How the Amazon Marketing Cloud Helps Marketers Make Informed Decisions

Amazon Marketing Cloud is not just another acronym in the Amazon dictionary. AMC is very likely a game changer for how brands approach their Amazon campaigns. In the day and age of data, it is easy for brands to get lost without a compass – and this new data solution is the ultimate navigational device for brands in 2023. 

What is Amazon Marketing Cloud?

Up until recently, Amazon did not make a lot of traditional online metrics available to advertisers. After all, it wasn't until 2020 that Amazon vendors could see product page glance views…. yet anyone with a website has been able to measure the amount of traffic on a page for at least 20 years. 

And while Amazon has not technically made more data available to advertisers, they are making it possible for advertisers to access more data. Amazon calls it Amazon Marketing Cloud or AMC for short. 

AMC is the only way to get a look into the black box that is Amazon data. We have been trained by Amazon to look at reports at a campaign level. This keeps all data anonymous and impossible to track back to an individual shopper, which ensures customer privacy and builds brand trust. 

However, unless we can track data back to a customer level, as marketers, we cannot answer questions about our shoppers' behaviors, know how to optimize our ad spend, or how to grow our customer base most efficiently. 

This has been a major limitation for advertisers on Amazon since Day 1. Consequently, because Amazon only reported lower funnel metrics, advertisers have tended to spend most of their budgets on lower funnel activity.  

What Insights can I get from AMC? 

AMC is a tool we can use to see inside that black box of Amazon data. The Channel Bakers team can answer those really big questions you've had about your Amazon advertising programs like:  

• What happens when I add multiple touchpoints to my campaigns? 

• How many times do I need to touch a shopper before they convert?

• How long does it truly take a shopper to convert (because that 14-day attribution window doesn't work for my product)?

• What is my ideal marketing mix?

• Who is my target audience?  

• What is my customer’s lifetime value?

• Am I really bringing in new-to-brand customers or am I just shifting my share?

• Does upper-funnel marketing really increase my lower-funnel conversion rate?

• Are my shoppers from other channels converting on Amazon? And vice versa…are my Amazon shoppers converting on other channels? 

And because customer-level data stays within the black box (Amazon Marketing Cloud), we can answer all these questions (and more) while maintaining shopper privacy and data security.  

Depending on your needs and the complexity of the questions you have, it may be possible to get the necessary insights using just the information collected by Amazon and stored in AMC.  

It is possible though to upload info from other channels or your own .com to the AMC to understand the interaction across channels. That's where AMC becomes an immensely powerful tool in understanding your complete shopper journey and the value of your customers.  

Reports and insights can be custom designed to get to the heart of almost any marketing question. Using the insights, Channel Bakers designs custom, winning strategies for our clients. 

How is Channel Bakers using AMC to shape client decisions? 

After creating many reports powered by Amazon Marketing Cloud, several common themes appeared: 

• Shoppers need multiple touches before converting. How many touches?
  In most cases upward of 7. 

• Search and DSP are almost always “Better Together”. Search or DSP as single tactics leave money on the table. 

• Search, DSP and STV are almost always “Even Better Together”. 

• STV is highly effective for growing New-to-Brand shoppers. 

• Having an attribution window of more than 14 days helps clients better understand the shopper behavior and the true impact of their marketing campaigns.

• VIDEO works! Whether you are using video in sponsored, DSP, or STV – add more video.

• YES! Purchase behaviors vary by audiences, geography, and by demographics. Seeing this in one view allows you to shape your media strategy and creative strategy. 

So whether you are interested in enhancing your understanding of campaign performance, glean audience insights, understand your shoppers' journey, or have a specific question you’ve been unable to answer, Channel Bakers can use Amazon Marketing Cloud to bring clarity and action the marketing questions you’ve been unable to answer about your Amazon marketing campaigns.