 with the spy series Alex Rider. These efforts will continue in 2021 with a new court program, the Untitled Judge Judy Sheindlin Project, and a reimagining of the crime drama, Leverage.

Please reach out to your Amazon Ads support team for more information or get in touch with an account executive to get started with Amazon DSP.

* IMDb TV is now known as Freevee.

Sources

1 eMarketer, US, 2019
2 ComScore State of OTT, 2020
3 Amazon internal, Global, 2020
4 Amazon internal, Global, 2021
5 Amazon internal, US, 2020