Amazon Ads and iHeartMedia are tightening their long-running partnership with a major expansion: advertisers using Amazon DSP can now buy iHeart’s vast streaming audio inventory programmatically. It’s a move that blends Amazon’s formidable first-party signals with iHeart’s massive listener footprint—opening up a richer, more measurable lane into the booming digital audio market.
The integration brings iHeart’s streaming music and live radio inventory into Amazon DSP immediately, with access to iHeartPodcasts and broadcast radio slated for 2026. For advertisers, that means omnichannel campaigns can now extend into millions of ears across smartphones, smart speakers, tablets, gaming consoles, and connected devices of every flavor.
Amazon’s Data Muscle Meets iHeart’s Audience Scale
Amazon Ads is positioning this expansion as a major step in simplifying omnichannel planning. Amazon DSP already runs on trillions of shopping, browsing, and streaming signals—data that gives it a precision few DSPs can match. Layered with iHeart’s cross-platform audience, advertisers get a new path to reach listeners with context-aware targeting and unified campaign management.
“Our partnership with iHeart allows Amazon DSP customers to reach relevant audio audiences with simplified campaign management and unique measurement capabilities,” said Meredith Goldman, Director of Amazon DSP. The promise: one platform, deeper insights, and audio added into the same clean-room-powered ecosystem that fuels Amazon’s streaming TV business.
iHeart Wants Audio to Behave Like Digital
For iHeartMedia, the partnership reflects an industry-wide push to bring broadcast audio into the modern, addressable fold. “Making iHeart’s premium audio inventory available through Amazon DSP unlocks scale with deep listener engagement and proven performance,” said Lisa Coffey, iHeartMedia’s Chief Business Officer.
The bigger ambition emerges in her second point: as broadcast radio inventory becomes programmatically available in 2026, radio itself begins acting like digital—targetable, measurable, and easier to buy consistently. For an industry working to evolve beyond analog-era constraints, that’s a meaningful pivot.
A Decade of Collaboration, A New Channel of Opportunity
While today’s announcement zeroes in on programmatic audio, Amazon and iHeart aren’t strangers. Their collaboration spans smart speakers, mobile apps, and voice-assisted listening—territory where Amazon’s devices helped reshape audio habits. Bringing that relationship into the DSP ecosystem feels like a natural next step, especially as marketers look for deeper reach beyond walled gardens.
The Bigger Bet: Omnichannel Without Friction
Amazon DSP continues to pitch itself as a unified media solution for advertisers who want one place to plan, target, optimize, and measure across channels. With AI baked into targeting, creative optimization, and measurement, audio becomes another lever in a stack that already includes streaming TV across the open internet.
Programmatic audio is also having its moment. As listeners migrate from AM/FM to streaming, advertisers want precise, measurable channels that complement video and display. This partnership gives them that—with scale and signals few competitors can match.
In essence, Amazon and iHeart are betting that the next phase of audio advertising won’t just be digital—it will be data-driven, addressable, and fully integrated into cross-channel consumer journeys.
