May 17, 2023

Stratably hosted Joe Shelerud from Ad Advance to share his perspective on five ways to use Amazon Marketing Cloud effectively, with a special emphasis on Audiences.

Watch The Recording Here

For those that have been following Stratably for a while, you’ll know that AMC, Stream, and Attribution are newer analytics tools from Amazon that help inform Amazon Advertising efforts in a much more granular way than what was possible beforehand.

Yet not all those advertising on Amazon are using the tools because they are unaware of them, they are difficult to use (AMC for instance requires SQL expertise to unlock custom insights), or they don’t understand their potential.

We sat down with Joe to learn how he is putting AMC to work for clients, covering:

1. DSP and Sponsored Products overlap
2. New to Brand metrics
3. Geographic insights
4. First touch attribution
5. Amazon Audiences

Here’s what we found most interesting:

1. When does it make sense to use AMC: Advertisers will get the most out of AMC if they are advertising across the funnel as a great deal of value is found in better understanding the complex shopper journey. If an advertiser is only doing lower funnel activations, then that won’t matter to them as much.
2. Attracting net new dollars: As advertisers unlock insights from AMC, Joe and his team are seeing net new ad dollars shift to Amazon advertising from other platforms. Advertisers ultimately get better reporting and more confidence in performance. This is a key reason why Stratably expects other retail media networks will come to market with clean room offerings within the year (and hence, another reason to become proficient on AMC now as the pay off will be larger than just Amazon).
3. Shifting intra-Amazon: It’s common to see advertisers shift more funds to upper funnel allocations on Amazon as they unlock insights on upper funnel performance via first touch attribution or new to brand metrics.
4. Cross functional: Other parts of the organization are starting to find AMC useful. For instance, Joe has seen more clients bring in their Google Display Advertising team as they want to understand how their efforts on Google are impacting Amazon ad spend. Of note, two-thirds of those on the webinar indicated they see applicability for AMC insights beyond just Amazon.
5. Is there a positive ROI to AMC: Instead of focusing on a percentage improvement in advertising or a financial metric like that, advertisers can assess the value of using AMC based on the questions they can unlock. For instance, AMC can shed light on which advertising types are best at driving new to brand shoppers, a key insight needed to understand the incrementality of advertising. In addition, shifting from last touch to first touch attribution can significantly change how brands perceive the importance of upper funnel spend.
6. 1P data: Like other clean rooms, advertisers can add their own data into AMC. However, it’s fairly uncommon at this point for brands using AMC to do so. The newness of the tool and organizational questions related to privacy appear to be limiting factors.
7. Flexibility is power: Having the ability to create custom queries to answer specific questions is where AMC shines. Advertisers with AMC and SQL knowledge are best positioned to unlock that power.

Watch The Recording Here