Amazon Marketing Cloud Custom Audiences for Sponsored Ads

For the longest time, Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) was only accessible to brands and advertisers running ads with Amazon DSP. Now, you can leverage AMC for your Sponsored ads as well. This includes boosting bids with Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands, and enhanced audience targeting with Sponsored Display ads. 

This significant update allows more advertisers to benefit from Amazon Marketing Cloud, as they can access valuable AMC insights and reach customers across their purchase journey. Even brands with smaller budgets can now use AMC to improve audience targeting. The new AMC features enable advertisers to refine targeting, re-engage audiences, and build more tailored, full-funnel ad strategies. 

The Key Advantages of AMC for Sponsored Ads

One of the main advantages of having access to AMC for Sponsored ads is that you can create audiences based on how people interact with your brand or similar brands. Instead of only targeting keywords, the standard practice for Sponsored ads, you can now target people who have typed in a certain keyword.

Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands

Sponsored Products (SP) and Sponsored Brands (SB) are keyword-based ad types. But you can now use AMC audiences as a way to bid up. For example, if a customer has typed in a keyword you are bidding on, and is part of this audience, you can have a modifier to increase the bid. Knowing this person has taken specific actions, you want to invest more to get your ad in front of them.

Sponsored Display

For Sponsored Display ads, you can utilize AMC custom audiences for more precise targeting and improve ad performance by reaching the most relevant customers at the right time in their buying journey.

AMC Custom Audiences and Retargeting

You can create custom audiences with AMC based on a variety of parameters. The most common are: 

• Add-to-Cart: Targeting shoppers who’ve added a product or group of products to their cart but have not purchased 

• Branded Search: Targeting customers who have searched for your brand but not purchased

• Related Search Term: Targeting shoppers who have searched for specific terms 

• DSP Ad Exposure: Targeting customers who have been exposed to a certain DSP Campaign x times and haven’t purchased 

• Sponsored Ad Click: Targeting a shopper who has clicked on a Sponsored Ad but hasn’t purchased 

• DPV Audience: Targeting customers who have visited the PDP x times and haven’t purchased

‍AMC allows you to build custom audiences based on customers’ behaviors and shopping patterns. It provides detailed data that you can leverage to build rule-based and lookalike audiences. For example, you can target customers who added products to their cart but didn’t purchase or visited your Amazon product page a few times and didn’t buy. You can also reach consumers who have seen a Display ad but not a Search ad. 

With AMC accessible to brands running Sponsored ads, you can gain better insights into how shoppers engage with your ads across various touchpoints. This takes the guessing game out of the equation, as you can now see which actions they are taking and use the information gathered from AMC to retarget customers. 

AMC and DSP Insights from Blue Wheel’s Expert

At Blue Wheel, one of the ways we're leveraging AMC is by targeting customers who have added to the cart but haven’t purchased. Our Director of Marketplace, Whitney Weaver, states, “This is an area where we see an opportunity to support brands by driving more shoppers to convert. For example, I will put a bunch of items in my cart and then won't purchase them for several days until I'm reminded.”

“This is a way for us to reach out to those shoppers who have taken that action. A customer may want to hold on to a product in their cart, and we can reach them with an ad for 10% off. AMC can be very beneficial for a brand to drive these conversions.”

Who Can Benefit from Using AMC for Sponsored Ads?

“Certain brand categories can especially benefit from having AMC available for Sponsored ads campaigns. One of them is apparel,” Whitney Weaver says. “There tends to be more shopping around within apparel, and people look for different clothing sizes and styles. So if you can identify someone who visited your product page twice but hasn't purchased, you can send them that product ad to remind them or an ad with a similar product they might like because they seemed to be interested in another one.”

“Besides apparel, other brand categories with a tendency for more shopping around or those with a longer purchase cycle, like luggage, can see positive results from AMC. But any product category could benefit from it,” points out Whitney Weaver.

Action-Based Synergy of Amazon DSP and Search 

Whitney and her team at Blue Wheel recommend creating a Related Search Term audience based on top non-branded search terms for your brand. This AMC audience is served as consideration ads through DSP across STV, OLV, and/or Display.  

Target a DSP Ad Exposure audience across Search through increased bid modifiers in Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands ads, and via Sponsored Display and ADSP ads to encourage the shopper to visit the product page. They may add the product to their cart but not purchase it immediately. Target them through the Add-to-Cart audience and serve them conversion or reminder creative through Search and DSP to encourage them to buy your product.

Benefits of Using AMC for Audience Targeting

Using AMC custom audiences allows you to reach a more targeted and high-intent audience based on the shoppers' specific actions. You can directly connect the creative messaging or product focus to certain points of the shopper journey. Additionally, a more targeted audience may not require as much investment as reaching a broad audience. 

AMC gives you advantages in customization and behavior-based aspects. Within Amazon DSP, you have Amazon-created audiences showing you parameters around customers who have looked into certain product categories or purchased specific product types. 

Let’s say, for example, they are looking for women's apparel. With AMC, you can narrow down your audience, and instead of targeting everyone in the market for women's apparel, you can select those who looked at certain types of brands or took specific actions. AMC allows advertisers to reach more specific audiences based on how they interact with the brand and product category.

While AMC allows you to go from a wider to a smaller audience pool, you should reach the right audience size for your brand. Amazon Marketing Cloud can help refine your strategy and move customers through the purchase funnel.

How We Leverage Xnurta AMC Hub for Our Clients

Recently, there have been significant improvements to the Amazon Marketing Cloud, making it easier for advertisers to access and utilize valuable data. We took this to the next level by partnering with Xnurta, a leader in the AMC space. Advanced Xnurta software helps us maximize our clients’ Amazon advertising campaigns and boost sales.

Previously, you needed extensive SQL knowledge to pull specific queries and gather relevant data from the Amazon Marketing Cloud. Amazon has made significant advancements in its UI to enhance advertisers' experience within AMC. In addition, the Xnurta software tool simplifies data extraction from AMC by removing technical issues like SQL query writing.

One of the biggest benefits we are seeing when using Xnurta AMC Hub is the advanced level of customization within the Amazon UI. The interface is easy to navigate, allowing quicker access to relevant information compared to using only what is available in AMC. Also, Xnurta's reporting visually surpasses that of Amazon.

Our Expert Tips for eCommerce Brands

Brands of all sizes and with various advertising budgets can benefit from combining AMC with Sponsored ads. Here are our top recommendations for leveraging Amazon Marketing Cloud for your Sponsored ads campaigns. 

Test Different AMC Custom Audiences

Use the Add-to-Cart audience to serve complementary products to increase basket-building. This means focusing on customers who added your products to their cart but haven’t purchased. Create a Related Search Term audience to target shoppers searching for comparable or competitor products. 

Sponsored Products Ad Click audience can be used to refine retargeting efforts. It can also provide more product education through STV or Video to help drive conversion. Lastly, leverage the Brand Search Audience to launch new products or highlight discounts to shoppers looking for your brand. It’s important to test out various possibilities of this new AMC feature and see what works best for you. 

Employ AMC’s Frequency Analysis 

You can use AMC’s frequency analysis to improve your campaigns. Let’s take, for example, a situation in which the average number of customer interactions with your product is three times, or they visit your product page at least three times before purchasing.

In that case, you should stop sending ads to users who aren't taking the desired action, as you're just wasting money. It's important to exclude these individuals from your custom audience, specifically those who have seen the ad multiple times without taking action or have visited the product page several times without making a purchase.

By excluding these consumers, you can reallocate your budget to target new customers or focus on those engaging in desired actions.

Explore AMC’s Attribution Models

You can use the Amazon Marketing Cloud to explore different attribution models. Amazon typically uses last-touch attribution, which means that SP ads often receive a significant portion of the credit for sales. But, there are alternative attribution models to consider, such as first-touch attribution.

It's essential to understand how different marketing channels work together. If you only examine the metrics on the surface level within the Amazon UI, you might question the value of investing in ADSP, given that it shows lower ROAS and sales than Sponsored Products. This discrepancy arises because last-touch attribution credits SP for the conversions that Amazon DSP helped initiate. 

In our analysis of one client's data, we found that when Amazon DSP ads served as the first touchpoint, the conversion rate was three times higher compared to when Sponsored Products were credited as the first touch.

Therefore, using AMC provides you with a clearer picture of the effectiveness of various channels, helping you to distribute the ad budget more effectively across them.

To Conclude

Amazon Marketing Cloud’s new accessibility for Sponsored ads provides brands and advertisers with valuable insights and advanced targeting capabilities. It allows for more refined strategies, better audience engagement, and improved ad performance across the purchase journey.

Explore, test, and utilize various AMC custom audiences and features to optimize your campaigns and boost conversions. That way, you can ensure a more efficient ad spend and stay ahead of your competitors. 

Ready to discover how we can enhance your brand’s campaigns with AMC and Sponsored ads? Contact us today to schedule a call with our Amazon advertising experts.