Amazon Ads: What's new for summer 2025 (Prime Video, DSP, Alexa, Amazon Live)
A particularly busy summer for Amazon Ads
Between technical innovations and strategic announcements, the summer of 2025 confirmed Amazon Ads' ambitious goals. New DSP features, unprecedented ad testing in Alexa, the rollout of Amazon Live in Europe, and enhanced Prime Video integration marked the period. These developments reflect Amazon's desire to solidify its position as a major player in global retail media and to compete directly with Google and Meta in the advertising arena.
Prime Video: moving towards a transactional media platform?
Prime Video has been a central player this summer, with announcements that go beyond simply airing traditional commercials. According to information published by IMDb and TechCrunch, Amazon has been testing interactive that allow viewers to click on a product seen in a movie or TV show to add it directly to their Amazon shopping cart.
This feature illustrates a clear strategy: to make Prime Video a full-funnel .
- At the top of the funnel, video allows you to work on brand awareness with immersive content.
- Further down, interactive formats introduce a direct gateway to the transaction.
Amazon is leveraging its dual advantage here: on the one hand, an inventory of premium video content via Prime; on the other hand, its e-commerce ecosystem, which allows for seamless connection between inspiration and purchase.
What this changes for brands
- Prime Video should no longer be considered solely as a branding channel.
- The line between awareness and conversion is blurring: an ad can now trigger an immediate purchase.
- To succeed, brands will need to adapt their video assets to this interactive logic, thinking about the product and context of use from the creation stage.
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Amazon DSP: faster, more automated
The updates announced this summer for the Amazon DSP confirm Amazon's desire to make the platform more accessible.
Two major changes have been rolled out:
- Enhanced Insight Cards : they automatically flag anomalies (under-delivered campaigns, overexposure of a segment) and offer ready-to-apply recommendations.
- Multi-campaign capping : Advertisers can now control the frequency of exposure across multiple campaigns and devices, avoiding saturation and optimizing single reach.
According to feedback cited in the podcast “2 New Powerful Amazon Ads Features Most Sellers Haven't Even Touched,” these new features significantly reduce setup and management time. Where some tasks previously required several hours of manual analysis, they are now semi-automated.
What that changes
- Novice advertisers can launch DSP campaigns faster, with better ROI control.
- More mature teams gain agility to continuously adjust.
- The DSP is positioning itself as a lever no longer reserved for experts, but accessible to a wider range of advertisers.
Amazon Live: Live shopping takes root in Europe
After its launch in France in May, Amazon Live showed its first use cases this summer.
- Sessions linked to seasonal events (sales, back to school) allowed us to test the format.
- The integration of creators and influencers has added a community dimension.
As Adweek pointed out, Amazon Live sits at the intersection of social commerce and marketplace. It allows for the replication of a social network dynamic (authenticity, live demonstrations, interactions) while maintaining Amazon's transactional focus.
What that changes
- Brands should consider Amazon Live as an extension of their retail media strategy, just like Sponsored Products or DSP.
- The format is particularly suitable for launches, exclusives or key commercial periods.
- It requires specific preparation: storytelling, animation, logistics ready to absorb a sales peak.
Alexa: The Next Frontier of Advertising
The most talked-about announcement of the summer came from Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon. In an interview quoted by TechCrunch , he confirmed that the company is working on integrating advertising into Alexa interactions .
The principle: when a user makes a voice request ("Alexa, recommend a shampoo"), Alexa could offer a sponsored recommendation, alongside an organic choice.
This announcement has elicited two contrasting reactions:
- For brands, this is a unique opportunity to showcase themselves in a new advertising space, fully integrated into everyday life.
- For users, the risk is that of an experience perceived as intrusive if the formats are not properly calibrated.
What that changes
- The arrival of voice advertising opens up a previously untapped channel in retail media.
- Brands must now start thinking about optimizing their catalogs for conversational search .
- This development could transform Alexa into a direct point of contact between advertisers and consumers.
A fully-funnel strategy
The analyses published this summer by Adweek (“Messy but Worth It”) confirm Amazon Ads’ vision: to build an advertising platform covering the entire funnel .
- Awareness : via Prime Video Ads and premium display formats.
- Consideration : via Sponsored Brands, Amazon Live and the DSP.
- Conversion : via Sponsored Products and direct integrations into search results.
This strategy is based on a strong conviction: Amazon does not want to be reduced to the status of a transactional marketplace, but recognized as a global media player .
What that changes
- Brands need to stop restricting their Amazon budget to conversion alone.
- Combining different formats becomes key to leveraging full-funnel power.
- Advertising investments on Amazon should be considered in a complementary way with Google and Meta, and no longer in silos.
Our recommendations
From this summer overview, three key recommendations emerge:
- Diversify the levers : move beyond Sponsored Products alone and activate video, live and DSP.
- Investing in data : Ads Data Manager and Publisher Cloud allow you to better leverage your proprietary audiences.
- Anticipating voice : preparing your catalogues and produced content to be read and recommended in a conversational Alexa context.
An Amazon Ads denser than ever
Summer 2025 confirmed that the Amazon Ads ecosystem is rapidly evolving towards an integrated approach, encompassing entertainment, e-commerce, and retail media. Brands can no longer afford fragmented approaches: to succeed, they must build a coherent strategy capable of linking branding, engagement, and conversion.
About eTAIL Agency
eTAIL Agency is an expert agency in accelerating brand growth on marketplaces and in retail media.
We support our clients in:
- Defining and executing their Amazon Ads full-funnel strategy.
- Activation and optimization of Sponsored Ads, DSP, Prime Video Ads and Amazon Live campaigns.
- Technical integration, workflow management and optimization of product sheets.
- Data-driven management of advertising performance.
Our mission: to help brands grow sustainably on Amazon , by aligning content, campaigns and logistics around measurable business objectives.
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