Exploring the Depths of Amazon Marketing Cloud: A Complete Guide

In this article, we delve into the Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), a sophisticated analytics solution designed for advertisers on Amazon. AMC offers detailed insights into consumer behavior and advertising effectiveness, enabling advertisers to craft data-informed strategies. This comprehensive introduction outlines AMC’s key features, including integrated data analysis, customizable reporting tools, and audience insights, all while maintaining a strong commitment to privacy. Through AMC, advertisers can optimize their campaigns, enhance decision-making, and gain a competitive advantage on Amazon’s platform.

The Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) was developed as a response to the growing need for more sophisticated advertising analytics within the Amazon ecosystem. Recognizing the importance of data-driven decision-making, AMC was introduced to provide advertisers with a deeper, more holistic understanding of their marketing performance across Amazon’s platforms. Its significance lies in its ability to merge vast datasets, offering insights into consumer behavior, campaign effectiveness, and overall marketing strategy optimization. This evolution marks a pivotal moment for advertisers aiming to maximize their impact on one of the largest online retail platforms globally.

Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is an advanced attribution platform that plays a pivotal role in digital advertising on Amazon. The integration of Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) with Amazon Demand Side Platform (DSP) represents a significant advancement in digital advertising, offering advertisers a comprehensive suite of tools to enhance their campaign strategies. Utilizing data and analytics in Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is pivotal for advertisers looking to optimize their presence and performance on Amazon’s platform. Long-term, AMC will become easier and more user-friendly. The comparison between Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) and other prominent advertising platforms—such as Google Ads, Facebook (Meta Platforms) Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Twitter Ads, and Snapchat Ads—highlights the unique strengths, focus areas, and capabilities of each platform, offering insights into their suitability for different advertising objectives and audiences. The strategic use of Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) in advertising campaigns has proven to be highly effective for brands aiming to enhance their market presence and sales on Amazon’s platform.

What Is Amazon Marketing Cloud and Its Role in Digital Advertising?

Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is an advanced attribution platform that plays a pivotal role in digital advertising on Amazon. AMC provides a comprehensive suite of capabilities designed to give advertisers a deeper, more nuanced understanding of how different touchpoints contribute to customer behavior and campaign performance. This platform is instrumental in enabling businesses to refine their advertising strategies and make more informed decisions based on a holistic view of data from Amazon’s extensive network.

The Advanced Capabilities of AMC as an Attribution Platform

Holistic Measurement and Flexible Analytics: AMC goes beyond traditional metrics to offer advertisers a comprehensive analysis of impressions, engagement, conversions, and revenue, all while maintaining a strict adherence to privacy standards. Its flexible analytics allow for the creation of custom queries, empowering advertisers to explore specific aspects of their campaigns and discover optimization opportunities.

Cross-Media Insights within a Privacy-Safe Environment: As an attribution platform, AMC provides analytics across a variety of media types—video, images, and audio—delivering a complete picture of the customer journey. It does so within a privacy-safe framework, ensuring that all exported data is aggregated and anonymized, thus respecting consumer privacy.

Core Features of AMC

Data Integration and Analysis: AMC enables the seamless integration of various data sources, including detailed Amazon advertising data, into a singular platform for robust analysis. This feature allows advertisers to track performance across Amazon’s advertising services comprehensively.

Customized Reporting and Insights: AMC stands out for its ability to generate customized reports, offering deep insights into advertising campaigns’ effectiveness and customer behavior. This customization aids advertisers in optimizing their strategies for maximum impact.

Audience Insights for Targeted Campaigns: By providing detailed insights into audience segments, AMC facilitates the creation of more targeted and effective advertising campaigns. Understanding how different audience segments interact with ads enables advertisers to tailor their messaging for better engagement.

Commitment to Privacy: AMC distinguishes itself with its focus on privacy, utilizing aggregated and anonymized data to help advertisers navigate the digital advertising landscape responsibly and in compliance with privacy regulations.

Enhanced Decision-Making: Leveraging the vast data resources of Amazon, AMC assists advertisers in making informed, data-driven decisions. This includes optimizing bid strategies, refining targeting, and gaining a comprehensive understanding of the customer journey.

Competitive Advantage on Amazon: Utilizing AMC provides businesses with critical insights that can sharpen ad placements, improve product visibility, and ultimately drive sales, offering a significant competitive advantage within Amazon’s marketplace.

Integration with Amazon’s Advertising Ecosystem: AMC’s role as part of Amazon’s broader advertising suite ensures a seamless experience for advertisers, allowing for the effective use of Amazon’s advertising ecosystem to maximize ROI.

In essence, Amazon Marketing Cloud is not merely a tool but an advanced attribution platform that offers advertisers the capabilities needed to analyze, understand, and act on comprehensive data. Its integration within Amazon’s advertising ecosystem makes it an indispensable resource for businesses aiming to optimize their presence and performance on one of the world’s largest online marketplaces.

How Does Amazon Marketing Cloud Enhance Ad Campaigns?

Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) revolutionizes how businesses understand and optimize their advertising strategies on Amazon’s platform. By dissecting the varied ad exposures a customer encounters, AMC provides invaluable insights into the most impactful ads driving conversions. This analytical depth empowers businesses to refine ad spending, enhance ROI, and uncover opportunities within their advertising spectrum.

AMC’s approach to dissecting campaign performance is through detailed overlap reports and tables, answering critical questions sellers might have. These tools offer a broader and more nuanced view of campaign effectiveness. For instance, AMC can illuminate the journey of customers who make a purchase and then subscribe, or compare the efficacy of Sponsored Ads versus DSP campaigns.

The platform’s Instructional Query section is particularly beneficial, offering sellers pre-written SQL queries that can be customized to fit specific needs. This feature unlocks advanced analytical capabilities, enabling sellers to delve deep into campaign data.

Cross-Channel/Platform Reporting: AMC excels in identifying audience preferences across channels by tracking engagement and actions taken. For businesses utilizing multiple platforms, AMC’s cross-platform reporting can aggregate data to show which platform garners the most traffic, providing a cohesive view of digital presence.

Customizable Results: AMC’s flexibility extends to its use of programming languages, allowing advertisers to tailor datasets and focus on data pertinent to their goals. This customization ensures that businesses can directly align their analysis with strategic objectives.

Time Efficiency: AMC streamlines the data retrieval process, saving businesses time by highlighting essential data like ‘frequently bought together’ items without overwhelming users with excess information. This efficiency allows for quicker strategy adjustments and more focused campaign management.

Touchpoint Analysis: A standout feature of AMC is its ability to analyze the ROI of each advertising touchpoint, tracing the customer journey from initial exposure to conversion. Recognizing the early stages of customer interest, especially for high-value products, is crucial for understanding the full impact of advertising efforts.

Cost-Effectiveness: Remarkably, AMC is offered at no additional cost, providing businesses with rich data to fine-tune campaign strategies without straining budgets. By analyzing buying patterns, advertisers can allocate budgets more effectively, targeting efforts where they’re most likely to increase revenue and reduce wasteful spending.

In summary, Amazon Marketing Cloud stands out as a transformative tool in the digital advertising realm, offering deep insights, customizable analytics, and efficient data management. Its comprehensive approach to campaign analysis, combined with cost-free access, makes AMC an indispensable asset for advertisers aiming to maximize their impact on Amazon’s platform.

What Are the Key Features of Amazon Marketing Cloud?

Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) offers a suite of advanced features designed to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of advertisers’ campaigns on Amazon’s platform. Built on the robust Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure, AMC provides a comprehensive, privacy-conscious overview of advertising efforts. Here are the key features of Amazon Marketing Cloud:

Holistic Measurement
AMC leverages AWS to deliver in-depth campaign measurement, audience analysis, and media optimization capabilities. This holistic approach allows advertisers to gain a full understanding of their campaign’s performance across various metrics and dimensions.

Data Privacy and Protection
To safeguard consumer privacy, AMC enforces a strict privacy policy, ensuring all data collected involves a minimum of 100 users. This policy prevents direct access to individual data points by advertisers, maintaining anonymity while still offering valuable insights. Small or new businesses should note that AMC requires a substantial amount of data to be truly effective, potentially limiting its utility for those with limited advertising reach.

Data Collection and Analysis
AMC tracks customer interactions through unique identification numbers, capturing crucial actions such as clicks, page navigation, add-to-cart, and check-out processes. This data is collected anonymously and aggregated to provide a clear picture of campaign performance without compromising consumer privacy.

Flexible Analytics
Advertisers can structure custom queries within AMC to explore specific marketing questions and priorities. The platform offers instructional queries to expedite the query-building process, allowing for advanced analytical capabilities tailored to each advertiser’s needs.

Cross-Media Insights
AMC enables comprehensive analysis across multiple media types—video, audio, display, and search—offering a nuanced understanding of the customer journey. This cross-media perspective is instrumental in developing a well-rounded advertising strategy.

Custom Audiences
Through AMC, advertisers can create custom audiences based on ad engagement and conversion signals. These bespoke audiences can then be directly activated via Amazon DSP, enhancing targeting precision and campaign relevance.

Insight Expansion
AMC provides options to subscribe to Paid Features (beta) powered by Amazon Ads and third-party providers. This expands the scope and depth of insights available to advertisers, offering a competitive edge in campaign planning and execution.

Privacy-Safe Environment
Adhering to Amazon’s stringent privacy policies, AMC ensures all information is pseudonymized. Advertisers can access only aggregated, anonymous outputs from AMC, upholding a privacy-safe environment for data analysis.

Cloud Instances and Data Retention
AMC runs on cloud instances that are exclusive to each advertiser, containing data from the past 28 days. For demand-side platform users, information from the past 12.5 months is stored, although creation and access to these instances require a processing time of 3-5 days.

Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) implements API rate limits to ensure a fair and efficient use of its resources among all clients. These limits are crucial in managing the load on AMC’s systems, preventing any single user from monopolizing the service capacity. Understanding these rate limits is essential for developers and advertisers working with AMC to ensure their applications and campaigns run smoothly without interruption. Here’s an overview of the rate limits and what they mean for your use of AMC:

API Rate Limits
Rate limits refer to the maximum number of API calls a client can make to AMC’s platform endpoints within a specified period. Exceeding these limits can result in receiving a 429 error response, indicating too many requests have been made in a short timeframe. If your application or workflow makes excessive API requests rapidly, you may hit these limits, leading to temporary blocking of further requests until the rate limit window resets.

Workflow Execution Limits
At the individual instance level, AMC allows up to 100 workflow executions to be queued. This limit ensures that a single instance doesn’t overload the system with too many concurrent executions. Across the entire account, AMC permits a maximum of 50 concurrent workflow executions. This broader limit helps manage the overall system load across all instances and workflows associated with an account.

Specifically, at the instance level, there is a cap of 5 concurrent workflow executions. This restriction is designed to balance the execution resources fairly among various workflows within the same instance.

Managing Within Rate Limits

• Monitor API Calls: Regularly monitor your application’s API usage to ensure it stays within the prescribed limits. Implementing efficient call patterns and caching where possible can reduce the number of necessary calls.

• Error Handling: Implement robust error handling in your applications to gracefully manage 429 and 400 error responses. This may include implementing retry mechanisms with exponential backoff strategies.

• Optimize Workflows: Design your AMC workflows to maximize efficiency, minimizing the need for excessive concurrent executions. Prioritize critical data analyses and schedule less urgent tasks for off-peak times if possible.

• Stay Informed: Since AMC’s rate limits are subject to change, stay informed about any updates from Amazon to adjust your usage patterns accordingly.

By leveraging these features, advertisers on Amazon’s platform can optimize their ad spending, improve ROI, and gain a deeper understanding of their advertising mix. AMC’s focus on privacy, coupled with its advanced analytical capabilities, makes it a valuable asset for any advertiser looking to maximize their impact on Amazon.

Who Can Benefit from Using Amazon Marketing Cloud and How?

Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is a sophisticated analytics platform designed to enhance the advertising strategies of various users within Amazon’s ecosystem. Here’s a closer look at who can benefit from using AMC and how:

Who Can Benefit:

• Large Advertisers and Brands: Organizations with significant advertising budgets can leverage AMC’s deep analytics to refine their advertising strategies, ensuring their substantial investment yields the best possible returns.
• Advertisers with Amazon DSP Campaigns: Those already utilizing Amazon DSP (Demand Side Platform) can deepen their campaign analytics through AMC. The requirement of an executed Amazon DSP Master Service Agreement (MSA) makes AMC particularly suited for advertisers actively engaged with Amazon DSP.
• Businesses with Technical Expertise: AMC is ideal for businesses with access to technical resources proficient in SQL. The platform’s reliance on custom queries for data analysis means having someone familiar with SQL is crucial.
• Non-Amazon Sellers: AMC is not limited to businesses that sell products directly on Amazon. Advertisers who wish to leverage Amazon’s advertising capabilities without selling on the platform can still benefit from AMC’s analytics to understand consumer behavior and optimize ad campaigns.

How They Benefit:

• Customized Data Analysis: AMC allows users to create custom reports and analyses based on their specific needs, enabling more targeted and effective advertising strategies.
• Comprehensive Campaign Insights: By integrating various data sources, AMC provides a holistic view of campaign performance, including impressions, conversions, and customer engagement metrics.
• Cross-Platform Analysis: For businesses that also advertise outside of Amazon, AMC can offer insights into how different platforms contribute to overall advertising success, especially when used in conjunction with an AWS account.
• Audience Insights: AMC offers detailed insights into audience behavior, including product interactions like add-to-carts and subscribe and save, enabling advertisers to tailor their campaigns more precisely.

Amazon Marketing Cloud Subscription:

Amazon’s subscription service for AMC offers additional benefits, including access to product-level data. This enhanced data visibility allows advertisers to see how customers interact with their products concerning their advertising efforts, providing insights into:

• Total browse activity
• Add-to-cart rates
• New Subscribe and Save (SNS) sign-ups
• Added to wish lists
• Customer review page visits
• Product detail page views
• Amazon Store visits
• Non-ad attributed purchase metrics

This subscription service fills the gaps in analytics that standard AMC reports might leave, offering a more comprehensive understanding of consumer behavior and product interaction.

Amazon Marketing Cloud serves as an invaluable tool for advertisers seeking to maximize their impact on Amazon’s platform. Whether you’re a large brand with extensive advertising campaigns or a business looking to optimize your advertising strategy on Amazon without direct selling, AMC provides the analytics and insights necessary to make data-driven decisions, enhance campaign performance, and ultimately improve ROI. To access AMC, ensure your business meets the requirements and consider reaching out to your account manager to explore its suitability for your advertising needs.

How Does Amazon Marketing Cloud Integrate with Amazon DSP?

The integration of Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) with Amazon Demand Side Platform (DSP) represents a significant advancement in digital advertising, offering advertisers a comprehensive suite of tools to enhance their campaign strategies. This integration enables a deeper understanding of audience behaviors, improves targeting precision, and facilitates more effective campaign optimization. Here’s how AMC integrates with Amazon DSP and the array of benefits it brings:

Enhanced Data Analysis and Insights

• Comprehensive Campaign Analytics: AMC extends beyond Amazon DSP’s standard reporting by offering advanced analytics capabilities. This allows advertisers to delve into campaign performance with greater granularity, aiding in more nuanced decision-making.
• Unified Customer Journey View: By merging Amazon DSP data with other Amazon ecosystem data sources, AMC provides a cohesive view of the customer journey. This insight is invaluable for understanding how various advertising touchpoints influence conversions and campaign success.

Advanced Audience Insights

• Detailed Audience Segmentation: The synergy between AMC’s analytical prowess and Amazon DSP’s targeting capabilities enables the creation of intricate audience segments. These segments can be based on specific criteria like purchase history or browsing behavior, allowing for highly targeted advertising efforts.
• Tailored Targeting Strategies: Insights derived from AMC empower advertisers to formulate more accurate targeting strategies within Amazon DSP. This strategic advantage helps in crafting campaigns that resonate strongly with intended audience segments, thereby boosting engagement and conversions.

Predictive Analytics and Forecasting

• Predictive Modeling: This integration harnesses predictive analytics to anticipate campaign outcomes and consumer trends. Advertisers can leverage these models to proactively adjust their strategies, optimize bids, and refine campaign direction based on forecasted insights.
• Optimization Opportunities: AMC analyzes historical performance and predictive data to recommend optimizations within Amazon DSP, guiding advertisers on ad placements, creative adjustments, and budgeting strategies for enhanced campaign performance.

Cross-Device Tracking and Attribution

• Seamless Cross-Device Experience: AMC facilitates the tracking of user interactions across various devices, promoting a unified advertising experience. This capability informs more strategic campaign adjustments in Amazon DSP.
• Accurate Attribution Models: The integration supports sophisticated attribution models that accurately evaluate the contribution of different campaign elements to conversions, revealing the true impact of each advertising effort.

Real-Time Data and Reporting

• Real-Time Insights: AMC’s real-time analytics and reporting enable advertisers to swiftly modify their DSP campaigns in response to emerging data, ensuring campaigns are always aligned with the latest trends.
• Custom Reporting: AMC allows for the creation of custom reports incorporating Amazon DSP data, providing advertisers with tailored analyses that align with their specific business objectives.

Privacy and Compliance

• Data Privacy Assurance: AMC guarantees that all audience targeting and data analysis within Amazon DSP complies with rigorous privacy regulations, ensuring a balance between insightful advertising and consumer privacy.
• Furthermore, AMC’s capabilities allow advertisers to conduct custom analytics, generating holistic insights about channel attribution, shopping journeys, and audience attributes. Advertisers can build and automatically route custom audiences to Amazon DSP for campaign execution, enhancing the precision and impact of their advertising efforts.

Through AMC’s integration with Amazon DSP, advertisers gain the ability to:

• Evaluate the impact of campaigns across different stages of the marketing funnel.
• Understand the reach and sequence effectiveness of their ads.
• Analyze the interaction between various media channels, identifying preferred channels and actions taken by different target groups.

This comprehensive integration equips advertisers with the knowledge and tools to navigate the complexities of digital advertising on Amazon’s platform, driving higher engagement, better conversions, and ultimately, a stronger return on investment.

Navigating the Amazon Marketing Cloud Interface: A User’s Guide

Navigating the Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) interface effectively can unlock powerful insights for your advertising campaigns on Amazon. By understanding how to leverage AMC’s features, you can identify key products, target optimal locations, and measure the impact of various advertising strategies.

How to make the most of the AMC interface:

Creating a Gateway ASIN

• Identify the Gateway Product: Use AMC to determine which of your products acts as the ‘gateway ASIN,’ the one driving the most new-to-brand conversions. This involves analyzing data to pinpoint which product attracts first-time customers and encourages repeat purchases.
• Implement Custom Solutions: Develop a custom analytical approach within AMC to identify these gateway products. This could involve creating specific queries that look at conversion data, new-to-brand metrics, and repeat purchase rates.
• Optimize Campaigns: Knowing your gateway ASIN allows you to tailor your campaigns to highlight this product further or to apply successful strategies to other products. Consider increasing your ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sale) for this product or expanding advertising efforts into related categories to attract more customers.

Finding Your Target Location

• Utilize Designated Market Areas: If you’re selling geographically sensitive products, like fresh produce, use AMC to refine your understanding of where your products are most in demand.
• Analyze Geographical Data: AMC can help you identify top-performing locations by analyzing geographical purchase data. This insight can reveal where new or repeat orders are concentrated, helping you understand your market penetration.
• Adjust Advertising Strategy: Based on AMC data, adjust your advertising spend to either capitalize on high-performing areas or increase efforts in regions with untapped potential. This strategic adjustment can significantly enhance your campaign’s reach and effectiveness.

Measuring the Impact of Different Campaigns

• Cross-Campaign Examination: AMC offers the capability to compare the performance across different types of advertising campaigns, whether they involve sponsored products, display ads, or over-the-top (O+O) media.
• Analyze Ad Combinations: By analyzing the conversion rates associated with different ad combinations, AMC enables you to identify the most effective mix of advertising efforts for your full-funnel marketing strategy.
• Confirm Strategy Effectiveness: This cross-campaign analysis is invaluable for validating the overall impact of your advertising strategy and making informed adjustments to optimize campaign performance.

Working with Different Queries/Codes

• Leverage Instructional Queries: AMC provides instructional queries that can serve as templates for creating your custom analyses. These can be modified to suit your specific analytical needs, offering advanced insights into campaign performance, audience behavior, and more.
• Custom Analytics: Developing custom queries in AMC allows for targeted analysis of your advertising data. Familiarity with SQL is crucial here, as it enables you to precisely query the data for specific insights, such as identifying gateway ASINs, targeting locations, and measuring campaign impacts.
• Continuous Learning and Adaptation: The landscape of digital advertising is always evolving. Continuously refine your queries and analytical approaches based on the latest data and insights from AMC. This iterative process ensures your advertising strategies remain effective and responsive to market changes.

Navigating and effectively utilizing Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) involves mastering several key components of its user interface (UI), understanding the resources available for query creation, and recognizing common use cases that align with business objectives.

Here’s a detailed explanation of these aspects:

Navigate the AMC User Interface (UI)

• Schema Explorer: This feature within the AMC UI allows users to explore the data schema available in their AMC environment. It’s essentially a roadmap of the data fields and types you can query within AMC. By using the Schema Explorer, advertisers can understand the structure of their data, including metrics, attributes, and events, making it easier to construct meaningful queries.
• Query Editor: The Query Editor is where you can write, edit, and run your SQL (Structured Query Language) queries to analyze your advertising data. This tool is designed for users with some level of SQL proficiency, enabling them to extract specific insights from their AMC data instances. The Query Editor supports the creation of complex queries that can filter, aggregate, and analyze data based on custom criteria.

Understand When to Use Key Resources

• Instructional Query Library (IQL): The IQL is a collection of pre-written SQL queries designed to address common analytical tasks within AMC. These templates are particularly useful for users who are either new to SQL or looking for a quick way to perform standard analyses. Users should turn to the IQL when they need guidance on how to structure their queries or when they want to expedite the query creation process for routine analyses.
• Instance Info Panel: This panel provides essential information about your AMC instance, including data retention policies, the scope of the data available for querying, and any relevant configurations specific to your account. It’s crucial to consult the Instance Info Panel when planning your data analysis to ensure that your queries are aligned with the data scope and retention parameters of your AMC environment.
• Documentation: AMC’s documentation is an invaluable resource for users at all levels of expertise. It offers detailed guidance on navigating the AMC UI, utilizing the Schema Explorer and Query Editor, and understanding the data model. Additionally, the documentation provides best practices for query writing and troubleshooting tips. Users should reference the documentation regularly to enhance their understanding of AMC capabilities and to find solutions to technical challenges.

Common Use Cases for AMC

• Audience Analysis and Segmentation: AMC allows advertisers to delve deep into audience behaviors and preferences, enabling the creation of detailed customer segments. This use case is essential for businesses looking to tailor their advertising strategies to specific audience characteristics.
• Campaign Performance Evaluation: One of the primary use cases for AMC is to assess the effectiveness of advertising campaigns across different Amazon platforms. Advertisers can use AMC to analyze metrics such as impressions, clicks, conversion rates, and ROI, helping them understand what works and what doesn’t.
• Cross-Channel Attribution: AMC provides insights into how various advertising channels contribute to conversions and sales. This use case is critical for advertisers aiming to optimize their media mix and allocate their budgets more effectively across channels.
• Product Insights: By analyzing data on product views, add-to-carts, and purchases, AMC can reveal which products are performing well and which may require additional promotional efforts. This information is vital for inventory management and marketing strategy.

By mastering the AMC UI, leveraging its resources effectively, and applying its capabilities to common use cases, advertisers can significantly enhance their digital advertising strategies, driving better outcomes and achieving their top business priorities.

Here is an example of a query that buckets impressions and the total supply costs into more granular categories based on the supply cost rounded down to the nearest cent. Here’s a breakdown of how this query works and its utility:

Query Breakdown
SELECT Clause: This part of the query specifies the columns to be included in the query’s result set. Here, you’re selecting:

advertiser: Identifies the advertiser associated with the ad impressions.
ROUND(supply_cost / 1000000, 0) AS rounded_supply_cost: Calculates the supply cost in dollars (assuming supply cost is initially in microdollars) and rounds it to the nearest whole number, renaming this calculated field as rounded_supply_cost.
SUM(impressions) AS impressions: Sums up the total number of impressions for each group defined by the GROUP BY clause.
SUM(supply_cost / 1000000) AS supply_cost: Sums up the total supply cost in dollars for each group, providing a view of how much is spent per impression bucket.
FROM Clause: Specifies the data source, dsp_impressions, which is assumed to be a table within AMC that logs each impression along with its associated supply cost and advertiser.

GROUP BY Clause: This query groups the results by advertiser and rounded_supply_cost. This means the output will present the sum of impressions and supply costs for each advertiser, further segmented by the rounded supply cost value. This grouping allows for an analysis of how supply costs (rounded to the nearest dollar) correlate with the volume of impressions.

Utility of the Query

• This query is particularly useful for advertisers who want to understand their ad spend efficiency across different cost buckets. By rounding the supply costs and grouping the impressions accordingly, advertisers can identify:
• Cost Efficiency: How different levels of ad spend (rounded supply cost) correlate with the volume of impressions received. This can help in identifying optimal spend levels.
• Budget Allocation: Insights gained from this analysis can inform budget allocation decisions, helping advertisers to invest more in cost buckets that offer the best return in terms of impression volume.
• Supply Cost Analysis: A clear view of how supply costs are distributed across different impression levels, enabling a deeper understanding of cost drivers and potential areas for negotiation or optimization with ad platforms.

In summary, this query exemplifies how AMC’s SQL-based analysis capabilities can be leveraged to derive actionable insights into ad spend and performance, allowing advertisers to refine their strategies for better ROI.

Utilizing Data and Analytics in Amazon Marketing Cloud

Utilizing data and analytics in Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is pivotal for advertisers looking to optimize their presence and performance on Amazon’s platform. AMC’s comprehensive suite of analytics tools enables a data-driven approach to digital advertising, ensuring campaigns are not only targeted and effective but also continuously refined based on real-time insights and emerging trends

Here’s how advertisers can leverage AMC for a variety of strategic initiatives:

Performance Deep Dive
Objective: Gain a detailed understanding of campaign performance, identifying areas of strength and opportunities for improvement.
Application: Use AMC to dissect performance metrics across different campaigns, ad formats, and audience segments. Analyze factors contributing to high-performing ads and replicate these strategies in future campaigns.

Audience Insights and Activation
Objective: Develop a nuanced understanding of your target audience, including their behaviors, preferences, and purchase history.
Application: Segment your audience based on detailed insights from AMC and create tailored campaigns designed to engage each segment effectively. Utilize AMC’s audience activation tools to directly target these segments within Amazon DSP.

Shopping Journey Analysis
Objective: Understand the path customers take from ad exposure to purchase, identifying key touchpoints along the way.
Application: Map out the customer journey using AMC data, identifying critical moments where targeted advertising can significantly impact conversion rates. Adjust ad placements and messaging to support customers at each stage of their journey.

Amazon Ads Mixed Media  Analysis
Objective:Evaluate the effectiveness of different media types and channels within your Amazon advertising strategy
Application: Use AMC to compare performance across Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, display ads, and other Amazon ad formats. Allocate budget to the most effective channels to maximize overall campaign ROI.

Omnichannel Impact Analysis
Objective: Assess how Amazon advertising contributes to broader omnichannel marketing efforts.
Application: Analyze AMC data to understand how exposure to Amazon ads influences customer behavior across other channels. Use these insights to create a more cohesive and integrated marketing strategy.

Custom Attribution for Amazon or First-Party Events
Objective: Develop a customized attribution model that accurately reflects the impact of specific advertising activities on Amazon or other first-party platforms.
Application: Utilize AMC to create custom attribution models that consider unique business goals and customer behaviors. This allows for more accurate measurement of ad effectiveness and ROI.

Implementing a data-driven decision-making process with AMC involves:

• Understanding Your Audience Deeply: Leverage AMC to gain actionable insights into audience behavior and preferences, tailoring campaigns to meet specific customer needs.
• Customizing Campaigns and Creatives: Utilize segmentation and creative performance data from AMC to design customized, high-impact advertising campaigns.
• Enhancing Ad Placements and Timing: Apply placement and timing insights from AMC to ensure ads are seen by the right people at the right time.
• Forecasting and Adjusting Campaigns: Use predictive analytics from AMC to anticipate market trends and customer responses, adjusting campaigns accordingly for optimal performance.
• Refining Targeting Strategies: Analyze targeting effectiveness with AMC to hone in on the most responsive audience segments.
• Measuring ROI Accurately: Employ AMC tools for precise ROI analysis, informing strategic budget allocations and marketing spend justifications.
• Complying With Data Privacy Regulations: Ensure all campaign strategies adhere to stringent data privacy regulations using AMC’s compliance tools.
• Continuous Learning and Adaptation: Foster a culture of continuous improvement, leveraging AMC insights for ongoing campaign optimization.

By engaging in a continuous cycle of data analysis, strategy refinement, and adaptation based on AMC insights, advertisers can ensure their Amazon DSP campaigns are both effective and efficiently aligned with evolving market dynamics and consumer behaviors.

Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) equips advertisers with an extensive array of data types, each offering unique insights to refine and optimize advertising strategies on Amazon’s platforms.

11 types of data accessible through AMC and their implications:

1. Customer Interaction Data

What It Offers: Insights into customer interactions with ads, including clicks, impressions, and engagement metrics.
Implications: Enables advertisers to gauge ad attractiveness and engagement, helping to fine-tune ad creative and placement for better performance.

2. Audience Behavioral Data

What It Offers: Data on consumer behaviors like browsing patterns, purchase history, and product preferences.
Implications: Assists in understanding the driving forces behind customer actions, allowing for more targeted and relevant advertising.

3. Demographic Information

What It Offers: Information on the demographic characteristics of audiences, such as age, gender, location, and income.
Implications: Critical for tailoring campaigns to specific demographic segments, enhancing personalization and campaign effectiveness.

4. Campaign Performance Metrics

What It Offers: Analytics on the overall performance of advertising campaigns, including CTR, conversion rates, and ROAS.
Implications: Provides a foundation for evaluating campaign success and areas for improvement, guiding strategic adjustments.

5. Cross-Device User Data

What It Offers: Insights on how users interact with ads across different devices.
Implications: Essential for creating a seamless advertising experience across devices, ensuring campaigns are effectively reaching the audience.

6. Attribution Data

What It Offers: Information aiding in the attribution of conversions and sales to specific advertising activities.
Implications: Clarifies the impact of various campaigns and channels on driving results, informing budget allocation and strategy optimization.

7. Sales and Conversion Data

What It Offers: Detailed data on sales conversions attributed to ads, including direct and broader brand impact conversions.
Implications: Helps advertisers measure the direct financial impact of their ads, informing ROI analysis and sales strategy.

8. Path-to-Purchase Information

What It Offers: Insights into the customer journey from ad exposure to purchase.
Implications: Enables mapping of customer paths, identifying key touchpoints for effective targeting and funnel optimization.

9. Inventory and Placement Performance

What It Offers: Performance data for different ad placements and inventory types.
Implications: Guides the strategic placement of ads for maximum visibility and engagement, optimizing ad spend.

10. Market Trends and Competitive Insights

What It Offers: Information on market trends and the competitive environment within Amazon’s ecosystem.
Implications: Vital for staying ahead in strategic planning and competitive positioning, identifying opportunities and threats.

11. Custom Data Queries

What It Offers: The capability for advertisers to perform custom queries tailored to their specific analytical needs.
Implications: Offers flexibility and depth in data analysis, enabling bespoke insights that align with unique business objectives.
By harnessing these diverse data types, advertisers leveraging AMC will achieve a holistic understanding of their campaigns, audience, and market dynamics. This approach allows for data-driven decisions that enhance ad performance, optimize spending, and ultimately drive higher returns on investment.

How to Leverage Amazon Marketing Cloud for Targeted Advertising?

Leveraging Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) for targeted advertising enables advertisers to harness the depth and breadth of Amazon’s data for more precise and effective ad campaigns. Here’s a comprehensive guide on how to utilize AMC for targeted advertising, along with an overview of who can access this powerful tool and the prerequisites for its use:

How to Leverage AMC for Targeted Advertising:

• Deep Audience Insights: Utilize AMC to gather detailed information about customer interactions, behavior, and demographics. This data can help identify key audience segments that are more likely to engage with your products or services.
• Custom Campaign Strategies: Based on the insights gathered, develop customized advertising strategies tailored to the unique needs and preferences of different audience segments. This might involve creating specific messaging, offers, or content that resonates with each segment.
• Optimize Ad Creatives and Placements: Use AMC to analyze the performance of ad creatives and placements across Amazon’s platforms. Identify which creatives and placements yield the highest engagement and conversion rates, and adjust your campaigns accordingly.
• Predictive Analytics for Forecasting: Leverage AMC’s predictive analytics capabilities to anticipate market trends, customer behavior, and campaign performance. Use these forecasts to proactively adjust your advertising strategies, ensuring they remain aligned with customer expectations and market dynamics.
• Measure Campaign Performance: Utilize AMC’s comprehensive analytics to measure the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns. Focus on key metrics such as CTR, conversion rates, and ROAS to evaluate success and identify areas for improvement.
• Refine Targeting with SQL Queries: For those with SQL knowledge, craft custom queries to delve even deeper into AMC’s data. This can uncover nuanced insights that can further refine your targeting strategies. For those less familiar with SQL, leverage AMC’s instructional queries as a starting point for analysis.

Who Can Use AMC:

• Amazon Ads Advertisers: AMC is available to businesses that are actively advertising on Amazon and have a signed Amazon DSP Master Service Agreement (MSA).
• Active Campaign Requirement: Your business must have planned campaigns or data from campaigns that have been active on Amazon DSP in the last 28 days to utilize AMC.
• SQL Knowledge Requirement: Accessing the full suite of AMC’s capabilities requires someone with knowledge of SQL to make the most of custom queries. For those without SQL expertise, AMC provides instructional queries to facilitate basic reporting and analysis needs.

Requirements to Use AMC:

• Amazon Ads Advertiser Status: You must be actively advertising on Amazon and recognized as an Amazon Ads advertiser.
• Amazon DSP MSA: A signed Master Service Agreement with Amazon DSP is necessary to access AMC.
• Recent Campaign Activity: Having campaigns that were live or planning to go live on Amazon DSP within the last 28 days is crucial for leveraging AMC’s data analytics.
• SQL Proficiency: Proficiency in SQL or the use of AMC’s instructional queries is required for querying the database and extracting meaningful insights.

AMC is not automatically available to every advertiser; access must be set up by Amazon. If your business meets these requirements, you can request access to AMC by reaching out to your Amazon account manager. Leveraging AMC can significantly enhance your advertising strategy on Amazon by providing a data-driven approach to targeting, campaign optimization, and performance measurement, ultimately leading to more effective ad campaigns and improved ROI.

Understanding Privacy and Data Security in Amazon Marketing Cloud

As a cloud-based cleanroom solution, AMC is designed to safeguard user privacy while enabling advertisers to derive valuable insights from aggregated and anonymized data.

Here’s an overview of the privacy and data security mechanisms in place within AMC:

Clean Room Solution
AMC operates as a digital cleanroom, providing advertisers with insights derived from aggregated and anonymized user information. This ensures that while advertisers can access comprehensive data for analysis, the privacy of individual users is preserved. All data inputs into AMC are pseudonymized, meaning that any identifying information is replaced with artificial identifiers. This process significantly reduces the risk of personal data being associated with specific individuals.

Data Handling and Usage
Information uploaded by advertisers into AMC remains within their dedicated cloud environment. This approach ensures that advertisers retain control over their data, which cannot be exported or accessed by Amazon or any other external entities.

AMC also requires that each data aggregation involves a minimum of 100 unique users. This threshold is established to protect user privacy, ensuring that reports and insights cannot inadvertently reveal information about individual users.

Impact on Advertisers
Despite the privacy-centric approach, AMC still enables advertisers to generate impactful reports and gain deep insights into advertising performance, audience behaviors, and market trends.

By focusing on pseudonymization, aggregation, and anonymization, AMC helps advertisers comply with global privacy regulations, such as GDPR in Europe and CCPA in California.

The Future of Amazon Marketing Cloud: Trends and Predictions

Long-term, AMC will become easier and more user-friendly. The various steps and entities that now make up AMC, will likely turn into more of a point-and-click model. We also predict that it will have a frontend, becoming another option in the console menu within Amazon Ads.

We also predict a lot more flexibility with attribution models. This will enable users to set their AMC-enabled account up to measure on a first-click, last-click, or linear basis. Further in the future native automated bidding may also develop to run off of a chosen attribution model that is most appropriate for an account.

AMC marks an exciting turn in retail media. Though there are still many challenges to overcome, we continue to learn and optimize our teams, tools, and processes. AMC has been instrumental in driving conversions and maximizing advertising effectiveness and continues to evolve.

The future of Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is poised for significant evolution, driven by advancements in technology, changing consumer behaviors, and the increasing demand for more sophisticated advertising solutions.

Below is an analysis of 9 predictions and their implications:

1 Increased Integration with Machine Learning and AI

Prediction Analysis: The integration of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) into AMC is expected to revolutionize how consumer behavior is understood and how campaigns are optimized. By analyzing vast amounts of data, these technologies can identify patterns and insights that are not apparent to human analysts.
Impact Analysis: Advertisers will benefit from more accurate predictions of consumer trends, enabling automated and highly personalized ad experiences. This could lead to higher engagement rates, better conversion rates, and more efficient use of advertising budgets.

2 Enhanced Real-Time Analytics and Decision-Making

Prediction Analysis: The capability for real-time data analysis is crucial for advertisers to adapt to market changes quickly. Enhanced analytics will facilitate immediate insights into campaign performance and consumer responses.
Impact Analysis: This will empower advertisers to make swift adjustments to their strategies, optimizing campaigns in real-time to maximize effectiveness and return on investment.

3 More Comprehensive Cross-Channel Attribution

Prediction Analysis: The development of sophisticated cross-channel attribution models will provide a clearer picture of how different advertising channels contribute to consumer actions. This is essential in a multi-platform digital environment.
Impact Analysis: Advertisers will be able to allocate their budgets more effectively, understanding which channels and touchpoints are most influential in the consumer decision-making process, thereby maximizing ROI.

4 Advancements in Audience Segmentation

Prediction Analysis: The availability of more advanced audience segmentation tools, powered by deeper data insights, will allow for more precise targeting of advertising campaigns.
Impact Analysis: This precision in targeting will enable advertisers to craft messages that resonate strongly with specific audience segments, enhancing campaign relevance and effectiveness.

5 Focus on Privacy and Data Security

Prediction Analysis: Increasing consumer awareness and regulatory scrutiny around data privacy will necessitate a stronger focus on privacy and data security within AMC.
Impact Analysis: Advertisers will need to adopt more transparent and ethical practices regarding data usage. This may involve navigating tighter regulations and adjusting strategies to maintain consumer trust.

6 Expansion of Predictive Analytics

Prediction Analysis: The refinement of predictive analytics within AMC will extend beyond consumer behavior to include market trends and advertising outcomes.
Impact Analysis: Advertisers will gain the ability to more accurately anticipate market shifts and consumer needs, allowing for more strategic positioning and competitive differentiation.

7 Increased Use of Voice and Visual Search Data

Prediction Analysis: The incorporation of data from voice assistants and visual search technologies into AMC analytics will open new avenues for campaign optimization.
Impact Analysis: This could lead to more effective targeting and engagement strategies on emerging platforms, capturing audiences through novel search modalities.

8 Growth of Interactive and Immersive Ad Formats

Prediction Analysis: The evolution of technology will facilitate the creation of more interactive and immersive ad formats, enhancing consumer engagement.
Impact Analysis: Advertisers will need to embrace innovative design and storytelling techniques, leveraging new formats to captivate and engage audiences in unique ways.

9 Closer Ties Between AMC and E-commerce Optimization

Prediction Analysis: The deeper integration between AMC and e-commerce platforms, particularly Amazon, suggests a more direct link between advertising efforts and sales outcomes.
Impact Analysis: This convergence of advertising and e-commerce will streamline the consumer journey from ad exposure to purchase, potentially enhancing conversion rates and overall sales performance.

As AMC continues to evolve, advertisers who stay ahead of these trends and adapt their strategies accordingly will be best positioned to leverage Amazon’s vast ecosystem for maximum impact. The future of AMC promises more powerful tools for targeting, measurement, and optimization, heralding a new era of data-driven advertising on one of the world’s largest e-commerce platforms.

Comparing Amazon Marketing Cloud with Other Advertising Platforms

The comparison between Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) and other prominent advertising platforms—such as Google Ads, Facebook (Meta Platforms) Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Twitter Ads, and Snapchat Ads—highlights the unique strengths, focus areas, and capabilities of each platform, offering insights into their suitability for different advertising objectives and audiences.

7 Key Differences and Considerations:

1. Data Richness and Integration: AMC excels in leveraging Amazon’s comprehensive e-commerce, search, and streaming data, providing advertisers with unparalleled insights into consumer purchase behavior within the Amazon ecosystem. This contrasts with Google Ads and Facebook Ads, which offer broad datasets focused on search behavior and social interactions, respectively.
2. Audience Insights and Targeting: The depth of audience insights based on Amazon shopping data enables AMC to offer precise targeting based on actual purchasing behavior, a distinct advantage over other platforms. While other platforms offer robust targeting options, they may not directly link to purchase data in the way AMC does.
3. Privacy and Compliance: AMC operates under Amazon’s strict privacy policies, emphasizing data security without compromising customer privacy. Each platform, however, navigates privacy and compliance differently, with varying levels of transparency and control for advertisers.
4. Cross-Channel Attribution: AMC provides detailed cross-channel attribution within Amazon’s ecosystem, unlike platforms like Google Analytics 360, which offer a broader perspective across multiple digital touchpoints.
5. Predictive Analytics and AI: Leveraging Amazon’s machine learning algorithms, AMC offers advanced predictive analytics specific to consumer behavior and campaign performance within Amazon. Other platforms also utilize AI and machine learning but may focus on different aspects like bid optimization (Google Ads) or audience targeting.
6. Real-Time Analytics and Reporting: AMC’s real-time analytics and customizable reporting are specifically tailored to the nuances of the Amazon marketplace, offering insights that are particularly valuable for brands operating within this ecosystem. While real-time reporting is a common feature across platforms, the specificity and customization offered by AMC are geared towards optimizing e-commerce strategies.
7. Platform Specificity vs. Versatility: AMC is uniquely beneficial for brands focused on the Amazon marketplace, providing specialized tools and insights for this environment. In contrast, platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads offer more versatility, catering to a wide range of advertising needs across various online environments.

Getting Started with Amazon Marketing Cloud: First Steps and Setup

To effectively work with Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) APIs, it’s crucial to follow a structured approach. Here’s a detailed guide on how to get started:

1. Acquire an AMC Instance
First and foremost, you need an AMC instance that meets the basic requirements for querying your data.
These requirements include:

• An executed Amazon Demand Side Platform (Amazon DSP) Master Service Agreement (MSA), which will eventually transition to a standalone AMC agreement.
• Active or recently active (within the last 28 days) campaigns.
• Proficiency in AMC SQL.
• DSP advertiser IDs and sponsored ads IDs (if applicable) for inclusion in your AMC instance.

After applying for access, Amazon will provision instances to your AMC account. An AMC admin designated by your organization will manage these instances and add users for data viewing and analysis. For detailed admin functions, refer to the AMC Administrator’s Guide. To request an instance, contact your Amazon Ads account executive.

2. Onboard the Amazon Ads API
With access to an AMC account and your instance identifier in hand, the next step is to set up your Amazon Ads API developer account. This involves:

Creating a Login with Amazon application, as API requests are made through a client application managed by Login with Amazon.
Applying for API access, which includes filling out an application form detailing your business’s intended use of the Amazon Ads API and agreeing to the relevant terms and policies.
Creating an authorization grant to generate the necessary access and refresh tokens for API requests.

3. Set Up S3 Buckets (Optional)
Although not mandatory, setting up an S3 bucket for storing query outputs can enhance your AMC API experience. This setup allows AMC to direct reports to your bucket, though AMC cannot read any files from your buckets without permission. The process involves:

Receiving an AWS CloudFormation template from your Amazon Ads account executive after instance creation. This template facilitates the creation of an S3 bucket within your account and grants the necessary permissions for AMC to deposit data.

Using CloudFormation to create the S3 bucket in your AWS account. This is initiated by clicking the CloudFormation URL provided on the AMC UI’s Instance Info page and waiting for the status to reach CREATE_COMPLETE. After creation, the bucket will be ready to store the results of both ad-hoc and scheduled workflows.

If you struggle to access or use the AMC platform reach out to your account manager or a professional who can provide the knowledge to utilize the platform.

Case Studies: Successful Use of Amazon Marketing Cloud in Campaigns

The strategic use of Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) in advertising campaigns has proven to be highly effective for brands aiming to enhance their market presence and sales on Amazon’s platform. Below are detailed case studies of SimpliSafe and SpoonfulONE, which illustrate the successful application of AMC in conjunction with Amazon DSP to achieve remarkable results in brand engagement, sales, and ROI.

Case Study 1: SimpliSafe’s Targeted Engagement Strategy
Background: SimpliSafe, a home security company, sought to increase its brand engagement and sales through Amazon DSP, leveraging the analytical capabilities of AMC.

Strategy: The company focused on targeting specific audience segments identified as interested in their products but who had not yet made a purchase. This approach aimed at converting interest into sales by re-engaging these potential customers with targeted advertising.

Results: The strategic use of AMC and Amazon DSP led to a 109% increase in Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) and a 65% reduction in the cost per unit sold. These outcomes underscored the precision and effectiveness of Amazon’s advertising tools in pinpointing and converting potential customers, ultimately enhancing SimpliSafe’s brand performance on the platform.

Case Study 2: SpoonfulONE and Goodway Group Collaboration
Background: SpoonfulONE, a nutrition company specializing in baby food allergen introduction, partnered with Goodway Group to refine its marketing strategy on Amazon. The goal was to expand audience reach and drive customer acquisition.

Strategy: The partnership utilized AMC to conduct a detailed analysis and optimization of their advertising efforts. A key component of their strategy was leveraging both display ads and Sponsored Products to target potential customers across different stages of the sales funnel.

Results: By implementing a comprehensive approach that combined upper-funnel prospecting with lower-funnel remarketing strategies, SpoonfulONE observed a 3x higher purchase rate among audiences exposed to both types of ads. This multi-faceted approach led to notable improvements in conversion rates and ROI, demonstrating the power of using AMC for a nuanced analysis of advertising strategies and audience behaviors.

Lessons Learned

These case studies illustrate the transformative impact of leveraging Amazon Marketing Cloud’s detailed analytics alongside Amazon DSP’s targeting capabilities.

Key takeaways include:

• Targeted Re-engagement: Focusing on audiences that have shown interest but have not yet converted can yield substantial improvements in ROAS and cost efficiency.
• Comprehensive Strategy: A multi-layered advertising strategy that addresses various stages of the customer journey can significantly enhance purchase rates and overall campaign success.
• Data-Driven Optimization: The use of AMC for deep analytics and optimization enables brands to refine their advertising strategies continuously, leading to better conversion rates and higher ROI.

These successes highlight the importance of a strategic, data-driven approach in digital advertising. By harnessing the capabilities of AMC, brands can achieve a deeper understanding of their audience, optimize their advertising campaigns more effectively, and realize significant gains in their advertising efforts on Amazon’s platform.