December 02, 2022

Amazon Cloud: What is Amazon Marketing Cloud? Benefits and Use Cases

Ecommerce advertising revenues nearly quadrupled between 2019 and 2023, according to eMarketer and Statista. With sellers spending so much money to get shoppers’ attention, the need for accurate analytics has also grown. Marketing your store without accurate analytics is like leaping without a net. Yet, getting the information you need in today’s privacy-conscious environment is becoming harder and harder. This is where Amazon Marketing Cloud shines. Let’s explore how the program works, use cases and its benefits for sellers!

Hi! This post is brought to you by Sellzone, a blog designed by Semrush to help your ecommerce business grow. Semrush is the online visibility platform trusted by seven million users and 30% of Fortune 500 companies. Take advantage of Semrush's ecommerce tools by entering Semrush AppCenter.
Follow us on social media to read the latest strategies from the ecommerce community, and don't miss new opportunities to increase your profits:

What Is Amazon Marketing Cloud?

Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is a powerful advertising tool specifically designed for mature sellers who spend a significant amount on Amazon advertising. It’s a “holistic data measurement and analytics solution” following your customer’s journey from that first spark of brand awareness to when they purchase. AMC maintains consumer privacy, so its analytics includes groups of users and is without individual user data. You get actionable insights to build your store’s advertising campaigns without sacrificing privacy.

The default key performance indicators (KPIs) pulled from AMC advertising reports include:

  • Impressions—how often potential buyers saw an advertisement on a web-enabled device.
  • Engagement—the number of users who click on the ad content.
  • Conversions—a sale or whenever a user visits your store or website and completes an action the advertiser specifies.
  • Revenue—the sales income you make from the ad campaign.

Since AMC is highly customizable, you may add additional KPIs and datasets for more accurate analytics. In summary, Amazon describes AMC as a secure “cloud-based clean room” which allows advertisers to gain custom analytics for their ad events and ad events from other platforms. It does this in a way that maintains consumer privacy.  

How Does AMC Work?

AMC is built on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for a private, secure solution. Information flows into your account from various sources. For example, as a user, you may securely upload your data from other advertising and marketing platforms. Also, metrics from your ad campaigns are automatically included.

Data Collection

AMC uses a shopper’s Amazon ID (user identification) to automatically track actions the shopper takes after seeing your ad. It collects information by recording clicks, page navigation, add-to-cart and check-out actions. While it follows user-level behavior, the final data is anonymous, aggregated data covering at least 100 unique users.

Report Generation

As a user, you may enter SQL database queries and use AMC to sort and analyze the KPIs you want. To maintain privacy, you can’t export data from AMC but you can generate reports like:

  • Campaign reach, frequency, and total impact
  • Types of audience interactions on the path to conversion
  • Amazon Ads campaign effectiveness

Benefits of Using Amazon Marketing Cloud

Whether you use Sponsored Brand PPC ads, search ads, or even YouTube video ads AMC offers holistic insights. If you are a seller with more complex advertising strategies, the benefits include:

Comprehensive Data Collection

Traditional data analysis methods rely on cookies to collect customer behavior data. With more browsers blocking cookies, your digital marketing stats may be lacking. AMC works without cookies. In addition, today’s buyers are extra concerned about privacy and may use ad blockers. AMC lets you circumvent such blocking by tracking the shopper’s Amazon ID instead of browser actions. provides a balance of honoring the wish for privacy while giving sellers powerful attribution tools.

Cross-channel Analytics

AMC provides integrated cross-platform analytics, which is helpful if you use other platforms like Facebook or Google ads to drive traffic to your store. It also offers cross-channel analytics encompassing search, display, audio, and video ads. You get a big-picture view of the effectiveness of all your campaigns no matter where and how they run.

Accurate Touchpoint Analysis

Often, there may be multiple touchpoints between shoppers and your products. For example, your customer may have seen a video that planted the seed, then started researching options. One of your retargeting ads may have appeared to reinforce interest. Yet the customer may not have made the final purchase until after searching for the product on Amazon. In such a case, most simple attribution models would fail to recognize the steps to win that customer. AMC can determine ad spending returns at every touchpoint.

Customized results

AMC lets you tailor results to meet your business goals. You can request custom KPIs, generate personalized database queries, and tailor the metrics to suit your business model.

Use Cases of Amazon Marketing Cloud

Depending on your marketing and advertising strategy, AMC offers capabilities that may help plan, evaluate, and fine-tune your advertising creatives, budget, and strategy. You may use it to

  • Evaluate prior campaigns and leverage that information to plan new campaigns
  • Conduct a thorough media mix analysis to see which media are getting results and which are not.
  • More clearly see your customer journey and learn where your conversions are happening.
  • Learn more about the buyer demographics most likely to buy your product. Discover what customer segment is most likely to respond to your ad creative and adjust if it isn’t your intended market.
  • Evaluate your omnichannel impact and strategy. Learn which combination of media creative assets and platforms will drive sales.

Amazon Marketing Cloud Example

SpoonfulONE used AMC to compete in the fiercely competitive infant care and nutrition industry. The emerging brand commissioned an advertising agency to create a campaign to drive more sales using Amazon-sponsored ads and DSP. Through AMC the advertising agency’s team was able to use the cloud cleanroom to test different possibilities, analyze real-world results, and refine the advertising mix. They learned for SpoonfulONE’s customer demographic, combining display ads, and sponsored products increased sales three times more than just using sponsored product ads. Not only that, but they learned strategic retargeting increased ad lift thirteen times over not retargeting.

Are You Ready to Use AMC Cloud?

According to Amazon, You may use AMC if you are a “mature seller” who meets the following criteria:

  • You spend a significant amount on Amazon ads.
  • You have an executed DSP Master Service Agreement (MSA) and have planned or run campaigns within the last 28 days.
  • You have a team member familiar with SQL
  • You have an Amazon Web Services (AWS) account, as the data is stored on AWS.

If your advertising strategy involves a mix of mediums and platforms, AMC Cloud may solve some of the biggest advertising challenges. However, if you are a newer seller who doesn’t yet spend much on ads or use an omnichannel approach, you may not be ready for it.

Also, consider the learning curve when considering whether you are ready to use AMC. For example, SpoonfulONE had a full-service advertising agency with a team of data scientists on tap. While AMC is highly customizable, it requires some knowledge of creating SQL queries highlighting the right signals and possibly data science to fully leverage its capabilities. If you meet the eligibility criteria and are interested in trying Amazon Marketing Cloud, contact your advertising account representative to get started.

If you are not ready solution

If you are a newer seller, you may not be ready for AMC. If this is the case, you may use ecommerce tools from Semrush App Center to build a strong marketing foundation For example, you can access:

  • Traffic insights to see how your website, social media, and other platforms drive traffic to your Amazon store.
  • Keyword Wizard to uncover the best keywords to target for your store.
  • PPC Optimizer to refine your ads whether you are a seasoned seller or just starting out.

You still have a range of Amazon advertising options, including Amazon DSP, Sponsored Display Ads, Amazon Live, Audio Ads, and Amazon Posts. Even if you are not yet eligible for AMC, Sellzone’s tools can help you refine and leverage Amazon advertising and develop an effective marketing strategy.

Conclusion

Given the challenges with effective attribution with video ads and top-of-funnel ads that set the scene for top-of-mind awareness, AMC may be an ideal solution for some sellers. It gives you high-quality data analytics for free to test the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

However, if you are newer and building the foundations of your ecommerce business, you may not be eligible for AMC. Instead, you can use Semrush tools to plan, manage, test, and evaluate your Amazon ad campaigns.

You've read to the end, you rock! Follow us on social media, and don’t miss new opportunities to increase your profits:

Read more:

AMC will give you deep insights into your marketing spend. You can optimize spending further with our Tips and Tricks To Build an Unbeatable Amazon Bidding Strategy!