Host (Maya/“Wire Icon”): Welcome to the Clear Ads Podcast: Highway to Sell. I’m joined again by the brilliant Tara Anderson. We’re continuing our series for enterprise brands—today we’re diving deep into Amazon advertising analytics: attribution models, where to find actionable insights, and how big brands can keep refining strategy. Welcome, Tara!
Tara: Thanks!
At a high level, Amazon advertising analytics helps you understand campaign performance—CTR, CVR, impressions, etc.—so you can optimize. With comprehensive data you can:
-
See which campaigns/keywords drive traffic and conversions
-
Reallocate budget to the highest ROI efforts
-
Monitor competitors, spot trends, and adjust strategy
Host: And there are multiple places to pull this data:
-
Ad Console (Campaign Manager): all the usual KPIs
-
Product tab in Ad Console: roll-up by ASIN across campaigns (now shows total sales too—great, though still some caveats)
-
Business Reports (Seller Central): essential for YoY/quarterly comparisons
-
Brand Metrics/Brand Analytics
-
Product Opportunity Explorer (POE): underrated gem for trend spotting and niche discovery; useful when expanding assortments or chasing patterns/styles that are surging
Tara: Right—and remember to look holistically. If KPIs slip, first ask: is the cause internal (creatives, targeting, inventory, pricing) or external (seasonality, trend cycles, algorithm shifts)? Then respond accordingly—ride trends, pivot products, or adjust KPIs.
Host: Enterprise brands often have “use-it-or-lose-it” budgets, so they push broader, upper-funnel activity: audiences, secondary/broader keywords, OTT/Audio, etc. That’s fine—just ensure spend stays effective. Even without DSP, PPC now reaches awareness/consideration via audience targeting. With Brand Metrics, you can see how many prospects progress from Awareness → Consideration → Purchase → Loyalty.
Tara: Attribution modeling assigns credit for a conversion across touchpoints. Customers often interact with multiple placements before purchase—ads, product pages, reviews, search—sometimes over days or weeks. Modeling helps you understand which touches matter and tailor messaging by stage.
Host: Key Amazon windows:
-
PPC: 7-day attribution
-
DSP: 14-day attribution
So, an 8-day delay won’t count in PPC, but can in DSP. Also link PPC + DSP with the merchant token to avoid double counting—Amazon will attribute to the most appropriate touchpoint instead of both. For deeper clarity, use Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) to see path-to-purchase, consideration windows, demographics, and cross-touchpoint sequences.
Consideration varies by category/price: impulse/repair items convert quickly; luxury, décor, skincare, supplements take longer. Don’t panic if clicks don’t convert same day—check AMC for true latency.
Tara: And leverage DSP overlap reports to discover adjacent audiences; test new segments and creative. Not every touchpoint needs to “win” last click to be valuable—if Sponsor Brands consistently appears in high-converting paths, it’s likely an assist worth funding. Conversely, if Sponsor Display appears in many paths that never convert, rework or pause it.
Host: Predictions?
Tara: Expect AI/ML to boost anomaly detection, forecasting, and (hopefully) richer persona insights—e.g., surfacing surprising lifestyle affinities tied to your buyers. Also more data unification inside Console so we’re not stitching as many CSVs.
Host: I’d love to see Amazon expand automation and smarter recommendations, plus some form of cross-channel attribution (Amazon, Meta, TikTok, Walmart, Shopify, etc.)—ambitious, but powerful.
Tara: Meanwhile, keep feeding back to Amazon—many console improvements came from advertiser requests.
Tara: Centralize your data. Pull Ad Console, Business Reports, Brand Analytics/Metrics, POE, and AMC into one view so you can connect the dots (impressions up, sales down—why?). If you’re unsure how to interpret, lean on guides, documentation, and—yes—pods like this.
Host: Adopt AMC. It’s far more than path-to-purchase—you can build custom queries, explore demographics, diagnose funnel friction, even license competitive aggregates. Most brands barely scratch the surface.
If you’d like help applying this to your account, visit clearadsagency.com—we’re happy to review and advise on PPC or DSP. Thanks for listening—and thanks, Tara!
Tara: Thanks! Bye everyone.
