On Monday, January 29, 2024, Amazon will switch ALL of its Prime users from ad-free to ad-supported. You can pay an extra $3/month to remain ad-free, but estimates suggest that only about 30% (at most) of users will make the change.
So, figure something like 60 million new ad-supported streaming viewers, making them one of the largest publishers in the eco-system. See the graph below.
When the switch is made all 158.6M users of Amazon Prime become ad-supported – even when reduced by 30% for the users that jump to the more expensive ad-fee option Amazon will still have a significant share of the CTV viewers.
What Does That Mean for You?
As a user, it’s time to decide whether the increased cost is worth the ad-free viewing experience.
As an advertiser, it may be time to consider adding CTV to your marketing mix, if you haven’t already. Then consider, is it time to add Amazon Prime to your CTV mix? What we’ve seen so far is a higher CPM that we have elsewhere for similar products (aside from Prime Original programming.) Rather than jumping immediately into something new, we’d rather let the dust settle. Let’s see if that 30% holds and see how their users shift – there are a couple of other Amazon products in the Viewers by Publisher graph – how will this change affect their other products. No matter what happens next week, CPMs are still high and there are more efficient and diverse ways to bring streaming into your TV media mix without putting all your eggs in one Amazon shaped basket. We’ll see how those CPMs change over time.
cj Media has invested a lot of time the last 8 years vetting Streaming (CTV) vendors via numerous calls, pitches, researching, webinars and the like. We have the experience, relationships, and know how to place the best streaming buys possible to reach that extra audience. If you’re interested in getting started, reach out to your Brand Strategist to start the discussion.
