Newcomers to Amazon DSP will be pretty quickly impressed by the level of granularity of DSP audiences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to the audiences that Amazon creates for you, such as Lifestyle audiences, Amazon lets you make your own audiences from scratch. Through the Amazon DSP Audience Builder, you can create audiences of shoppers based on categories like: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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These are all powerful targeting capabilities. All told, they\u2019re a reason why we often say that DSP ads don\u2019t have to be top-of-funnel<\/a>. With Amazon DSP, you can get as specific or as general as you need. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But DSP built audiences have a number of important limitations\u2014limitations that you can only get around by first creating a custom audience in Amazon Marketing Cloud, and then<\/em> pushing it to Amazon DSP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So what is the difference between audience building capabilities in Amazon Marketing Cloud as opposed to Amazon DSP? What can you do with AMC that you can\u2019t with Amazon DSP? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s break it down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When you create a custom audience in Amazon Marketing Cloud, you can run ads to shoppers based on behaviors that aren\u2019t available to in DSP. For instance, with AMC, you can:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Go after add-to-cart or add-to-list shoppers<\/strong>. One of the simplest selling points of Amazon Marketing Cloud is that you can target shoppers who added a product to their cart or to a gift or wish list, but didn\u2019t purchase. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These are powerful audiences that are very close to the point of sale\u2014but you have no way to directly target them in the Amazon DSP Audience Builder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Reach shoppers who searched for a specific keyword.<\/strong> Similarly, what if you want to go after shoppers who searched for your brand name or another keyword but didn\u2019t end up purchasing? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sure, you can run a Sponsored Ad in the search results for those keywords, but with Sponsored Ads, you\u2019re always going to be jockeying for space. A well-placed DSP ad a few days after the search might be enough to draw the shopper to your product page, and score a conversion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You can\u2019t build audiences around specific keyword searches in DSP, but you can in Amazon Marketing Cloud. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Create audiences based on patterns of behavior<\/strong>. What if you want to reach a group of shoppers that has already had specific touchpoints with your brand? For instance, what if you want to reach people who have already seen 2 of your DSP ads? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Because Amazon Marketing Cloud is the only way to map out your shoppers\u2019 path to purchase, it is also the only way to create audiences based on multiple touchpoints. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Build an audience based on any touchpoints imaginable\u2014the ads they viewed, the product pages they clicked, or any combination thereof. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Go beyond the traditional targeting metrics altogether<\/strong>. Want to reach shoppers based on something other than what they\u2019ve searched or which product pages they\u2019ve viewed? <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Amazon Marketing Cloud paid subscription<\/a>, Amazon Insights, includes an audience targeting tool called Audience Segment Insights. Audience Segment Insights essentially tells you new facts about Amazon\u2019s default audiences, e.g. Lifestyle or In-Market audiences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You can now see how many shoppers are included in those audiences, how many of them are your customers, and so on. It is especially useful for high-funnel campaigns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, you might want to target people who are in the fictional lifestyle segment of \u201cPet Owners.\u201d But, if you don\u2019t have a huge budget, that audience is probably too broad for your campaign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By using Audience Segment Insights, you might be able to realize that a portion of that broader \u201cLifestyle: Pet Owners\u201d audience overlaps with another audience \u201cIn-Market: Pet Supplies.\u201d You could use this insight to add the \u201cIn-Market\u201d audience to your targeting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Take this a step further by creating an audience of people who have purchased from your brand before, and run the same overlap analysis. If you find that somebody in your past purchaser’s audience is 4x more likely<\/strong> to also be \u201cIn-Market: Pet Supplies,\u201d you should add that In-Market audience to your campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can also get more granular from there. Add in other demographic info like household income, location, or life updates, like \u201cRecently Moved\u201d or \u201cNew Parents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another difference between AMC and DSP audiences is that AMC much more holistically lets you create\u2014or negate\u2014audiences based on their exposure to your ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can\u2019t set full frequency caps in DSP<\/strong>. Marketers are keen to set frequency caps because they don\u2019t want to overexpose the same shopper to their ads too many times. If someone sees your ads 10x and still hasn\u2019t converted, chances are, they probably won\u2019t convert on the 11th try. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s why you need to be meticulous about negating audiences who\u2019ve seen your ads too many times already. DSP lets you set frequency caps at a daily or hourly level<\/strong>, so you can be sure the same shopper doesn\u2019t see an ad of yours, say, 4x in a day. <\/p>\n\n\n\nTarget shoppers based on new behaviors in AMC<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Sort your audiences based on ad exposure<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n