• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, 10 hours ago

Amazon Publisher Services (APS) has stepped up its focus on performance-based tools for publishers by expanding cloud services in outcome-based planning goals. The service will initially support brand awareness campaigns. The company plans to expand offerings into consideration and conversion goals to guide new campaigns.

The services support Amazon Publisher Cloud (APC), which enables publishers to collaborate with advertisers on Amazon Ads, and Signal IQ, a measurement tool designed to analyze the impact of bidstream signals from third-party advertising identifiers on ad revenue.

The outcome-based planning tools leverage publishers' first-party data and Amazon Ads' retail insights to create Streaming TV and display deal packages exclusively on Amazon DSP.

Publishers select outcome-based campaign types they want to offer while APC automatically curates the inventory, makes deals available to advertisers in Amazon DSP, and continuously optimizes performance across the advertising funnel.

APC -- which previously only supported web and streaming TV formats -- now supports all online video, making it possible for publishers to strengthen the performance of online video deals.

The increased relevancy has gained advertisers video completion rates 27% higher than advertiser benchmarks in early testing, the company said.

Publishers also now can optimize revenue through demand channel reporting. It gives publishers metrics on the amount advertisers spend by channel. The data shows impressions and revenue across advertisers, auction types, and media like display, video and others.

The service increases transparency into transactions for publishers. Transactions such as when advertisers buy video ads through a deal from a specific supply-side platform. The publisher can use the information to create a direct deal with advertisers to eliminate intermediary fees.

The service is available in Signal IQ, which enables web publishers to measure the effectiveness of their bidstream signals. The tool helps publishers better understand how third-party IDs influence key metrics like bid rates, bid CPMs, and revenue from each of their demand partners like demand-side platforms and supply-side platforms.

For example, publishers may use multiple active ad IDs from companies like LiveRamp, Yahoo, and many others on their web properties.

Demand sources might weigh these IDs differently, leading to varying ad prices for the same space. Publishers can use this data with their demand sources to explore opportunities to improve performance. The signals will give off a certain value across a range of factors. A publisher can now identify undervalued signals and approach the SSP for answers.

Signal IQ now also features updated visualizations and reporting controls, allowing publishers to more easily compare the effectiveness of their signal investments and improve their addressable inventory for advertisers.

Through Signal IQ, Amazon said web publishers have measured more than a 29% increase in earnings from their signal investments.

In Q3, Signal IQ will extend to streaming TV publishers.