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What is Sponsored TV?
Sponsored TV is a self-service advertising solution from Amazon designed for brands of any size to drive discoverability and awareness by reaching audiences on the big screen. Unlike Streaming TV, which requires access via Amazon DSP and comes with a minimum spend threshold, Sponsored TV can be bought by anyone via Amazon’s Ad Console with no minimums.
Powered by Amazon’s billions of rich first-party shopping and streaming signals and bought on a CPM basis, these TV ads can help your brand connect with relevant viewers on streaming services like Freevee and Twitch (and Prime Video in the near future) as well as third-party services like Bloomberg or Crackle through Amazon Publisher Direct.
In the past, TV advertising has been a channel with incredible reach and opportunities for storytelling. In a landscape where Streaming TV continues to grow and offer incredible reach - Sponsored TV democratizes TV advertising, allowing brands of any size to be able to tap into a significant audience and find the most relevant shoppers to market to, all at a price point that works for them.
What’s the difference between Sponsored TV and Streaming TV via DSP, and why might a brand consider one over the other?
The main difference is that with DSP there are additional audiences, some nuances in additional inventory, plus a much more flexible and granular setup and controls. Audiences available for Sponsored TV are “content interest” and “in-market,” whereas audiences available for Streaming TV are “demo”, “in-market,” “lifestyle,” “advertiser,” “ASIN,” & “remarketing.” Sponsored TV does not require a minimum spend, whereas the Amazon DSP requires a minimum spend amount of around £50,000 per campaign.
We recommend that brands currently advertising via DSP & Streaming TV continue to do so for the added benefits.
No minimum spend is a low barrier for entry for any brand wanting to test and learn with STV ads for the first time, and with the ability to run Sponsored TV from your AMS account, it’s fast and easy to access. Additionally, effectiveness can be measured with closed-loop attribution in AMS or with AMC reporting.
Amazon has built out many segments worth testing, and Sponsored TV offers brands a channel for testing new types of creative as well.
Streaming TV allows brands to tap into large audiences with brand messaging, invoking discoverability and memorability for shoppers deemed relevant - not otherwise achievable via non-TV or video ad formats.
In the near future, we will see more shoppable formats, too, making it easier than ever for consumers to view an ad and then go directly to making a purchase, so be prepared for continuous innovation and new feature launches.
The potential & looking ahead
Sponsored TV launched in the US in October of 2023, and since this launch we’ve seen Sponsored TV have similar efficacy to Streaming TV with more efficient CPMs, and we’re seeing solid new-to-brand purchase rates. Amazon has even offered professionally produced ads for first-time brands willing to invest $15K into Sponsored TV.
Looking more broadly at the success of Streaming TV, we can assume that Sponsored TV will be on a similar trajectory.
How should I measure the effectiveness of my brand’s efforts?
As with any upper funnel awareness marketing tactic, we recommend measuring the effectiveness through the lens of what you are trying to achieve with that tactic alone – for example, you should consider reach, impressions, or branded search volume as the goal, and then compare these metrics against results prior to running Sponsored TV.
To further understand results and broader impact across your marketing efforts, we also recommend leveraging Amazon Marketing Cloud analytics in parallel to understand incremental reach, consumer journeys, and/or ultimately the impact upper funnel media is having on sales.
Brands large and small should be looking to tie their full-funnel marketing efforts to sales outcomes, and Sponsored TV is another upper funnel channel to take advantage of when looking at the effectiveness of your advertising efforts via the power of AMC.
How do I get started?
If you are a Flywheel client, speak to your Client Services team who can advise if this is the right solution for your brand. If you are not a Flywheel client, reach out to our team today to learn more.
