Most Amazon sellers know their ACoS, TACoS, sales and ROAS off the top of their head. And they’re important. But what those numbers don’t tell you is how a customer went from first seeing an ad to eventually buying your product. And that’s important too.
Amazon Marketing Cloud AMC is Amazon Ads’ privacy-safe analytics environment that helps advertisers analyse customer journeys, campaign overlap, audience behaviour and ad performance.
If you’re already investing in paid ads, Amazon Marketing Cloud provides the insight beyond basic PPC reporting. It allows you to break down your data in a much more flexible way, explaining not just what happened, but why it happened.
| Tool | Best for |
|---|---|
| Seller Central reports | Sales and overall account performance |
| Amazon Ads reports | Campaign, keyword and ad group performance |
| Amazon Marketing Stream | Near real-time campaign signals and PPC optimisation |
| Amazon Marketing Cloud | Customer journey analysis, audience insights and deeper advertising analytics |
Why Does Amazon Marketing Cloud Matter for Sellers?
Amazon Marketing Cloud helps advertisers answer deeper questions that standard PPC reports simply cannot. Instead of looking at campaigns individually, it helps you understand how your advertising is working as a whole and what happens before a customer finally makes a purchase.
That’s important, since standard PPC reports only show campaign-level performance and rely too heavily on ACoS, so you don’t ever get to see how different campaigns are working together and whether multiple ads influenced the sale. It’s all about fully understanding the full customer journey.
This is where AMC becomes useful. Instead of asking, “Which campaign had the lowest ACoS?”, you can start asking better questions. Did Sponsored Brands help drive later Sponsored Products sales? Are your video ads attracting new-to-brand customers? Which audiences generate the highest-value shoppers? Are customers typically exposed to more than one advert before they buy? Those sorts of insights make it much easier to understand what’s actually driving growth, rather than simply reporting on the end figures.
Amazon Marketing Cloud Use Cases for Amazon Sellers
AMC can be used in lots of different ways, but, in our opinion, the biggest value comes from helping sellers answer practical advertising questions that standard PPC reports often leave unanswered.
Path-to-Purchase Analysis
Rather than only showing the final advert before a sale, Amazon Marketing Cloud reveals the sequence of ad interactions that led to the purchase. This helps sellers understand how different ad types work together throughout the customer journey.
New-to-Brand Analysis
Not every sale represents new business. AMC helps identify whether your campaigns are attracting first-time customers or simply converting existing ones that already know who you are. That makes it much easier to measure growth, rather than just overall sales.
Campaign Overlap and Wasted Spend
As advertising accounts become more complex, it’s common for campaigns to target similar audiences. Amazon Marketing Cloud can help identify where campaigns overlap which makes its easier to identify any areas where your ad spend isn’t adding real value.
Audience Creation
Amazon Marketing Cloud can also be used to build custom audiences based on buyer engagement and conversion behaviour. Those audiences can then be activated across Sponsored Ads, video ads and display ads to help you deliver more consistency in your campaigns.
Better Reporting for Scaling
As PPC spend increases, basic reports often stop providing enough insight. Knowing that ACoS has increased or sales have fallen doesn’t explain why. AMC gives you that additional reporting needed to make more informed decisions as advertising becomes more sophisticated.
Amazon Marketing Cloud vs Amazon Marketing Stream
Although they’re often mentioned together, Amazon Marketing Cloud and Amazon Marketing Stream are different, and they do very different jobs.
Amazon Marketing Stream is designed for day-to-day PPC optimisation. It provides near real-time campaign signals to help sellers react more quickly by adjusting bids, budgets and campaign settings as performance changes, as explained in an earlier article, What Is Amazon Marketing Stream and How Does It Improve ROAS?
Amazon Marketing Cloud approaches things slightly different. Rather than helping you react faster, it helps you to understand at a deeper level by providing richer analytics around customer journeys, audience behaviour, path-to-purchase analysis and how your different campaigns work together.
In simple terms, Marketing Stream helps you optimise campaigns. Amazon Marketing Cloud helps you understand them and what’s driving performance.
Is Amazon Marketing Cloud Only for Big Brands?
While it may have been in the past, it isn’t anymore. AMC is now available to all advertisers using Sponsored Ads, but the value you get from it depends on how much historic advertising activity and data you have.
If you’re only running a single Sponsored Products campaign, standard PPC reports will usually provide you with everything you need. However, brands running Sponsored Products alongside Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, video or DSP have far more data to analyse which is when AMC becomes more valuable.
While access to the dashboard has become much easier, turning that data into better PPC decisions is where many sellers still need support. The real value isn’t in pulling more reports, it’s about knowing what to do with the insights that they provide.
Do Sellers Need SQL to Use AMC?
Historically, the Amazon Marketing Cloud toolset was a little more technical, with many advertisers having to use SQL to build custom reports. And while that’s still possible, Amazon has made AMC much easier to access for Sponsored Ads advertisers.
So, don’t worry. Most sellers won’t need to become SQL experts in order to benefit from AMC. The bigger challenge is knowing what questions to ask in the first place.
When Should a Seller Consider Using AMC?
Do Amazon sellers need Amazon Marketing Cloud? No. Not all of them, but there are some clear signs it’s time to take a closer look.
- Your PPC spend is increasing, but your reporting isn’t explaining why performance is changing.
- ACoS and TACoS no longer give you enough insight to make confident decisions.
- You’re running multiple ad types, such as Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display.
- You want to understand whether your campaigns are attracting new-to-brand customers.
- You need a more effective audience strategy.
- You expect more detailed reporting and insights from your PPC agency.
If several of these already sound familiar, you’re probably at a stage where the future growth of your store would likely benefit from the insights gained on Amazon Marketing Cloud.
Final Takeaway
Amazon Marketing Cloud isn’t a replacement for good PPC fundamentals. Strong listings, effective keyword targeting, well-structured campaigns and sensible PPC management are and always should come first and foremost.
Where AMC ends up adding most of its value is by helping sellers move beyond basic optimisation. Once your advertising becomes more complex, it provides the deeper insights needed to properly understand customer behaviour in order to make more advanced growth decisions.
