YouTube is sweetening the pot for publishers by bundling its back-end video player with free video streaming and analytics, as well as control over ad inventory for videos streamed on YouTube.com. Consolidating video services with YouTube will also mean visibility on the platform, and Google search queries will improve.

The move is a strike against third-party video players like Brightcove, Ooyala and JW Player that have taken big pieces of the market. But not everyone is sold. "We did get approached [with the YouTube offering] but decided not to [do it]," says one media exec. "We don't need more Google on our site."

Like Google and Facebook before it, Amazon’s influence on the advertising industry is giving rise to a new crop of marketing services centered around the platform. Agencies are launching service divisions to help marketers design product pages, generate consumer reviews and reach audiences through voice activations on Echo. They’re also increasingly buying media on the platform through Amazon’s own media group to be able to close the loop on purchases. “Ecommerce is nothing new, it’s been going on for decades, and Amazon is nothing new, it’s been successful for decades – but now they are becoming much more of a dominant force in brand discovery,” says Sarah Hofstetter, CEO of Dentsu digital agency 360i. “Amazon is the new shelf space, and if you’re not on it, you may be rendered invisible.”