Once you've successfully created an audience in Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), you can leverage it to enhance the performance of your Sponsored Ads campaigns.
AMC audiences can be used in two ways inside Sponsored ads campaigns: Direct Audience Targeting and Bid Boost.
1. Direct Audience Targeting
This method applies exclusively to Sponsored Display campaigns. You can directly add AMC audiences as targets within your campaigns, similar to how other audience targeting works in Sponsored Display.
Steps to Use Direct Audience Targeting:
1. Open the AMC audience manager page.
2. Select the audience you want to add as a target inside SD campaigns, click on action, and choose Add to SD campaigns.
Note - Ensure the audience was created specifically for Sponsored Ads, as DSP audiences are not compatible with this feature.
3. Choose the Sponsored Display campaigns.
4. Assign appropriate bids for the audience.
5. Hit save and you're done.
2. Bid Boost for Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands
Unlike Sponsored Display, Sponsored Products (SP) and Sponsored Brands (SB) campaigns do not support direct audience targeting. Instead, Amazon offers the Bid Boost feature, allowing you to amplify bids for specific audiences linked to your campaigns.
How Bid Boost Works:
Campaign targeting remains the same (e.g., keyword, product, or automatic targeting).
AMC audiences are linked to your campaign as a layer, enabling you to define a percentage bid increase for shoppers in the audience.
Whenever your ad is served to someone in the linked audience, the bid boost is applied, increasing the likelihood of your ad being shown.
Example:
You are selling dog food and have a keyword-targeting campaign with the exact match keyword “dog food.”
Additionally, you’ve created an AMC audience of shoppers who searched for competitors like Pedigree or Purina, saw your ads, but didn’t purchase.
By linking this AMC audience to your campaign with a 20% bid boost, Amazon will prioritize showing your ads to these high-value shoppers by applying the bid increase on top of your base keyword bid.
This works similarly to placement bid adjustments, where you increase bids for top-of-search or product page placements to increase the chances of your ads being shown more on specific placements.
Steps to Set Up Bid Boost:
1. Open the AMC audience manager page.
2. Select the audience you want to use for Sponsored Ads.
Note: Ensure the audience was created specifically for Sponsored Ads, as DSP audiences are not compatible with this feature.
3. Click on the Action button appearing on the top right and choose Bid Boost.
4. Select the campaigns you want to associate with the audience. You can select multiple SP or SB campaigns simultaneously.
5. Enter the percentage increase you’d like to apply (e.g., 10, 20, or 30). Higher percentages may improve visibility but could also increase CPC, so choose wisely.
6. Click Save, and the audience will now be linked to the selected campaigns with the specified bid boost.
By effectively utilizing AMC audiences through Direct Audience Targeting and Bid Boost, you can improve the precision and impact of your Sponsored Ads campaigns, leading to better engagement and higher conversions.
Additional Resource: How to Create Amazon Marketing Cloud Audience in Adbrew
Common Questions About Audience Creation in Adbrew
1. What is the minimum audience size required?
Amazon requires at least 2,000 unique shoppers in an audience for it to be functional. If your audience is smaller, it will fail to process. Adjust your inputs, such as expanding date ranges, selecting more ASINs, or choosing broader criteria.
2. How long does it take for an AMC audience to become Sponsored Ads eligible?
Once you have created an active audience, it typically takes 2-3 days for Amazon's team to review and approve your audience for Sponsored Ads eligibility. This is currently a manual process on Amazon's end, and unfortunately, it cannot be expedited.
3. My AMC audience status is green with 2,000 audiences, but it’s still not Sponsored Ads eligible.
After creating an active audience, it usually takes 2-3 days for Amazon's team to review and approve it for Sponsored Ads eligibility.
Additionally, we refresh the audience list and their eligibility once a day. If it has been more than a day since you created the audience, please click on the "Refresh Audiences" button to sync the updated audience list and their eligibility status. This will help confirm if your audience is now eligible.