Key takeaways: Amazon Marketing Cloud is a privacy-safe clean room where your Amazon Ads signals, and optionally your own uploaded data, can be queried together at an aggregated level. Its two uses are measurement across ad types and building custom audiences that DSP and, increasingly, Sponsored Ads can target. It requires a DSP relationship, someone who can write SQL or a tool that does, and enough volume for the aggregated results to mean anything.
Amazon Marketing Cloud audiences are custom audience segments built from queries you run inside Amazon's clean room and then pushed to Amazon DSP for targeting. The clean room holds event-level signals from your Amazon Ads campaigns, including Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, DSP and, where enrolled, streaming TV, alongside shopping signals, all pseudonymized so that no individual can be identified. You query it with SQL, get back aggregated results, and can turn a query result into an audience. For a brand already using DSP, it is the most precise targeting and measurement tool Amazon offers. For a brand that is not, it is not yet available.
What AMC is and what you need to use it
AMC is an instance, provisioned for an advertiser, that receives ad and conversion events from that advertiser's Amazon Ads accounts. You can also upload your own first-party data, such as hashed customer email lists, to be matched inside the room. Nothing leaves at the individual level; results are returned only when they meet a minimum aggregation threshold.
Access requires an Amazon DSP account, either self-service or through an agency or partner, because AMC audiences are activated in DSP and the instance is tied to a DSP entity. Using it well requires either someone who can write SQL against AMC's schema or a partner tool that packages common queries and audiences. And it requires volume: an audience defined too narrowly returns nothing, because it falls below the aggregation floor.
Two jobs: measure and target
Measurement. AMC answers questions the standard console cannot. Which combinations of ad types does a shopper see before buying? How much do shoppers exposed to Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products together convert versus either alone? What is the time between first ad exposure and purchase? How many of your DSP conversions were also exposed to Sponsored Products? These are path-to-conversion and overlap questions, and they change how budgets are split between ad types.
Audiences. A query that returns a set of pseudonymized shoppers can be saved as an audience and pushed to DSP. That lets you target people defined by behavior across your campaigns rather than by Amazon's standard segments.
Audiences worth building first
| Audience | Definition | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Ad-exposed non-converters | Saw a Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brands ad for a target ASIN, no purchase within 30 days | DSP remarketing with a reason to return: a review highlight, a comparison, a coupon |
| Detail page viewers without a search click | Viewed a detail page organically, no ad click | Retarget people who arrived without ads, at low cost |
| Cart abandoners | Added to cart, no purchase within 7 days | Short-window remarketing |
| Lapsed purchasers | Purchased 60–180 days ago for a repeat-purchase product, no purchase since | Replenishment reminder |
| Cross-purchase candidates | Purchased ASIN A, never purchased ASIN B | Cross-sell within the range |
| High-frequency exposed | Saw more than a set number of ads without converting | Suppression list, to cap frequency and save spend |
The suppression audience is the one most people forget. AMC is as useful for deciding whom not to show ads to as for whom to target, and excluding shoppers who have seen the ad many times without acting is a direct saving.
How an audience moves from query to campaign
Read this flowchart as text
- Write query in AMC: define the behavior
- Run. Result meets aggregation threshold?
- Enough shoppers to serve?
- Widen the definition or extend the lookback window
- Save as AMC audience. Refresh on a schedule
- Push to DSP. Build line item with matching creative
- Measure in AMC: exposed vs unexposed conversion rate
The refresh step matters. An audience is a snapshot; shoppers enter and leave the definition every day. Audiences should be set to refresh so that a cart abandoner who bought yesterday is not still being retargeted next week.
The last step is where AMC pays for itself. Because it holds both exposed and unexposed shoppers, you can compare conversion rates between them and see whether the audience campaign changed behavior or merely reached people who were going to buy anyway. That is a question no console report can answer, and it is the kind of measurement described in B20 · What your reports contain.
What AMC will not do
It will not show you individual shoppers. Every result is aggregated and thresholds are enforced. It will not work without DSP, because that is where audiences are activated. It will not help a small account, because thin data falls below the threshold and returns empty results. And it will not fix a Sponsored Products problem; if the search campaigns are inefficient, AMC will measure that inefficiency precisely but will not correct it.
It is also not a substitute for the weekly search term routine or the placement report. AMC answers cross-channel and audience questions. The core PPC work still happens in the console and the standard reports.
Where AMC fits
AMC belongs at the full-funnel stage of an account, alongside DSP and, for brands that use it, Sponsored TV. It is the measurement layer that makes upper-funnel spend accountable, and the audience layer that makes DSP precise. Whether an account is at that stage is the question covered in When Is Amazon DSP Worth It? Budget, Audiences and Fit; the brand-building objective it serves is C5 · Building your brand on Amazon.
On data handling: AMC's design means neither the advertiser nor a partner sees individual-level data. Uploading first-party data is optional and is hashed before matching. How we handle account access and data generally is set out in How do you handle access and my data?.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need Amazon DSP to use Amazon Marketing Cloud?
Yes. AMC instances are tied to a DSP entity, and AMC audiences are activated in DSP. Some partner tools provide AMC access through their own DSP seat, which is how many sellers first reach it.
Can AMC audiences be used in Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brands?
Amazon has been extending AMC audience activation beyond DSP over time. Check current availability in your marketplace and console, as it changes. DSP remains the primary place AMC audiences are used.
What data does AMC contain?
Pseudonymized event-level signals from your Amazon Ads campaigns: impressions, clicks, conversions, detail page views and related events across ad types, plus optional first-party data you upload. All results are aggregated, and queries below a minimum size return nothing.
Is AMC worth it for a mid-sized seller?
If you already run DSP and have someone or a tool to write queries, yes; the measurement alone changes how you split budget between ad types. If you do not run DSP, AMC is not yet available to you, and the effort is better spent making the self-service campaigns efficient first.