How to use Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) Insights For Creating Effective Upselling Campaigns

Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is a powerful analytics platform designed to help advertisers better understand their customers' shopping behaviors and optimize marketing strategies. One of the most valuable insights AMC can offer is ASIN Purchase Overlap, which allows advertisers to identify products frequently purchased together. By leveraging this data, brands can build more effective upselling strategies through remarketing campaigns targeted at customers who have already purchased a product.

This article will explain how advertisers can use AMC to identify overlapping ASIN purchases, outline the key metrics involved in this analysis, and provide best practices for interpreting the data to create high-impact remarketing campaigns.

Introduction to ASIN Purchase Overlap in AMC 

Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) aggregates data from across your advertising ecosystem and enables granular, customized analyses. With its ability to track customer interactions and purchasing behavior, AMC is an indispensable tool for identifying trends and optimizing your advertising strategies.

ASIN Purchase Overlap analysis allows you to identify products (ASINs) that are commonly purchased together by customers who have seen your ads. This analysis is valuable for upselling because it reveals product pairings that have already proven to resonate with customers. The insight can be used to remarket related or complementary ASINs to customers who have purchased one product, increasing the likelihood of repeat purchases or expanding their basket.

The key use case is to find ASINs that could be promoted through remarketing efforts to customers who have previously purchased one item but have yet to buy the complementary product.

Requirements and Prerequisites 

Before diving into the data query and metrics, it is important to understand that this query requires on-Amazon conversions. That means it is limited to advertisers whose conversions are tracked within Amazon's platform. Without on-Amazon conversion data, the analysis cannot be performed.

Data Query Instructions 

The ASIN Purchase Overlap query is designed to gather data on users who have purchased specific products. It tracks the distinct users associated with each ASIN and performs an overlap analysis to see how many customers purchased multiple ASINs together.

Query Process:

User Purchase Data Collection: The query collects distinct users who have purchased each ASIN.

1. Overlap Analysis: By comparing user lists, it identifies users who have purchased multiple ASINs. The overlap analysis focuses on combinations of tracked ASINs to determine how many users bought both the lead ASIN and an overlap ASIN.

2. Customization Options: The query can be refined further by limiting the analysis to specific advertising campaigns, enabling advertisers to focus on particular product promotions.

This query enables advertisers to identify combinations of products that are often purchased together, which helps in targeting users for remarketing campaigns based on their previous purchases.

Metrics and Definitions 

To interpret the ASIN Purchase Overlap query effectively, advertisers must understand the key metrics it generates. Here’s a breakdown of the important metrics involved:

1. The primary product (Lead ASIN) being analyzed.

2. The total number of purchases for the lead ASIN.

3. The number of distinct users who purchased the lead ASIN.

4. The secondary ASIN that is being compared to the lead ASIN to check for purchase overlap.

5. The number of distinct users who purchased both the lead ASIN and the overlap ASIN.

6. The ratio of users who purchased both the lead and overlap ASINs compared to the total number of users who purchased the lead ASIN. 

Example of User Overlap Calculation

If 100 users purchased ASIN A (lead_asin) and 50 of those users also purchased ASIN B (overlap_asin), the user overlap percentage would be:

user_overlap_percentage = (50 / 100)  100 = 50%

This means 50% of the customers who purchased ASIN A also bought ASIN B, indicating a strong product pairing suitable for upselling in remarketing campaigns.

Interpreting the Data for Remarketing 

Once the ASIN Purchase Overlap data is generated, the next step is to analyze the user_overlap percentage and other metrics to inform your remarketing strategies.

Using the User Overlap Percentage 

A high user_overlap percentage indicates a strong association between two ASINs, making them ideal for upselling campaigns. For example, if 60% of users who purchased a lead ASIN also bought an overlap ASIN, this suggests a complementary relationship between the two products. Advertisers could set up a remarketing campaign to promote the overlap ASIN to customers who bought the lead ASIN but have yet to buy the complementary product.

Balancing User Overlap with Total Purchases 

However, while a high user_overlap percentage is promising, it is crucial to also check the absolute number of distinct users (both for the lead ASIN and the overlap ASIN). A high overlap percentage with a small number of total purchases might not be as valuable as a lower overlap percentage with a larger user base.

For instance, if 90% of users bought both ASINs but only 10 people bought the lead ASIN, the potential for upselling is low compared to a case where 30% of 1,000 buyers purchased both products.

Best Practices for Remarketing 

• Target customers who bought the lead ASIN but did not purchase the overlap ASIN. 

• Segment campaigns by user activity to tailor messaging for different stages of the buyer journey (e.g., cross-sell campaigns for users who have bought multiple products and upsell campaigns for single product buyers).