A Conversation with Amazon Ads.
Following our Annual Report on Data event on December 5th, 2022, where we dug deep into how to effectively reach consumers in 2023 without third party tracking, we felt it was the right time to sit down with Amazon Ads to find out more about the work they are doing and how they have been helping their customers in these ever-changing times.
Third-party cookies will soon be no more, and as a result we are seeing many advancements designed to help brands solve evolving ad addressability and media fragmentation challenges. Amazon Ads, has specifically focused on building agile solutions that help advertisers with more effective campaign planning, measurement and optimization with the launch of the Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC). Amazon Ads has introduced AMC, a secure, privacy-safe and cloud-based clean room solution, in which advertisers can easily perform analytics across pseudonymized signals.
IAB Canada (IABC): Amazon Ads has invested a lot of effort into building tech solutions to help their customers – what drove this movement and what are some of the results you are seeing?
Amazon Ads (AA): At Amazon Ads we are constantly thinking about how we can better help marketers, particularly as they place a greater importance on accurately measuring campaigns and adapting to the changes happening in digital advertising. Offering more actionable insights and increasing interoperability across our ad tech suite are examples of how we help brands operate more efficiently and make more informed business decisions and build creative new ad tech capabilities that make sense for their unique business needs.
We are seeing more and more brands and agencies using AMC – a clean room service designed to support more flexible analytics to build to their own ad tech solutions.
IABC: Can we dig a little deeper into AMC – specifically its capabilities and how it can be used by today’s brands?
AA: Built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), AMC can help advertisers with campaign measurement, audience analysis, media optimization, and more, helping to gain a holistic and in-depth understanding of the customer journey.[1]
We have seen the number of active AMC customers quadrupling in the past year and using the direct feedback from these users, we have turned our focus to building out its capabilities in four key areas: signal coverage, ease of use, actionable insights and partner programs.
We have strengthened our signal coverage capabilities with the addition of Sponsored Display and digital subscription events, as we can now offer advertisers greater visibility into the total and incremental impact of different Amazon Ads formats, more comprehensive cross-media attribution, and a deeper understanding of the customer journey.
To improve ease of use, we have created Instructional Queries to serve as simple playbooks to help advertisers get started with AMC. In the past year, AMC’s Instructional Query library has increased from 10 pre-built queries to more than 50.
Lastly, we have begun to roll out AMC partner certifications across agencies, tool providers, system integrators and software vendors. Certified partners are part of the Amazon Ads Partner Network and included in the partner directory, which makes it easier for advertisers to find potential partners based on their business needs.
IABC: Can you give us a few real-life examples of how brands have benefitted from using AMC?
AA: We have seen how the functionality of AMC have further empowered brands to guide decision-making and achieve their marketing goals. For example, ad tech agency Perpetua was able to use AMC to analyze campaign performance across media for “Into the AM”, an apparel brand. Perpetua also observed that audiences reached by both Sponsored Products and Amazon DSP ads were 16 times more likely to make a purchase. Ultimately, Perpetua used these insights to create new campaigns for Into the AM that helped drive a 200% new-to-brand sales increase and a 49% increase in branded searches in the Amazon store.
Another brand, bottled water company Essentia also leveraged AMC capabilities to refine their broader marketing strategies and drive even more value across their Amazon Ads investments. Working with the ad agency OneStone, Essentia recently partnered with Pacvue’s Business Intelligence solution – which leverages AMC for insights on media mix, path to conversion and affinity audiences – to inform their ad spend strategy on Amazon. Based in-part on analysis of AMC insights, Essentia was able to double their on-Amazon customer base – driving a 69% increase in return on advertising spend in less than one year.
Agile ad planning, measurement and optimization can help you reach your customers in their moment. Learn how Amazon Ads can help you reach audiences where they shop, read, listen, and watch.
[1] Source for sentence: Amazon Marketing Cloud landing page on AMC