How AMZ Pathfinder used Intentwise to build a full-funnel strategy

Step 1: Intentwise Ad Optimizer

In 2021, after leaving its previous ad-tech partner, the agency AMZ Pathfinder started using the Intentwise Ad Optimizer. 

Intentwise first impressed Pathfinder with its seamless transition plan. Pathfinder had its own data warehouse, with client data going back to 2018. It didn’t want to lose any of it.

Intentwise easily migrated Pathfinder’s warehouse into a new one that would be compatible with our platform. New data could be piped in, and none of the historical data was lost. 

The Ad Optimizer quickly became table stakes for Pathfinder—a way to visualize and analyze performance, programmatically adjust bids, create automated rules, and set alerts and receive recommendations about ways to optimize its ad performance.

But pretty quickly, Pathfinder became eager for more: It wanted to understand its ad performance through the lens of other retail signals.

Step 2: Intentwise Analytics Cloud

“Advertising does not exist in a vacuum,” said Brent Zahradnik, founder of AMZ Pathfinder. 

The success of an ad campaign does not only correlate to the keywords or bids you choose. Instead, retail factors like Best Seller Ranks, badges, customer reviews, and competitor interference—such as competitors running Lightning Deals or Prime Exclusive Deals or coupons—can have an outsized impact on performance.  

Inventory matters, too. Pathfinder is always optimizing its ads based on inventory levels. The agency slows spending when inventory is low, and it forgoes worse-than-average ACOS numbers if it’s a time period, like Q4, where storage fees are high. 

“If we’re able to quickly, in one platform, tie those things together, that gives us much more confidence in the changes we’re making with ads,” Zahradnik said. 

Intentwise Analytics Cloud unlocked that 360-degree view for AMZ Pathfinder. Intentwise downloaded and sorted all of Pathfinder’s client reports through our proprietary algorithm, leading to faster analysis and load times. Ads, inventory, customer reviews, and retail data all became intertwined. 

From there, AMZ Pathfinder was able to seamlessly connect the signals from Intentwise Ad Optimizer and Intentwise Analytics Cloud. Zahradnik said his team members are always toggling back and forth between the two. “It’s like two hands passing a ball back and forth.” 

Plus: With Intentwise Analyics Cloud, Pathfinder could provide customized reporting and high-end visuals to its clients at scale, using its existing database sources.

Step 3: Intentwise Explore

Even with that clean, connected view of its ads and retail data, AMZ Pathfinder still had larger business questions it wanted to answer. 

For example, the Pathfinder team wanted to see just how DSP ads were fitting into the customer journey. Was DSP actually working to drive awareness? 

With Intentwise Explore, our powerful analytics platform and pipeline for Amazon Marketing Cloud, the Pathfinder team could track the shopper paths to purchase at scale. 

In Intentwise Explore, Zahradnik could choose from a library of customizable queries, schedule them to run automatically at regular intervals, and watch as the results load into beautiful, automatic visualizations that it forwards to its clients. 

With Explore, “we finally feel like we have the connective tissue between the upper funnel and the lower funnel,” Zahradnik said. 

Then, it could channel those insights right back into its bid strategy in the Ad Optimizer. For AMZ Pathfinder, Intentwise Ad Optimizer, Intentwise Analytics Cloud, and Intentwise Explore all tie together. According to Zahradnik, “I look at it like three legs of a stool.”