Amazon is expanding its ad tech program for publishers, unveiling Signal IQ, a new measurement product designed to help publishers evaluate the effectiveness of third-party advertising IDs. Announced at the Amazon Publisher Services Summit in New York, Signal IQ represents a significant step forward in addressing the challenges posed by the phasing out of internet-tracking cookies.
The advent of connected TV apps and the decline of traditional data signals from browsers have pushed the advertising industry to seek new methods for targeting and measuring ads. With Signal IQ, Amazon aims to assist publishers in adapting to this new environment by making it easier to test and quantify the value of alternative advertising IDs. These third-party IDs are crucial in a landscape where cookies are becoming obsolete, with major players like Apple and Google moving away from cookie-based tracking.
In conjunction with Signal IQ, Amazon has expanded its Publisher Cloud, now available to all streaming TV apps and websites in the U.S. and Canada. This cloud service allows publishers and advertisers to leverage data for planning and measuring ad campaigns more effectively. By integrating these tools, Amazon is providing publishers with the necessary resources to build audiences using their data and third-party signals, which can then be sold to advertisers through Amazon’s demand-side platform.
Amazon is working with a host of prominent publishers, including Dotdash Meredith, Hearst Magazines, NBCUniversal, Newsweek, Warner Bros. Discovery, The Washington Post, and Fox’s streaming app Tubi. These collaborations enable publishers to enhance their ad inventory’s value by optimizing audience targeting and improving the fidelity of their data signals.
Mike Irenski, VP of Programmatic Revenue at Hearst Newspapers, highlighted the benefits of Signal IQ, stating, “Hearst Newspapers gained valuable insights into the impact of third-party IDs and signal fidelity across our inventory. This allowed us to advance our entire addressability strategy, focusing on deal creation, floor optimization, and investments in first-party attributes to enhance the bid stream.”
Amazon’s advertising revenue has been on a significant upward trajectory, reaching nearly $47 billion last year—a 24% increase from the previous year. eMarketer predicts that Amazon’s advertising revenue will surpass $67 billion by 2025. This growth outpaces even giants like Facebook and Google, underscoring the effectiveness of Amazon’s strategy to integrate more deeply with the advertising ecosystem.
At the summit, Amazon outlined several new features designed to meet increasing privacy demands and improve ad performance. These enhancements are part of Amazon’s broader strategy to attract more ad dollars by extending the reach of advertisers to audiences beyond its ecosystem. The Amazon Publisher Cloud plays a pivotal role in this strategy, aiming to reduce the performance gap between ads on Amazon’s platform and those on external publisher sites.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy emphasized the importance of the company’s high-growth, high-margin ads business in driving future revenue and profit growth. Amazon continues to innovate in ad tech, making it a key component of its value proposition to advertisers. This includes launching machine learning-based buying tech like Performance+, integrating ads into its Prime Video service, and now, enhancing publisher services with tools like Signal IQ.
By offering advanced solutions for a post-cookie world, Amazon is positioning itself as a leader in digital advertising, providing the tools and insights publishers need to thrive in an evolving market.