However, not everyone is convinced that more inventory solves Prime Video’s challenges. 

Vicky Chang, vice president of media at Tatari, said that for many advertisers, the barrier is less about price and more about measurement.

“It’s still hard to measure Prime Video’s performance against other platforms,” Chang said. “Amazon does measurement, but only within its own ecosystem. That makes it hard to justify the high CPMs, especially when results can’t be benchmarked elsewhere.”

Buyers are also monitoring for performance degradation as ad load increases. 

“For us, lower CPMs are appealing, but it comes with a viewer tolerance tradeoff, which might lead to tune-out or effectiveness declines,” said Markacy president and chief operating officer Ryan Mason. “It might take a while to fully observe that in the market—if it does happen—but tracking ad revenue per advertiser is something Prime will be managing tightly as a harbinger of how effective Prime Video ads truly are.”

What comes next

The increase in ad load puts Prime Video’s ad load closer to industry norms, and buyers say Amazon is still within acceptable bounds. 

But the move underscores Amazon’s broader ambition to scale its advertising business, both on Prime Video and across its broader media ecosystem.

“There’s a clear strategy here,” said Sam Bloom, head of partnerships at PMG. “They’ve been investing in tools like Amazon Marketing Cloud, Publisher Cloud, and private auctions to make this a full-fledged ad platform. Increasing ad load is part of creating enough scale to support that.”

Still, as Amazon grows its inventory, it will have to balance monetization with viewer tolerance and advertiser expectations.

“As long as the ad load stays manageable and performance holds up, we’ll keep investing,” Paladino said. “But if it slips, spend follows the results.”