Industry marketing

Automotive marketing

Amazon Ads helps automotive brands and dealers connect with customers at every stage of their purchase journey. We have unique signals that enable automotive marketers to connect with relevant customers at the right moments to build their brand – from awareness to consideration to purchase and more.

Family comparing their car online to others

Rev up with your creative engine

With ad-creation advancements like new interactive features to improve automation and stay user-friendly, Amazon Ads can help fine-tune marketing strategies. Innovative opportunities are endless when partnering with the Amazon Ads Brand Innovation Lab for custom creative offerings.

The automotive industry today

Over half of U.S. consumers surveyed are likely to switch to a new automotive brand for their next purchase according to Deloitte.1 Most auto shoppers switch to a new brand because they want to try something different, they are concerned about cost, or because they are looking for more desirable tech features. These factors reinforce a powerful need for automotive brands to reach relevant customers in a crowded vehicle marketplace where brands are competing to stand out.

Advertising remains an important channel for brand messaging and building relationships with customers. In fact, 7 in 10 automotive customers surveyed say ads help them learn more about products and/or brands during their purchase journey.2

man with glasses and woman smiling watching television

Automotive marketing trends

82 percent

of auto decision makers surveyed say the auto brand is important to their decision making.3

74 percent

of automotive shoppers surveyed believe good advertising looks and sounds like a piece of entertainment.4

63 percent

63% of automotive shoppers surveyed believe auto advertising should be tailored to customers.5

illustration of women in pink clothes sitting down and using computer

Course

Explore Amazon Ads’ professional paths to learn how to use our products and solutions in four specific job roles.

Challenges facing automotive brands

Evolving consumption habits

Automotive customers favor streaming TV over linear, causing a ripple effect in the auto industry as customers change how they discover, shop for, and buy cars. In fact, when it comes to automotive intenders, they are watching streaming TV 1.1x more than linear/live TV.6

Shift from linear TV

TV ads have been a staple of automotive marketing for decades due to TV’s effectiveness at delivering memorable ads and messaging. But viewers are shifting away from linear to streaming services, spending nearly 3 hours more per day with digital media than traditional formats in 2023.7

Driving early consideration

The automotive shopping journey has moved increasingly to online channels, and potential customers are researching and forming opinions heading into their purchases.

Insights for automotive marketers

of surveyed automotive intenders engage with Amazon products and services.8

of surveyed automotive intenders are streaming entertainment on Amazon, including Prime Video, Freevee or Twitch at least monthly.9

1.2 times

Surveyed Prime Video monthly users are 1.2X more likely to be auto intenders.10

35 percent increase

Automotive brands that adopt a holistic product strategy with Amazon, including both video and display, are able to increase reach by 35% vs. display only.11

Automotive advertising strategies

Build awareness with streaming TV

Use Amazon Streaming TV ads to engage shopping, automotive, and lifestyle audiences that you can’t access with any other media provider. You also have the opportunity to reach cord-cutters and cord-nevers who use Fire TV devices.

Advertisers in the US can now reach an average monthly audience of 175MM+ across Amazon ad-supported Streaming TV, including Prime Video (including Thursday Night Football), Freevee, Twitch, Fire TV Channels and Amazon Publisher Direct.12 In addition, Amazon provides automotive brands with unique opportunities to reach an audience that is incremental to linear TV. A third-party incremental reach analysis found that 2 in every 3 viewers reached by Streaming TV on Amazon were not reached by the brand’s linear TV campaign.13

Discover unique audiences

Access unique vehicle in-market audiences using shopping signals from Amazon Vehicles and Amazon's Your Garage. Amazon can also help you develop a near-market strategy that aligns vehicle promotions with your customers’ life events and interests, such as advertising EV models to shoppers who have indicated interests in green or Climate Pledge Friendly products.

Advertise programmatically across screens

With Amazon DSP, you can gain a singular view of your audiences and connect seamlessly between desktop and mobile devices.

In addition, Ad Relevance is our innovative approach to determine relevant ad opportunities everywhere we serve ads. Ad Relevance is built on Amazon Ads’ extensive understanding of what creates great shopping experiences, and the connection those shopping experiences have with ad interactions, product and category interests, and cadence of actions along the path to conversion.

  • 1Deloitte 2024 Global Automotive Consumer Study, January 2024, Global, n=27,000
    2Amazon Shopper Panel, Audience research, n=850, U.S., May 2023
    3-5Amazon Ads custom research with Crowd DNA. From Ads to Zeitgeist. Fielded December 2023 to February 2024. Data reflects US only. n=1,800.
    6GWI 2023 Q1-Q4, US, n=1,410. Auto intenders are customers who are planning to purchase a vehicle in the next 0-6 months
    7eMarketer, US Time Spent With Media Forecast 2023. Note: Consumption of different media may occur concurrently. Television includes both linear (broadcast and cable) television and content delivered by streaming and video-on-demand services. Broadcast radio does not include internet radio. Respondents aged 16-64.
    8-9GWI 2023 Q1-Q4, US. n=1,410. Auto intenders are customers who are planning to purchase a vehicle in the next 0-6 months.
    10Kantar and Amazon Ads, December 2023, US. n=1,500. Auto intenders are customers who are planning to purchase a vehicle within the next 12 months.
    11Amazon Marketing Cloud, October 2022-March 2023, US
    12Amazon internal, December 2023 and March 2024, US. Unduplicated monthly audience across Prime Video, Amazon Freevee, Twitch, Fire TV Channels, and Amazon Publisher Direct.
    13Amazon Ads third-party incremental reach analysis (n=99), January to December 2023.