By Carl Wartzack, CEO, WBX
For years, Amazon has been defined by two engines: e-commerce and cloud computing. But today, there’s a third, growing faster than most realize: Amazon Ads. At $56 billion in 2024 revenue, and on track to become a $100 billion business, it’s rewriting the playbook for how performance-driven advertising works.
Why Amazon Ads Works
Amazon doesn’t need to invent new audiences. It already owns the most valuable digital real estate – high-intent shoppers ready to act. That’s what makes its ad platform different: it monetizes intent, not just attention.
The edge comes from closed-loop attribution. Advertisers don’t just see impressions, they see the purchase, the basket size, the reorder rate. That’s why Amazon Ads isn’t simply efficient; it’s one of the highest-ROI platforms in the market.
For brands, this is the future of retail media. Ads that don’t just tell a story, but drive measurable action in real time.
Scale and Growth
The numbers tell the story:
- $56 billion in ad revenue in 2024, up 18% year over year
- $13.9 billion in Q1 2025 alone
- Higher margins than Amazon’s retail or logistics units
WARC projects Amazon’s retail media ad revenue could reach $79 billion by 2026. At this pace, it’s not if Amazon Ads becomes a $100 billion business, it’s when.
Beyond E-Commerce
Prime Video ads, launched in 2024, instantly reached 200 million viewers worldwide. Add Fire TV, Twitch, live sports, and you get one of the most powerful connected TV ad ecosystems anywhere.
And now Amazon is taking its ad tech beyond its own walls with the Retail Ad Service initiative, effectively turning its advertising infrastructure into a SaaS business, echoing the way AWS scaled from internal capability to a global powerhouse.
This expansion means Amazon Ads won’t just be a channel, it will be a framework for how digital advertising works across the industry.
The Takeaway for Brands
At WBX, we see Amazon Ads as more than another platform. It’s a system that connects content, commerce, and data at scale.
The lesson for brands is clear:
- Intent-led advertising is the future
- Real outcomes matter more than impressions
- Retail media is now core to growth, not an add-on
Amazon has built the most powerful flywheel in digital advertising, and it’s only gaining speed
Brands that lean into this now won’t just advertise; they’ll build growth systems that perform for years to come.
Contact WBX
Ready to unlock the full potential of Amazon Ads for your brand? WBX specializes in building intent-driven ad strategies that deliver measurable growth. Contact us today.