Marketplace Briefing: Amazon Ads’ ex-principal evangelist on the company’s retail media rise and customer-led approach
This is the latest installment of the Marketplace Briefing, a weekly Modern Retail+ column about the ever-changing e-commerce marketplace landscape. More from the series →
When Jeffrey Cohen joined Amazon Ads in 2022 as the unit’s principal evangelist, the e-commerce giant was already an ad-selling powerhouse.
Amazon’s ad business had brought in over $31 billion in 2021 — a 58% jump from the year prior — making it the third-largest online ad seller in the U.S., behind Google and Meta. At the time, the business was largely fueled by sellers buying prime placement to feature their products at the top of Amazon’s search results.
During Cohen’s nearly four-year tenure, Amazon Ads pushed well beyond search. The company doubled down on its demand-side platform, or DSP — software that allows brands to buy ads programmatically and target audiences not just on Amazon’s properties, but also across the web. Amazon also opened Prime Video to advertisers and invested heavily in Amazon Marketing Cloud, an analytics and measurement platform allowing advertisers to compare their own shopper data against Amazon’s to plan and analyze campaigns.
As principal evangelist, Cohen worked to build trust with agencies, brands and sellers, putting partners at the forefront of product launches and development — from early beta access to joint go-to-market strategies.
On Sept. 9, Cohen announced his departure from Amazon after nearly four years as Amazon Ads’ public face at Cannes, unBoxed Advertising Week and other live events. He is joining ad-tech firm Skai as chief business development officer.
Cohen’s exit comes at a key moment: Amazon’s advertising revenues are expected to surpass $60 billion this year, up more than 80% since 2022. In an interview with Modern Retail, Cohen reflected on his time at Amazon, and discussed the company’s evolving relationship with advertisers and the future of retail media. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You joined Amazon Ads in 2022, when revenue was around $37 billion. This year, Amazon’s advertising revenue is expected to surpass $60 billion. What do you see as the key drivers of that growth?
“I think the big key drivers of that growth are the growth of the Amazon DSP, the opening up of Prime Video and the attracting of what we internally call non-endemic advertisers — advertisers who don’t sell on Amazon.
Sponsored ads are still a core part of the advertising business and still drive a significant portion of the business. But a lot of the growth is coming from the ability of Amazon to provide more offerings to a wider audience.”
What are your thoughts on Amazon’s growing DSP dominance?
“Amazon was behind in their DSP offerings, both from a technology perspective and an audience perspective. It’s really a double-edged sword, because you have to have content and then you have to have the technology to drive it.
A big driver of the Amazon DSP was the opening of Prime Video, the investment and expansion in Thursday Night Football, and then live sports in general. That really gave Amazon a flag to plant, because one of the things you need to win DSP dollars is unique inventory.
Amazon has closed the gap in some of their technical deficit around the DSP, and that’s allowing them to win more business. Today, for advertisers, being able to advertise and be part of a DSP that gets you access to not just unique inventory like Prime Video, but also inventory where you can connect the signals across connected TV really makes them significantly more competitive than they were before.”
Before Amazon Ads, you were the vice president of marketing and product at Seller Labs, a company that helps sellers advertise on Amazon. How did that experience inform your role at Amazon?
“I put the weight on my own shoulders to help navigate the relationship between Amazon and its sellers. At the end of the day, sellers are customers. Brands are customers at Amazon. In the early days, Jeff Bezos always saw the shopper as the primary customer, but there’s been a shift to recognize brands and sellers as customers, too.
For example, with Amazon Marketing Stream, we did Amazon’s first partner-led launch, giving partners early beta access and involving them in go-to-market strategy, press releases and case studies. We also held a partner product summit at Unboxed, which grew the partner presence significantly. Amazon works backwards from their customers.”
What do you wish Amazon Ads had done differently during your tenure?
“A big learning lesson for me was you have to curate products to a certain point and then understand if they’re working or not, and if they’re not, you have to deprecate them. And sometimes advertisers get upset about that. Amazon Post is a great example. I was a huge fan of Amazon Post. But at the end of the day, the metrics weren’t demonstrating that they were driving the end result that the team was trying to get from that product, and so the product was deprecated.
One of the things I’ll probably do a little bit more of now that I’m outside of Amazon is try to peel back the onion for other people to understand. Because sometimes it can be frustrating as a brand or as a marketer as to what’s happening inside Amazon, and you don’t necessarily even understand: Why did they do that? How does that impact my business? And, why would they make that change at this particular time? I don’t know all of those answers, but I do have a better insight into why those decisions are made.”
What I’m reading
- Along with its backers, Pattern, an e-commerce firm that resells inventory on Amazon and other marketplaces, aims to raise up to $321.4 million through a U.S. IPO, according to a Wednesday filing.
- After three years of litigation, Nike and StockX have settled their trademark and counterfeiting dispute, dismissing the case with prejudice so neither party can reopen it, per Business of Fashion.
- Amazon has invested $25 million via a convertible note in Colombian delivery startup Rappi, positioning itself to acquire up to a 12% stake and boost its Latin American logistics footprint, Bloomberg reported.