Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is quickly becoming an essential tool for marketers who want to elevate their advertising strategies on Amazon. Offering unparalleled insights into campaign performance, audience behavior, and overall marketing effectiveness, AMC provides a data-driven approach that can significantly enhance your ad efforts.
If you're new to AMC, this guide will walk you through the steps to get started and maximize the platform's potential.
What is Amazon Marketing Cloud?
Amazon Marketing Cloud is a secure, privacy-compliant, and cloud-based data clean room where advertisers can run custom queries across their datasets. This enables them to gain deeper insights into their Amazon campaigns, including display, video, and search advertising.
By leveraging AMC, you can analyze the full customer journey, from initial exposure to conversion, across multiple touchpoints.
Guide to: Introduction to Amazon Marketing Cloud
Reasons Why Amazon Marketing Cloud Is Critical in 2026
With the evolution of the digital advertising space towards a privacy-first ecosystem, the role of Amazon Marketing Cloud in secure measurement cannot be overstated. With third-party cookies on the way out and more stringent data regulations on the horizon, advertisers require compliant spaces in which to measure their performance.
AMC is a clean room in which data is pseudonymized and aggregated. Advertisers are not able to view user-level data but are still able to gain deep insights into customer journeys, cross-channel performance, and incremental impact in a privacy-safe space.
Step 1: Accessing Amazon Marketing Cloud
Before you can dive into AMC, you'll need to ensure you have access to the platform. Earlier, AMC was available only to advertisers using Amazon DSP. However, Amazon recently announced that AMC is now accessible to Sponsored Ads advertisers as well, making it available to everyone. This announcement was one of the biggest updates from the Unboxed event held in October 2024.
To gain access:
Request Access: Reach out to your Amazon Advertising account manager or representative to request access to AMC. You can also submit a request here - https://advertising.amazon.com/contact-sales?
Fill out the necessary details to start the application process.
You can also contact Hector to create an AMC instance for you.
Set Up User Permissions: Once access is granted, ensure that the appropriate team members have the necessary permissions to use AMC.
Cost & Infrastructure Considerations: AMC uses a separate cloud instance. Although there is access to Sponsored Ads and DSP advertisers, infrastructure and computation costs may be incurred depending on usage.
Complex queries may lead to higher usage of the instance. It is necessary to monitor usage and optimize the query structure.
Step 2: Understanding the Interface and Data Structure
AMC’s interface may seem overwhelming at first, but once you familiarize yourself with the key components, you'll be able to navigate it with ease. The platform primarily revolves around:
Tables: Where your data is stored. These tables are generated based on your campaigns and include information such as impressions, clicks, and conversions.
Queries: SQL-based queries allow you to extract specific insights from your data. If you're not familiar with SQL, consider brushing up on the basics, as this will be crucial for using AMC effectively.
Step 3: Start with Basic Queries
When starting out, focus on simple queries to get a feel for how the platform works. For example, you can run a query to determine the number of impressions, clicks, and conversions across different campaigns. Over time, you can build more complex queries that combine multiple data points, helping you uncover deeper insights.
Here are a few basic queries you can start with:
Campaign Performance: Analyze how different campaigns are performing in terms of key metrics like impressions, clicks, and conversions.
Audience Insights: Understand the demographics and behaviors of your audience segments.
Attribution Analysis: Determine which touchpoints in the customer journey are most effective in driving conversions.
AMC for Streaming TV and Cross-Channel Measurement
One of the most significant uses of Amazon Ads solutions in 2026 is cross-channel measurement. AMC enables advertisers to assess the combined performance of various ad formats, such as Sponsored Ads, Amazon DSP, display, video, and Streaming TV ads across the entire customer journey.
For instance, advertisers can track the following metrics:
The effect of Streaming TV ad exposure on Sponsored Ads conversions
The effect of video ads on time-to-conversion
The effect of upper-funnel ad impressions on branded search queries
Rather than looking at campaign performance in a vacuum, AMC enables advertisers to link various touchpoints across formats.
Using AMC for Custom Audience Creation & Activation
AMC also enables advanced audience creation.
Advertisers can create audiences such as:
Users exposed but not converted
High-frequency viewers of the ad
New to the brand customers
Long purchase cycle customers
These audiences can be activated using Amazon DSP for remarketing and sequential messaging.
Common Advanced AMC Use Cases
As brands evolve in their use of AMC, they utilize it for more in-depth insights, including:
New-to-brand performance analysis
Path-to-purchase analysis
Time-to-conversion analysis
Frequency impact analysis
Creative sequencing insights
These applications allow advertisers to go beyond the basic analysis and focus on growth.
Step 4: Integrate AMC Insights into Your Ad Strategy
The true power of AMC lies in its ability to inform and optimize your advertising strategy. Once you've gathered insights from your queries, integrate them into your campaign planning. For example:
Refine Targeting: Use audience insights to refine your targeting parameters, ensuring your ads reach the most relevant consumers.
Optimize Budget Allocation: Identify which campaigns or channels are delivering the highest ROI and adjust your budget allocation accordingly.
Improve Creative Performance: Analyze the performance of different ad creatives to determine which ones resonate best with your audience.
Step 5: Collaborate and Share Insights
AMC is a collaborative tool, and the insights you gain can benefit multiple stakeholders within your organization. Regularly share your findings with your team, including media planners, creative designers, and decision-makers. This cross-functional collaboration can lead to more cohesive and effective campaigns.
Why Work with a Certified AMC Partner
Although AMC provides immense capabilities, it is not a completely user-friendly tool. It requires technical knowledge to write efficient SQL queries, use instances effectively, design clean datasets, and interpret results to develop effective strategies.
A certified partner of AMC can:
Configure your AMC instance
Develop advanced query frameworks
Develop dashboards from raw outputs
Develop custom audience segments
Optimize infrastructure usage
With a partner, brands can ensure that they not only test AMC but also unlock its full growth potential.
Final Thoughts
Getting started with Amazon Marketing Cloud might seem daunting, but with a systematic approach, you can unlock a wealth of insights that will take your Amazon advertising to the next level. By mastering the platform, you’ll be able to make more informed decisions, optimize your campaigns, and ultimately drive better results.
Remember, the key to success with AMC is experimentation. As you become more comfortable with the platform, don't hesitate to test new queries, explore different data points, and continuously refine your strategy. The more you delve into AMC, the more you'll uncover its full potential.
You can contact Hector for assistance during the entire AMC journey.