Managing Amazon Ad Data Challenges

New Update: Amazon DSP campaign and creative APIs are now generally available. This is a build on many of the announcements from #unBoxed2024 What is it? This new feature allows users to create, read, and update their Amazon DSP campaigns, ad groups, targets, and creatives through a programmatic interface. How does it work? These APIs enable technology providers and advertisers to develop custom experiences within their own applications and seamlessly run Amazon DSP campaigns within existing workflows. The new APIs can be used in conjunction with existing audience and deal resources, providing a comprehensive toolkit for end-to-end campaign management. Users can now store Amazon DSP campaign data locally, simplify campaign and creative creation, and automate optimizations to maximize campaign performance. Why should I care? This update is a game-changer for Amazon DSP users. Here's why it matters: 1. Efficiency boost: Streamline your campaign and creative creation process, significantly reducing activation time for new campaigns. 2. Better data control: Store and manage Amazon DSP campaign data locally, giving you more control over your data and analytics. 3. Custom optimization: Automate optimizations across campaign, ad group, and targeting settings, allowing for data-driven decisions on bids and budgets. 4. Seamless integration: Easily integrate Amazon DSP into your existing tech stack, enabling you to track campaigns in your own tools and sync campaign metadata with your data storage solutions. 5. Performance improvement: Experiment with new audiences and quickly remove underperforming ones to maximize campaign performance. 6. Real-time adjustments: Automatically adjust bids and budgets in real-time, ensuring your campaigns are always performing at their best. Bottom line: Whether you're a large agency or tech partner looking to integrate Amazon DSP more deeply into your operations or an individual advertiser seeking to automate and optimize your campaigns, these new APIs offer exciting possibilities to enhance your advertising efforts on Amazon's platform. Want to check it out? You can learn more about these new features at the Amazon Ads website (https://lnkd.in/gESdMWhy). For those ready to dive in, check out the developer guide (https://lnkd.in/gQAPRdcs) and reference documentation (https://lnkd.in/gBV-BbVb) to start leveraging these powerful new APIs in your advertising strategy.

Amazon dropped one of the biggest Sponsored Products updates we’ve seen in a long time (and personally was waiting for): ->audience targeting inside SP and the ability to create custom ones with AMC. Most advertisers are going to butcher this. They’ll pile audience bid boosts on top of existing ranking structures, placement modifiers, legacy bids — and then wonder why their campaigns nosedive. That’s how you torch your signals and bleed efficiency. Here’s the approach — the same structure we’re running across multiple brands: 1. Build your audiences inside AMC. This is the only place you’ll get truly clean data. Do not be lazy and use the ones you have available by default, they are mid to upper funnel audiences (which might work if that is what you wanna go after). But now you have access to AMC, so no excuse not to customize the audience based on your target. How to: Go to your ad console -> measurement and reports ->AMC → Use Cases → Audiences → pick the behaviour (ATC, PDP views, click-no-purchase, etc.) → create to Audience Hub. 2. Do not slap audience modifiers onto existing campaigns. If a campaign has a purpose — ranking, defence, etc — stacking audiences on top of it just corrupts the whole bidding logic. And if you’re already using placement modifiers, mixing them with audience modifiers is a guaranteed mess. 3. Create a separate SP campaign built only for the audience. Low base bid - start with half of the lowest suggested. Attach the AMC audience. Modifier applies only to that audience (at least 100% and increase this as needed). This isolates the traffic, preserves signal quality, and gives you a clean testing lane. The outcome across every brand using this structure has been identical: higher conversion rate, lower CPC, better margin. Same budget — just higher-quality traffic. The rule is straightforward: pick the audience that aligns with your objective. Don’t target everything. Fix the biggest gap in your funnel first. I’ve mapped out every audience, organized them by funnel stage, and included recommended starting points. Comment ME and share this post, and I’ll send you the file. #amazonad #amazonadvertising

𝗦𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗖𝗼𝗦? 𝗬𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲. Amazon PPC is far more complex than most sellers think. If you’re just focusing on ACoS, you’re working with incomplete data, leaving a lot of potential profit on the table. Scaling isn’t about just one metric. It’s about understanding the full range of insights that can drive your strategy. Here’s where you need to start digging deeper: - 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸-𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗥𝗮𝘁𝗲 (𝗖𝗧𝗥): Are people even noticing your ads? A low CTR means weak engagement—fix it or you’re wasting impressions. - 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗥𝗮𝘁𝗲 (𝗖𝗩𝗥): Getting clicks isn’t enough. How many are turning into buyers? This reveals how effective your product page truly is. - 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 (𝗔𝗖𝗼𝗦): Classic efficiency metric, but it doesn’t show you if you’re actually building long-term profitability. - 𝗧𝗼𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗖𝗼𝗦 (𝗧𝗔𝗖𝗼𝗦): How balanced are your ad-driven and organic sales? A rising TACoS means you’re becoming overly reliant on ads to keep sales coming. - 𝗔𝗖𝗼𝗦 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗥𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼: Are your ads lifting your organic performance? If this ratio is weak, your advertising is only paying for short-term wins. - 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲: Are you capturing the attention you should? A low impression share means your competitors are outbidding or outsmarting you. - 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁-𝗣𝗲𝗿-𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸: The ultimate profitability check. How much profit are you really making on every ad click? This is the true measure of campaign success. And these are just the 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁𝘀. There are 𝗱𝗼𝘇𝗲𝗻𝘀 of other metrics Amazon provides that can give you an even clearer picture of your ad performance—from keyword-level data to search term reports and beyond. What metrics are you missing in your strategy right now? Let’s dive into it.

Hot take: Most Amazon sellers are optimizing campaigns using data that doesn’t exist yet. The attribution window isn’t a technical detail. It’s a trap. You run an ad. A shopper clicks. No purchase. 6 days later they come back and buy. Now here’s where things get messy: Your Ads dashboard attributes the sale to the click date. Your Business Reports show it on the purchase date. Same week. Different numbers. So what do most sellers do? They panic. They pull data too early. They optimize too fast. They kill campaigns that are quietly working. Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Your 7-day reporting window is lying to you if you pull it before day 14. Amazon’s data needs time to settle. Real optimization starts after the lag, not during it. Most sellers are optimizing noise. The few who wait… Optimize signal. Remember: Good PPC managers optimize campaigns. Great PPC managers optimize timing.

Single-product campaigns work great for 50 products. They fall apart at 5,000. They're impossible at 50,000. The problem with scale: If you give every product its own campaign set, you end up with: → Hundreds of thousands of campaigns → Reports that crash Excel → Amazon's platform timing out → Millions of rows of data you physically cannot analyze One account: 120,000 SKUs, 5 campaigns each = 600,000 rows. The solution: Hybrid tiered structure Stop treating every product the same way. ✅ Tier 1: Top 10-20 Products Your stars. Best sellers with solid reviews. Give them the full structure: → Auto campaign → Manual broad/phrase campaign → Manual exact campaign → Product targeting expanded → Product targeting exact = About 100 total campaigns This is where you spend 80% of your optimization time. ✅ Tier 2: Products 21-500 Mid-tier performers. Consolidated campaigns with single-product ad groups. Example: "Mid-Tier Auto Campaign" with 100 products, each in its own ad group. Product-level control without campaign explosion. ✅ Tier 3: Products 501-5,000 Long tail. Lower volume. Catch-all campaigns organized logically. "Honda Civic Parts - Auto" with 1,000+ products "Kitchen Gadgets - Catch-all" with 500+ products Conservative bids. Minimal management. Tier 4: Everything Else Don't advertise. Why this works: ✓ Keeps reporting/analysis manageable ✓ Focuses budget where it matters ✓ Reports actually download ✓ Optimization becomes possible Products can also move between tiers based on performance. Crushing it in Tier 2? Promote to Tier 1. Slowing down in Tier 1? Consolidate to Tier 2. You cannot micromanage 100,000 SKUs. Build a structure that focuses effort where it counts and keeps the rest on autopilot. This is what actually scales.

If your Amazon agency isn't leveraging Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), they are managing your brand using only 10% of the available map. Standard Amazon Advertising reports show you the last click. AMC shows you the entire battlefield. At the enterprise level, relying on standard reports to attribute sales is like a lawyer trying to win a case while ignoring half the evidence. It’s incomplete, and it’s costing you money. To scale an 8- or 9-figure brand, you have to move beyond Last-Touch Attribution and adopt a surgical view of the customer journey. We use AMC to solve for three critical blind spots: 1. The Multi-Touch Reality AMC allows us to see exactly how your DSP top-of-funnel awareness is actually fueling your bottom-of-funnel PPC conversions. Without this, you’re likely cutting underperforming ads that are actually driving your most profitable sales. 2. Gateway ASIN Identification We use data to find the specific products that serve as the entry point for new-to-brand customers. Once identified, we shift budget aggressively to these "Gateway" items to maximize Lifetime Value (LTV). 3. Frequency Capping Logic Most brands over-saturate their existing customers, wasting ad spend on people who would have bought anyway. AMC lets us identify the point of diminishing returns so we can cap impressions and pivot that spend toward acquisition. The logic is simple: If your data is siloed, your strategy is fragmented. If X (Cross-channel data) is missing from your decision-making, then Y (Maximum Efficiency) is impossible to achieve. We aren't interested in platform averages We are interested in unit economics and the total path to purchase Is your agency still bragging about ROAS based on last-click attribution, or are they showing you the macro-level view of your entire customer journey? Stop guessing. Start using the full data set.

Stop optimizing your Amazon ads. You're fixing the wrong problem. I watch sellers obsess over bid adjustments and keyword tweaks. Meanwhile, they're burning money on products that shouldn't have ads running at all. Product selection beats bidding strategy. Every single time. Last month I saw a seven-figure brand running 50 campaigns. Zero defensive ads protecting their bestsellers. Competitors were stealing their traffic with branded campaigns. They didn't even notice until Q4 revenue tanked. That's not bad optimization. That's structural failure. Low stock products with active ads. You're paying to advertise inventory you can't fulfill. It's like leaving a broken faucet dripping hundred dollar bills into your sink. Pause those campaigns. Or flip to merchant fulfilled if your margins support it. I see this managing $1.2Bn in GMV across 400 brands. The pattern is always the same. New listings launch. Three SKUs go live with one campaign. Two products become invisible to buyers searching for them. Your top sellers should get the lion's share of your ad spend PLUS defensive campaigns blocking competitors from your branded traffic. Protecting market share costs less than winning it back. Run every Amazon ad format you can access. Sponsored Products. Sponsored Brands. Sponsored Display. Category targeting with custom images. Single-format advertisers lose while competitors own multiple placements. Better ACOS starts with better questions, not better bids. Audit which products are actually in your campaigns before touching another bid.

Scaling Amazon Ads without blowing up TACoS isn’t about “spending more.” It’s about spending smarter. Here’s the 8-Point Predictive Budget Model I use to scale profitably while protecting margin: 1️⃣ ASIN-Level Spend Normalization Not all SKUs are equal. Segment hero, halo, and seasonal ASINs. Build SKU-level ROAS benchmarks so budget allocation reflects product role, not guesswork. 2️⃣ CVR Forecasting by Funnel Stage Segment SP, SB, and DSP by conversion stage. Push more budget toward high-probability converters and control upper-funnel waste. 3️⃣ Bid Elasticity Profiling Map ROAS vs. bid levels. Identify diminishing returns. Set caps before efficiency drops. Scaling ≠ overbidding. 4️⃣ 90-Day Spend Forecasting Blend seasonality + CPC trends + growth periods. Predictive pacing prevents reactive overspending. 5️⃣ Adaptive TACoS Targets Set TACoS by SKU margin and LTV shifts. Rebalance weekly. Profit-first scaling wins long term. 6️⃣ Inventory-Synced Pacing Connect ads to FBA inventory. Pause low-stock ASINs. Double down on in-stock winners. No wasted spend on OOS products. 7️⃣ Promo Event Budget Ladders Pre-map Base / Boost / Aggressive tiers for major events. Structured promo scaling > emotional scaling. 8️⃣ Real-Time Optimization Loop Daily data feeds. Auto-adjust bids. Flag underperformance early. Budgets should learn and react. The result?  • Controlled growth.  • Margin protection.  • Smarter allocation across your catalog. Scaling Amazon Ads without breaking TACoS requires systems, not hacks. If you’re managing multi-ASIN portfolios, which of these 8 levers are you currently using? #AmazonAds #PPC #EcommerceGrowth #TACoS #PerformanceMarketing #RetailMedia #AmazonSeller #DigitalMarketing

2025 Broke the Old Amazon Growth Playbook. Here’s Your 2026 Edge. Amazon reported 17.7 billion dollars in ad revenue in Q3 2025, surpassing its typical holiday-quarter performance. At the same time, industry research showed rising cost-per-click and margin pressure across consumer brands. The result was a year where ad spend increased while net profitability declined. A common pattern drove this gap. Campaigns posted strong ROAS, yet SKU-level contribution margins fell because of referral fees, higher cost of goods, discounting, or a shift from organic traffic to paid traffic. Teams without unified data often identified the issue only after losses accumulated. Here at Nectar, we adopted a unified measurement approach early in the year that maintained healthier growth. Our internal reviews showed three consistent findings: 1. Many campaigns labeled “ROAS wins” lost margin once product-level costs were included. 2. Incrementality tests revealed that a significant share of ad-attributed sales replaced organic demand instead of generating new revenue. 3. Demand forecasting, combined with clear visibility into inventory and advertising, helped brands avoid stockouts during Amazon’s expansion of video and AI-driven placements in 2025. The 2026 playbook requires a shift. Instead of increasing budgets, brands need measurement systems that reflect real economics. This includes SKU-level P&L, cross-channel attribution for paid and organic traffic, demand forecasting, and inventory planning. Here are steps worth implementing now: - Unify metrics by integrating SKU-level profit and loss, paid and organic splits, and demand forecasts to identify margin risks early. - Run incrementality tests for newer ad formats, such as Sponsored Video, to measure which investments create net-new demand. - Secure branded placement in search and extend reach through DSP or CTV while evaluating performance through customer lifetime value and retention, not impressions. - Connect advertising to inventory planning, tariff exposure, and retention programs so growth reflects sustainable conditions rather than short-term volume spikes. This approach helped us ad efficiency while preserving contribution margins. It showed that sustainable growth depends on economic clarity, not higher spend. What was your 2025 growth killer? DM me and let's fix it together.