Media Monday
(Amazon)g Advertisement or Ad Overload? - Amazon Doubles Commissions for Influencers During Prime Day
By: Jaden Tuttle - Intern, Situation
Amazon is offering to double commissions for influencers that use their affiliates program, an incentive that pays creators for driving up sales with their personalized links for the platform. This offer is available from July 1st to July 20th which includes Amazon Prime Day (July 8th - July 11th), extended for the first time this year from 2 to 4 days.
This extension was a strong deciding factor in the increase of commissions given the imminent rise of website volume for the company, and workload for the partnered creators who oftentimes may work another job and must allocate their usage of time differently. This extension of time offers more creativity, strategic planning, and most importantly, wages, to help these creators drive more engagement and revenue.
Another opportunity arises for creators that advertise for products from 13 specified product categories, including jewelry, beauty, home goods, kitchen and dining, and many other categories, but with opportunity also comes challenges. Influencers who have grossed an audience from categories outside of the 13 given have a hard decision to make; take advantage of these increased rates and have a lower engagement rate, or stick to your original brand but see less commission. Influencers can better decide how they will conduct themselves by viewing the percentage increase of each category, and these top sellers have a great increase.
For the influencers commissions on beauty and grooming, business and industrial supplies, and power and hand tools, the rates have gone from 3% to 6%, jewelry has doubled from 4% to 8%, premium beauty products have increased from 10% to 12.5%, and toys and games have increased commission rates from 3% to 5%. Given the event hasn’t happened yet, we’d have no accurate measurement of the effects this new format will have on the company; but we can base it off of last year's model while only running the original program, without a boost on commissions, for only 2 days. According to an article published by Clifton Mark on YouGov, in July 2024 Amazon amassed around a 13% increase in ad viewership (viewership rose from 46.7% to 52.8% immediately following Prime Day). Amazon Prime also gained a boost with the subscription service increasing Ad Awareness from 38.6% to 43.7% for a total uplift of 5.1%.
With these previous statistics and the vast advancements the company made with this year's iteration, media platforms may become infested with Prime Day Ads, even more than previous years, Amazon influencers may see more competition in the commissioning field, and civilians who aren’t too fond of Mr. Bezos may need to take a break from the internet for a couple of days. With hopeful thinking, the results of this campaign should bring more opportunities to those who rely on commissions as a source of income and will assist future businesses as they make a stronger mark in the Advertising industry.
Till Next Monday,
Jaden Tuttle
Sources
Cavender, Elena. “Amazon Is Doubling Commissions for Influencers during Prime Day.” Amazon Is Doubling Commissions for Influencers During Prime Day , AdWeek, 2 July 2025, www.adweek.com/commerce/amazon-is-doubling-commissions-for-influencers-during-prime-day/.
Mark, Clifton. “Amazon, Amazon Prime, V8: US Advertisers of the Month for July 2024.” YouGov, 12 Aug. 2024, business.yougov.com/content/50313-amazon-prime-v8-us-advertisers-of-the-month-july-2024.
Spotify Unveils Creative Lab and Council, Fueling Advertiser Capabilities
By: Jordan Marie Lewis- Intern, Situation
Alongside Summer Solstice–the longest day of the year, late June also marked Spotify’s eager launch of two notable initiatives entitled, “The Creative Lab Hub” and “Creative Council,” both designed to expand the prominent audio streaming subscription service’s on-platform capabilities for brands and advertisers alike.
“The Creative Lab Hub” serves as an expansion of Spotify’s in-house creative agency, inclusive of strategists, creatives, and storytellers who share an objective of assisting brands with authentic, creative, and successful advertisement development and integration utilizing the platform’s dynamic and unique features. From instructional tutorials, insight reports, and integration walk-throughs, “The Hub” now serves as a “one-stop-shop” to garner insightful education related to Spotify’s expansive advertising capabilities and strengths as an innovative platform–popular for good reason. Spotify has cemented itself as an essential platform for advertisers across industries, demonstrated by the impressive $492MM in ad revenue in Q1 of 2025 (Variety). Global Head of Creative Lab, Kay Hsu says the intent behind the launch of “The Creative Lab Hub” is to supplement the experience of external advertising professionals and agencies who contribute to Spotify’s success in the Advertising space, by providing an additional “layer of expertise that helps every campaign make the most of what Spotify has to offer” (AdWeek).
Click Here to Learn More and Try it Out Yourself!
The latter initiative: “The Creative Council," is an advisory board created to collaboratively direct the entirety of Spotify’s advertising sector in order to “help build and offer feedback on new product experiences,...creative tools, and explore ways to build deeper connections with audiences (AdWeek)” according to Hsu. The council includes longstanding C-Suite Professionals across industries, representative of companies such as Ogilvy, The Coca-Cola Company, Edelman, and beyond.
Look forward to exciting updates within Spotify’s Advertising Platform to incorporate in campaigns throughout Q3 and Q4, for through the formation of the inventive initiatives described above, Spotify has successfully positioned itself as an Ad Platform expanding in accessibility and potential–an undeniable consideration for aligning, culturally relevant campaigns regardless of industry, focus, or sphere.
Sources:
Raise the Volume: Interactive Audio Ads Are Changing Marketing
By: Moriah Pettway - Intern, Situation
Wait, stop, do you hear that? Maybe it's the hum of the air conditioning in your office or maybe it's the fire alarm going off because your co-worker reheated their coffee a little too long.
Some sounds are easy to ignore but others grab your attention and advertisers are starting to take full advantage of that.
Interactive audio ads on Amazon are offering a unique solution to turning everyday tasks like chores, commutes and workouts into opportunities to sell. With audio activated devices like Alexa, listeners can add items to their Amazon carts just using their voice which then feedback consumer data and influences what ads the consumer receives. According to AdWeek, 71.5% of Alexa users say these ads helped them discover new brands.
Generative AI tools like Amazon's Audio Generator are lowering barriers for brands to use this strategy. Advertisers can now generate multiple ad variations for free and test which ones effectively match the intended message or mood. With audience targeting capabilities, these ads can be tailored using demographic, location and preference data from Amazon’s insights.
Interactive audio ads are helping advertisers discover new audiences and sell new products one sound at a time.
Read more via AdWeek