Struggling to understand which ads actually drive sales on Amazon?
You’re not alone.
Standard reports often miss the full customer journey, leaving gaps in attribution and wasted spend. This guide will explain what Amazon Marketing Cloud is, how it works, who can use it, and practical ways to put it into action.
Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is a secure, privacy-safe data clean room that gives advertisers a deeper view of how shoppers interact with their campaigns. Instead of relying only on last-click data, AMC uses pseudonymized, event-level signals (things like impressions, clicks, and conversions) to help you analyze performance across the full funnel.
AMC is powered by custom SQL-based queries, which means you can ask specific questions about your campaigns and get tailored reports, rather than relying on preset dashboards. This flexibility allows you to explore cross-channel attribution, measure campaign overlap, and uncover insights that standard reports can’t provide.
In today’s cookie-less environment, AMC is especially valuable. It helps you connect signals across touchpoints - from Sponsored Products and DSP to Streaming TV - without relying on third-party cookies. By combining first-party Amazon data with AI in advertising, AMC also applies machine learning and advanced analytics to reveal patterns in shopper behavior, giving you the intelligence needed to improve targeting and optimize spend.
For more details, you can visit the Amazon Ads official page.
Amazon Marketing Cloud isn’t just another reporting tool…it’s a way for sellers to finally connect the dots across the shopper journey. By going beyond surface-level metrics, AMC provides insights that help you allocate spend more effectively, increase efficiency, and build campaigns that drive measurable growth.
Most standard dashboards focus on clicks and conversions, but AMC shows how different campaigns work together. You can see how awareness ads contribute to consideration, and how those interactions eventually lead to conversions. This bigger picture helps sellers improve advertising profitability by understanding where each dollar is most effective.
With AMC’s event-level reporting, you can also monitor ad conversion rate across different channels and audiences. This makes it easier to identify what’s working, what’s not, and where to adjust your strategy for the best results.
After a BlueTuskr free audit, you’ll actually be able to track your successes and opportunities and continue to discuss key strategies with marketing experts.
Traditional reporting often relies on last-click attribution, which gives too much credit to retargeting campaigns while undervaluing brand-building or awareness efforts. AMC closes that gap by showing the full path to purchase, making it easier to measure true impact.
It also strengthens return on ad spend (RoAS) tracking by factoring in all touchpoints, not just the final click. With this data, sellers can better align budget allocation to the campaigns that influence sales throughout the funnel.
With retail media growing at double-digit rates in 2025, getting beyond last-click is essential to protect efficiency and prove impact across the funnel.
At its core, Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) gathers event-level signals from across Amazon’s ecosystem and processes them in a secure environment. This allows advertisers to connect different campaign types, analyze shopper behavior, and build reports that answer specific business questions.
AMC pulls in data from multiple sources, including:
Sponsored Ads (like Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands)
Amazon DSP campaigns, including display ads
Streaming TV campaigns on Amazon properties
Advertiser-uploaded data, such as CRM or sales records
These inputs include standard pay-per-click campaigns, where you only pay when a shopper clicks, as well as search ads that drive discoverability on Amazon, and display ads that reach shoppers across Amazon and partner sites. Together, they give a more complete view of how buyers interact with your brand across channels.
Instead of static dashboards, AMC relies on SQL-based queries. Advertisers can use the Schema Explorer to see available datasets, then write custom queries to answer specific questions - like how many impressions it takes before a purchase, or how two campaigns overlap in reach.
All results are aggregated to protect shopper privacy, and raw user data is never exposed. This privacy-first design ensures brands can access actionable insights without compromising customer security.
If you want to explore the technical side, you can review Amazon’s AMC developer docs for a detailed look at schema, query structure, and API options.
One of the biggest strengths of Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is that it goes beyond surface-level reporting. By analyzing event-level data, brands and agencies can make smarter decisions about budget allocation, targeting, and campaign strategy.
For example, in 2025, Trellis expanded its platform with integrations for Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) and Amazon DSP, allowing advertisers to create advanced audience segments, analyze path-to-purchase insights, and manage display campaigns with rule-based automation. These additions enabled merchants to connect retail media investments across both sponsored ads and display advertising.
Other ways Trellis uses Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) to support sellers include:
Audience Enrichment: Trellis takes AMC audience signals, like demographics, purchase behavior, and engagement, and combines them with its own Audience Builder to create highly targeted, full-funnel campaigns.
Attribution-Driven Spend Optimization: By leveraging AMC’s multi-touch attribution, Trellis’ automation engine can allocate ad spend more effectively across Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and DSP campaigns to maximize return on ad spend.
Shopper Journey Analysis: Trellis transforms AMC’s event-level data into dashboards that show how shoppers move from awareness to conversion, helping brands identify gaps in the funnel and optimize messaging at each stage.
Halo Product and Catalog Insights: Using AMC data, Trellis helps brands uncover halo effects (when an ad for one item boosts sales of another) and ties those findings back to catalog-wide pricing, promotions, and content strategies.
Here are two common ways advertisers put AMC insights into action.
Read more: Trellis helps Corro-Protec achieve 2x ROAS through strategic AMC audience engagement
AMC helps improve advertising spend optimization by showing exactly how campaigns contribute to the shopper journey. Instead of guessing how many impressions are too many, or too few, you can run frequency analysis to find the ideal balance.
For example, a brand may discover that after five impressions, the likelihood of purchase drops off. With that data, they can cap frequency, reduce wasted spend, and direct budget into campaigns that still drive incremental growth. AMC also enables media mix modeling and halo effect analysis, so you can see how awareness ads influence conversions for other products in your catalog.
AMC also offers advanced audience insights. Advertisers can see which segments are new-to-brand, track repeat purchases, and analyze customer behavior across touchpoints. These insights can then be used to build stronger campaigns inside Amazon DSP.
One common strategy is leveraging AMC data to improve retargeting ads. By identifying shoppers who engaged but didn’t purchase, you can design more effective DSP campaigns that re-engage those audiences. This approach helps maximize efficiency by focusing on high-intent shoppers.
To see how DSP audience targeting works in practice, you can check out this guide to Amazon DSP audience targeting.
Before jumping into reports and queries, it’s important to know who can access Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) and what tools or skills are required. While AMC was once limited to only the largest advertisers, Amazon has opened access to more brands and agencies, making it easier for sellers of all sizes to use.
Currently, AMC access is tied to advertisers who run campaigns through Amazon DSP. In most cases, you’ll need to work with an Amazon Ads representative or a certified partner to get started.
AMC is best suited for:
Brands that want deeper visibility into their advertising impact.
Agencies managing multiple clients who need advanced attribution and reporting.
Experienced sellers ready to scale their campaigns beyond surface-level metrics.
If you’re investing in DSP and looking for advanced insights, AMC can provide the data needed to understand cross-channel performance.
Because AMC is query-based, you’ll need some technical and analytical capability to make the most of it. At a minimum, that includes:
Familiarity with SQL to write and edit queries
Comfort working with large datasets and attribution models
An analytics mindset for interpreting data trends
An active Amazon DSP account and a history of advertising spend
In addition, knowing how AI in advertising works can help you leverage AMC’s machine learning-powered analytics. AI-based insights make it possible to identify patterns in customer behavior that may not be obvious through standard reporting.
If SQL is new to you, there are plenty of resources available. A good starting point is this beginner’s guide to SQL for marketers, which explains how to use SQL for common marketing queries.
With so many reporting and measurement options in Amazon Ads, it can be tricky to understand where Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) fits. While AMC unlocks deeper, customizable analysis, other tools like DSP reporting and Amazon Attribution serve more specific purposes. Here’s how they compare.
Amazon DSP offers built-in reports that give you campaign-level metrics: impressions, clicks, spend, and conversions. These reports are useful for monitoring performance, but they’re static and limited to surface-level insights.
By contrast, AMC delivers event-level data and the flexibility to create custom reports with SQL. Instead of being locked into a fixed dashboard, you can ask complex questions: How many touchpoints did it take before a purchase? How do different campaigns overlap in reach? This makes AMC far more powerful for advanced analysis.
Amazon Attribution tracks how off-Amazon marketing (like Google Ads, social campaigns, or email)contributes to Amazon conversions. It’s useful for understanding cross-channel traffic, but it’s narrower in scope than AMC.
AMC, on the other hand, provides a full-funnel view of both on-Amazon and DSP campaigns, with granular audience and event-level insights. It also has built-in privacy protections, using pseudonymized data and aggregation thresholds to safeguard customer identities.
If you’d like to dig deeper into attribution measurement, we have a helpful guide to Amazon Attribution that pairs well with this overview.
Getting access to Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is easier today than it was in the past. While it used to be reserved for large advertisers, Amazon has expanded availability so more brands and agencies can use it. Here’s a straightforward process to get started.
Contact an Amazon rep or certified partner: AMC access is tied to Amazon DSP. To get started, reach out to your Amazon Ads representative or work with a certified partner. You can find options in Amazon’s partner directory.
Connect your DSP account: You’ll need an active DSP account with campaign history. This ensures AMC has the data required for reporting.
Gain AMC instance access: Once approved, you’ll be given access to an AMC instance—your secure environment for queries and reporting.
Start with Instructional Queries (IQL): Amazon provides a library of sample SQL queries designed to answer common business questions. These templates are a good way to get comfortable with the platform.
Build reporting and audience workflows: Over time, you can customize queries to fit your brand’s goals. Many advertisers use AMC to build audience insights, analyze frequency caps, and create cross-campaign reports that feed into a smarter strategy.
By following these steps, you’ll be able to start running advanced reports and get the kind of insights needed to make data-driven advertising decisions.
Read more: Trellis helps Dandy Blend achieve 2x higher CTR using Amazon Ads Image Generator
Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) is a powerful tool for any brand that wants to make smarter, data-driven advertising decisions. By moving beyond last-click attribution, AMC helps you see the entire customer journey, measure campaign overlap, and understand how each ad type contributes to sales.
If you’re already investing in Amazon DSP, or you’re ready to scale your campaigns, AMC can give you the insights needed to improve budget allocation and grow profitably. While tools like social media advertising platforms offer strong targeting, AMC stands out for its ability to connect directly with Amazon’s first-party shopper data.
For sellers, agencies, and brands looking to strengthen their advertising strategy, AMC is worth exploring. Start by connecting with an Amazon rep or partner to see how this clean room can fit into your growth plan.
Here are answers to some of the most common questions about Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC).
Yes, AMC itself is free to access. However, you’ll need an active Amazon DSP account, and you’ll pay for the campaigns that generate the data you analyze inside AMC.
Yes. AMC is query-based, and most reports require at least basic SQL knowledge. Amazon provides Instructional Queries (IQL) to help you get started, but a working understanding of SQL will make it easier to unlock custom insights.
Absolutely. AMC was once limited to high-spend advertisers, but Amazon has opened it up to more sellers. Even smaller brands can benefit from event-level data and multi-touch attribution to make smarter budget decisions.
Most AMC datasets refresh daily, with reporting typically available within 24 hours. This makes it possible to review recent campaign activity and adjust strategies without long delays.
Seller Central analytics focus on sales and performance data for your listings, while AMC provides a holistic view of advertising touchpoints across Amazon Ads. AMC delivers multi-touch attribution and audience insights that Seller Central does not.
For more answers to eCommerce FAQs, you can explore BlueTuskr’s resource hub and blog made for sellers.