Netflix just lost a key leader as it faces off with Amazon in the ads business. Here’s what it could mean.

Peter Naylor at Netflix’s 2024 upfront presentation.

Netflix dominates streaming, but its ads business is still a work in progress. The company just shook up its ads leadership for the second time in less than a year. Ad sales VP Peter Naylor is moving on, less than a year after he got a new boss in Amy Reinhard.

Reinhard is a longtime Netflix insider but is an ad industry outsider. She became ads president in October 2023, replacing Jeremi Gorman, who had been in the job for just a year. Gorman hired Naylor. Reinhard said in a statement that she would be hiring a head of US and Canada Ad Sales to replace Naylor’s more global role. Naylor declined to comment.

Ads is the second area under Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters, along with games, to have a recent leadership shake-up.

Some observers read into the news that it was a sign that Netflix was seeing its ads business as more of a programmatic play than one built on relationships forged at industry events and over lunches.

There’s some reason for that. In its shareholder letter put out Thursday ahead of its Q2 earnings call, Netflix stressed its plan to launch an in-house ad tech platform to give advertisers new ways to buy ads and measure their impact. It’s also planning to start using adtech companies The Trade Desk, Google DV 360, and Magnite to give advertisers more ways to buy ads on Netflix. It plans to hire more ad operations experts as well.

Netflix said on its earnings call that its ad revenue was becoming a more meaningful contributor to the business but that it didn’t expect advertising to be a primary revenue driver until at least 2026 because it was growing faster than its ability to monetize the service through ads. Netflix posted its fourth quarter in a row of double-digit subscription gains, with subs up 16.5% to 278 million.

The idea that Netflix is making a greater programmatic push and, therefore, has less of a need for an exec like Naylor, who is well-connected and well-respected in ad circles, is a head-scratcher to some, though. While Netflix’s ads business is still small, advertisers see it as having the potential to be a premium ad buy because of its push into live events, including sports. And it regularly produces shows that get people talking.

Also, Netflix is trying to package ads with other things related to its shows, like experiences and co-promotions, which is a high-touch, relationships business.

Some observers saw the timing of the leadership shake-up as unfavorable to Netflix, as Amazon is gaining an edge on Netflix with its own advertising sales effort that rolled out in the past year.

Amazon has a bigger ad-supported audience, a larger sports footprint, and lower ad prices than Netflix going for it. It also has a broad portfolio, including Twitch and Wondery, that advertisers can use to extend their ad buys, and the ability to tie ads to sales results.