By Carl Wartzack, CEO of WBX
Amazon quietly disclosed something in its latest annual filing that should matter to every brand and marketer:
Amazon spent $22.4 billion on content in 2024, up 10% year over year.
That number isn’t just about movies and TV shows.
It’s about the future of advertising.
Amazon isn’t investing in entertainment for fun. It’s building the most valuable performance media ecosystem in the market.
Content Is Now Infrastructure
For years, Amazon’s advantage in advertising was simple:
- High purchase intent
- First-party shopping data
- Closed-loop measurement
Now Amazon is adding something even bigger:
Daily attention at massive scale.
Prime Video, live sports, streaming news, and creator-driven programming are turning Amazon into a full-funnel media platform, not just a retail ad network.
Sports Rights Are the Crown Jewel
Amazon’s biggest content bets are in live sports:
- NFL Thursday Night Football
- NBA rights starting 2025–26
- NASCAR coverage beginning in 2025
Sports deliver what advertisers pay premiums for:
- Live audiences
- High engagement
- Appointment viewing
- Brand-safe reach
And unlike traditional broadcasters, Amazon can connect exposure directly to commerce behavior.
That combination is hard to match.
Prime Video Ads Changed the Economics
When Amazon introduced ads on Prime Video in 2024, it flipped the model:
Content is no longer funded only by subscriptions.
It’s funded by advertising, too.
That unlocks a powerful flywheel:
More content → more viewers → more inventory → more ad revenue → more content
Prime Video is becoming one of the most important connected TV environments for measurable advertising.
Amazon’s Advantage Isn’t Just Content, It’s Attribution
Netflix can sell ads. Disney can sell ads. Amazon can sell ads and show what happened next:
- Did the viewer search?
- Did they add to cart?
- Did they purchase?
- Did they reorder?
That closed-loop system is what makes Amazon’s content spend strategically different.
What This Means for Brands in 2026
Amazon’s $22.4B content investment signals one thing:
Streaming is moving into a performance era.
Brands will increasingly shift budgets toward platforms that combine:
- Premium reach
- Deterministic measurement
- Commerce outcomes
Amazon is positioning itself to own that intersection.
Where WBX Fits In
At WBX, we help brands take advantage of exactly this shift.
Not just running ads, but building full-funnel systems across:
- Sponsored Ads
- Amazon DSP
- Prime Video and streaming TV
- Retail + awareness working together
- Measurement through Amazon Marketing Cloud
Amazon is building the content machine. The brands that win will be the ones who know how to activate it.
Contact WBX Commerce
If your brand is investing in Amazon advertising, or considering expanding into Amazon DSP and streaming TV, now is the time to build a strategy that connects awareness to revenue. WBX Commerce specializes in Amazon advertising management, performance optimization, and full-funnel retail media strategy. From Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands to Amazon DSP and Prime Video ads, we help brands scale efficiently while improving attribution clarity and ROAS stability.
To learn how WBX can help your business grow on Amazon, contact our team to schedule a strategic consultation and performance audit.