Amazon Prime Video Advertising: Year One Results Are In

Amazon's addition of advertising to Prime Video in January 2024 was one of the most discussed media business decisions of that year. The announcement generated subscriber cancellations, intense press coverage, and widespread predictions that the ad tier would damage the Prime ecosystem. One year into the advertising business, the actual results are more nuanced than either the optimists or pessimists predicted. For Amazon, the business is performing. Prime Video has become the fourth-largest streaming advertising platform by revenue, behind YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu in the US market. The CPMs are premium—Prime Video's average CPM of $42 is significantly higher than the streaming industry average—driven by the platform's access to Amazon purchase data for targeting and its brand safety profile. The targeting advantage is the real differentiator. When a consumer watches Prime Video, Amazon can correlate their viewing behavior with their purchase history, their search history, and their Prime membership signals. The ability to target a person who watches cooking shows and buys premium cookware on Amazon is a capability that no other streaming platform can match. For advertisers, the results are mixed in ways that depend heavily on category and creative quality. Brands in categories where Amazon purchase data is directly relevant—consumer packaged goods, home goods, electronics, fashion—are reporting strong return on investment with measurable purchase lift. Brands in categories where Amazon's shopping ecosystem is less central—financial services, automotive, pharmaceutical—are seeing Prime Video perform more like premium television: good brand awareness, difficult attribution. The subscriber impact has been smaller than predicted. Amazon reported in its Q4 2025 earnings that Prime membership churn in markets where ads were introduced was within 0.5 percentage points of churn in markets where ads were not yet introduced. The ad load—which Amazon has kept significantly lighter than competitors—appears to have made the experience acceptable to most subscribers who stayed.