Get the latest insights right in your inbox

Resource | Blog

Amazon Unboxed 2024: What’s Next in Advertising Innovation

SUMMARY

Amazon’s annual Unboxed event has become a high point in the advertising calendar, drawing brands, marketers, and tech enthusiasts alike to see the latest advancements shaping digital commerce. This year, Unboxed 2024 brought a series of powerful announcements that highlight Amazon’s ongoing commitment to enhancing brand visibility, optimizing ad spend, and deepening customer engagement across its expansive platform. From game-changing AI capabilities to refined measurement tools, Amazon continues to evolve its advertising ecosystem, setting a bold standard for the industry. In this post, we’ll break down the key updates and innovations unveiled, offering insights on how they could impact advertisers and brands looking to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

New Features and Updates

Amazon has unveiled a suite of innovations that put even more data and insights into the hands of advertisers. Amazon’s new services give brands the ability to fast-track their success, offering data-driven insights and full-funnel advertising strategies that allow advertisers of all sizes to compete on a level playing field. 

Prime Video Expansion and New Audiences

Considering Prime Video’s status as one of the largest streaming services, the platform presents an opportunity for extensive reach. At this year’s Unboxed, Amazon showcased how it plans to expand its reach and engagement of Prime Video advertising further.

  1. Limited advertisements on Prime Video that run before and during playback are already available in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, and Mexico. Amazon announced that Prime Video will now expand to Brazil, India, Japan, the Netherlands, and New Zealand in 2025. 
  2. Starting in 2025, Amazon will hold exclusive global digital rights to stream NBA games, with WNBA coverage following in 2026.
ADVERTISING OPTIMIZATION

Leverage the Latest Advertising Innovations to Win on Amazon With the Leading AI technology and Team

Full-Funnel Measurement Capabilities

Today’s purchasing journey is anything but linear, making the traditional funnel a relic of the past. At this year’s Unboxed, Amazon introduced new advertising capabilities centered around full-funnel tracking and measurement for the evolving customer journey. Key new features to note include: 

1. A new multi-touch attribution (MTA) model is set to launch in 2025, enabling advertisers to see how various ad interactions—such as streaming TV, display ads, and Sponsored Products—contribute to sales. Feedvisor has been using a custom MTA solution in AMC, as we believe it better captures the impact of harder-to-measure upper funnel tactics. Amazon noted it will be rolling out in 2025.

Currently, Amazon Ads uses a “last touch” attribution method, attributing conversions to the final ad clicked or viewed. The upcoming model will leverage machine learning to provide insights into the impact of different ad types and placements, complementing the traditional last-touch data. Take note that this multi-touch attribution model is not omnichannel. It operates within Amazon’s ecosystem to give advertisers a more nuanced view of its many possible ad placements, helping advertisers decide where to best allocate their budgets.

2. Amazon’s new conversion path reporting feature reveals the most common and effective customer journeys to conversion across various ad touch points within a 30-day period. This tool helps you identify which combinations of upper- and lower-funnel ad formats drive the highest conversion rates. Feedvisor has been conducting custom conversion pathing analysis using AMC to better optimize media tactics in combination with MTA analysis.The tool will now be available within the SPonsored ads and DSP.  

Advertisers can now better assess the impact of their upper-funnel campaigns on long-term sales with the new Long-term Sales Reporting feature. Previously, assigning value to new-to-brand and repeat customers was challenging, despite their clear importance. Now, advertisers can quantify how your ads influence future sales, even after a customer’s first purchase. This feature will be available directly in the Campaign Manager UI, allowing advertisers to get an upfront look at performance without digging through widgets.

This is a game changer for those looking to invest more in upper-funnel campaigns, which have historically been a challenge for advertisers to measure effectively. 

3. Amazon Marketing Cloud is now expanding its clean room solution to more Sponsored Ad advertisers. Previously limited to those using our Demand-Side Platform (DSP), AMC is now accessible to all advertisers partnered with registered AMC providers, including those focused on Amazon Sponsored Ads.

Additionally, new features are on the way, enabling advertisers to merge first-party data with Amazon Ads’ signals for a complete view of the customer journey. The upcoming no-code interface will simplify access to these insights for advertisers of all levels, allowing brands of any size to analyze their audience and determine optimal ad frequency without relying on Amazon’s DSP.

Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands Will Have Audience Bid Boosting Capabilities

This feature enables advertisers to create custom audiences and adjust their bids for these audiences to drive greater product discovery and sales, all while optimizing ad spend. Audience bid boosting utilizes Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) to create and manage custom audiences such as new buyers or video watchers, enabling advertisers to reach high-intent audiences more effectively. By focusing bids on these valuable audience segments within Sponsored Product and Sponsored Brand campaigns, brands can maximize engagement and conversions, ultimately increasing campaign ROI and supporting sustained brand growth.

Advertising Optimization

Supercharge Your DSP Campaign Performance With Feedvisor’s Data-First, Full-Service Solution

Amazon DSP Becomes More Efficient

No discussion of Amazon Unboxed would be complete without mentioning the Amazon DSP. This year’s enhancements focused on creating a smarter, faster, and more intuitive campaign management experience.

1. The updated Amazon DSP experience includes new creative formats and workflows, enabling campaign creation in a few clicks, as well as more reporting widgets readily available. The redesigned interface features simplified campaign setup, improved optimization tools, and automated performance suggestions without having to dive into reporting or AMC for access. 

2. Amazon Ads has rolled out an upgraded DSP platform for streamlined full-funnel audience reach and campaign optimization. Key improvements include frequency cap controls that enable advertisers to manage frequency limits across various campaigns, channels, and devices; new Performance+ strategies for remarketing and retention, in addition to prospecting; and the option to create custom audiences by combining Amazon and third-party signals for more relevant and effective campaigns.

Performance+ is an AI-driven optimization tool resembling Google and Meta’s black box-style ad campaigns but with a fairly limited scope. Not all KPIs are currently covered, and more features are being rolled out, including the ability to run only on Amazon.com in 2025. Feedvisor’s experts agree, Performance+ offers less visibility since it is a black box solution, but with Amazon’s recent investments in AI, it’s worth monitoring. This tool is crucial for advertisers selling outside the Amazon store, as it helps scale performance through automation.

3. The new Ads Data Manager enables advertisers to securely upload their first-party data for use across Amazon DSP and Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) for audience engagement and campaign optimization. Additionally, AMC audience segments can now be leveraged for programmatic deals on Amazon Publisher Cloud, facilitating more targeted campaigns across premium publisher inventory.

4. New ad relevance capabilities have been introduced, promising to enhance targeting and performance. This feature uses AI to align ads with relevant opportunities without relying on third-party cookies, which advertisers are increasingly looking to move away from due to recent volatility in the space. 

Generative AI Tools

Amazon has recognized that a major hurdle for brands aiming to boost their media spend is the availability of creative assets. To address this, new AI-powered creative tools were unveiled at Amazon Unboxed.

The AI Creative Studio and Audio Generator are currently in beta. The AI Creative Studio is a self-service platform that allows advertisers to create and manage ad creatives—images, videos, and audio—all in one place. Meanwhile, the Audio Generator enables brands to quickly produce 30-second interactive audio ads using information from their Amazon listings. According to Amazon, brands that utilized the new Amazon Image Generator between October 2023 and June 2024 experienced an average sales increase of nearly 5% per advertiser.

Key Takeaways

Don’t let the technical jargon and the many updates Amazon rolled out this weekend distract you from the bigger meaning of this year’s Unboxed — a closer look shows there are clear signals about Amazon’s evolving advertising approach and the implications it will have for advertisers. 

Creative Gains Importance

Amazon is clearly aiming to attract a broader range of advertisers, catering to varying sizes and budgets. By simplifying the creative process—one of the biggest hurdles in advertising—Amazon is opening the door for smaller brands that lack resources for photoshoots and designers. Amazon’s latest tools allow advertisers to create, duplicate, and scale assets for Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Brands Video, making creative more accessible and effective.

Understand Impact Beyond Last-Touch Attribution

Retail media networks often use “last-touch” attribution models, crediting only the final ad interaction before a purchase, which can downplay upper-funnel activities and skew channel performance insights. 

However, Amazon’s shift toward a full-funnel approach suggests that Amazon and other retail media leaders may be moving beyond this narrow attribution model as they expand their reach. Branding and holistic measurement are now crucial, and Amazon Marketing Cloud provides a robust solution for brands to understand how every format, tactic, and message contributes to conversions across platforms. This enhanced campaign visibility helps advertisers boost both profitability and brand awareness by leveraging these advanced tools.

DSP Now Positioned for Brand Building and Performance

Amazon Advertising is now positioning itself as a tool for holistic brand-building, showcasing its strengths not only in driving conversions but in supporting brand efforts throughout the entire funnel. While some advertisers are still cautious about putting more into the Amazon DSP, its expanding features, optimization tools, and insights from Amazon Marketing Cloud make it an increasingly viable alternative to other platforms.

To fully capitalize on Amazon DSP’s potential, brands need a strategic approach that navigates its complexities—demanding expertise in media strategies, objectives, and true AI capabilities—to gain a significant edge over competitors. Those who only use DSP for remarketing or don’t invest heavily in it are missing opportunities, as others in the market continue to advance.

Final Thoughts: Invest in the Experts

These new capabilities are promising, but harnessing their potential will require brands to invest more and think carefully about how best to use these new tools. While new AI tools simplify data analysis for more informed decisions, expert management is still essential to harness these tools effectively and uncover the best opportunities for your business—expertise that’s critical for long-term growth.

While these tools can optimize your media spending and campaign performance, advertisers need a dedicated team that can keep pace with the latest trends and innovations, especially with Amazon’s latest features pushing the industry forward yet again.

As leaders in Sponsored ads, DSP and AMC, Feedvisor drives efficient and effective engagement at every funnel stage, leveraging Amazon’s latest advancements to optimize budgets for every objective. With a free 14-day trial, you’ll gain access to powerful retail media solutions for Amazon and Walmart, commerce management, and comprehensive measurement—all within one high-performance AI platform. 

INTEGRATED SOLUTION

Drive and Convert Demand With Integrated Pricing and Advertising

This site uses functional cookies and external scripts to improve your experience. You may change your settings at any time. Your choices will not impact your visit.

I agree to receive cookies

Click here to read our Cookie Policy.

LET US GET YOU TO THE THE RIGHT PRICING OPTIMIZATION PRODUCT TO TRIAL FOR FREE

Is your monthly GMV (revenue) greater than $200,000?