Non-Endemic Brands on Amazon Ads: The Untapped Opportunity

Here's a sentence that still surprises marketers outside ecommerce: you don't need to sell a single product on Amazon to advertise through Amazon. Insurance brands, car makers, travel companies, banks and telecoms are quietly becoming significant Amazon Ads spenders, and the reason is simple. Amazon has the thing every advertiser says they want and almost nobody actually has: purchase data at scale, connected to addressable media.

What "non-endemic" means, in one paragraph

Endemic brands sell on Amazon; their ads drive shoppers to their listings. Non-endemic brands don't sell on Amazon, but buy Amazon's audiences and inventory, primarily through Amazon DSP, to reach consumers across Prime Video, Fire TV, Twitch, Amazon's owned pages and the open web, driving them to their own sites and outcomes.

Why it works: the data nobody else has

Most "intent data" in digital media is inferred from browsing. Amazon's is built from what people actually buy, browse and stream across one of the world's biggest stores and a major streaming ecosystem. For a non-endemic brand, that unlocks targeting that's otherwise guesswork:

• A pet insurer reaching households that started buying puppy food in the last 60 days
• A car brand reaching people researching child seats and roof boxes (life-stage signals that predict car purchases)
• A travel company reaching buyers of luggage, swimwear and sun cream
• A meal-kit or finance brand building audiences from grocery and lifestyle purchase patterns

Layer on Prime Video's reach since ads launched, and Amazon has become a genuine alternative to the walled gardens for upper- and mid-funnel spend, with closed-loop measurement most TV money never gets.

What non-endemic campaigns look like in practice

The typical entry point is streaming TV plus programmatic display through the DSP: brand reach against purchase-based audiences, measured properly. From there, the playbook extends to remarketing site visitors across Amazon's inventory, conquesting life-stage moments, and testing interactive and rewarded formats as Amazon rolls them out.

Measurement is the underrated half. Amazon Marketing Cloud lets non-endemic advertisers run clean-room analysis joining Amazon signals to their own first-party data, which is increasingly the grown-up answer to attribution questions that last-click reporting can't touch.

Why Use Amazon Advertising? 

Amazon offers multiple ad formats made just for non-endemics. Sponsored Display ads allow non-endemic brands to advertise on Amazon even if their product isn’t on the site, and Amazon DSP ads let them gather Amazon’s data to reach people on websites on and off Amazon. 

The logic for a non-endemic brand using Amazon is straightforward. Amazon knows a lot about what its shoppers might be up to, based on their purchase habits. Amazon’s data offers a lot of potential for non-endemic advertisers. The issue for non-endemic brands is around reach and measurement on Amazon. 

Non-endemic brands still account for a small share of the overall ad spend on Amazon. However, as Amazon’s reach grows and its measurement capabilities become more complex, there are more features than ever for your typical non-endemic brand to take advantage of.  

How Amazon is Helping Non-Endemic Brands to Advertise 

Awareness of consumer behaviour has prompted a rise in non-endemic marketing and with tools like Amazon DSP, we now have the means to do it. Reaching consumers where they live, where they shop, where they game, where they watch—all routes can now be tapped into. 

As a result, there are demands. Creativity in advertising is now at a premium. Even as brands seek new and better ways to target and reach consumers, those same consumers are becoming more and more aware of being advertised to. Advertising is becoming savvier, yes, but so too are the people seeing (and often skipping or ignoring) those ads. 

Sellers must therefore look for increasingly creative ways to engage their audience. Advertising for a non-endemic brand is a great way to get creative. Such ads introduce a shock to the system. Seeing an ad for home insurance while shopping for homeware because you have just bought a house, for example, will make most people stop and take notice. This sort of non-endemic presence puts the advantage back with the brand. This is all available to use due to the vast amount of data Amazon can gather on consumers. 

How to start

Non-endemic access runs through Amazon DSP, which means working with a partner that holds the access and the audience expertise. As an Amazon Ads Advanced Partner, Toucan's advertising team plans non-endemic campaigns the same way we plan everything: audience first, full-funnel, measured against outcomes you'd defend to a CFO.

How Toucan Can Help Non-Endemic Brands 

Amazon are providing new opportunities for brands beyond the normal e-commerce landscape. Being able to harness Amazon’s vast amount of first-party data and use their extensive audience creates an amazing option for brands looking to take advantage of a different advertising channel.  

Toucan’s advertising team have extensive knowledge of the Amazon DSP platform and hold seats in EU, NAM & APAC so we are able to activate any campaign in-house with our team of experts. With up to 400 million DSP users worldwide each month, DSP is a powerful tool to expand brand awareness and connect with audiences at different phases of the customer journey. Leveraging Toucan’s services, we help brands optimise their campaigns and make the most of Amazon DSP for heightened visibility and metrics.