When Amazon Prime Video opened its inventory to advertisers two years ago, it was just another contender in the crowded streaming ad market. Today, it stands as a case study in balancing relevance, viewer experience, and retail-connected measurement, providing lessons that translate across the whole industry.
At OTT Question Time Live 2026, Amazon’s Head of Video Advertising and Freevee EU Lisa Rousseau reflected on what’s worked, what the data is saying so far, and where advertisers are still learning. Here are some key takeaways you should be aware of.
1. Relevance as a requirement
A prominent theme from the session was the need for advertisements that feel like a natural piece of the viewing experience rather than an interruption. Traditional pre-roll or mid-roll placements aren’t enough anymore – viewers seek relevance and contextual resonance.
There’s enough data available nowadays to suggest that this isn’t just another assumption about user intent. Amazon’s own roadmap shows a clear push toward formats that leverage contextual signals and engagement, including pause ads and AI-driven contextual formats that create relevance on the fly based on what’s being watched in parallel with the viewer’s shopping behaviour.
Advertisers who design content-aware, viewer-friendly ads are already seeing better engagement. Relevance reduces friction and builds affinity, plus viewers are more receptive when an ad feels like part of the experience rather than an interruption.
2. Cross-channel customer behaviour is gold
Amazon’s advantage in streaming advertising is significantly strengthened by the connected retail environment that underpins it. Rich first-party data, from shopping behaviour to past purchases and browsing history, feeds into the Amazon Marketing Cloud and DSP infrastructure, meaning advertisers can segment, optimise, and measure performance in ways that most other AVOD platforms simply can’t.
This provides a very clear linear connection from viewing behaviour to purchase intent, and ultimately through to conversion, which is why brands that test interactive and shoppable creatives (i.e. the ability to pull live pricing, reviews, and Prime delivery info) are increasingly seeing measurable action both on and off the platform.
The wider lesson here is that customer signals aren’t just numbers; they’re valuable indications of intent to impact strategy. Understanding what people watch, when, and how that ties to buying behaviour now allows brands to plan not just creative execution, but journey mapping and attribution.
3. Innovation is crucial, but the viewing experience still comes first
Another common thread in the talk was that innovation shouldn’t come at the expense of the viewer experience. There’s a lot of work still going on behind the scenes to improve non-interruptive formats, AI-assisted placements, and interactive ad options; users are more likely to keep engaging with content (and with its platform) that has minimal impact on the viewing experience.
This is an interesting concept: streaming hasn’t killed ad avoidance, it’s just evolved what that avoidance looks like. If ads pull viewers out of the experience or feel irrelevant, they’re skipped, muted, or worse, ignored entirely. Contextual relevance and subtle creative cues are now an even greater part of the creative strategy than targeting alone.
What this means for advertisers today
If your brand is planning or optimising streaming ad campaigns, here’s what to take into your next strategy session:
- Prioritise relevance over reach: viewers engage with ads that feel useful, not intrusive
- Design creative for context: contextual storytelling connects more deeply than generic messaging
- Use signals across the funnel: rather than silo streaming data, tie it to a broader audience and purchase intelligence
- Think ecosystem, not channel: streaming, retail, and data interlock. Your media buys should too.
Final thoughts
Two years of Prime Video advertising has shown us that the future of ad innovation isn’t about more ads, it’s about smarter ads. The winners in the streaming world will blend relevance, measurement, and commerce into a single journey, providing viewers with genuine value while driving impact that’s real and measurable – all without interrupting the viewing experience.
