5 ways Prime Video ads can help brands connect with millions of viewers through premium content
April 24, 2024 | By Matt Miller, Sr. Copywriter
Since its release in February, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, has become one of the top five Prime Video series debuts ever in the U.S. Then, in mid-March, the trailer for The Idea of You, starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, broke records, becoming the most-watched trailer ever for a streaming movie. Meanwhile, Road House with Jake Gyllenhaal became Amazon MGM Studios’ most-watched produced film debut ever with more than 50 million global viewers over its first two weekends. It’s an exciting start to a year overflowing with must-watch Prime Video shows and movies.
Along with a bounty of premium content, 2024 marks the first year in which brands can reach millions of Prime Video viewers with Streaming TV ads in shows and movies. Ads in Prime Video content have been introduced in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Austria, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, and Mexico, and will be followed by Australia later in 2024.
The introduction of ads to Prime Video will help support the production of premium content that audiences love, while helping brands reach millions of viewers around the world.
“We start with the customer and work backwards,” said Jay Marine, global head of Prime Video sports & advertising. “And by making this change, we’ll be able to continue to invest in more great content—like hit movies and TV shows and more live sports—and that investment will continue to grow over time to deliver an even better service for Prime members.”
To help brands better understand the value of Streaming TV ads on Prime Video, here are five ways brands can reach engaged audiences and use powerful Amazon Ads tools to measure campaigns and drive results.
Be part of a powerhouse library of shows and movies that audiences—and critics—love
In total, Prime Video offers thousands of shows and movies for audiences around the world. And throughout this vast catalog are some of the most acclaimed and beloved stories of the moment and all time. With Amazon’s acquisition of MGM, Prime Video added thousands more films and TV shows to its library.
In 2023, Amazon MGM studios scored 68 Primetime Emmy nominations and 16 Golden Globe nominations for shows and films like Jury Duty, Air, Daisy Jones & the Six, and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel became the most-ever Emmy-nominated streaming comedy with 80 nominations. Meanwhile, American Fiction, the social satire from director Cord Jefferson starring Jeffrey Wright, was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture, with Jefferson winning for Best Adapted Screenplay. Wright and Sterling K. Brown were also nominated for acting in a leading role and supporting role, respectively.
Reach millions of viewers around the world, across age groups and audiences
In the U.S., Prime Video has an estimated monthly ad-supported reach of 115 million viewers. These Prime Video viewers are more affluent (25% more likely to have an annual household income of $150K or more), more educated (18% more likely to have a college degree), and more informed shoppers (27% more likely to obtain information to help them make a purchase), compared to the general population.1
Prime Video viewers worldwide watch an average of 14 hours per month on the service. On average, these audiences are watching 40 minutes of content per viewing session and just under two hours of total content per day.2
The first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power smashed viewership records for Prime Video when 25 million viewers worldwide watched the show on the first day of release. Now, more than 100 million viewers have seen the title globally. Season 2 of Reacher was the No. 1 title on Nielsen’s top 10 original streaming chart for the week it debuted and had the highest number of minutes viewed for any Prime Video title during a single week in 2023, according to Nielsen.
Connect premium content with industry-leading technology
Whether you want to reach pet lovers, fashionistas, auto enthusiasts, or other audiences across genres and interests, Prime Video ads helps your brand connect with relevant audiences using Amazon’s exclusive first-party signals and tools. Amazon Ads offers powerful ad tech tools that make it easier to drive results across the planning and activation stages of your Prime Video ads campaign and beyond.
The full suite of Amazon Ads technology helps brands activate a full-funnel strategy that extends beyond Prime Video with solutions that include display ads on Fire TV, online video ads, live sports, and Twitch. In fact, brands that invested in Streaming TV ads ahead of running online video ads saw a 25% increase in consideration compared to brands that did not run Streaming TV.3 And brands that paired Streaming TV ads with a feature rotator on Fire TV saw a 76% year-over-year increase in consideration compared to brands that did not run Streaming TV.
Find a single home for entertainment and shopping
In recent years, the shift from linear to Streaming TV has offered customers a lot more choice but has also created more fragmentation across digital entertainment. Prime Video has worked to create a single destination for audiences to find new movies, live sports, and their favorite TV shows. It’s a place where audiences can check out exclusive series like The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, watch live sports offerings like Thursday Night Football, or rent or buy new releases.
Daisy Jones & the Six is an example of a show bringing together touchpoints across books, podcasts, Amazon Music, and more. In its first weekend, Daisy Jones was the No. 1 series on Prime Video in the U.S. Meanwhile, buzz from the show renewed interest in the book, which landed as a No. 1 best seller on Amazon, and the soundtrack became the No. 1–selling vinyl on Amazon.
“The ability to start engaging with customers with the right message at the right time, right content, and right mindset has never been better,” says Tanner Elton, the vice president of U.S. ad sales for Amazon. “And the ability to do that not just in one place, but everywhere they are, is starting to really come together nicely.”
Understand, measure, and optimize ad campaigns across Prime Video and beyond
A smart marketer knows that a beautiful campaign fully comes together once they can completely understand its performance. That is why Amazon Ads allows brands to make the most of their Prime Video ads campaign with tools to help them measure and drive results across the planning and activation stages.
Amazon Ads offers a suite of first-party and third-party measurement tools that are comprehensive, actionable, and durable. Amazon Ads streaming solutions offer the chance to engage with first-party solutions like Amazon Brand Lift and rely on support from trusted third-party providers including Nielsen, Lucid, Innovid, Kantar, and more. Contextualize reach and frequency, quantify brand lift, and measure in-app conversions based on your campaign objective.
Additionally, advertisers can access hundreds of insights about their Amazon Ads campaigns with Amazon Marketing Cloud, which helps them implement holistic campaign measurement—including media mix analysis, audience insights, journey assessment, custom attribution, and omnichannel impact.
Bringing together premium content with powerful advertising technology, Streaming TV ads on Prime Video can help brands engage millions of viewers, achieve business results, and be part of the cultural conversation.
1-3 Amazon internal data, 2023