If you haven’t already read Nanigans’ Amazon's Advertising Ascent report, it is fascinating and does a wonderful job of highlighting how quickly Amazon has been working to build out its advertising offerings for marketers. The report surveys marketing execs who oversee online ad spend of $50 million or more annually. Over half of the respondents said they were planning on increasing their ad spend on Amazon. So clearly, they’re liking the results they’re getting.

But before you write off the report’s findings because you don’t think you sell a product or service that fits into its usual offerings, keep reading. Amazon’s advertising offerings go far beyond search ads for products. The company is letting marketers tap into their deep well of customer data and reach new audiences on channels like Amazon DSP, a demand-side platform that enables advertisers of many different kinds to programmatically buy display and video ads.

Graph via Feedvisor

How Does Amazon DSP Work

DSPs, or demand-side platforms aren’t unique to Amazon. They’re a way for marketers to reach people on third-party sites using the data and software of the offering company — in this case, Amazon. The service allows marketers to reach preferred audiences across multiple sites automatically. Us marketers also know this method as programmatic.

Amazon DSP lets marketers reach audiences on:

• Amazon website
• Fire TV
• IMDb
• Freedive (IMDb Streaming)
• Kindle
• Apps
• Published Partners
• Third-Party Exchanges

The available ad units include:

• Desktop and mobile web display ads: includes standard sizes for display on Amazon and other sites around the web.
• Mobile banner ads: reach and target mobile users on high-quality third-party mobile applications on Android, Kindle Fire, and iOS platforms.
• Mobile interstitial ads: choose to display full-screen interstitial ads in their app, instead of or in addition to banner ads.
• Video ads: advertisers can serve 5+ second in-stream and out-stream video ads in MP4, WebM, or FLV format.

Who Should Use Amazon DSP

Anyone can use Amazon’s DSP, but it opens up huge opportunities for someone who sells something that couldn’t be listed on Amazon. For example, a carpet cleaning service. You couldn’t sell carpet cleaning packages on Amazon, but you could use Amazon DSP to reach people who have searched for spot carpet cleaner, at-home wet vacs, vacuums that advertise pet stain removal, etc. These people are interested in obtaining cleaner carpets, are looking for solutions, and are in a purchasing state-of-mind. What better time to offer them a discount on your local carpet cleaning services?

KPIs Amazon DSP Can Help You Hit

Depending on how you choose to use Amazon DSP, you can hit potential customers at every stage of the funnel:

• Upper: grow brand awareness
• Mid: increase consideration
• Low: drive purchases

Using Amazon’s pixel , you can also use Amazon DSP for retargeting. Capabilities here are what you’d expect on other platforms, including:

• Shoppers who visit your brand’s site
• Shoppers who viewed specific products but didn’t buy
• Shoppers browsing products similar to yours

DSP prospecting is where marketers can make the most of Amazon’s deep and unique shopper data. Using this targeting, you can reach customers who are likely to take action or make a purchase based on a recent search, browse, or purchase behavior in the past month. Or, create broad interest groups whose interests and lifestyle align with your product or service.

How Amazon’s DSP is different

The core function of Amazon’s DSP isn’t markedly different from what you would get with Walmart or Target, but its reach is huge and ever-increasing. For example, TV. Or more specifically, connected TV. In September of last year, Amazon introduced an interesting requirement — that ad-supported apps on Fire TV carve out at least 30% of their available ad impressions for Amazon to sell, with no revenue share to anyone else but Amazon. Amazon pitches advertisers that this large holding of exclusive inventory is a value add you won’t find on other DSPs.

As another option, networks can directly sell their Fire TV apps’ inventory to marketers, but the marketers must use Amazon DSP to buy space. So either way — Amazon DSP. But with either road, marketers get access to Amazon’s deep shopper data to use for targeting in their campaigns.

While these solutions might be annoying to the networks, Amazon is prioritizing marketers’ desires by providing as much data as possible, and opening up exclusive channels that give them access to new audiences.

Just thinking about the new audiences you could reach via Amazon’s DSP could keep a marketer up at night! As you integrate Amazon into your marketing mix, check out AdStage’s new integration . It helps you optimize the ROAS from your product ads, and lets you see which ASINs and SKUs are selling as a result of your ad campaigns. Use our "Group By" feature to aggregate all your ads that target a specific product. Then simply analyze against actual sales to determine the best way to allocate your ad spend across product lines.  If you’re not already using AdStage, check out our 14-day free trial .