Amazon plots digital ad push with ad tech launch

Amazon is pushing further into the digital ad market as it brings new ad tech tools to Europe aimed at helping publishers make more money online.

Amazon’s Transparent Ad Marketplace, which went live in the US a little over a year ago, is now launching in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. It offers digital publishers and app developers a new means to monetise their content using header bidding (a technology that allows multiple ad buyers to bid on ad space at the same time, meaning the highest bid should always win).

What differentiates this product is that it is cloud-based, meaning the bidding takes place on Amazon’s servers rather than on the publisher’s website. That in turn means publishers don’t have to input lots of codes from different ad buyers into their website, speeding up page load times.

Amazon also claims the product will offer greater transparency, enabling publishers to see which companies are bidding and which one won the auction.

“When we started offering header bidding several years ago, we quickly saw there were clear publisher, advertiser and customer benefits in moving ad calls to the cloud and giving publishers full visibility into who’s bidding on their impressions, who’s winning, and why,” explains Matt Battles, vice president of ad technology at Amazon.

The launch is just the latest sign that Amazon is looking to make a bigger move into the ad space. Emarketer estimates that, in the US, Amazon is the fifth largest generator of digital revenues with sales of $1.65bn in 2017 – more than Twitter and Snapchat. That figure is expected to rise to $3.19bn in 2019.

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It is also the fastest growing player – with increases of 48.2% in 2017. But it will account for just 3% of the total US market in 2019, well behind Google and Facebook.

That Amazon would want to become a bigger player in digital advertising should come as little surprise given that it was a $209bn business globally last year, according to Magna Global. And Amazon has both the scale and data that means it could compete with the two biggest players.

However, Amazon has so far been reluctant to discuss its ambitions. Nevertheless, it is rapidly hiring sales people for the ad unit as its new New York office, with the latest launch a clear sign it is hoping to attract publishers as well.

And brands including Procter & Gamble and Unilever are increasingly working with the company. For example, P&G says it has teamed up with the ecommerce giant to make use of its consumer ID data to reach consumers who are ready to buy. And that is the key to Amazon’s pitch to advertisers – its data on what people buy.