Exclusive: Inside Prime Video's Ad Tier Pitch Deck

Prime Video's ad tier is launching at the end of this month, and Amazon is negotiating with advertisers to make sure that it doesn’t leave money on the table. Specifically, Amazon is letting advertisers buy across three different plans on its new ad-supported streaming tier, according to a pitch deck to media buyers viewed by Adweek. A Preferred Deal, which is only available self-serve via Amazon’s demand-side platform, is the company's lowest-priced option. Although CPMs (cost per thousand viewers reached) in ad deals can vary from client to client, the base CPM in this particular pitch deck for a Preferred Deal was $26. Buyers aren’t guaranteed inventory, but they can target via contextual attributes such as titles, genre and, critically, via Amazon audiences, which includes subcategories for targeting like demographic, lifestyle, whether users are in-market for the product, remarketing and third-party data sets. “The targeting ability [Amazon] is carrying over to Prime—that’s a unique differentiator,” said a media buyer, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “It’s the only place you can find Amazon audiences.” Amazon declined to comment. Prime Video Ad Tier CPMs ‘Far More’ Competitive Than Netflix’s at Launch The second pricing tier, a Guaranteed Buy, is only available as a managed service offering, with the pitch deck revealing a base CPM of $34. For a $36 base CPM, buyers can target by demographic segments, and advertisers can target audiences via lifestyle attributes like “recent movers” and “new parents” for a base CPM of $41. Additionally, contextual targeting around the top 200 Prime Video movies and TV is available at a $37 base CPM. Notably, for both Preferred and Guaranteed deals, CPMs will be fixed, meaning that they are not subject to auction dynamics. No matter how many people bid on the inventory, the price will stay the same. A second buyer confirmed that this wasn't unusual for Amazon. “If I’m launching a new product, I don’t know if I want to go to biddable. It’s something you want to understand and see how it performs,” the first buyer said. “If that’s a variable we can minimize, that’s helpful.” Premium Sponsorships—opportunities for brands to sponsor a program exclusively and without other ads running in that program—are the highest-priced option in the pitch deck. The option, only available via managed service, runs anywhere from $600,000 to $8 million in commitments. Adweek previously reported that Amazon—which already runs ads business on its Amazon Fire, Freevee and Twitch entertainment properties—is pricing Prime Video far below the initial ad tier asks of its competitors. That’s partly because Amazon will have a larger audience at launch, predicted to be 115 million, due to Prime Video's ad tier being opt-out versus opt-in. Prime subscribers are required to pay an extra $2.99 per month for an ad-free experience. Finally, unlike its competitors, Prime Video's ad tier offers more third-party measurement along with its initial ask. Partners include Nielsen for measuring audience reach; Kantar and Lucid for brand lift studies; DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science and Moat for ad verification; and Innovid, Flashtalking, DM, Vast and Amazon for ad serving, according to the pitch deck.

Streaming & OTT

Exclusive: Inside Prime Video's Ad Tier Pitch Deck to Media Buyers

Amazon is serving advertisers a fixed CPM and preferred, guaranteed and sponsored deals

Catherine Perloff

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Catherine Perloff