‘Defensible to the CFO’: Prime Day catalyzes Amazon video and DSP spend growth

By Sam Bradley and Krystal Scanlon • October 7, 2026 •

With fuel prices rising and consumer confidence damp, marketers might not be enthusiastic about another round of discounting this fall. Despite that, they’re cranking up media investments with Amazon as the commerce giant stages its Prime Big Deal Days this week (Oct. 6-7).

Like Black Friday, and June’s Prime Day, the event has become a catalyst for ad spend on Amazon. According to five media buyers who spoke to Digiday, client spending on Amazon Ads prior to Prime Day is up 15-40%, compared with last year, and expected to grow by as much as a third by the end of 2026.

“From an endemic standpoint, we’re looking at 30% growth year on year,” said Darren D’Altorio, svp of paid media at Wpromote, without naming exact dollar amounts. “From a non-endemic standpoint [it’s] 40% year on year. And then, as we look ahead into 2027, we expect it to grow again.”

Power Digital registered similar rises.

“We’re seeing Amazon ad spend continuing to increase, but at a lower rate than the past few years,” said Katie Davis, director of retail marketing at the agency. “Whereas previous years may have seen 40-50% ad spend growth, this year’s more conservative 15-20% growth is markedly lower given economic headwinds of buyers and consistent always-on promos from Amazon and other retailers.”

Much of that growth is heading up the funnel into Amazon DSP, with marketers putting more into CTV and online video at the expense of sponsored products, Davis added. Better measurement is driving the shift. Top-of-funnel spend that can prove incremental returns beyond Amazon’s own platform is getting funded at a higher rate, and CTV and Fire TV placements have emerged as the standout additions to those plans.

Davis added: “Amazon DSP continues to be viewed more as a brand building lever for media dollars than a retail checkout driver, with Amazon’s positioning and competitive advantage in the DSP space growing more and more prominent as we head toward 2027.”

Video, display and DSP spending

Ryan Walker, senior director of commerce, PMG, estimated client spending on Amazon in the run-up to Prime Day had grown between 15%-20% compared with last year.

Brands running paid spend in the run-up to Prime Day are typically deploying a wide range of channels. “Full funnel on Amazon is what’s working,” said Hillary Bram, vp performance buying at Exverus by Brainlabs, without providing spend estimates. “We’re seeing that trend across all retailers — that diversity of placement, diversity of tactic, is lifting the bottom line.”

“More spend is moving into Amazon-owned inventory, including Twitch, Prime Video and sports. We’re also seeing greater DSP diversification as marketers move toward platforms with proprietary, high-quality inventory,” said Ashley Hutchings, vp, head of digital and partnerships, KSM Media.

Spending growth is being driven by both endemic advertisers — that is, companies that sell their products through Amazon — and “non-endemic” brands, which don’t sell through the e-commerce giant but which want to use its audiences and retail data to promote their products.

According to Amazon’s second-quarter results, published in July, ad revenue brought in $19.8 billion in Q2 alone, a 26% year-on-year increase.

Per D’Altorio, brands in the latter category typically slant their investments toward Amazon Prime Video, or toward the streaming audio inventory accessible through Amazon’s DSP. Endemic clients, he said, preferred to focus on Amazon’s search and display inventory.

No surprises there; according to MiQ, 76% of consumers habitually watch TV or streaming content while using a second screen for activities like shopping. Prime Video has become the “gateway” to investing higher amounts on Amazon for non-endemic brands, according to Tinuiti’s senior director of innovation and growth for Amazon, Joe O’Connor. “We see Prime Video really driving growth with a lot of our non-endemic clients who are starting to test Amazon,” he explained.

O’Connor said Tinuiti clients were set to increase their year-on-year Amazon spend by approximately 15%, while the ad spend it managed through Amazon’s DSP had risen by 25%-30% compared with 2025.

O’Connor and the other buyers said that Amazon Prime Video and streaming inventory accessible through Amazon DSP’s now-extensive roster of partnerships, as well as offsite online video (OLV) inventory, accounted for much of the incremental rise in Amazon spending. Live sports remained a particular attractor, O’Connor said.

The FTC’s investigation into Amazon’s ad auction practices doesn’t appear to have blunted demand, according to Markacy’s co-founder Tucker Matheson, who told Digiday there’d been “no impact” from the case.

“At the end of the day, what our clients care about is performance, and they continue to invest in Amazon because it’s performing,” said O’Connor.

Some warned that the shorter length of the earlier June Prime Day event — two days of sales versus 2025’s four day promotional period –—and its corresponding lower sales will have prompted brands to re-evaluate, especially with October so close to the Black Friday/Cyber Monday peak.

“We have a fair amount of clients that use the October Prime Day as a way to kind of clear out inventory. They don’t want it in Amazon’s fulfilment centers for the holidays… but for most of our clients, they tend to keep their eye on Black Friday/Cyber Monday,” said O’Connor.

‘Defensible to the CFO’

PMG estimated that July’s Prime Big Deal Days accounted for 3% of annual Amazon sales in the U.S., equal to 57% of the take from last year’s longer event.

“I haven’t seen any drawbacks yet, but you might see a little movement during Prime Day based on lower funnel performance for some brands,” said Walker.

Even with that caution in the air, buyers said growth wasn’t showing signs of a slowdown. D’Altorio said that Amazon had become “a more important part of a client’s strategy” in the last year, particularly for endemic brands.

The platform’s targeting data, together with the opportunity to run ads close to the point of a purchase, meant it was an easy sell for marketers justifying spend, he said. “It is becoming increasingly more defensible to the CFO why we should be investing there,” he added.

Bram noted that marketers are attempting to plan Amazon spend as part of broader commercial strategies hinging on the platform. That might cause them to take a second look at yet another invitation to discount products and sand away profit margins.

PMG estimated that the average discount depth fell from 28% in 2024 to 24% last year as brands coped with rising costs from tariffs and supply chain pressure. The company expects discounts below 20% to grow this year.

“It’s not just a conversation about media investment but about the overall efficacy of Amazon as a channel for their business,” she said.

So far, there’s little indication those concerns are leading brands to spend less — rather, they’re distributing budgets differently, allocating spend to the run-up to Prime Days rather than focusing solely on the promotional period itself.

Still, discount depth and platform sales may become valuable bellwethers for marketers’ willingness to spend more, or less, with Amazon in future quarters.

While the e-commerce giant now has few rivals for commerce media budgets, marketers choosing to dial back discounting could put a ceiling on ad spend growth.

—Seb Joseph contributed to this story.