How to Advertise on Disney+, Netflix, and Prime Video for Your Brand

Why the Big Three Streaming Platforms Deserve a Seat at the Table

Linear TV viewership has declined steadily for a decade. But the audience didn't disappear — it migrated. The households that used to watch NBC primetime now stream The Bear on Hulu or Shogun on Disney+. The C-suite executives and affluent consumers you're trying to reach have not stopped watching television; they've moved to environments where they control the experience.

What makes Disney+, Netflix, and Prime Video uniquely valuable for luxury advertisers is a combination of factors that legacy broadcast and cable cannot replicate:

Brand-safe inventory at scale

Every ad placement on these platforms lives inside premium, studio-quality content. You are not buying remnant web inventory or appearing next to user-generated content. You are in the same break as a prestige drama or a global sporting event.

Verified household targeting

Unlike open-web programmatic, streaming platforms know exactly who is watching. Subscribers authenticate with email addresses, credit card data, and browsing behavior. Disney's first-party data stack — built from decades of theme park purchases, resort stays, and ESPN viewership — is one of the richest in media. Netflix's data is similarly granular. Amazon layers in purchasing behavior from the largest e-commerce platform on earth.

Opt-in viewing with limited skip behavior

Streaming ad formats are largely non-skippable in the 15- and 30-second break model. Viewers who choose the ad-supported tier accept a lean-back ad experience in exchange for a lower subscription cost. Completion rates on streaming platforms run 85–97%, compared to 50–60% on YouTube or display video.

Co-viewing behavior in connected households

A Nielsen study found that CTV viewing has a significantly higher rate of co-viewing than mobile — meaning your ad is often reaching multiple adults in a high-income household simultaneously, multiplying its effective reach.

Understanding Each Platform's Ad Ecosystem

Disney+ (Disney Advertising Sales)

Disney+ launched its ad-supported tier in December 2022, and the platform has since become the most sophisticated advertising environment in streaming. Disney Advertising Sales manages inventory across Disney+, Hulu, ABC, ESPN, and Freeform — what the company calls its "unified streaming ecosystem."

Key formats available:

• Standard in-stream video (15s, 30s)
• Pause ads (display units that appear when a viewer pauses content)
• Binge ads (lighter ad load as a reward for watching multiple episodes)
• Gateway banners (contextually served on the Disney+ homepage)

Targeting capabilities:

Disney's first-party data includes over 130 million authenticated U.S. profiles. Advertisers can target by content genre, device type, household income range, geographic market, and behavioral segments derived from Disney's broader ecosystem. For luxury brands, the combination of geographic precision (targeting ZIP+4 codes associated with high-net-worth households) and content-based context (aligning with prestige drama or Nat Geo documentary series) is highly effective.

CPM benchmarks:

Disney+ ad-supported CPMs typically range from $35 to $65, depending on targeting parameters, content adjacency, and time of year. Premium placements — such as tentpole event content or exclusive series premieres — command higher floors.

Access pathway:

Disney+ advertising is available through Disney Advertising Sales direct, through select certified programmatic DSPs, and via private marketplace deals for qualified partners. Most luxury brands and their agencies access Disney inventory through PMP agreements that guarantee placement quality and reduce auction volatility.

Netflix (Netflix Advertising, powered by The Trade Desk)

Netflix launched its ad-supported tier in late 2022 and has steadily expanded its advertising capabilities. In 2024, Netflix announced a proprietary ad tech platform built in partnership with The Trade Desk, giving advertisers more granular access than the initial Microsoft-managed offering.

Key formats available:

• Pre-roll and mid-roll 15s and 30s video
• Sponsorship integrations on select titles (available for larger advertisers)
• Episodic advertising packages aligned with Netflix originals

Targeting capabilities:

Netflix's advertising data is built on authenticated subscriber profiles. Targeting options include genre affinity, content viewing patterns, geographic market, device type, and demographic bands. Netflix does not share first-party purchase data (unlike Amazon), but it can target based on the income-proxy signals embedded in its genre and content viewership patterns — affluent viewers skew heavily toward prestige drama, documentary, and international originals.

CPM benchmarks:

Netflix CPMs for standard placements range from $40 to $65. Nielsen measurement is now available on Netflix through its Nielsen One integration, giving advertisers cross-media reach and frequency data.

Access pathway:

Netflix advertising is accessible through its self-serve platform for advertisers above certain spend minimums, through The Trade Desk's programmatic interface, and via direct sales for managed campaigns. For luxury brands running considered campaigns, managed direct buys remain the most reliable path to premium placement.

Amazon Prime Video (Amazon Ads)

Amazon Prime Video began serving ads to all U.S. subscribers in January 2024 — making it the largest mandatory ad-supported streaming audience in the market overnight. Unlike Disney+ and Netflix, where the ad tier is opt-in, Prime Video ads are served to all subscribers unless they pay an additional opt-out fee.

Key formats available:

• In-stream video (pre-roll, mid-roll)
• Interactive shopping ads (unique to Amazon — allow viewers to add items to cart from the TV screen)
• Brand-integrated content sponsorships

Targeting capabilities:

Amazon's data advantage is singular and unmatched. Advertisers can target against purchase history and product category affinity, household income estimation derived from Prime member spending, brand shopper audiences (people who have bought from your competitors), life event targeting (new homeowner, new parent, etc.), and intent signals drawn from Amazon search behavior.

For luxury goods with an e-commerce component — or for brands that want to reach consumers actively purchasing in adjacent categories — Amazon's first-party intent data creates targeting precision that no other streaming platform can replicate.

CPM benchmarks:

Prime Video CPMs range from $25 to $50 for standard placements, with premium targeting segments and interactive formats commanding higher rates. The mandatory-ad-tier structure has increased available inventory, which creates more access for advertisers at competitive rates.

Access pathway:

Amazon Prime Video advertising is available through Amazon DSP, Amazon Ads self-serve, and via managed service for campaigns above $50,000.

Platform Comparison: What Matters for Luxury Brands

One important nuance on Amazon: while its targeting capabilities are unmatched, some luxury brands are cautious about appearing alongside more mass-market content or next to performance retail advertisers. PMP deals that restrict Amazon inventory to specific content categories can address this concern without sacrificing its targeting advantages.

How to Structure a Streaming TV Strategy Across All Three Platforms

Running Disney+, Netflix, and Prime Video as separate channel siloes produces fragmentation, frequency errors, and wasted spend. The correct approach is to manage them as a unified streaming ecosystem with coordinated frequency caps and creative sequencing logic.

Step 1: Define Your Streaming Audience Architecture

Start with a single audience definition — the household income, behavioral, and intent profile of your ideal buyer — and then find the best expression of that audience on each platform. Disney's data, Netflix's content affinity signals, and Amazon's purchase data all express the same underlying person differently. Unifying them into a coordinated reach strategy prevents serving the same 30-second spot to the same household six times across three platforms.

Step 2: Allocate Budget by Platform Strength

A general luxury-brand budget allocation framework:

• Disney+ (30–40% of streaming budget): Lead with awareness and consideration in premium content adjacencies. Best for storytelling, brand film, and co-viewing household moments.
• Netflix (25–35%): Strong for prestige drama adjacency and upper-funnel brand awareness among HNW subscribers. Less direct targeting, stronger content context.
• Prime Video (25–35%): Best for intent-based targeting and lower-funnel retargeting against competitive category shoppers or past brand chasers. Leverage Amazon's purchase data aggressively.

Step 3: Design Creative for the Streaming Context

Streaming viewers are in a fundamentally different mental mode than social media scrollers. They are seated, attentive, and emotionally invested in the content surrounding your ad. Fifteen-second spots built for Instagram will feel out of place. Thirty-second spots with cinematic quality, a clear opening hook, and a brand moment that respects the viewing experience perform substantially better.

Step 4: Implement Cross-Platform Frequency Management

Without a cross-platform frequency cap in place, a single household can receive your ad 15+ times across Disney+, Netflix, and Prime Video in a week. This creates diminishing returns and — for luxury brands — the risk of brand fatigue among the exact high-value consumers you're trying to impress. Programmatic access through a DSP with cross-platform identity resolution (such as The Trade Desk's Unified ID 2.0 framework) enables frequency management at the household level across platforms.

Step 5: Measure Incrementally, Not Just with Last Click

Streaming TV advertising rarely closes a $100,000 purchase on the first impression. It builds consideration, creates brand familiarity, and drives qualified search and direct navigation behavior downstream. The correct measurement framework is incrementality testing — comparing outcomes for exposed vs. unexposed households using holdout methodology — rather than last-click attribution. Without this framework, streaming TV will consistently look underperforming in your attribution dashboard even when it is driving material lift.

Common Mistakes Luxury Brands Make in Streaming Advertising

Running the same creative across all three platforms. Each platform has distinct viewing contexts. A 30-second spot that works beautifully in a Disney+ drama break may feel jarring during a Netflix reality competition. Creative versioning matters.

Ignoring frequency management. See Step 4 above. This is the most common waste driver in streaming campaigns.

Buying open exchange instead of PMP. Open exchange inventory on streaming platforms exists, but it includes lower-quality placements, less control over content adjacency, and weaker brand safety guarantees. Luxury brands should always negotiate PMP deals or access managed placements directly.

Using linear TV audience assumptions. The audiences on streaming platforms skew differently than their linear counterparts. Disney+ over-indexes on millennials and Gen X households with children (Disney content) but also captures significant prestige adult viewership. Netflix over-indexes on 25–44 demographic with higher-than-average household incomes. Audience planning should be built from streaming-native data, not extrapolated from broadcast.

Not testing pause ad formats. Pause ads — which appear when a viewer pauses content and are available on Disney/Hulu and select other platforms — have some of the highest engagement rates in streaming. They are low-cost relative to in-stream video, and they capture a moment of active intent (the viewer just stopped the content, suggesting engagement). For luxury brands with visually rich creative assets, pause ads are an underutilized high-efficiency placement.

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