During Amazon’s fall Prime Big Deal Days on October 6 and 7, Digidayasked five media buyers how their clients’ Amazon spend was trending. Everyone said up, by 15% to 40% from a year ago. Wpromote reported about 30% for brands that sell on Amazon and 40% for brands that don’t. PMG and Power Digital reported 15% to 20%, down from the 40% to 50% they saw in earlier years. Tinuiti put total Amazon spend up about 15% and spend through Amazon DSP up 25% to 30%.
Wpromote’s Darren D’Altorio said, “It is becoming increasingly more defensible to the CFO why we should be investing there.” Power Digital’s Katie Davis said, “Amazon DSP continues to be viewed more as a brand building lever for media dollars than a retail checkout driver.” Most of the coverage stopped at the growth number.
The new money is going to video and sports
Amazon’s advertising revenue was $19.8 billion in the second quarter, up 26%. Live sports inventory sold out across Thursday Night Football, the NBA, the WNBA and NASCAR, and Andy Jassy said Amazon brought more than 30 new advertisers to the NBA in its first year with the rights. Tinuiti told Digiday that Prime Video has become the way brands that don’t sell on Amazon try the platform. Power Digital said growth is moving to the DSP, streaming TV and online video and away from sponsored products, because incrementality measurement has improved.
Amazon also just folded the DSP into its new Ads Agent and renamed it DVA, for display, video and audio. The buying tool is changing at the same time the budget behind it is.
Discounts are getting smaller while ad spend grows
PMG told Digiday the average Prime Day discount fell from 28% in 2024 to 24% in 2025, and it expects more discounts under 20% this year. Brands are spending more to be seen during the event and giving up less on price. The FTC’s inquiry into Amazon’s ad auction has had “no impact” on demand, according to the agency Markacy.
A network that sells only search ads is pitching a different budget
Many retail media networks sell sponsored listings on their own site and app, and that money often comes from trade and shopper marketing. Amazon’s growth this year is coming from brand and video budgets, which are owned by different people who judge success on reach and incremental sales. A network benchmarking its sponsored listings against Amazon’s is measuring itself against the part of Amazon that agencies say is getting a smaller share of new money.
At Zeta I sold cross-channel programs into brands where the brand team and the performance team had separate budgets, separate agencies and separate scorecards. Winning one rarely got you a meeting with the other. Retail media is running into the same split, with Amazon now selling to both.
If you sell for a retail media network, find out who owns the video budget at your ten biggest advertisers and whether you have anything that person would buy: offsite audiences, streaming inventory through a partner, or a clean incrementality read. If you’re the brand, ask your agency how this year’s Amazon increase split between sponsored products and DSP and video, and which test backed each. Amazon reports third-quarter results in a few weeks, and with Prime Day moved into the second quarter this year, that split will tell you more than the headline growth rate.