Amazon Just Gave Advertisers 10 New Brand+ and Performance+ Capabilities. Here Is What Actually Matters.

On July 20, 2026, Amazon released a significant update to Brand+ and Performance+ — ten new capabilities spanning audience data integration, expanded audio formats, streaming TV automation, and AI model improvements. Most will roll out over the coming weeks to Open Beta or General Availability.

This is not a minor product refresh. Several of the changes alter the fundamental structure of how these campaign types work — and two of them are active by default on every eligible campaign without any action required.

Here is what the update actually contains and what brands running DSP should pay attention to.

Your First-Party Data Can Now Feed the AI Directly

The most strategically significant change in this update is Audience Signals — available now for both Brand+ Prospecting and Performance+ Customer Acquisition and Unified Consideration, at no additional cost.

Until now, first-party audiences in Brand+ and Performance+ functioned as hard targeting constraints. You defined a segment, and the AI optimized within those boundaries. Audience Signals works differently: your audience data enters the campaign as an optimization input, not a targeting fence. The AI uses it to accelerate learning — identifying high-value customer patterns faster — while retaining full freedom to discover users beyond your uploaded segments.

Advertisers can bring AMC audiences, DMP segments, or custom-built cohorts connected through Ads Data Manager into Brand+ and Performance+ as optimization inputs in the same way they bring in conversion event data today. The upload path runs through Ads Data Manager — hashed customer lists connected through ADM, then activated as advertiser audiences in Amazon Ads or built as custom segments in AMC.

For brands that have been running Brand+ and Performance+ without first-party data integration, this is a meaningful gap to close. The AI optimizes faster when it has signal. Feeding it your actual customer data — purchase history cohorts, high-LTV segments, category buyers — gives it a head start that generic audience models cannot replicate.

Audio Is Now General Availability for Brand+ — and Entering Open Beta for Performance+

Audio campaigns drive 43% incremental reach compared to Streaming TV campaigns, and when paired with other Amazon Ads formats, drive 1.8x higher consideration and 2.2x higher purchase intent. When combined with video, Audio improves ROAS efficiency by 6.7–8.7%.

Audio for Brand+ moves from Open Beta to General Availability with this update, with expanded third-party exchange open exchange supply now included alongside first-party and third-party Amazon Publisher Direct sources across 16 locales.

More importantly, Audio for Performance+ enters Open Beta for the first time — bringing AI-optimized audio to mid- and lower-funnel tactics including Customer Acquisition, Remarketing, Retention, and Consideration. Audio was previously a reach-only format. It is now available as a performance channel.

For brands not yet running audio in their Amazon DSP campaigns, the combination of incremental reach and measurable mid-funnel lift makes this worth testing. The format extends into screen-free moments — commutes, workouts, household tasks — that streaming TV and display simply cannot access.

Two Model Upgrades Running Automatically in the Background

Two of the ten capabilities are enabled by default and require no advertiser action. Both have direct implications for campaign performance.

Brand Outcome Optimization predicts user likelihood to take brand-relevant actions — branded search, detail page views, add-to-cart — and optimizes toward those outcomes rather than reach alone. It is active by default on all Brand+ Reach goal line items. Brand advertising has historically been measured on impressions and reach because those were the only metrics available. Brand Outcome Optimization replaces that proxy with actual commerce behavior as the optimization target — a structural improvement in how Brand+ campaigns spend.

Prime Video Signal Integration enriches Brand+ ranking with Amazon Prime Video streaming behavior data for improved ad relevancy on Prime Video Ads supply. Amazon’s authenticated audience graph now reaches 90% of US households, connecting streaming behavior, shopping activity, and purchase signals across devices. Adding streaming behavior as a ranking signal for Prime Video placements makes those placements more relevant — and more likely to reach shoppers in a receptive context.

Both upgrades apply automatically to eligible campaigns. You do not need to activate them. But knowing they are running changes how you should interpret campaign data going forward — performance improvements that appear in reporting over the next few weeks will partly reflect these model changes, not just your own optimization decisions.

Automatic Deal Selection for Brand+ STV

Brand+ STV line items are now auto-enabled with Automatic Deal Selection — an AI-powered feature that automatically activates and optimizes a group of premium streaming TV deals based on Brand+ audience context and campaign targeting criteria. It expands supply access from a single, pre-configured APD deal to a broader, continuously optimized set of deals across Amazon and the open internet. ADS is enabled by default on new Brand+ STV Prospecting lines and requires no manual activation.

The practical impact is expanded reach in premium streaming TV inventory without the manual deal management that previously came with STV campaigns. Amazon’s system selects and optimizes deals dynamically based on audience context rather than requiring advertisers to pre-select and monitor individual deals.

What This Update Means for How You Run Brand+ and Performance+

Three practical implications stand out.

First, if you are running Brand+ or Performance+ without first-party data, the Audience Signals update makes that integration a priority. The feature costs nothing to activate and directly improves AI optimization speed. The longer you wait, the more campaign spend goes toward slower, cold-start learning that your own customer data could have shortcut.

Second, audio deserves a place in your DSP plan for Q4. Audio is a full-funnel multiplier, not just an incremental reach play. With Audio for Performance+ now in Open Beta across Customer Acquisition, Remarketing, and Consideration tactics, brands can test audio-driven mid-funnel performance in Q4 — the highest-stakes period of the year — while the format is still early and auction competition is lower than it will be once General Availability arrives.

Third, check your Brand+ Reach line items. Brand Outcome Optimization and Prime Video Signal Integration are already active on eligible campaigns. If you are running Brand+ STV, Automatic Deal Selection is also live on new Prospecting lines. Review what is running under the hood before assuming your campaign structure is unchanged.

More automation does not remove the need for strategy. It increases the importance of knowing what to feed the system — which audience goal, which creative, which product, which retail destination, and which measurement window. Brand+ and Performance+ are becoming more capable, but they still require the right inputs. The advertisers who get the most out of this update will be the ones who feed the AI better data, not just the ones who turn more features on.

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Author: Oleksandr Kovalov
Role: Founder & CEO @ ANavigator

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