Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) provides a powerful platform to analyze these insights, allowing advertisers to make data-driven decisions that enhance their overall marketing strategies.
One crucial area that AMC helps advertisers measure is incremental reach and the timing of exposures across campaigns. This analysis helps advertisers evaluate how different campaigns interact with each other and whether additional ad exposures are reaching new users.
In this article, we’ll explore the concept of incremental reach and timing of exposures, explain how AMC can provide actionable insights, and demonstrate how this data can optimize ad investments.
What Is Incremental Reach?
At its core, incremental reach refers to the number of additional unique users reached by a specific campaign that would not have been reached by other campaigns. When advertisers run multiple campaigns—often across different ad products like Amazon DSP and Sponsored Products—there is a risk of overlapping audience exposure. Incremental reach analysis helps advertisers identify how many users were reached exclusively by a particular campaign (the “focus campaign”) and how many were also exposed to other campaigns running at the same time (the “base campaigns”).
For example, let’s say you’re running two campaigns simultaneously: a display ad via DSP and a Sponsored Brands ad. The incremental reach of the DSP campaign would refer to the additional users it reaches who were not already exposed to the Sponsored Brands campaign.
Explore how to optimize campaign strategies with Amazon DSP for Effective Remarketing.
Why Incremental Reach Matters
Understanding incremental reach is critical for advertisers aiming to maximize the value of their ad spend. If one campaign (the focus campaign) is reaching a unique set of users that isn’t being captured by other campaigns, it justifies continued investment. On the other hand, if the focus campaign's reach heavily overlaps with other campaigns, it may suggest redundant exposure, prompting a shift in budget or strategy.
Beyond simple reach, analyzing the timing of exposures gives insight into when audiences are first exposed to a campaign. This timing can impact the user’s journey, influencing the effectiveness of each campaign.
Gain more insights into cross-campaign interactions in Amazon Marketing Cloud: DSP Campaign Performance Insights by Geo Locations.
Key Requirements for Running an Incremental Reach Query in AMC
To conduct an incremental reach analysis using Amazon Marketing Cloud, advertisers need specific data and setup. The main requirement is access to campaign data from two or more campaigns that ran concurrently. One campaign is designated as the focus campaign, while the others serve as base campaigns for comparison.
The focus campaign is the one you’re evaluating for its additional reach beyond what was achieved by the base campaigns. For example, you might want to compare how effectively a DSP campaign reaches new users compared to a Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brands campaign.
Here are the requirements:
Concurrent Campaign Data: You need to have data from two or more campaigns that ran at the same time.
Defined Focus and Base Campaigns: Clearly distinguish the campaign to be analyzed (focus campaign) and the campaigns used for comparison (base campaigns).
Once you have this setup, AMC will allow you to quantify the incremental audience reached by the focus campaign and determine how it interacted with the base campaigns.
Understanding Key Metrics and Dimensions
When running an incremental reach query in AMC, several metrics and dimensions come into play to give you a comprehensive view of campaign performance. Let’s explore some of the key elements involved in the analysis:
Campaign Group Reach: This metric represents the number of unique users reached by the focus campaign, grouped by the timing of exposure in relation to the base campaigns.
Focus Campaign Reach: The total number of unique users exposed to the focus campaign during its run.
Reach Percentage: This is the percentage of users reached by the focus campaign, broken down by exposure timing group, compared to the total reach of the focus campaign.
Exposure Timing Groups:
These dimensions categorize users based on the sequence in which they were exposed to the focus and base campaigns:
Exposed to Focus Campaign First: Users who were first served an impression from the focus campaign before any base campaigns.
Exposed to Base Campaign First: Users who were first served an impression from the base campaigns before being reached by the focus campaign.
Focus Campaign Incremental Reach: Users who were only exposed to the focus campaign and not to any of the base campaigns, representing the true incremental reach of the focus campaign.
Insights from Exposure Timing
Timing plays a significant role in understanding the interaction between different campaigns. AMC helps advertisers determine when users were first exposed to a specific campaign and how that exposure impacts their overall journey.
Let’s consider an example where you’re running two concurrent campaigns—one DSP display ad and one Streaming TV ad. With AMC, you can break down the audience into three groups:
Users exposed to the DSP campaign first: This group will show how many users were reached by DSP before any other campaign.
Users exposed to Streaming TV first: This group provides insights into whether the base campaign (Streaming TV) was effective at capturing users before DSP impressions were served.
Users only exposed to the DSP campaign: These are the unique users who represent the incremental reach of the DSP campaign, meaning they weren’t reached by Streaming TV at all.
How to Interpret Incremental Reach Data
Once you’ve run the query and received the results, interpreting the data correctly is key to making informed decisions. Here’s how to break it down:
Incremental Reach: Look at the number of users who were exclusively reached by the focus campaign. This is your true incremental audience.
Timing of Exposure: Consider the order in which users were exposed to your campaigns. If the focus campaign reached a significant portion of users before the base campaigns, it suggests that this campaign was effective in introducing new users to your brand.
How to Apply These Insights
Once you’ve gathered the insights from AMC, the next step is to apply them to your broader advertising strategy. If a focus campaign demonstrates high incremental reach, it may warrant additional investment or even expansion into new audiences. Conversely, if there’s significant overlap with other campaigns, it may indicate a need to optimize your audience targeting to reduce redundancy and improve the efficiency of your ad spend.
You can also experiment with adjusting the timing of exposures across different campaigns to see how changes impact overall performance. For example, if the base campaign is consistently being served first, you may want to adjust your bidding or targeting strategies for the focus campaign to ensure it reaches users earlier in their journey.
How Can Hector Help You?
Hector’s powerful reporting dashboard simplifies accessing AMC insights, eliminating the need for complex SQL queries. With an intuitive interface, Hector delivers actionable insights about incremental reach & timing of exposure that empower you to make timely, informed decisions.
If you’re new to AMC, Hector can help you start by setting up your own AMC instance.
Learn more about leveraging AMC with How to Get Started with Amazon Marketing Cloud for Better Ad Insights.
Conclusion
The combination of incremental reach and exposure timing insights from AMC can be a powerful tool for advertisers looking to refine their multi-campaign strategies.
By understanding how different campaigns interact and reach audiences, advertisers can make smarter decisions on where to allocate budgets and which campaigns to prioritize.
Amazon Marketing Cloud’s ability to provide a granular view of campaign performance across multiple ad products -whether DSP, Sponsored Products, or Streaming TV - ensures that advertisers can maximize their reach and minimize waste, making every dollar spent more effective.
Incorporating incremental reach analysis into your campaign strategy is not just a tactical move - it’s a strategic advantage in optimizing the performance of your Amazon ads.