An anatomy of the trust fault line running through Amazon's ad ambitions

"The pitch is performance at scale. The concern is whether those ad dollars are being steered to the best outcomes or toward the parts of the ecosystem Amazon controls. It's the familiar strain of any platform that sells ads inside their own gardens while extending their reach across the open internet. Google faced these suspicions. Amazon is confronting it now, at a moment when automated buying and real-time optimization send more dollars through tech as influential as the Amazon DSP."

"Given how the DSP works, the concern is understandable. It leans on Amazon's shopper and audience data to automated targeted burying across Amazon properties and the wider web including CTV. That creates natural uncertainty when a brand's priority sits outside Amazon's commerce loop - the conversions that don't feed back into an Amazon sale. Or as the media buyer put it: "It's still to be determined whether Amazon can deliver efficient performance when the conversion is off-Amazon.""

Trust is a persistent fault line in Amazon's advertising business, driven by the company's dual role as marketplace operator and competing seller. Tension intensifies as Amazon pushes its ad products beyond its own properties into the wider web, promising performance at scale while raising questions about where ad dollars are steered. The Amazon DSP uses shopper and audience signals to automate targeting across owned and third-party inventory, creating uncertainty when brand goals involve off-Amazon conversions. Retail marketers rely on Amazon's reliable shopper signals but worry the platform's algorithms may favor Amazon-controlled outcomes over independent advertiser objectives.

Read at Digiday