The enterprise AMC playbook: How brands drive growth with AMC

Introduction

Sreenath Reddy:
Thank you all for joining. Today’s session is focused on how enterprise brands can unlock significantly more value from Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC).

What we consistently see across the ecosystem is that AMC is still under-leveraged, despite the depth of data and signals now available. This webinar is about shifting how brands think about AMC—from a narrow advertising tool to a core analytics asset for retail, media, and cross-channel decision-making.

I’m Sreenath Reddy, CEO and co-founder of Intentwise, and I’m joined by Kenton Snyder, Product Manager at Intentwise.

AMC Is No Longer Just an Advertising Tool

Historically, Amazon Marketing Cloud was used almost exclusively by ad teams or agencies to optimize advertising performance. Most AMC use cases focused on:

• Campaign optimization
• Audience creation
• Media efficiency

What has changed is the breadth of data now available inside AMC.

AMC has evolved into a dataset that supports:

• Retail performance analysis
• Customer behavior analysis
• Cross-channel optimization
• Long-term growth strategy

Brands should rethink AMC as a central intelligence layer, not just an ad optimization engine.

Why Brands Must Own Their AMC Instance

One of the first recommendations for brands is simple:
Own access to your AMC instance.

If AMC access lives only with an agency, brands lose visibility, continuity, and long-term learning. Direct access allows internal teams to:

• Ask better questions
• Build institutional knowledge
• Connect AMC insights to broader business strategy

What Is Now Possible With Amazon Marketing Cloud

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) Analysis

AMC now provides up to five years of shopper-level retail data for 1P brands. This enables:

• Cohort-based CLV analysis
• 3-, 6-, 12-month and multi-year value tracking
• CLV analysis tied directly to advertising exposure

For 3P brands, while CLV was previously possible, it was not connected to ad data in this way.

Churn and Repeat Purchase Analysis

Brands can now answer questions such as:

• When do customers drop off?
• Which cohorts repeat most frequently?
• How long does it take customers to make a second or third purchase?

This data enables smarter retention strategies and more targeted re-engagement.

Follow-On Product and Bundling Insights

AMC enables analysis of:

• Products purchased after an initial ASIN
• Cross-product purchase patterns over 1-, 3-, and 6-month windows

This insight supports:

• Bundling strategy
• Cross-sell decisions
• Portfolio-level optimization

Shopper Abandonment Analysis

Brands can now see where shoppers drop off across the funnel:

• Detail page views
• Add to cart
• Wishlist or gift list actions

This allows teams to:

• Identify products with abnormal drop-off
• Investigate root causes
• Create precise retargeting audiences

Why Most Brands Still Under-Leverage AMC

Despite these capabilities, many brands fail to extract full value from AMC. The most common challenges include:

1. Awareness Gaps

Teams often don’t know:

• What data is available
• What questions AMC can answer
• What use cases exist beyond ads

2. Data Complexity

Enterprise brands bring complexity:

• Custom product taxonomies
• Custom media structures
• First-party data sources

Without integrating this data into AMC outputs, insights remain disconnected from real business decisions.

3. Technology Limitations

The native AMC console lacks:

• Query scheduling
• Automated dashboards
• Simple first-party data ingestion
• Robust error handling

Operating AMC at scale requires additional infrastructure.

4. Customization Needs

The most valuable questions are often unique to each business.
Standard, out-of-the-box queries rarely answer:

• Brand-specific growth questions
• Portfolio-level profitability questions
• Advanced incrementality questions

Recommendations for Enterprise AMC Adoption

Prioritize AMC Education

Brands should invest in:

• Amazon’s official AMC certification
• Structured learning resources
• SQL proficiency for AMC use cases

Understanding what’s possible is foundational.

Build a Roadmap of Business Questions

Start with:

• 5–10 high-impact questions
• Audience ideas tied to real business goals
• Iterative refinement as insights evolve

AMC value compounds over time when questions are intentional.

Address Custom (Bespoke) Analytics Needs

As questions become more advanced, brands must:

• Build in-house AMC and SQL capability, or
• Partner with experts who can deliver custom queries and audiences

Customization is not optional at enterprise scale.

Invest in the Right AMC Tech Stack

Operating AMC effectively requires:

• Secure ingestion of first-party and custom data
• Query and audience libraries (standard + custom)
• Scheduling and automation
• Error handling and retry logic
• Audience activation across Sponsored Ads and DSP
• Dashboards and optional white-label reporting
• Data pipelines to preserve historical data beyond AMC’s rolling windows

Examples of Custom AMC Use Cases

Brands are using AMC to:

• Measure retargeting incrementality
• Analyze long-term DSP impact beyond attributed revenue
• Understand lifetime value of Subscribe & Save customers
• Redefine “new-to-brand” based on business logic
• Map ASINs to search terms across campaigns
• Analyze deal ASIN performance during Prime Day and BFCM

These insights are not available through standard Amazon reporting.

How Intentwise Supports Enterprise AMC Programs

Intentwise believes AMC success requires three components:

Technology

Intentwise Explore, co-developed with Amazon, includes:

• Data ingestion
• Query and audience management
• Scheduling and automation
• Activation and reporting

Analytics Services

Custom support for:

• Advanced queries
• Audience creation
• Dashboards
• Incrementality and LTV analysis

Education

Ongoing education through:

• Webinars
• Learning Hub resources
• Community and industry events

AMC in a Broader Retail Media Ecosystem

As clean rooms emerge across platforms like Instacart, Walmart, TikTok, Google, and Meta, the core use cases remain consistent:

• Shopper journey analysis
• Audience creation
• Lifetime value and retention analysis

The future belongs to platforms that can connect signals across channels, not analyze them in isolation.

Closing

Amazon Marketing Cloud represents one of the most powerful data assets available to brands today—but only when paired with the right strategy, skills, and technology.

Thank you for joining us. We’ll be sharing a white paper and offering free consultations to help teams assess their AMC maturity and next steps.