Amazon ramps up its advertising efforts

In an anticipated move, Amazon on Friday announced that it is acquiring the Sizmek ad server as it ramps up its advertising efforts. In the recent years, Amazon made big inroads with the Amazon DSP, powered with Amazon’s shopping intent and purchase data. While the Amazon DSP has restricted buying for pharma campaigns, it has been popular with Direct Response and especially Retail brands. The acquisition of an ad server further builds out the Amazon ad stack, and mirrors Google’s DV360 DSP and Campaign Manager ad server value proposition. An in-house ad server will help direct some buyers to go “all-in” on the Amazon ad platform, with both ad server and DSP components. It will be interesting to watch whether Amazon succeeds at integrating Sizmek into its stack—and whether it continues to add to the platform, for example building or buying an SEM offering.