How our authenticated graph drives performance for advertisers and relevancy for consumers

Am I reaching the right audience, with the right ad, at the right time? For years, the advertising industry has relied on imperfect signals (cookies, IP addresses, and guesses) to answer this question. The challenge for advertisers is evolving: Third-party cookies are being phased out across major browsers. Mobile identifiers face increasing limitations. IP addresses can rotate frequently and provide unreliable household recognition.

According to eMarketer, 34.9% of U.S. browsers already block third-party cookies by default, forcing advertisers to target audiences without the persistent identifiers they once relied on.¹ The result: overserved ads, missed audiences, and campaigns built on approximation rather than precision.

Amazon Ads takes a different approach with the authenticated graph, using trusted insights to help advertisers reach real households with ads that are highly relevant for the consumer.

The Amazon Ads authenticated graph is an industry-leading technology that connects known audiences and households through Amazon's trusted relationships in shopping, streaming, and entertainment. It's not a product you activate. It's the backend technology that automatically powers every Amazon Ads campaign, from audience targeting to frequency management to measurement.

Here's how it works: Every time customers sign in to Amazon, register a Fire TV, or stream content on Prime Video, they create reliable touchpoints. The authenticated graph connects these insights through encrypted, pseudonymized signals without exposing personally identifiable information to advertisers. Because these connections are tied to durable households rather than individual devices or proxy signals that frequently change, the graph maintains accuracy across screens, formats, and geographies.

The result: Amazon Ads authenticated reach extends to over 90% of U.S. households through deterministic connections rather than modeled or estimated data.² When using Amazon Audiences, advertisers can expect average match rates above 75% on the open internet, rising to over 80% for streaming TV campaigns.³

When brands can accurately understand the audiences they're reaching, consumers benefit from a fundamentally better ad experience. Amazon, Prime Video, and Twitch rank among consumers' top five preferred ad destinations globally, according to Kantar's 2025 Media Reactions study of 21,000+ consumers, with Amazon taking the #1 spot for providing the most relevant and useful ads to consumers worldwide.

Why? Because precision built on the authenticated graph means consumers see ads that genuinely align with their interests and needs, delivered at the right moment. Rather than repetitive, irrelevant ads across every device, consumers discover content, products, and information they actually enjoy.

This precision translates into tangible improvements for everyone: 57% fewer redundant ad exposures mean less ad fatigue and annoyance for consumers.⁴ 42% higher unique audience reach⁵ means marketers can find new customers more efficiently without overserving existing ones. And threefold return on ad spend means budgets go further, campaigns perform better with up to 3x higher conversions, and less money is wasted showing ads to the wrong people or overexposing the same household across every screen.⁶

Within connected TV specifically, Amazon operates Fire TV and has an exclusive, device-level partnership with Roku. We're integrated at the operating system level, which means we recognize households across all content watched on a Roku device, regardless of which app or channel is being viewed. Whether someone is streaming a cooking show on one app or a football game on another, the authenticated graph recognizes it's the same household. This happens automatically, without extra steps from apps, viewers, or advertisers. Amazon also has integrations with Samsung, LG, and Vizio.

This household-level recognition enables frequency capping across all streaming apps being used, audience suppression to prevent over-serving existing customers, and sequential messaging that adapts based on what someone watched previously. Privacy and customer trust remain the top priority. Personal information remains protected and pseudonymized throughout the advertising process.

The authenticated graph is built on direct household and individual relationships established through real, tangible touchpoints across shopping and streaming channels. These touchpoints create a persistent foundation on which we can deliver engaging and relevant ads for the consumer.

This matters because advertising built on stable, authenticated signals delivers more consistent results. When we do employ modeling to extend reach, it's layered on top of this authenticated foundation rather than built on uncertain data. The result is addressability that maintains precision even as it scales.

This same durable foundation powers geographic strategies: Amazon's Geographic Insights and Activation solution uses retail insights alongside advertisers' own geographic signals to uncover high-growth opportunities, then automatically optimizes campaign delivery towards those regions based on client objectives. Pet food brand Nestlé Purina achieved 313% higher new-to-brand engagement and 86% lower acquisition costs by leveraging these insights to drive new customer acquisition in areas where it had untapped growth potential.⁷

The power of the graph isn't limited to what customers see; it’s about what they hear. Audio advertisers have historically faced a persistent challenge: fragmented device usage makes recognition nearly impossible. Unlike streaming TV, where households gather around a single screen, audio consumption happens primarily across mobile phones and desktops, each with different identifiers that rarely connect to form a complete picture.

The authenticated graph addresses this complexity in ways traditional approaches cannot. On Amazon Music and Amazon mobile apps, where listeners are signed in, the graph enables authenticated recognition. Partnerships with premium third-party publishers like Spotify, iHeart, and Pandora extend measurement precision beyond Amazon's owned properties, helping bridge the gap between morning podcast listening and afternoon purchases. The graph's recognition, built across Amazon's offerings, connects naturally to third-party audio through clean room matching, so measurement doesn't stop where Amazon's owned properties end.

This approach transforms audio from a "reach" tactic into a measurable performance channel, addressing one of the industry's most persistent addressability gaps.

In a world where digital advertising is increasingly fragmented and traditional signals are becoming less reliable, starting with authenticated connections matters. It means better performance for advertisers, more relevant experiences for consumers, and less waste across the board.