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Happy Monday.
Ask anyone who buys retail media what they want more of. Visibility: which audiences you actually reached, which placement worked, why the price of a click moved on a Tuesday.
Amazon answered last week. The answer was less visibility, and a nicer interface.
At unBoxed on September 29 it renamed its unified ad platform Amazon Ads Agent and opened Full-Funnel Campaigns to every US advertiser. You hand over products, creative and budget, and Amazon's AI decides how to spend it across sponsored ads, display, video and streaming TV.
You approve the creative. You can't pick the channels or the audiences, Digiday reported, and Amit Bhattacharyya, the VP behind it, said Amazon is still "figuring out how to give them more transparency on the audience side." Them being you, the advertiser.
Still figuring it out, on the day it opened to everyone.
The serious buyers get an escape hatch. DVA+, the new combined programmatic buy, keeps targeting, deals, supply, frequency and bidding behind its advanced settings. Full-Funnel doesn't offer that level of control.
Then the part that should make brand managers sit up. With Branded Conversations, brands pay to feed their own product expertise into what Alexa for Shopping tells a customer mid-conversation. It's labeled Sponsored and lands in the US in January.
Amazon says nearly 20% of shoppers who interact with a Sponsored Brands prompt keep talking about that brand. That's Amazon's own test, so price it accordingly.
So the assistant your customer asks for advice now has a rate card. Honest about who pays, at least.
Here's what Amazon's launch posts leave out: this arrives while the FTC and 22 state attorneys general are suing Amazon over alleged hidden surcharges in its ad auctions. Asked whether the new tools would show how winning prices get set, Amazon didn't commit to it. It disputes the allegations.
Full-funnel automation will probably beat a tired team splitting budgets across tabs. But you're handing the plan to the company that sets the price, reports the results and now sells the voice in the shopper's ear.
So before your team switches it on, who in your building can say what they'd need to see to switch it back off?
Today’s sponsor:
Blu Dot surpasses 2,000% ROAS with self-serve CTV ads
Home furniture brand Blu Dot blew up on CTV with help from Roku Ads Manager. Here’s how:
After a test campaign reached 211,000 households and achieved 1,010% ROAS, the brand went all in to promote its annual sales event. It removed age and income constraints to expand reach and shifted budget to custom audiences and retargeting, where intent was strongest.
The results speak for themselves. As Blu Dot increased their investment by 10x, ROAS jumped to 2,308% and more page-view conversions surpassed 50,000.
“For CTV campaigns, Roku has been a top performer,” said Claire Folkestad, Paid Media Strategist, Blu Dot. “Comping to our other platforms, we have seen really strong ROAS… and highly efficient CPMs, lower than any other CTV partner we've worked with.”
Using Roku Ads Manager, the campaign moved from a pilot to a permanent performance engine for the brand.
TALK ON THE MARKET
Des Traynor, co-founder of Intercom, on what AI did to the launch video:
He means startups. Swap in your brand film and it still holds.
When anyone can make the polished version in an afternoon, polish stops proving anything. The rough founder screencast suddenly looks expensive.
Want to see case studies of AI-powered campaigns?
NUMBERS MATTER
35%. That's how far median CMO tenure has fallen, from 4.0 years for CMOs who started in 2010 to 2.6 for the 2022 starters, in Findem and CMO Huddles' study. It's built on employment records rather than a survey.
Plan any AI program to show results well inside that window.
DAILY PROMPT
Our Channel Performance Review AI Prompt, worth running on Amazon before you hand it the keys:
You are a marketing analytics expert reviewing channel performance for a B2B leadership team. Work through the data, verify the math, and produce a review that an executive can act on.
## Data to Analyze
Channel: [CHANNEL_NAME]
Time Period: [START_DATE] to [END_DATE]
Metrics:
- Total Spend: $[TOTAL_SPEND]
- Impressions: [IMPRESSIONS]
- Clicks: [CLICKS]
- Conversions: [CONVERSIONS]
- Revenue Generated: $[REVENUE]
- Average Cost Per Click: $[CPC]
- Conversion Rate: [CONVERSION_RATE]%
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): [ROAS]x
Previous Period Comparison:
- Spend Change: [SPEND_CHANGE]%
- Click Change: [CLICK_CHANGE]%
- Conversion Change: [CONVERSION_CHANGE]%
- Revenue Change: [REVENUE_CHANGE]%
If I attach raw exports, campaign-level files, or CRM pipeline data, read them directly and recompute the summary numbers above rather than trusting my rounding. Flag any figure that does not reconcile. Run the calculations rather than estimating them. If a public benchmark would sharpen the read, research current sources and cite what you used.
## Analysis Framework
Provide your review in these sections:
1. **Performance Summary**: Overall assessment of channel health (strong/moderate/underperforming) with key metrics highlighted.
2. **Trend Analysis**: Compare current period to previous period. Identify what's improving and what's declining, and separate seasonal movement from real change.
3. **Efficiency Metrics**: Evaluate CPC, conversion rate, and ROAS. Benchmark against [INDUSTRY_BENCHMARK] if available.
4. **Key Findings**: List 3-5 most important observations about channel performance.
5. **Recommendations**: Provide 4-6 specific, actionable recommendations to improve performance. Prioritize by expected revenue impact and effort.
6. **Risk Assessment**: Identify any concerning trends or metrics that need immediate attention.
7. **Next Steps**: Outline specific actions to take in the next [TIME_PERIOD] with success metrics.
Be specific with numbers and percentages. Use clear language suitable for executive stakeholders. Focus on business impact, not just metrics. State where the data is too thin to support a conclusion.Use it this week on your current Amazon numbers, while you still control the split. It's your baseline for judging whatever the agent does next quarter.
CMO CORNER
The best feedback comes from presence, not correction.
That goes for software you've just handed a budget. Sit with the first month of reports and ask what the system did and why. It's cheaper than an angry audit in month six.
We provide consulting services for CMOs on AI strategy for marketing teams through our Teamless offering.
TOOL UPGRADE
Your creative is the one input Amazon's AI still takes from you. Three ways to feed it:
Postiz — best for teams that want social scheduling an AI agent can drive, through its MCP server and public API. Try Postiz here →
Kittl — best for teams that need social graphics and marketing visuals at quality without hiring a designer. Try Kittl here →
InVideo — best for demand-gen teams turning scripts into production-ready video when the plan suddenly wants streaming TV. Try InVideo here →
→ We have 300+ curated, filtered, and categorized AI tools in our directory. Browse to find the best ones that help your marketing team.
LEARN THIS
Before you trust a platform's own scorecard: AI-Powered Attribution Modeling Framework. Attribution you can defend the day a platform's dashboard and your finance team disagree.
→ We publish workshops, courses, guides, manuals, and more on AI marketing for free. Browse our learning resources for free.
BRAND SLOP
The San Jose Sharks spent a whole season playing a goal song their fans were convinced was AI. Somebody found what looked like the producer's Suno account, with a remix on it. The producer told the team it isn't AI. It didn't matter.
The team retired "Power Bite" and debuted a new song at its season opener. CMO Doug Bentz: "People thinking it was AI, just right now, perception is reality with that. We didn't want that to be a drag on the brand or their experience."
No proof, no confession, and it still cost them. If fans decide you used AI, does it matter whether you did?