Amazon Ads Unveils Location-Based Interactive Video Ads on Prime Video: Run a Two-Week DMA Lift Test

Breaking: Prime Video just made local performance possible at national scale\n\nAmazon Ads used unBoxed 2025 to debut location-based interactive video ads on Prime Video, a new format that lets brands run one national streaming buy while tailoring messages and calls to action by geography. That means the creative a viewer sees in Chicago can show a nearby dealership, while the same 30-second spot in Phoenix promotes a local agent or store, all within a single campaign structure. This move aligns with Amazon’s broader retail and ads momentum highlighted in our analysis of Rufus AI poised to add $10B.\n\nThis is not a gimmick. Amazon confirmed at unBoxed that location-based Interactive Video Ads, or IVAs, are rolling out on Prime Video with interactive features like Send to Phone to move viewers from the TV screen to a mobile experience without friction. See the official Prime Video IVA announcement for scope and use cases.\n\n## What exactly launched, and why it matters\n\nLocation-based IVAs let advertisers dynamically localize a single TV creative based on where the viewer is watching. The core idea is simple: use one national media plan and one video asset template, then populate end cards, offers, addresses, and links with local information at render time. Amazon says advertisers can customize both messaging and destination URLs using an Amazon DSP video template, and that this is available in the United States. The company also notes that a single TV commercial can be turned into thousands of ZIP code variants, reducing production drag while boosting local relevance. For specifics on availability and setup, see Amazon’s page with feature and availability details.\n\nWhy it matters: national-to-local at scale has been a long-standing goal. Linear addressable and streaming TV offered slices of this capability, but program management, creative versioning, and measurement often splintered across markets. Prime Video’s footprint and Amazon’s first-party ad stack now combine to make localized streaming creative feel like one campaign, not 50 campaigns taped together.\n\n## How the experience works for customers\n\nViewers see a TV spot that ends with a location-aware message and an interactive prompt. With Send to Phone, they use the remote to request a link, then continue on their phone to a mobile landing page. The landing page reflects the same local context shown on the TV creative, for example a nearby dealership or agent with a quote form or appointment scheduler. This flow bridges awareness and action with minimal friction, and it is measurable in ways TV buyers have wanted since streaming ads arrived.\n\nBecause the interactive sequence points to your owned destination, you control tracking and conversion instrumentation end to end. That is the unlock for growth teams who need causal proof that localizing the TV message boosts real demand, not just video completion rates.\n\n## The two-week pilot that proves it works\n\nYou do not need a quarter to test this. You need 14 days, a national flight on Prime Video, and a clean geographic experiment. For more on rapid experimentation culture, see our guide to a two-week split test for marketers.\n\nHere is the high-level plan:\n\n- Pick 16 to 24 Designated Market Areas (DMAs). Pair comparable markets by size, seasonality, and baseline demand. Randomly assign one DMA in each pair to treatment and the other to holdout.\n- Run your national Prime Video campaign in all selected DMAs. Turn on location-based IVAs and interactive prompts only in treatment DMAs. Holdouts receive your standard national spot without the localized end card or interactive prompt.\n- Keep budget, frequency caps, and dayparting consistent across both groups. Your only intentional difference is the localized and interactive experience.\n- Define primary KPIs up front: Send to Phone clicks and quote starts on the mobile destination. These are your proof of incremental demand. Secondary KPIs include store locator views, appointment starts, lead form completions, and call connects.\n- Run for two weeks with daily pacing checks. Do not change creative mid-flight. Keep promotions consistent across markets.\n\nAt the end of 14 days, compare treatment versus holdout at the DMA level. If location-based IVAs work as intended, you should see a statistically significant lift in Send to Phone clicks and downstream quote starts in treatment DMAs relative to holdouts.\n\n## KPI design, in plain language\n\nYour goal is to prove that localized interactivity drives more high-intent actions than a non-interactive national spot.\n\nPrimary KPIs\n\n- Send to Phone clicks: counts of viewers who pressed the remote and requested the link. This indicates the TV spot created enough local relevance to earn an action.\n- Quote starts or appointment starts: the first field entry or first step completed on the mobile page. This is a proxy for demand creation, not just curiosity clicks.\n\nSecondary KPIs\n\n- Store locator or dealer page views\n- Call click to connect or tap to text events\n- Lead form submits and qualified leads\n- Revenue proxy events like bind starts for insurance or deposit starts for finance\n\nGuardrails\n\n- Normalize by impressions per DMA to get rate-based metrics. Use Send to Phone click rate and quote start rate rather than raw counts.\n- Track post-click quality. Measure median time on page, step progression rate, and abandonment reasons.\n- Watch for DMA-level anomalies like weather or major events that can temporarily skew demand.\n\n## Instrumentation checklist so every click counts\n\nYour analytics plan should be fully wired before launch. A crisp setup avoids finger pointing later.\n\n- Unique landing pages per DMA or a single page with DMA parameters. Use consistent UTM structures that include campaign, ad group, creative template, and DMA.\n- First event is quote start, not pageview. Fire a distinct analytics event when the first form field is engaged to filter out accidental landings.\n- Map DMA parameters from the ad link to hidden form fields. Pass those to your CRM so sales teams can be aligned with localized leads.\n- Capture both Send to Phone click and mobile page arrival. The delta approximates drop-off between remote press and mobile engagement.\n- QA the cross-device flow on Fire TV and other living room devices supported by Prime Video to confirm consistent link handling.\n\nTeams often use Upcite.ai to centralize pre-reads, market pairing logic, and live KPI dashboards so executives can review treatment versus holdout performance without exporting spreadsheets all week.\n\n## Creative setup that scales without chaos\n\nYou do not need to reshoot your spot. Use your national 30-second or 15-second asset, then configure a dynamic end card in the Amazon DSP video template. Best practices:\n\n- Anchor the local message on one compelling value prop. Example for auto: “0.9% APR for well-qualified buyers through Sunday at Fairview Toyota, 3.2 miles away.”\n- Reserve the last 5 to 7 seconds for the local end card. Make the CTA explicit, for example “Send to Phone for a quote.”\n- Use clean typography and high contrast. Local addresses and prices must be readable from 10 feet away.\n- Keep disclaimers legible. Use a shorter legal line for TV and link to full terms on mobile.\n- Maintain brand safety. Approve all variable fields that can be inserted. Lock the design template to avoid off-brand localization.\n- Localize the clickthrough URL and parameters by DMA so your analytics stays clean.\n\nIf you plan to automate creative variants, review our notes on asset generation for creative scaling.\n\n## The experiment design, step by step\n\nA clean geographic test requires discipline. Here is a proven approach.\n\n### 1) Pre-period baseline\n\n- Pull four to eight weeks of pre-campaign baselines for Send to Phone proxy events, quote starts, and organic demand by DMA. Use this to confirm DMA pairing quality.\n\n### 2) Randomize assignment\n\n- Within each pair, flip a coin to assign treatment versus holdout. If you must bias toward larger DMAs for treatment, record the rationale and keep it consistent.\n\n### 3) Power calculation\n\n- Estimate the minimum detectable effect based on historical variance in quote starts per DMA. Increase the number of pairs if your detectable lift is too high to be realistic.\n\n### 4) Run of show\n\n- Two-week active period with daily pacing checks, mid-flight QA of Send to Phone delivery, and spot checks on landing page load time by market.\n\n### 5) Analysis\n\n- Use difference-in-differences to compare treatment versus holdout, adjusting for the pre-period. Report absolute lift and relative lift, plus confidence intervals.\n\n### 6) Decision rule\n\n- Define success before launch. Example: roll out nationally if the average treatment DMA shows at least a 20% relative lift in quote start rate with 90% confidence.\n\n## Where to start by industry\n\n- Auto OEMs and dealer groups: local inventory and financing are inherently regional. Use the end card to show the nearest dealer and an appointment CTA. Quote starts are your north-star KPI.\n- Insurance carriers with agent networks: test market-specific lead routing and agent attribution. Combine quote starts with bind starts where possible.\n- Telco and internet providers: promote service availability or promotional pricing by ZIP code. Measure plan selection starts.\n- Financial services: drive account openings, loan prequal starts, or branch appointments. Watch quality by FICO bands if you can enrich downstream.\n- National restaurant and QSR brands: push limited-time offers with nearest location details. Measure coupon sends and order starts.\n\n## Operating details you should know\n\n- Availability: United States. Confirm coverage by market as you build the media plan.\n- Access: Amazon DSP, available to self-service and managed service advertisers, with interactive video template support.\n- Creative structure: one national spot, localized end cards and URLs populated by geography inside the template.\n- Interactivity: Send to Phone and similar prompts such as sign up. Treat these as performance CTAs, not vanity features.\n- Compliance: if your brand has restrictions on audience signals, confirm eligibility before launch to avoid surprises.\n\nThese points reflect how Amazon framed the feature at launch. For the current configuration of templates, geographies, and eligibility, re-check the product page linked above.\n\n## Cost, pacing, and frequency considerations\n\nBudget for enough impressions per DMA to reach your power threshold. As a rule of thumb, aim for at least several hundred Send to Phone clicks in treatment DMAs across the two-week window so you have statistical power downstream on quote starts. Use even pacing across the period to reduce day-of-week bias. Cap frequency to avoid fatigue, then monitor whether high-frequency DMAs show diminishing Send to Phone rates.\n\nDo not try to test three things at once. Keep creative constant. Keep price points identical across markets. Your one change is the location-based interactive treatment.\n\n## Data governance and sales follow-through\n\n- Ensure your CRM can capture DMA identifiers and the specific dealer or agent location that the lead selected.\n- Route leads instantly to the right local partner. Nothing kills a test faster than unanswered leads.\n- For call-driven funnels, use dynamic phone numbers per DMA so call connects can be attributed back to the TV ad variant.\n- If you compensate local partners, align on attribution windows before launch.\n\n## Reporting the results executives care about\n\nExecutives respond to clear, causal outcomes. Your wrap report should include:\n\n- Lift in Send to Phone click rate, treatment versus holdout\n- Lift in quote start rate, treatment versus holdout\n- Absolute incremental quote starts attributable to the treatment, with confidence intervals\n- Cost per incremental quote start\n- Heatmaps by DMA showing the spread of lift\n- A simple roll-out recommendation with budget guidance for phase two\n\nA single slide that shows the control versus treatment delta by DMA often carries the meeting. If you need a fast way to standardize these views across teams, Upcite.ai can automate the holdout logic and pipe Amazon ad logs, web analytics, and CRM outcomes into one decision dashboard.\n\n## Pitfalls to avoid\n\n- Inconsistent landing pages that break message match between TV and mobile\n- DMA assignment changed mid-flight due to inventory swaps\n- Counting pageviews as quote starts, which inflates outcomes without proving demand\n- Overlapping promotions or store events that confound the test\n- Slow mobile pages that depress conversion in certain markets\n\nMake a short pre-launch checklist and get signoff from media, analytics, and sales operations. If a step is not owned, it will be forgotten.\n\n## The bigger picture for TV buying\n\nNational-to-local at scale is more than a feature. It is a planning model shift. You can keep buying at national scale, then localize creative and CTAs only where the customer is watching. This reduces waste for regionalized offers and moves streaming TV closer to a measurable performance channel. As other publishers evolve their interactive toolkits, expect localized end cards and cross-device CTAs to become a standard part of high-reach streaming plans.\n\nThe brands that win early will treat this as a disciplined test inside their media mix model. Two weeks is enough to answer the right question: does local context plus interactivity create incremental demand in my category at a cost that scales?\n\n## Your 14-day pilot checklist\n\n- Define success: lift thresholds and confidence levels\n- Select and pair DMAs, then randomize treatment versus holdout\n- Configure the Amazon DSP video template with localized end cards and URLs\n- Implement Send to Phone with clean UTM parameters and DMA tags\n- QA the cross-device flow and page performance by DMA\n- Launch with even pacing and stable frequency caps\n- Monitor daily delivery, fix only operational issues, avoid creative changes\n- Analyze with difference-in-differences and publish a one-page readout\n\n## Conclusion and next steps\n\nPrime Video’s location-based interactive video ads turn a national buy into a locally relevant performance engine. You keep the scale of national TV while giving viewers a reason to act in their neighborhood. The fastest path to proof is a disciplined two-week DMA test with geographic holdouts. Make Send to Phone clicks and quote starts your primary KPIs, keep everything else constant, and judge success on incremental lift. If the lift is there, roll out in phases with your best-performing DMAs first, then expand. If the lift is not there, you will know quickly and can redirect budget without regret. Either way, you will have causal answers, not opinions.\n\nAction items for this week: lock your DMA list, finalize the interactive template, and wire your analytics to capture Send to Phone and quote starts cleanly. Publish a one-page test plan and green light the flight. Two weeks from now, you will have a decision.