Enter Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), a powerful, privacy-safe analytics solution that gives brands deeper insight into the full customer journey across the Amazon ecosystem.
At Code3, we use AMC daily to help our clients uncover what’s working, what’s not, and where the real opportunities for growth lie. AMC can get confusing if you’re not familiar, so we’re pulling back the curtain and sharing how to use AMC to get beyond the click and start mapping customer behavior in a way that drives smarter decisions.
First: What Is AMC?
Amazon Marketing Cloud is a clean room environment where advertisers can run custom queries across their own event-level data. Unlike the standard Amazon Ads console, AMC gives you a holistic, user-level view of how shoppers engage with your ads and products, while keeping personally identifiable info secure.
Why this matters:
- You can see how different ad types (DSP, Sponsored Ads, video) work together to drive conversions
- You can analyze all interactions, not just the final click
- You get the power to define your own attribution windows, lookback periods, and performance metrics
Simply put, AMC moves you from “what happened?” to “how and why did it happen?”
Why AMC Is Critical for Customer Journey Mapping
Traditional attribution reports oversimplify how people shop. They’ll show you which ad drove the last click, but not the five touchpoints that came before.
AMC changes that by allowing you to connect the dots between upper-, mid-, and lower-funnel activity. And when you understand the full picture, you can make better decisions about budget, messaging, and creative.
With AMC, you can answer questions like:
- How many touchpoints does it take, on average, to convert a new customer?
- What role does DSP play in assisting conversions driven by Sponsored Products?
- How do different audiences (e.g., repeat vs. new customers) move through the funnel?
- What’s the optimal time between first exposure and purchase?
That’s insight you can act on, not just stare at in a dashboard.
How to Use AMC to Map and Optimize the Customer Journey
Let’s get tactical. Here’s how to make the most of AMC when analyzing your customer journey:
1. Build Custom Path-to-Purchase Reports
Use AMC to visualize the sequence of ad interactions that lead to a purchase, not just the last one. This shows you the true impact of upper-funnel tactics that may not get credit in last-click models.
Example: You discover that shoppers who saw a DSP video, then clicked a Sponsored Brand ad, then a Sponsored Product are 3x more likely to convert than those who saw just one format.
What to do with it: Reallocate budget to support those high-impact journeys, and use those learnings to shape your future campaigns. Additionally, you can also use audience bid-boosting in Sponsored Products, and create an audience of the first two touchpoints (DSP video/Sponsored Brand ad). With this new audience, when those consumers continue searching, a Sponsored Product campaign can bid higher for them vs. people who weren’t exposed to the first two touchpoints.
2. Segment by Audience Type
AMC allows you to break out journeys for new-to-brand vs. returning customers, giving you insight into how different audiences behave and what kind of messaging or cadence works best.
Example: Returning customers convert after just one or two touches. New customers require 5+ before purchase.
What to do with it: Tailor your creative and retargeting strategy to audience behavior, increasing frequency for new customers and using more product-focused creative for return buyers.
3. Optimize for Incrementality
Not all impressions are equal. AMC lets you analyze incremental lift by comparing exposed vs. non-exposed groups. In other words, what impact did your ads have on actual behavior?
Example: You run an AMC study and find that shoppers who saw your DSP campaign were 40% more likely to purchase within 7 days compared to those who didn’t.
What to do with it: Double down on the most effective formats, and adjust bids or placements where performance is soft.
4. Analyze Cross-Format Assist Rates
AMC doesn’t silo your data, so you can see how different ad types assist each other. Maybe your Sponsored Brands ads aren’t converting directly, but they’re consistently the first interaction in high-value paths.
What to do with it: Stop judging every format on ROAS alone. Use assist data to support the full funnel and prevent early drop-off. For example, brands can leverage AMC audiences in DSP or Sponsored Display to retarget non-converting people who were exposed to Sponsored Brands.
5. Create Smarter Retargeting Segments
You can build audience insights in AMC to identify shoppers who viewed but didn’t purchase, added to cart but abandoned, or engaged with multiple products in a category.
What to do with it: Use these segments to power smarter DSP retargeting campaigns that reflect real behavior — not just broad assumptions.
The TL;DR: AMC Is Your Customer Journey Decoder
Here’s your action plan:
- Use AMC to map multi-touch customer journeys across Amazon ad formats
- Identify which touchpoints actually drive conversion — not just clicks
- Segment insights by new vs. returning customers for tailored strategy
- Measure true incrementality to validate impact
- Build high-intent retargeting audiences based on real user behavior
Understanding the customer journey is no longer a luxury: it’s a competitive advantage. And AMC is the tool that turns fragmented performance data into full-funnel clarity.
Want to start using AMC to uncover what’s really driving your Amazon performance? Let’s talk. Code3 can help you build smarter paths to purchase — and measure every step.