Amazon's new advertising metric helps compare performance to Facebook and Google

Hi! Welcome to the Insider Advertising daily for August 25. I'm Lauren Johnson, a senior advertising reporter at Business Insider. Subscribe here to get this newsletter in your inbox every weekday. Send me feedback or tips at ljohnson@businessinsider.com

Today's news: Amazon's new advertising metric, streaming companies bet on going global, and the power players of TikTok in the US.

Amazon started showing a favored metric for advertisers this month, making it easier for large brands to compare ad efficiency against Google and Facebook

• Eugene Kim reported that Amazon rolled out an advertising metric called "return on ad spend" for sponsored ads this month.
• The metric is different from "advertising cost of sales," the previous metric that Amazon's advertisers used to track ad effectiveness.
• The new metric addresses large advertisers' asks for better ways to measure the ad performance on Amazon against Facebook and Google.

Read the full story here.

International expansion will make or break streaming TV services. Experts explain the challenges Disney, WarnerMedia, Starz, and others face.

• Media companies like Disney are realizing that global expansion is key to streaming success, reports Ashley Rodriguez.
• ViacomCBS, Discovery, and WarnerMedia plan to expand their services internationally but face challenges that early streaming companies like Netflix and Apple did not, including navigating pre-existing distribution deals and picking the brands to peg their platform to.
• "The biggest issue in general for these services is they've already sold a lot of their content into longterm deals internationally," said Eric Haggstrom, forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence.

Read the full story here.

These are the 29 power players steering TikTok's rise in the US

• With TikTok's US operations facing threats from the Trump administration, Paige Leskin identified the 29 most important people running TikTok's US business.
• The executives include US general manager Vanessa Pappas and Michael Beckerman, head of US public policy, in addition to CEO Kevin Mayer.
• Blake Chandlee, vp of global business solutions, is responsible for spearheading TikTok's advertising business, which has grown to include ad formats like branded AR effects and in-feed videos.

Read the full story here.

More stories we're reading:

• Several Google products are close to joining the billion-user club. Here are Google's biggest money makers with 1 billion users, and the products that could be next. (Business Insider)
• 20 CEOs of thriving DTC brands like Olipop and The Naked Market reveal why their companies will succeed in a post-pandemic world (Business Insider)
• Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte returns on Tuesday, the earliest ever debut of the iconic autumnal drink (Business Insider)
• Color of Change: The Facebook boycott was 'somewhat of a start, but there's still a long way to go' (AdExchanger)
• CVS debuts its own media network (AdAge)

Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow! You can reach me in the meantime at ljohnson@businessinsider.com and subscribe to this daily email here.

— Lauren