Amazon Courts YouTube Advertisers

Amazon is reportedly holding meetings in an effort to lure more advertisers to its video content platform in a bid to take on YouTube.

According to a news report in CNBC citing several unnamed people, Amazon has implied during several meetings that it is gearing up to unveil initiatives that are friendly to advertisers and marketers, and that it is more open to providing data to advertisers about what its customers are watching and what they are doing online. In another idea, the eCommerce giant would match up companies with video producers vetted by Amazon to develop sponsored content. Amazon would get a cut of the money as it would count as an advertisement, noted the report.

In addition to meeting with marketers and advertisers, CNBC reported it met with several technology companies to come up with ways to prevent offensive content from showing up next to ads, something that has plagued Google’s YouTube and resulted in a bit of backlash from advertisers earlier this year.

The potential push on the part of Amazon comes as the digital video advertising market is growing at a fast pace. CNBC, citing market research firm eMarketer, reported that digital video ad spending in the U.S. is slated to reach $13.23 billion in 2017, with YouTube one of the biggest beneficiaries. According to eMarketer, YouTube accounts for 21.7 percent of U.S. video ad spending.

Advertisers have been looking to diversify, but want to spend their dollars in high-traffic areas where Amazon sees an opportunity. After all, the company had 310 million monthly active customers when it reported its first-quarter earnings last year, noted CNBC. YouTube, on the other hand, has 1.5 billion monthly active users. If Amazon is willing to tell advertisers what customers are watching and match that with their shopping preferences, it could be a game changer.