The evolution of Amplify, why we’ve overhauled our commerce marketing solutions

By Stuart Adamson, Founder & CEO, Platform 195

Travel marketing isn’t standing still, and neither are we. When we launched Platform 195 in 2019, it was with a simple goal, to provide brilliant marketing solutions to our customers. Since then, a lot has changed.

We’ve evolved the business to focus solely on the global travel industry — the sector we know best and where we can create the most value. And at the same time, the digital and travel landscape has shifted dramatically. The rise of AI has accelerated that change faster than any of us expected.

One thing hasn’t changed, our commitment to listening to our partners and adapting to what they need next. The upshot? What worked in 2019 isn’t going to cut it in 2026. As discovery shifts inside platforms, AI ecosystems, marketplaces and curated content environments, traditional marketing models no longer give travel brands enough control or commercial clarity.

To help our partners stay visible, relevant, and commercially strong in this new landscape, we’ve evolved our commerce marketing offering into something sharper, more modular and more aligned with how travellers now plan and book. Welcome to the new version of Amplify.

What is Amplify?

Amplify by Platform 195 is a modular, travel-first marketing engine designed specifically for OTAs, tour operators, airlines, and travel retailers. It reflects what many of our partners have told us they need — support that enhances existing teams without adding complexity or unnecessary headcount.

Amplify brings together four interconnected modules; Ignite, Create, Engage and Perform.

Each module addresses a distinct stage of marketing, offering different services to choose from based on your specific challenge. Activate one, several, or all four, depending on your goals and the maturity of your marketing operation.

Ignite: Audience, insights, and demand strategy
Create: Content, creative and format optimisation that inspires and sells
Engage: Distributed visibility across marketplaces, media, partners and platforms
Perform: Data, measurement and ongoing optimisation

It’s simple by design, but powerful in practice, a marketing framework built for how people actually discover and book travel today.

Why we evolved

The landscape we operate in has changed dramatically. But in my mind, there are three key shifts that have led to Amplify’s evolution.

Before diving into these shifts, it’s worth saying that we’ve felt these changes first-hand. Today, we run more than 1,500 travel-shopper targeted campaigns a year for major travel and retail brands, all data-first, insight-driven and spanning everything from digital ad creative to e-commerce product video for hotels. Operating at this scale gives us a unique view into how travel shoppers behave, what inspires them, and what actually converts.

Influence is compressing: AI search, social aggregators and platform recommendations have compressed the decision-making window. This makes early influence significantly harder.
Content expectations have surged: Video, dynamic formats and trust-building assets are no longer “nice to have”, they’re essential differentiators. We’ve seen first-hand how stronger content improves influence and conversion.
Distribution is more complex (and costly): The cost of visibility is rising. Marketplaces and meta platforms demand rigor, structured content, strong creative and a clear performance strategy to make them commercially viable.

One challenge we see across travel marketing is that brands tend to either inspire or sell but rarely succeed at both. Beautiful content often fails to convert, and performance ads can feel generic, blending into a sea of sameness. The opportunity lies in uniting the two.

These shifts made it clear that a new approach was needed, one built for the platforms and behaviours shaping tomorrow’s traveller.

Amplify’s modular offering means we can help brands not only keep pace with these shifts but actually move ahead of them.

Who is Amplify for?

Last year we made the strategic decision to focus Platform 195 solely on servicing the global travel industry. To be honest, it wasn’t a hard decision to make. Travel is what we know, and it is where we see Platform 195 providing the most value, across our retail media technology and our marketing services.

It may sound like a small shift, but it has had a profound impact. Focusing solely on travel means we can design solutions with a level of precision and relevance that generalist agencies simply can’t match. We’re able to build and execute solutions that directly address industry nuances and as a result we’re providing sharper campaigns, greater data, and better outcomes.

Travel retail marketing is complex — seasonal, multi-channel and often resource-stretched. Most teams are brilliant in some disciplines and overloaded in others. Amplify’s modular structure is designed to ‘fill the gaps’, giving retailers access to specialists across strategy, creative, engagement and performance whenever they need them.

Amplify is designed explicitly for travel retailers. This includes any travel brand selling or promoting products online such as OTAs, tour operators, aggregators, airlines, hotel groups, experience and attraction providers, and more.

Powered by Platform 195’s global travel media network, specialist strategists and world-class creative studio, our improved Amplify gives travel retailers the ability to influence earlier, differentiate more clearly, and perform more intelligently across the modern traveller journey.

What makes Amplify different

A large part of what sets Platform 195 apart is our ability to marry deep travel data science with cutting-edge retail marketing — something our industry rarely blends well. Most travel marketing either inspires or sells; we’ve built Amplify to do both. More specifically, Amplify stands apart for four reasons.

A travel-first approach
Modular by design
Powered by creativity, content, and commercial insight
Built for the platforms shaping travel demand

What this evolution means for our partners, and for us

Amplify is more than a refreshed offering. It’s a clearer, more aligned way for Platform 195 to help travel brands grow, across channels, across platforms and across the full customer journey. This evolution gives our partners more clarity, more control, and a marketing framework that reflects where the industry is heading.

It’s an evolution, not a departure, but it marks an important and exciting step in helping our partners succeed in a landscape shaped by rapid change.