The Amazon DSP Opportunity for Non-Endemic Brands - Episode 440
🎙️Interview With Ross Walker
DESCRIPTION
Welcome to The Ecommerce Braintrust podcast, brought to you by Julie Spear, Head of Retail Marketplace Services, and Jordan Ripley, Director of Retail Account Management.
Today, we’re tackling a topic that has evolved from a conference panel talking point into one of the most significant media budget shifts in digital advertising: Amazon DSP for non-endemic brands.
Historically, brands that don't actually sell physical products on Amazon’s marketplace have questioned why they should buy Amazon media. Today the conversations we’re having with brands are very different.
Joining us today to unpack why 2026 is the turning point for non-endemic media buying is our very own Director of Retail Media at Acadia, Ross Walker.
Let’s dive in!
“If you’re a non-endemic brand and you’re hitting a point of consistent diminishing returns with your traditional media channels, that’s the first signal that you should consider testing into a new media channel like ADSP.”
KEY TAKEAWAYS
In this episode, Julie, Jordan, and Ross discuss:
Endemic vs. non-endemic, simplified: It's really just "sells on Amazon" vs. "doesn't sell on Amazon" - the jargon is mostly industry inertia.
Amazon DSP has hit parity with The Trade Desk: Years of building out premium CTV/STV, audio, digital out-of-home, and owned-channel inventory means Amazon can now support the same kind of full-funnel programmatic buys as legacy DSPs.
The real edge is commerce data, at a lower cost: No other DSP has Amazon's depth of purchase-intent signal, and Amazon has intentionally kept platform and audience fees low to win market share while it can.
Premium CTV reach is a genuine unlock: ADSP now reaches roughly 80 million authenticated CTV households a month through partners like Netflix, Disney+, and Roku - inventory that used to be exclusive to players like The Trade Desk.
Attribution is no longer the weak link: Tools like Amazon Marketing Cloud, the Amazon Ad Tag, and conversion APIs let non-endemic brands tie a Netflix or Roku impression directly to a D2C sale, lead form, or sign-up - solving a measurement gap that's plagued programmatic for years.
Endemic brands get more flexibility too: Brands that do sell on Amazon can now send DSP traffic to their own site or other retailers (Walmart, Ulta, Home Depot), though the richest behavioral/custom audiences are still reserved for traffic that stays on Amazon.
Signals to know it's time to test ADSP: Diminishing returns on Meta/Google/Trade Desk, or an audience with strong, specific purchase intent are both green lights to start testing.
What still differentiates DSPs going forward: As capabilities converge across platforms, the real differentiator becomes each platform's unique owned audiences and media properties (e.g., Amazon's Prime Video, Walmart's owned data via The Trade Desk).
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Connect with Acadia’s Director of Retail Media, Ross Walker
Connect with our host, Julie Spear
Connect with our host, Jordan Ripley
Learn more about Acadia
