How Amazon DSP is revolutionizing streaming advertising

130 million people in the U.S. now watch Prime Video with Ads!! TV ads have reached their own “Everything Store” moment. Amazon is no longer just selling ads on Prime Video. Now, it is creating the main hub for streaming ads across the internet. Top 5 takeaways  • Scale has shifted: 130 million people in the U.S. now watch Prime Video with ads, seeing about 4 to 6 minutes of ads each hour. • Revenue is up: Amazon Ads has earned $47 billion so far this year, a 24% increase from last quarter. • Single buying platform: Amazon’s DSP now connects with Netflix, Disney, NBCU, Paramount, Fox, Roku, and Prime Video. • New AI tools: “Creative Agent” creates concepts, storyboards, and video spots from a prompt. “Ads Agent” sets up campaigns, ad groups, and optimizes using plain English. • Faster results: Jay Richman says, “Weeks of work” now take “a few hours at no additional cost.” Here’s a practical example: You type a prompt, receive a storyboard and a 15-second ad, then ask Ads Agent to send it to Prime Video, Netflix, and Roku with a reach goal. The system handles the setup, and you can monitor and adjust everything in one place. In short, Amazon aims to simplify the complicated world of CTV buying. By combining its data, publisher partnerships, and AI tools, it offers a faster, easier workflow that you can manage from a single screen. If you buy CTV ads today, would you spend more through Amazon’s DSP to reach Netflix and Disney, or keep your budget split across different platforms? My thought is that it's worth paying a little more to help simplify the process. Time is money, and if I can save time, it will allow me to be more productive and strategize. But, I worry about two things: 1) How will these ads look? My guess is they'll be OK, but not like what you'd get from real people who can think and express real emotion! 2) What does this mean for people in the industry? People like you and me. #Advertising #StreamingTV #CTV #AdTech #AmazonAds #Programmatic #AIinMarketing #MediaBuying #RetailMedia #VideoAd #JayRichman #KellyMacLean #Amazon #AWS #AmazonPublisherCloud #Netflix #Roku #Disney #AgenticAI #AmazonAdsAgent #NBCU #Paramount #Fox #PrimeVideo #AmazonPrimeVideo https://lnkd.in/gvvTZh_x

Amazon Ads and Netflix have announced a global partnership that will let advertisers buy Netflix’s premium ad inventory programmatically through Amazon’s DSP starting Q4 2025. Covering 11 major markets, the deal expands Netflix’s ad-supported tier while giving brands AI-powered tools and deeper insights to target streaming audiences more effectively. https://lnkd.in/eyy43_Q6 #VXDynamic #AmazonAds #Netflix #AdTech #Streaming #DigitalMarketing #ProgrammaticAdvertising

Amazon is quietly building its next ad empire. Through Amazon DSP, advertisers can now reach audiences across Fire TV, Prime Video, and Alexa devices without big contracts or spend minimums. A new partnership with Roku extends that reach to more than 80 million connected TV households, and Amazon was just named a Leader in the 2025 IDC MarketScape for CTV Advertising Platforms. This is more than another ad product. It’s Amazon connecting streaming, shopping, and voice into one ecosystem. The public rollout is expected later this year, but early access results are already promising. #AmazonAds #ConnectedTV #DigitalAdvertising #StreamingTV #RetaiRewired Retail Rewired Hale.

New: Tubi's ad inventory will now be available to advertisers through StackAdapt — mirroring a similar deal between Netflix and Amazon Ads announced last month. https://lnkd.in/gjvGQwCk

Amazon Ads has recently formed a partnership with Netflix. This collaboration means that brands will soon have the opportunity to purchase Netflix’s premium advertising inventory directly through Amazon DSP. Consider this: Amazon possesses the most valuable first-party data globally: actual shopping behaviors. Shortly, this data will be utilized to enhance campaigns on Netflix. This implies that advertisers could run Netflix advertisements aimed at individuals who: Have already searched for your product category on Amazon Have previously made purchases from your competitors Have demonstrated an intent to buy your offerings Take a moment to reflect on that. You are not making assumptions. You are not indiscriminately distributing ads to random audiences. You are strategically placing ads in front of confirmed buyers. Within the most premium streaming content available worldwide. So Stop Guessing & Start Scaling

With Disney’s report all Q3 earnings are in, and the "Streaming Seven" made $7.4B in collective profits, up 48% year-over-year. But here's where it gets interesting. While Netflix still led the pack with $3.2B, that was "only" 44% of combined profits in the space (vs 95% two years ago). A big story: YouTube's explosive growth—jumping from $1.4B to $2.6B in OpInc, the highest absolute increase of any streamer, on the strength of their ad and especially subscription revenue growth, and higher focus on margin expansion: their carriage disputes with TelevisaUnivision and Disney are one symptom. (A reminder that we model some of the metrics not reported by the companies directly, including YouTube's total revenue and operating income - more details in the chart). Spotify claimed third with $0.7B (remember when people said audio couldn't be profitable?), followed by Disney at $0.35B. Paramount+ and WB Streaming each reported $0.34B in adjusted OIBDA, though Paramount surprised everyone with 17% revenue growth y/y. While Peacock is still in the red at ($0.2B), it significantly reduced losses from prior year. The chart tells the story: streaming profits aren't just growing, they're diversifying. We're watching an industry mature from Netflix-and-everyone-else to a genuine multi-player market. What I'm watching for Q4: the interplay between price increases, sub *and MAU* growth, bundles, and advertising. Most large-scale cost-cutting efforts are behind us. New content investments are coming through. Revenue growth will come back into focus. According to our Streaming Enterprise Value™ model, the companies that master the dual-engine model (subs + ads) while maintaining pricing power will capture disproportionate value. Free funnels, multi-form, format expansion, higher engagement not just in total hours but in frequency and depth will be more important. THE BIGGER PICTURE: → Streaming profitability is no longer a question, it's a reality across the board → YouTube's subscription business is accelerating faster than anyone predicted → The cost-cutting phase is ending; revenue and MAU growth strategies will come into focus More in next week's Streamonomics®, including an eye-opening estimate of the total revenue derived from Vertical Video across major platforms. Which streamer surprised you most in Q3?

Streamer numbers are all in for the quarter and the number that struck me the most is YouTube’s subscriber number. Of course they lead by a huge margin when it comes to ad revenue and overall revenue, but they are also only a smidgen behind Disney when it comes to paying subscribers and fourth overall. The thing about that is, they can scale it infinitely, as they don’t have to spend on content to retain subscribers, their creators do that for them at a fraction of the costs of traditional content production. Whether more people watch for free with ads or more people subscribe, they win either way and their costs are all in their sharing of ad revenue and opx. That gap is only going to widen and I suspect their next move is to just increase the share of revenue for their top performing creators, in order to keep them on the Tube but also dangle a carrot for future content creators to build business ventures around their platform. Wait till they add a micro drama paywall feature to their shorts…

From the LA Times: Once seen as a cheaper alternative to cable, the cost of a streaming subscription for the top platforms continues to rise, much like higher prices for groceries, gasoline and housing. In fact, the average price for subscriptions to the top 10 paid subscription streaming services in the U.S. increased 12% this year, following double-digit percentage increases per year since 2022, according to Victoria, British Columbia-based Convergence Research Group. The research firm included streamers such as Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, Apple TV and others in its data set. It factors subscriptions that are with ads or ad-free and does not take into account bundling. All of the major streaming services in the U.S. raised their prices on plans this year, except for Paramount+ and Amazon Prime Video, which boosted rates last year and 2022, respectively. The price hikes reflect the tough economic realities of media companies that need to replace dwindling revenue from legacy pay TV channels that have seen sharp declines in viewership. “The rest of their businesses have effectively been under attack by streaming and so they need this area to be profitable in order to compensate for the decline in their own businesses,” said Brahm Eiley, president of the Convergence Research Group. “It’s been tremendous pressure on them.” Streaming services have been running as loss leaders for some time, said Tim Hanlon, chief executive of The Vertere Group, LLC, a media consulting firm. “There’s no question that streaming is now under the gun to be its own profit center,” Hanlon said. If rates go much higher, consumers may balk, experts said. “The industry is playing a dangerous game by continuing to raise prices,” said Andrew Hare, senior vice president for the #media research consultancy Magid. “We’re nearing a boiling point of rising churn and overwhelming choice.” Magid has also already seen an uptick in the percentage of consumers who intend to cancel at least one #streaming service in the next six months. The figure was 24% in the second quarter of 2025, up from 19% a year earlier. “Hard as it is to imagine, the cable bundle is starting to look like a better value all the time,” Hare said. Despite the recent price hikes from The Walt Disney Company and others, Eiley from Convergence Research Group thinks there’s still room for customer growth. At the end of last year, just 36% of U.S. households had a traditional TV subscription, compared with more than half of U.S. households in mid-2022, according to Convergence Research Group data. By the end of 2028, the research firm forecasts just 21% of households will have traditional #TV subscriptions. “There’s still a massive amount of cord cutting going on,” Eiley said. https://lnkd.in/ebnJxy57

Netflix Q3 2025: 17% Revenue Growth and Record Engagement — But Did Profitability Slip? Netflix delivered another quarter of double-digit revenue growth, showing strong engagement across markets and rising ad momentum. Revenue reached $11.51B, up 17.2% YoY and 3.9% QoQ, supported by record ad sales and a resilient content engine. Free cash flow margin improved to 23.1%, giving the company room for continued buybacks and disciplined reinvestment. Management reaffirmed long-term goals of margin expansion and sustainable double-digit growth, with full 2026 guidance expected in January. The streaming platform hit new engagement records, holding 8.6% of total U.S. TV time and 9.4% in the U.K.—its highest share ever. APAC revenue rose 21.3% YoY, EMEA 18.1%, and UCAN 17.3%, highlighting global momentum. Ad-supported tiers are accelerating, and Netflix is now on track to more than double its advertising revenue in 2025, with fill rates improving and global partnerships expanding through Amazon DSP and AJA in Japan. On content, K-pop: Demon Hunters became Netflix’s most-watched film ever and unlocked dual licensing deals with Mattel and Hasbro, illustrating how Netflix’s IP strategy extends beyond streaming. Major series like Stranger Things, Bridgerton, and Avatar: The Last Airbender sustained engagement, while upcoming releases such as Narnia and Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man position 2026 for continued strength. The company is also diversifying through interactive entertainment. Games like Squid Game Unleashed and Party Crashers show early adoption, supported by TV play using smartphones as controllers—a strategic move to drive engagement without hardware friction. Combined with live programming such as the Canelo vs. Crawford fight (viewed by 41M+), Netflix is proving that entertainment breadth fuels stickiness and subscriber growth. Still, questions linger on profitability. EPS of $5.87 missed estimates by 14.9%, weighed by a one-time 10% Brazilian tax charge retroactive to 2022. Excluding that, Netflix would have exceeded operating income and margin guidance. Gross margin slipped to 46.4% (-1.5 pp YoY) and EBIT margin to 28.2% (-1.4 pp YoY), showing that scaling globally and investing in innovation carries short-term cost pressure. Overall, the story remains one of strength and diversification. Netflix is executing on its multi-pronged strategy—ads, live, gaming, and global expansion—while using AI to improve productivity and personalization. The fundamentals remain intact: record engagement, solid cash generation, and a clear focus on long-term shareholder value. #Netflix #Earnings #Streaming #Advertising #NFLX