Sizmek Ad Suite, which has been used by many marketers for years, was officially renamed to Amazon Ad Server in March 2023. Amazon acquired Sizmek Ad Server and Sizmek Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) in May 2019 after Sizmek filed for bankruptcy, at which time they were still number two. the world’s largest ad server, second only to Google.
Amazon Ad Server is designed to enhance advertiser control and provide a centralized resource for the complete cross-channel insights needed to fully optimize a campaign that makes the most of every opportunity to make an impression. Customers retain ownership of their ad campaign data and receive access to Amazon’s dedicated customer service team as needed.
What is an ad server?
An ad server is the technology that serves ads to websites while tracking and customizing those ads. Amazon Ad Server creates, distributes, customizes, measures, and optimizes your campaigns across publishers and platforms from one convenient, centralized location.
Beyond simply “serving ads,” ad servers determine which ads are best served in which locations based on a combination of factors, including your audience segments, campaign budget, and timing.
With all your creative and delivery parameters in this centralized space, the ad server automatically decides when to show ads and where, saving you time and effectively improving ad quality and placement breadth. It also makes shorter work of making updates or changes to your campaign, and provides comprehensive, easily digestible, cross-channel reporting.
Benefits of Amazon Ad Server
When Amazon acquired Sizmek in 2019, Marketing Dive crowned the acquisition as “Disruption of the Year” in their annual Dive Awards, noting that “the deal strengthens Amazon’s offering, which had already been disrupted by Google search priority”. The latest move shows that Amazon is increasingly looking to become a true competitor to Google with a complete advertising ecosystem.
Amazon aims to capture all digital media metrics, including media from advertisers who don’t run all of their media on Amazon. Amazon Ad Server’s ad tagging software can be applied to Amazon products such as Amazon Search and Amazon Marketing Cloud, but can also go beyond Amazon to track sources including social media and Google :
The recent rebranding from Sizmek Ad Suite to Amazon Ad Server offers new visuals and a unified user experience, signaling the investment Amazon is making to capture all digital media budgets.
As shared by Amazon:
“A critical link in the Amazon Ad technology stack, Amazon Ad Server can help power dynamic creative optimization using Amazon Audiences, which also inform campaign performance and ad delivery insights through Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC). By bringing the breadth of Amazon Ad Server’s cross-media analytics to AMC, users can gain advanced insight into their audience and sales to help optimize their Amazon DSP campaign strategy.”
Amazon Ad Server Features and Functions
Amazon Ad Server is equipped with a number of useful features and functions, including:
- Multiple options for creative authorship
- Easy-to-use campaign management and data visualization tools
- Advanced Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) capabilities
- Multi-channel ad serving and tag management
- Amazon Attribution integration (for advertisers in the US, Canada, UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain)
- A measurement accredited by the Media Rating Council
Please see Amazon’s announcement for more details and information.
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