Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC)

Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is a SQL-based clean room with event-level data from Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, DSP, and Amazon retail. Advertisers write queries; AMC returns only aggregated results above a privacy threshold (typically n≥100). No row-level export, no PII.

What AMC unlocks

Five analyses that are impossible in the standard reporting UI:

1. De-duplicated cross-format attribution. Reconcile the ghost overlap between SP, SB, SD, and DSP. Standard reports double-count.
2. Path-to-conversion analysis. Average number of touches before purchase, by format.
3. Holdout incrementality. Hold out a randomised cell of shoppers from a campaign; measure the sales lift in the exposed cell. The only rigorous way to measure incremental ACOS.
4. Audience overlap. Do my Sponsored Brands shoppers also see my DSP display? Where does each format reach unique reach?
5. New-to-brand journey. Which format and which keyword first introduced an NTB customer to the brand?

AMC vs. Marketing Stream

Two different beasts:

Access

AMC is available to advertisers running DSP, or to Sponsored Ads advertisers above a spend threshold (varies by market). Setup involves an AWS account for query execution; tools like AMALYZE expose pre-built AMC queries without requiring SQL knowledge.

Common mistakes

• Underpowered holdout cells. A holdout with <1,000 conversions in either arm produces unreliable lift estimates.
• Treating AMC as a reporting dashboard. It is a measurement platform — queries are infrequent and decisive, not daily.
• Ignoring the n≥100 threshold. Queries on niche audiences will return NULL, not zero.