Amazon Holds Eyeballs Hostage as New Roku Partnership Revolutionizes Digital Ad Revenue…

If you thought you could still dodge ads by hiding out on your Roku or Fire TV, congrats… your last safe space has officially been nuked. Amazon and Roku have announced they’re joining forces to create a new streaming ad juggernaut, pooling their connected-TV audiences and letting marketers buy up screen time across Prime Video, Roku, and basically every streaming service that hasn’t been deemed irrelevant by Netflix yet. 

(Source: Giphy) 

In short, advertisers will now be able to use Amazon’s DSP (demand-side platform) to target 80 million U.S. households glued to their Roku and Fire TV devices. The mechanism here? They’ll have “seamless access to logged-in users across major streaming apps.” Translation: They know exactly who you are, what you watch, and how many times you’ve rewatched the last episode of Sirens only to mutter “WTF” the entire time. 

The numbers are, frankly, kind of cracked. For context, Early tests claim advertisers are reaching 40% more unique viewers while blasting 30% fewer duplicate ads at the same poor souls. So, yes, you’ll see fewer repeat ads, but you’ll also be hit with a wider variety of ear-bleeding commercials. Basically it’s like a “choose your fighter” ad spot, except every fighter is a different insurance company’s friggin’ mascot. 

(Source: Variety) 

As for the financials, Roku’s stock mooned over 10% on the news (down -0.79% today). Which makes sense considering Roku’s been out here husting The Trade Desk and Google, but now with Amazon’s DSP, they’re an overnight success story. Translation: Roku basically got drafted to the NBA after years of playing pickup ball at the YMCA. 

For Amazon, this is just another week in tea-bagging every competitor alive. They’re already the world’s biggest ad company not named Google or Meta, and now they are enhancing their dominance in the streaming world. With that said, the new service drops for all U.S. advertisers using Amazon DSP by Q4 2025. So we’ve got about a year and a half before the streaming experience gets even more stalkerish targeted. 

(Source: Giphy) 

Of course, there’s a big, fat, sus asterisk here: privacy. As I’m sure most consumers already know, the tech that lets Amazon’s DSP recognize you across Roku devices s the kind of thing that would have made the 2015 you absolutely horrified. But in 2025, we’re all just numb to it. It’s second nature to us, where we’ll gladly trade our biometric data for 10% off a DoorDash order and call it a day.

But alas, Roku investors are definitely here for it. It’s been a long time coming considering prior to yesterday, shares were a hair below negative YTD. Now the only question is, how long will the uptrend last? Only time will tell, but regardless, this is definitely a win for Rokamuru-kun. Meaning, keep your eyes on this story and place your bets accordingly. Until next time, friends… 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News holds positions in Amazon, Google, Netflix, and Meta as mentioned in the article.