At unBoxed 2026 in San Francisco (September 28-30), Amazon renamed its unified ad platform Amazon Ads Agent. It opened Full-Funnel Campaigns to US advertisers and announced DVA+ for display, video and audio. For measurement, the big change is this. Amazon now optimizes across formats inside one campaign and reports the result with its own long-term metric. That makes an outside view of your spend more useful, not less.
This recap is for retail media managers, marketing analysts and agencies who report Amazon Ads next to Google, Meta and TV. Every product fact below comes from Amazon's own announcement pages, linked in the text. We read them on September 30, 2026.
What did Amazon announce at unBoxed 2026?
Short answer: Amazon gave its combined ad console and DSP a new name, Amazon Ads Agent. It now holds three campaign types: sponsored ads, Full-Funnel Campaigns, and Display, Video and Audio (DVA+). Full-Funnel Campaigns runs one budget across sponsored ads, display, video and streaming TV. DVA+ is in closed beta, with open beta expected in late October. A chat assistant spans all three.
Here is each launch, with its status on the day of the announcement.
| Launch | What it does | Status | What it means for measurement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Ads Agent | New name for the unified ad console and Amazon DSP, now with agentic AI | Announced September 29, 2026 | One platform, so Amazon reporting becomes one view across formats |
| Full-Funnel Campaigns | One campaign across sponsored ads, display, video and streaming TV; Amazon's AI splits the budget | US, open beta, for advertisers who sell on Amazon | Budget split by format is decided by Amazon, and results are reported with Long-Term Sales |
| DVA+ | One way to buy display, video and audio on Amazon and the open internet, combining what used to be separate campaign types | US extended closed beta now; open beta expected late October 2026; 35 markets targeted for Q1 2027 | Sponsored Display, Sponsored TV and programmatic buys move into one campaign type |
| Conversational experience | Chat for media planning, targeting, analytics and Sponsored Products tuning | Closed beta; capabilities roll out over the coming months | Analysis inside Amazon gets faster; Amazon does not say it reads your other channels |
Sources: Amazon's Amazon Ads Agent announcement and its launch notes for Full-Funnel Campaigns, DVA+ and the conversational experience.
Want Amazon results next to the rest of your channels? Book a demo and we will show your own Amazon Ads data in one model with your other spend.
How do Full-Funnel Campaigns change what you measure?
Amit Bhattacharyya, Vice President of Agentic Intelligence and Models at Amazon Ads, described the goal on Amazon's announcement: "One campaign ties every format from streaming TV to sponsored ads, shares signals in real time, and tunes itself toward long-term growth." That is a measurement promise as much as a buying one, so it is worth testing.
Until now, most teams ran sponsored ads, display and streaming TV as separate campaigns. Each had its own budget, so each could be judged on its own numbers. Full-Funnel Campaigns joins them. You give Amazon your products, a budget and an optional ROAS threshold. Amazon's AI then picks the formats and moves budget between funnel stages in real time.
That changes the unit of measurement. You can no longer read "how did streaming TV do" off its own campaign line, because the campaign is built so that formats help each other. Amazon says it plainly: a streaming TV ad can help a sponsored ad perform better, and the reverse.
Amazon's early numbers point the same way. In its beta, advertisers using Full-Funnel Campaigns saw 67% higher Long-Term ROAS than the same formats set up separately. They also got new-to-brand customers at 29% lower cost per purchase. Amazon notes these are its own internal figures from June to August 2026, from early beta advertisers, and that results vary. They are Amazon-reported and not independently verified (Amazon Ads launch note).
Treat those as the vendor's claim, not a benchmark. Amazon's footnote says the comparison is against the blended average of other campaigns across beta advertisers, not a holdout test on your account.
What is Long-Term Sales, and should you trust it?
Long-Term Sales (LTS) is Amazon's metric for full-funnel impact. It counts the sales a campaign drives right away plus an estimated future value from new-to-brand customers over the next 12 months. Full-Funnel reporting shows it next to impressions, clicks, sales and new-to-brand metrics, in one view across formats.
LTS is useful because upper-funnel ads rarely pay back inside a short attribution window. But it has two limits you should name in any report:
- It is partly a forecast. The 12-month part is an estimate made by Amazon's model, not sales that already happened. Keep it in a separate column from booked sales.
- It is graded by the seller of the ads. Amazon both runs the campaign and scores it. That is normal for any ad platform, and it is why a second view matters.
A simple rule works for most teams: report LTS as Amazon reports it, and check it against sales you can see in your own order data or your Amazon seller and vendor reports over the same months.
What does DVA+ mean for programmatic reporting?
DVA+ folds Sponsored Display, Sponsored TV and programmatic campaigns into one buying flow. You pick a goal such as sales, traffic or awareness, add products and creative, set a budget and launch. Two optimization modes do the work: Brand+ for awareness and reach, and Performance+ for consideration and conversion. Buyers who already run programmatic campaigns get advanced settings for targeting, deals, supply sources, frequency caps and bidding. New and sponsored-ads-only advertisers request them through their Amazon account manager (DVA+ launch note).
For reporting, four details matter:
- Campaign types change. Reports and dashboards keyed on Sponsored Display or Sponsored TV campaign names will need a new mapping once your account moves to DVA+. Plan that before open beta reaches your account in late October.
- Domain-level reporting. Amazon says DVA+ shows where each impression served, by publisher, format and geography. That is the level you need to check open-internet delivery.
- API access comes later. Amazon targets API access for DVA+ campaigns for general availability in Q1 2027. Plan for a gap before outside tools can pull that data.
- Amazon's own lift figures. Amazon credits Performance+ with up to 34% higher ROAS for sellers and up to 68% better cost per acquisition for brands that do not sell on Amazon. These are Amazon's internal figures from February 2025 and Q4 2025, from two different advertiser groups, and Amazon notes results vary. Both periods come before this announcement, so they describe Performance+ results as Amazon measured them earlier, not DVA+ as launched (DVA+ launch note).
If you already know DSP buying, our guide to what programmatic advertising is covers the basics DVA+ now hides behind a simpler setup.
Can the Amazon Ads Agent chat replace your reporting?
Amazon's new chat can size audiences, forecast reach, suggest budget splits and compare incremental reach across channels. It can also answer performance questions, diagnose trends, benchmark against peers and build charts across campaign types. For the chat feature it launched last year, Amazon says advertisers who used natural language to apply targeting recommendations saw more than 25% more unique customers and more than 10% lower cost per impression, on average. Amazon publishes no time window or method for that figure, so read it as an unverified vendor claim, not a benchmark (Amazon Ads).
It will save analysts time on Amazon questions. Cross-channel questions are another matter. Nothing in Amazon's announcement says the chat reads your Google, Meta or TV results. So it cannot tell you whether a Prime Video flight lifted your Google branded search, or how Amazon's cost per new customer compares with Meta's. The feature is also in closed beta, rolling out over the coming months, so plan for it rather than on it.
What should retail media teams change in their measurement now?
You do not need to rebuild anything this week. Here is a short checklist for the next two quarters.
- Map old campaign types to new ones. List every report that filters on Sponsored Display, Sponsored TV or DSP campaign names. Add a mapping for DVA+ and Full-Funnel Campaigns before the data starts arriving.
- Keep LTS apart from booked sales. Add LTS as its own metric. Never sum it with sales from other channels.
- Keep a baseline before you switch. Save three months of results by format before moving budget into Full-Funnel Campaigns, so you can compare like with like.
- Test one product line first. Amazon says Full-Funnel Campaigns runs beside existing campaigns. Use that to run it on part of the catalog and compare it with the rest.
- Put Amazon next to every other channel. Amazon's reporting now covers more of the funnel inside Amazon. Your total picture still needs Amazon Ads, Amazon DSP and Amazon Marketing Cloud data next to search, social and TV in one place. Amazon is one of several retail media networks, and the same mapping applies to each one you buy.
For the data side of that last step, see our guides to Amazon Ads data challenges and building an Amazon Ads dashboard.
How Improvado fits
Improvado has pre-built connectors for Amazon Ads, Amazon DSP and Amazon Marketing Cloud, alongside Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn and your CRM. It loads that data into your own warehouse with one set of metric definitions. Amazon's reported results then sit next to the same period's results from every other channel, so you can check them instead of taking them on faith. One limit follows from the DVA+ timeline above: Amazon targets API access for DVA+ campaigns for Q1 2027, so until then that campaign data cannot be pulled by API into any outside tool, ours included.
FAQ
When and where was Amazon unBoxed 2026?
unBoxed 2026 ran September 28-30, 2026, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Amazon published its main product news on September 29.
What is Amazon Ads Agent?
It is the new name for Amazon's unified ad platform, which joined the ads console and Amazon DSP. It holds three campaign types: sponsored ads, Full-Funnel Campaigns and DVA+, with a chat assistant across them.
Is Full-Funnel Campaigns available outside the US?
Not at launch. Amazon lists the United States as the only market, in open beta, for advertisers who sell on Amazon.
When does DVA+ launch?
DVA+ is in extended closed beta in the US now. Amazon expects open beta to begin in late October 2026, with general availability across 35 markets targeted for Q1 2027.
What is Long-Term Sales in Amazon Ads?
It is a metric that adds immediate sales to an estimated future value from new-to-brand customers over 12 months. Part of it is a forecast, so report it apart from booked sales.
Bring Amazon into the same picture
unBoxed 2026 made Amazon's reporting broader inside Amazon. The cross-channel question stays with you. Book a demo to see your Amazon Ads, DSP and Amazon Marketing Cloud data beside the rest of your spend.
