By Carl Wartzack, CEO, WBX
Amazon has never been content to simply compete — it builds the infrastructure everyone else ends up using. That’s what’s happening again with AWS RTB Fabric, Amazon’s new managed cloud network designed to power the real-time bidding (RTB) systems that sit at the heart of programmatic advertising.
This move isn’t about chasing ad dollars — it’s about owning the rails those ad dollars run on.
The Infrastructure Behind Advertising’s Next Phase
For years, programmatic advertising has depended on cloud platforms not built for its speed or scale. Every millisecond matters, and latency costs money. Amazon saw the gap — and filled it.
AWS RTB Fabric is a purpose-built environment inside AWS that hosts and moves the trillions of bid requests flying between ad tech vendors. Its promise:
- Single-digit millisecond latency, improving how algorithms bid and optimize
- Up to 80% cost reduction versus traditional cloud networking
- Rapid partner integration, reducing onboarding from months to hours through its RTB Broker
In other words, Amazon has done what it always does best — use its scale to make something expensive, cheaper and faster, then build a business around it.
Why This Move Matters
Amazon’s ad ambitions now extend far beyond media buying. By creating the cloud infrastructure that underpins ad tech, it’s effectively pulling the entire ecosystem closer to AWS.
Every vendor, exchange, or SSP that runs on RTB Fabric strengthens Amazon’s position. Each one gains speed and efficiency — but also becomes part of Amazon’s network effect.
For AWS, this is a win on multiple fronts:
- It deepens Amazon’s integration into the ad tech economy.
- It expands recurring revenue through cloud infrastructure tied to ad dollars.
- It reinforces Amazon Ads by making the two systems — ads and cloud — increasingly inseparable.
When infrastructure and advertising become one machine, Amazon controls both the marketplace and the rails it runs on.
The Strategic Flywheel
This is a classic Amazon play:
- AWS lowers the cost of participation.
- Amazon Ads raises the incentive to join.
- Every new participant strengthens both sides.
The result is structural — not cyclical — growth. Ad tech companies like YieldMo, TripleLift, and Viant are already onboard, running auctions faster and cheaper through AWS RTB Fabric. As more players follow, Amazon becomes the connective tissue of the digital ad economy.
The WBX Perspective
At WBX, we see this as a signal of where advertising is headed: toward infrastructure-driven advantage. The platforms that own the systems — not just the audiences — will define the next decade.
For brands, this means two things:
- Performance will increasingly depend on the pipes beneath the platforms. Speed, data access, and cost structure will separate winners from laggards.
- Integration will outpace isolation. Whether through Amazon or others, the future of advertising lies in connected, optimized ecosystems — not fragmented ones.
Amazon isn’t just expanding its ad business. It’s rebuilding the foundation the entire industry stands on.
And as always, the companies that adapt fastest to the new infrastructure — and know how to use it — will lead the market.