By Alina Pruteanu, Digital Development Director, The Grove Media
Amazon is looking for growth in the UK. And some suggest it’s even prepared to drop margins to achieve this.
Recently announced partnerships with Bauer and Sky signal how Amazon is increasingly positioning itself as a gateway to a broad range of media inventory. These two deals add to a growing list of platform partnerships enabling advertisers to buy advertising inventory programmatically through Amazon’s DSP.
Amazon is rapidly moving beyond pure retail media and seeking to significantly increase its base of non-endemic advertisers, luring them in with new goodies. At its annual Unboxed event, the tech giant unveiled Amazon Ads Agent, an AI-powered platform bringing all of its advertising tools together. In the US, Amazon’s proposition now encompasses three campaign types: Sponsored Ads, Full-Funnel Campaigns and Display, Video and Audio. This suite will no doubt be available in the UK in the near future.
Greater competition, easier access to premium media and simpler campaign execution are all good developments for advertisers, and with the scale that it is now building, Amazon becomes more difficult to ignore.
But while Amazon might be bringing everything together – and taking on the likes of The Trade Desk and DV360 – will advertisers be able to identify audiences consistently across channels, manage frequency effectively or accurately measure the contribution of each channel?
More competition, more choice and easier buying
Last year, Netflix, Disney, Roku and Spotify announced partnerships expanding advertisers’ access to premium streaming and audio inventory through Amazon’s buying technology. Channel 4 followed in June 2026, and then Bauer Media and Sky Media announced integrations in October, bringing their premium audio and streaming inventory into Amazon’s advertising ecosystem.
The attraction for advertisers is the ability to access an increasingly diverse range of premium inventory through a single buying platform, rather than managing separate relationships and systems for each media owner. In principle, this makes cross-channel campaigns easier to activate, coordinate and optimise.
Amazon’s ambition is to combine premium content with Amazon’s consumer data. Shopping, browsing and streaming signals can help advertisers target audiences across media channels, potentially improving relevance and reducing wasted impressions.
This is a very compelling proposition, but there are, as yet, unanswered questions: how consistently audiences can be recognised across each newly connected publisher, which inventory can participate in the same frequency controls, and how much reach is genuinely incremental rather than duplicated.
But, perhaps the most interesting development isn’t the additional inventory, but the measurement proposition behind it. By combining premium video and audio inventory with its first-party shopping signals, Amazon could help advertisers better understand how awareness-led channels contribute to consideration and sales.
AI takes Amazon’s proposition further
By bringing its advertising tools together under Amazon Ads Agent, Amazon can now offer an AI-powered platform integrating its DSP capabilities with its wider ads console. Its new DVA+ (Display, Video and Audio) solution combines display, streaming TV, online video and audio advertising into a single buying and optimisation workflow. In the US, selected advertisers can simplify campaign management through AI automation or retain greater control over targeting, inventory, frequency and bidding. And, Amazon has also launched Full-Funnel Campaigns, initially in the US, bringing sponsored ads, display, video and streaming TV into a single campaign.
This represents a significant shift from supporting media buying to taking a more active role in planning and budget allocation. And it expands the pool of advertisers that can use Amazon’s programmatic infrastructure. Smaller businesses without dedicated programmatic teams can take advantage of the simplified workflow. The trade-off for advertisers is greater simplicity and efficiency, but potentially less direct control over where and how their money is spent.
Convenience isn’t the same as effectiveness
Bringing premium inventory, consumer data and buying technology together enables advertisers to run campaigns more effectively, reduce duplication and measure results across channels. But individual platforms only see part of the picture. Amazon’s own reporting does not automatically account for exposure through other DSPs, publisher-direct campaigns or linear TV. That remains the bigger challenge for advertisers managing an entire media plan.
Cross-media measurement requires combining data from multiple publishers. Independent measurement is vital. The organisation controlling the measurement methodology can influence which channels appear most effective — potentially affecting where advertisers subsequently allocate budgets.
Amazon’s shopping and purchase signals remain arguably its biggest differentiator from other DSPs, and its growing access to premium media now makes it an even more compelling solution for advertisers. But, if the same platform facilitates the transaction, controls the audience intelligence and measures the outcome, how confidently can advertisers evaluate performance across the wider media landscape? As AI takes a more active role in campaign execution and budget allocation, understanding how those decisions are made becomes increasingly important.
So what advertisers should do?
For advertisers, the opportunity is real, but so are the limitations. The challenge is to take advantage of greater competition, improved accessibility and more connected buying technology without assuming that one platform can provide a complete view of audiences or campaign effectiveness.
These developments reinforce the importance of independent, audience-led media strategy and planning. Effective media planning still starts with understanding the audience: who they are, how they behave, what influences their decisions, where and when they consume media, and how different channels can contribute to business objectives. That research and insight should determine the media mix, not the capabilities or convenience of any one buying platform.
Amazon’s retail heritage, combined with its first-party data, expanding access to premium media and evolving measurement capabilities, makes it a compelling proposition. However, all this needs to be assessed against audience relevance, incremental reach, effective frequency, inventory quality, commercial value and the ability to measure genuine business impact, including what happens beyond Amazon’s own ecosystem.
As buying becomes increasingly concentrated within a handful of powerful platforms, the role of independent agencies and providers becomes more important, not less. Understanding what each platform can offer, where its limitations lie, and when alternative channels, partners or buying routes can deliver better results will only become more important.
