By now, you have likely heard of Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC). Launched in 2021, Amazon describes this service as a holistic measurement and analytics solution for sellers. But what exactly does this mean? In this article, we’ll discuss how AMC works, its unique benefits to brands, and specific ways that you can use AMC to drive more sales.
What is Amazon Marketing Cloud?
AMC is a secure, privacy-safe, and dedicated cloud-based environment that enables advertisers to easily perform analytics across multiple data sets to generate aggregated reports. In other words, AMC makes it easy to track a customer’s journey both on and off Amazon. The four main benefits of AMC include:
- Holistic Measurement
Built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), AMC can help advertisers with campaign measurement, audience analysis, media optimization, and more.
- Flexible Analytics
Structure custom queries to explore unique measurement questions and address top business priorities. Use instructional queries to build queries faster.
- Cross-Media Insights
Conduct analysis with event-level data sets across video, audio, display, and search to gain a holistic and in-depth understanding of the customer journey.
- Privacy-Safe Environment
AMC only accepts pseudonymized information. All information in an advertiser’s AMC instance is handled in strict accordance with Amazon’s privacy policies, and your own data sets cannot be exported or accessed by Amazon. Advertisers can only access aggregated, anonymous outputs from AMC.
How Brands Can Use Amazon Marketing Cloud
AMC provides transparency and flexibility in understanding how your marketing performs across media channels such as search, display, video, and audio. Brands can access hundreds of fields about their Amazon media campaigns, including ad-attributed impressions, clicks, and conversions. This collection of full-funnel data helps you conduct valuable analytics reports to achieve the following insights:
- Campaign Deep-Dive
Inspect campaign reach, frequency, and total impact across the marketing funnel.
- Media Mix Analysis
Understand a media channel’s incremental value and the effectiveness of different media combinations.
- Audience Insights
Learn about the composition of ad-exposed audiences and attributes of engaging audience groups.
- Journey Assessment
Analyze the sequence, frequency, and types of audience interactions on the path to conversion.
- Custom Attribution
Tailor how you credit different touch points to understand the full contribution of different media and campaigns.
- Omni-Channel Impact
Evaluate how Amazon media campaigns drive engagement and sales on and off Amazon.
What Are Some Specific Uses of Amazon Marketing Cloud?
In general, brands can use AMC to better understand their optimal campaign reach and frequency, which combination of marketing channels is delivering results, and the total impact of their media campaigns across the marketing funnel.
For example, you can use AMC to measure how your Streaming TV ads and Sponsored Display ads are working together to improve customer engagement in your Amazon Store. AMC can provide reporting on metrics like the median purchase and detail page view rates for audiences that saw both types of ads, versus those who only saw display ads.
Another application of AMC is connecting with new and existing audiences. For example, AMC can help you determine how many total consumers saw your ad at distinct phases of the marketing funnel – from awareness and consideration through conversion.
AMC also makes it easy to clarify which parts of your advertising investments are most impactful relative to your goals. Using customized data sets, you can build an AMC model that reports on how each element of your Amazon Ads investment contributes to conversion events on your brand’s website.
Who Can Use Amazon Marketing Cloud?
AMC is available at no cost to eligible advertisers via web-based UI and API. Advertisers will have a dedicated AMC data clean room environment set up for them. You need to have an executed Amazon DSP Master Service Agreement (MSA), planned campaigns or campaigns live in the last 28 days at Amazon DSP, and a technical resource familiar with SQL. For AMC API users, advertisers should also have an Amazon Web Services (AWS) account.
How Does Amazon Marketing Cloud Keep Your Data Safe?
AMC prioritizes privacy and security by design. AMC only accepts pseudonymized data sets, and all information in your AMC instance is handled in strict accordance with Amazon’s privacy policies. You can only access anonymous outputs aggregated over a group of users. The information you choose to upload stays within your dedicated AMC instance and cannot be exported or accessed by Amazon.
Channel Key Takeaway
It is no secret that Amazon is the most powerful ecommerce platform in the West. Over the years, the company has introduced innovative marketing and advertising tools to help brands succeed on the increasingly competitive marketplace. Today, your off-Amazon marketing efforts are just as important as your on-Amazon traffic drivers. AMC makes it easy to better understand your customer journey, which has become more fragmented in the digital age. In short, AMC simplifies your Amazon marketing strategy and provides access to (previously elusive) data sets that will help you take your sales to the next level.
