2026-09-23WrapPartner-enriched, owner-fronted✓ Reviewed

Best Buy and Amazon expand Fire TV pact, opening Insignia TV ad inventory to Best Buy Ads via Amazon Ads tech

From February 2027, Best Buy Ads will sell ad inventory on all new and existing Insignia Fire TVs, using Amazon Ads' programmatic technology to plan, activate, optimise and measure. Fire TV stays the exclusive OS on Insignia sets, with tens of millions already in homes. Best Buy holds the advertiser relationship, but the device, viewing signal and ad-serving tech are Amazon's.

Where the rake sits

Best Buy Ads fronts the advertiser and books the media revenue across Insignia Fire TV, LG and Roku surfaces, keeping a demand-side rake for targeting and closed-loop attribution built on its 220M+ shopper graph. Amazon takes an undisclosed cut for Fire OS distribution and the Amazon Ads programmatic stack that plans, activates, optimises and measures Insignia inventory, and LG and Roku keep supply-side economics on their own screens. Splits are not disclosed, and because the device software, install base and ad-serving tech on the Insignia leg belong to Amazon, Best Buy's share there reads as a rake on loan if the pact lapses.

What happened

2026-09-23: Best Buy and Amazon announced an expanded partnership in which Best Buy Ads will begin using Amazon Ads' programmatic technology in February 2027 to sell Fire TV ad inventory on all new and existing Insignia TVs.
2026-09-23: Fire TV was confirmed as the exclusive TV software on all Insignia TVs (24 to 85 inch), with the latest Fire TV UI and Alexa+ integrated across the majority of models, and Best Buy remaining the exclusive retailer for Insignia in store, on BestBuy.com and on Amazon.com (sold by Best Buy).
2026-09-23: Amazon Ads tech will handle plan, activate, optimise and measure for the Insignia inventory; the partnership dates to 2018 and has shipped over 100 TV models with tens of millions of Insignia Fire TV sets in homes. Principals quoted: Lisa Valentino (Best Buy) and Charlotte Maines (Amazon).
2026-09-28: At The Drop event, Best Buy unveiled Best Buy CTV, bundling premium streaming inventory from the expanded Amazon Fire TV relationship on Insignia TVs, a first-of-its-kind LG plus Roku bundle including LG home-screen placements, and FAST channels, targeted using device-ownership, refresh-cycle and purchase-intent signals.
2026-09-28: Lisa Valentino, Chief Ads and Media Officer, framed the pitch around 220M+ customer relationships and billions of annual interactions.
2026-09-28: Best Buy launched multi-touch attribution spanning onsite/offsite media, sponsored products, paid search, CTV, social, influencers, affiliates and in-store, plus expanded incrementality testing distinguishing influenced from caused sales.
2026-09-28: A cited Circana study reported Best Buy Ads outperformed the national media ROAS average by 17%, and while representing 17% of media spend analysed generated 35% of measured media contribution to sales at Best Buy, 16% of media-driven sales at competing retailers, and 9.9% of measured brand equity.
2026-09-28: Best Buy Creators was presented as a bundle of external creators, product reviewers and in-house Blue Shirts with production capabilities, tied back to sales-outcome measurement.

Who is involved

Best Buylisted

US consumer-electronics retailer; owner of the Insignia private-label TV brand, whose Fire-TV-powered devices carry the ad inventory this deal opens to Best Buy Ads.

Largest consumer-electronics retailer in the US; ~1,000 North American stores per corporate site; NYSE: BBY

Amazonlisted

Operator of Fire TV and Amazon Ads; supplies the CTV device platform (Fire OS on Insignia TVs) and the programmatic ad-tech stack Best Buy Ads will run on from February 2027.

Over 300M Fire TV devices sold globally per Amazon Ads; Amazon's ad-supported streaming solutions reach roughly 155M unduplicated US monthly viewers; NASDAQ: AMZN

The reading

Where the work is

The enrichment on the CTV leg is done by Amazon: Fire TV supplies the device platform and viewing signal, Amazon Ads supplies the programmatic tech Best Buy Ads runs on starting February 2027, and Best Buy contributes retail-side audience data.

Enrichability

The buyer is the advertiser, and its decision is whether Insignia Fire TV inventory earns a place in its streaming TV budget. Best Buy Ads sells that inventory, but Amazon Ads technology plans, activates, optimises and measures the campaigns; the announcement does not say whether Best Buy's own shopper data is used for targeting.

The boundary

Ad placements and measurement cross to advertisers; Fire OS-level viewing telemetry stays with Amazon and Best Buy retail purchase records stay with Best Buy — neither party appears to be selling its underlying file to the other.

Under-capture

Not determinable: revenue split between Best Buy Ads and Amazon Ads on this inventory is not disclosed.

Why it matters

Retail-media cases usually get read as the retailer capturing first-party signal against endemic ad budgets, but here the retailer is renting the screen, the OS and the ad server from a single counterparty who is also a rival ad seller. Worth sharpening around what Best Buy actually owns in this stack once the Amazon Ads tech is doing the plan/activate/optimise/measure work, and whether the Insignia purchase-signal justifies the buyer-facing leg staying with Best Buy Ads.

The argument this deal tests: The identifier on loan

Related deals

Sources

corporate.bestbuy.com — primary
adweek.com — corroborating
corporate.bestbuy.com — corroborating
simple.wikipedia.org — party background
ebsco.com — party background
advertising.amazon.com — party background
streamtvinsider.com — party background

Announced 2026-09-23

How this was classified The register