Add-to-Cart (ATC)
Add-to-Cart is the moment a shopper places a product in their Amazon cart without yet purchasing. ATC rate is the pre-purchase intent signal — a leading indicator of CVR, a remarketing trigger, and a critical funnel metric exposed in Brand Analytics' Search Query Performance.
Add-to-Cart (ATC) is the event in which a shopper places a product into their Amazon cart but has not yet checked out. ATC is the strongest leading indicator of CVR in the Amazon funnel — well ahead of the purchase event itself.
Funnel: Impression → Click → ATC → Purchase
ATC Rate = ATC events / Clicks
CVR = Purchases / Clicks
ATC-to-Purchase Rate = Purchases / ATC events
Where ATC data appears
- Brand Analytics — Search Query Performance — for each top query and each ASIN, reports impressions, clicks, ATCs, and purchases as a full funnel.
- Amazon Marketing Cloud — event-level ATC data for cross-format analysis (SP + SB + SD + DSP).
- Sponsored Display campaigns — ATC events are reportable as a campaign goal.
Notably absent: the standard Sponsored Products campaign report does not include ATC. To see ATC for SP traffic you need SQP or AMC.
Diagnostic value
The relationship between ATC rate and CVR is diagnostic:
| ATC rate | ATC→Purchase | Diagnosis |
|---|---|---|
| High | High | Healthy funnel; scale traffic |
| High | Low | Cart abandonment problem (price shock at checkout, shipping confusion, payment friction) |
| Low | High | Browsers don't add — listing fails at the consideration stage (image, title, price perception) |
| Low | Low | Wrong audience entirely (or product-market fit issue) |
This diagnostic decomposition is invisible in standard ACOS reporting — which only shows the final purchase. SQP is the cheapest way to see it.
ATC as a remarketing trigger
Shoppers who added to cart without purchasing are the highest-intent retargeting audience available. Amazon DSP exposes ATC-without-purchase as a discrete audience; Sponsored Display does not (it only retargets on views and purchases).
For brands with DSP access, the ATC-without-purchase audience typically converts at 5–10× cold-traffic CVR — the buyer was one tap from buying and just didn't.
Brand Tailored Promotions and ATC
Brand Tailored Promotions include a "Cart Abandoners" segment — coupons restricted to shoppers who added a brand's ASIN to cart in the last 90 days but didn't purchase. A modest coupon (10%) sent to this segment typically converts at 15–25%, recovering revenue that would otherwise be lost.
Common mistakes
- Ignoring ATC because it's not in the SP report. SQP is free; use it.
- Reading ATC rate without ATC-to-Purchase rate. Half the signal each.
- No retargeting strategy for cart abandoners. The highest-converting audience on Amazon, often unused.