What are Amazon's Owned and Operated Sites for DSP?
Advertising with the Amazon Demand-Side Platform (DSP) can help increase your brand awareness both on and off Amazon — including across the wide range of Amazon’s owned and operated sites and apps.
In this post, we’ll cover eight of Amazon’s owned and operated sites and apps with ad placements available through Amazon DSP.
But first, a quick refresher on Amazon DSP.
What is Amazon DSP?
Amazon Demand-Side Platform (DSP) enables advertisers to buy video and ad placements programmatically.
Through Amazon DSP, you can buy ad placements on Amazon.com and Amazon subsidiaries, plus access to third-party sites. Amazon’s DSP Audience Builder lets you target (and retarget) audiences based on a variety of factors, including behavioral targeting, lifestyle targeting, remarketing, and lookalike audiences.
Image source: Webinar – How to Leverage DSP Capabilities to Capture Audience Demand
One of the biggest benefits of placing ads through the Amazon DSP? It’s the only way to advertise on Amazon’s owned and operated sites and apps, like IMDb and Fire TV. In fact, Amazon-owned and operated websites accounted for 69% of DSP spend in Q4 2019. Advertisers who use the Amazon DSP can also leverage first-party data collected by Amazon-owned and operated sites and apps.
Amazon-owned and operated sites and apps for DSP
1. Amazon devices
Amazon’s proprietary devices — including Kindle e-readers, the Fire Tablet, and Fire TV — let advertisers get in front of Amazon shoppers across devices. Amazon has seen the usage of ad-supported Fire TV apps increase over 300% year-over-year.
Fire TV offers advertisers access to Amazon over-the-top (OTT) advertising. Amazon OTT advertising refers to video advertising placements across streaming TV and movies over Amazon’s DSP network. These non-skippable, full-screen ads let advertisers target specific Amazon audiences.
Amazon’s Fire TV has 37 million monthly active users, making it a leading OTT channel. And in addition to Prime Video, Fire TV includes over 50 third-party, ad-supported apps, including AMC and Pluto. Each of these apps gives advertisers more opportunities to reach their target audience via OTT ads.
2. IMDb
Amazon acquired the movie, TV, and celebrity news website Internet Movie Database (IMDb) in 1998. After the acquisition, Amazon used IMDb to promote movie-related products like DVDs. More recently, IMDb launched IMDb TV, a free ad-supported streaming service. IMDb is another excellent OTT ad opportunity for advertisers using the Amazon DSP.
In 2008, IMDb acquired Box Office Mojo, making the latter an Amazon subsidiary as well. Launched in 1999, Box Office Mojo tracks and publishes track box office revenue.
3. Woot
Daily deal website Woot was acquired by Amazon for $110 million in 2010. Woot offers customers limited-time discounted prices on products across various categories, including consumer electronics, apparel, sports gear, and grocery items. Amazon Prime members get free standard shipping on Woot.
Woot runs display ads placed through the Amazon DSP, like this Audible ad:
4. Shopbop
Launched in 2000 as a “denim-focused e-commerce platform,” Shopbop sells women’s designer clothing. Amazon acquired Shopbop in 2006, and Shopbop purchases are eligible for Prime’s free two-day shipping.
ShopBop also has a section in Amazon’s apparel category called “The Shop by Shopbop.”
5. Digital Photography Review
Established in November 1998, Digital Photography Review is exactly what its name suggests: a website dedicated to digital cameras and digital photography. Amazon acquired DPReview in 2007.
Beyond classic Amazon DSP ad buys, DPReview offers a variety of different advertising opportunities, including a “range of content marketing activations”:
- Display advertising
- Sponsored articles
- Sponsored video content
- Social amplification
- Customer insights
And while DPReview is prime advertising real estate for brands selling photography equipment, any brand using the Amazon DSP can advertise on the site, like these ads for Microsoft Surface:
6. Zappos
In July 2009, Amazon acquired online shoe retailer Zappos in an $880 deal. Since the acquisition, Zappos has continued to operate as a separate entity rather than being absorbed into Amazon’s apparel section.
In the acquisition, Amazon also acquired 6pm, the discount retail division of Zappos IP, Inc. Acquired by Zappos in 2007, 6pm focuses on fashion deals.
7. Goodreads
Goodreads is an online community of book readers from around the world. Readers can rate, review, and discuss books, discover new titles, and share their reading lists with others. Since its launch in 2007, Goodreads has become one of the 350 most popular websites in the world according to Alexa rankings.
Amazon purchased Goodreads in 2013. Advertisements placed on Goodreads through the Amazon DSP aren’t limited to books, as you can see in this ad from Sephora:
8. Twitch
Twitch is a wildly popular video live streaming service launched in 2011. As of February 2020, Twitch had 3 million monthly broadcasters and 15 million daily active users.
While Amazon acquired Twitch back in 2014, the partnership between Twitch and Amazon Advertising has developed as recently as September 2020, when Amazon announced that advertisers could serve ads on Twitch through the Amazon DSP:
“Starting today, we are rolling out new capabilities for Twitch and Amazon advertisers globally. Twitch video and display media, as well as new Twitch audiences, are now available for inclusion in Amazon Advertising campaigns, and Amazon audiences are available for inclusion in Twitch campaigns.”
All in all, advertisers are increasing investment in the Amazon DSP, which allows brands to use Amazon targeting capabilities in showing ads not only on Amazon owned-and-operated web properties — but also those that Amazon does not control.
Learn more about the power of these ad placements and audience targeting in our complete guide to Amazon DSP.
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