Alexa, play interactive audio ads.
On Monday, iHeartMedia-owned SSP Triton Digital announced an integration with Amazon Publisher Services that allows advertisers to buy interactive audio ads through the Amazon DSP on streaming audio.
Publishers in the Triton marketplace can opt into running the ads by ticking a box, said John Rosso, president and CEO of Triton Digital.
“It’s no different from setting other ad quality rules,” Rosso said.
Amazon’s interactive audio ad formats include calls to action informing customers they can ask Alexa to send them more information about a product by email or push notification, remind them about a brand or allow them to add an item to their cart.
But although the add-to-cart option makes a lot of sense – this is Amazon, after all – not everything is about driving immediate sales. Take an ad for a roofing company, for example.
“I don’t add a new roof to my cart,” Rosso said. “But remind me because I know I’m going to need a new roof.”
You say you want an evolution
This integration marks the first time Triton Digital is enabling voice interactivity for ads.
But interactive audio ads have been around for a while on Amazon, which introduced them on Amazon Music’s ad-supported tier in 2020. Other companies, such as Pandora and Spotify, have also made forays into interactive audio ads in 2019 and 2022, respectively.
At its unBoxed event last year, after several years of relative silence on the subject, Amazon Ads announced the ability to run interactive audio ads on third-party publishers. In addition to the Triton integration, Amazon has partnerships with several third-party publishers, although the company declined to name specific partners.
Part of the appeal of interactivity is that it makes the ad experience less clunky.
In the past, customers had to remember the full name of the advertised product and repeat it precisely to Alexa to add it to their cart. Now they can just say, “Alexa, add to cart.”
Give me a signal
Interactive audio ads are also another strong source of intent data that Amazon Ads can use to inform ad targeting ads and recommendations. Its DSP uses audience signals from across Amazon’s retail, streaming and browsing properties to show consumers more relevant advertising.
If, for example, a customer adds paper towels to their cart or purchases them through Alexa, that action is logged as a part of their Amazon shopping history alongside website and app purchases and other add-to-cart activity.
Although Triton doesn’t collect or keep any listener data generated via interactive audio ads, according to Rosso, he noted that publishers can net higher CPMs and more revenue from running enhanced ads.
“Based on what we believe the price points are for advertisements with interactivity added –which we know from history with Amazon and Amazon Music – there will be incremental revenue pretty rapidly,” Rosso said.
The struggle is real
But despite Alexa’s ubiquity in homes and pop culture, Amazon has struggled to monetize its voice-assistant technology.
In 2022, Amazon was on track to lose $10 billion on Alexa, Echo and other personal devices, and the company announced roughly 10,000 layoffs in November, which ballooned to 18,000 by January 2023. The job cuts included “under 2,000” from Amazon’s devices organization.
Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri have also pulled ahead of Alexa, which currently ranks third in users in the voice-assistant market. But none of the Big Tech voice assistants on the market has turned a profit since launching.
Voice assistants have also stirred privacy concerns. The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice fined Amazon $25 million last May for keeping children’s Alexa voice recordings indefinitely and using the recordings for algorithm-training purposes, in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
But even with the cards stacked against it and some negative press, Amazon hasn’t given up on Alexa yet. And expanding interactive audio ads could help boost the business.
As for Triton Digital, “adding interactivity to audio is an important next step for audio advertising,” Rosso said.
“I would be shocked if any of our publishers chose not to do it,” he said. “There’s no downside.”
