Everything You Need To Know About AMC Custom Audience For Sponsored Ads

Sponsored Ads on Amazon have come a long way. They’ve helped brands get discovered, drive sales, and show up where it matters. Yet, audience targeting has always been a bit of a guessing game. While you can reach high-intent shoppers, there is little control over who you are actually targeting.

That’s changing with Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC). AMC brings together data from across Amazon’s ecosystem (along with your own) to offer much deeper visibility into shopper behavior and ad performance. 

Now, with custom audience capabilities, brands can use these insights to build hyper-specific segments based on real shopper journeys. It gives advertisers an upper hand in reaching the right people at the right time.

Let’s dive into everything you need to know about AMC custom audiences. In this blog, we’ll cover:

• What is AMC Custom Audience?

• How to Create an AMC Custom Audience for Sponsored Ads

• Current Capabilities by Sponsored Ads Format

• How Do Custom Audiences for Sponsored Ads Work?

• Limitations and Challenges

• The Future of AMC Custom Audiences

  
  

What is AMC Custom Audience?

AMC Custom Audience refers to audience segments you build using insights from Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC)—based on actual customer behaviors, shopping patterns, and ad interactions. 

Now, by layering in ad-attributed data, advertisers gain full visibility into the customer journey: who saw which ad, where it was shown, and what ultimately drove the sale. It tracks the exact path from an ad impression to checkout.

With AMC audiences now available for Sponsored Ads, sellers can build precise audience segments based on real behaviors like:

• Shoppers who viewed a product but didn’t purchase 

• Customers who regularly buy from a specific category 

• New-to-brand buyers who have only converted once

These segments can be activated in Amazon DSP for retargeting, upselling, or cross-selling campaigns.

You can also combine data signals from Sponsored Ads, Amazon DSP, Amazon Insights (beta), and even your own first-party data to refine targeting even further. 

For example, a fitness brand selling protein powder could target shoppers who browsed workout gear but haven’t yet purchased any supplements—building an audience that’s both relevant and high-intent.

With this level of insight, you might realize that the metrics you've been chasing aren't the ones driving long-term growth. AMC gives you the clarity to adjust your goals based on what’s actually moving the needle for your brand.

How did the AMC audience work before?

Previously, AMC audiences could only be activated through Amazon DSP campaigns. While this allowed for some level of refined, programmatic targeting, there was still a gap in the funnel, especially when it came to reaching shoppers as they moved further down the funnel towards the point of purchase or repeat interactions.

Meanwhile, Sponsored Ads worked a bit differently. Traditionally, advertisers relied heavily on bidding for high-traffic keywords as search has always been the main way shoppers navigate Amazon. The strategy was simple. Targeting those keywords so your product appears when purchase intent is at its peak. 

But this approach had limitations, it often meant chasing broad, high volume search terms without knowing who was actually seeing your ad or how close they were to converting.

Take this example: If you sell protein bars and bid on the term “healthy snacks,” your ad might get tons of impressions—but not necessarily from shoppers who are ready to buy your exact product. 

That’s where AMC audiences with Sponsored Ads changes the game. 

How to Create an AMC Custom Audience for Sponsored Ads

Here's a step-by-step guide to walk you through the process of creating custom audiences in AMC.

Step 1: Access AMC via Amazon Ads Console

To begin, log into your Amazon Advertising Console and navigate to your AMC instance. If you do not have an AMC instance, you can simply write to us at ask@atom11.com and we will set you up in 24 hours.

Step 2: Navigate to the Audiences Panel

Once you’re in AMC, head to the “Audiences” panel from the left-hand menu. This is your command center for managing custom audiences.

Here, you'll find a table listing all audience requests submitted in your instance. Each row provides useful details, including:

• Status: Indicates if the audience is Pending, Running, Completed, or Failed (with error details if failed).

• Audience Name & Description: This is where you give your audience a clear, descriptive label that helps your team understand exactly who the audience includes. (Ex: Cart Abandoners - Last 10 Days)

• Audience Size: This value appears once AMC finishes building the audience. It tells you how many users match your selected criteria.

• Date Created: Shows when the audience request was submitted for tracking and reference.

To create a new audience, click on the “Create Audience” button. You'll be given two options, create with instructional query or create from scratch.

We recommend starting with an Instructional Query (IQ). These are pre-built SQL templates provided by Amazon that make it easier to create audience segments based on common behaviors. 

If you want to get started with a pre-built custom audience, then you can request a specific AMC audience on atom11. As a seller, you can benefit from these easy to access custom audience when you have specific requirements and want to speed things up. 

As you can see in the image above, we already have some pre-built audiences, but you can always request your specific requirements.

Step 3: Data Segmentation – Choose a Use Case

The pre-built Instructional Query (IQ) templates are categorized by user behavior to help you target specific segments without starting from scratch.

Some useful templates include:

• Clicked but Not Purchased - Great for re-engaging users who showed interest but didn’t convert.

• Cart Abandoners - Target high-intent users who added products to cart but didn’t complete the purchase.

• Streaming TV Exposed but No Display Ads - Helps measure or retarget users exposed to only one campaign type.

Pick a template based on your objective. For instance, if you're looking to recover lost sales, select "Added to Cart but Did Not Purchase" to build a cart abandoner audience quickly. Atom11 offers a lot more such as “audience with multiple detail page views,” “audience that clicked sponsored ads but did not purchase,” and more.

These templates not only save time but also come with built-in SQL logic and notes to help you customize further if needed.

Step 4: Explore and Edit the Query Template

Clicking on a chosen IQ template has everything you need to confidently build your audience:

• Template Overview - Understand what the query is designed to do and the user behavior it targets.

• Requirements - Any conditions or constraints you need to be aware of before using that specific IQ template. (Ex: Few IQs are only applicable for on-Amazon conversions.)

• Table References - Understand which AMC data tables (like cart, purchase, impressions) are being used to define the audience.

• Exploratory Query - A sample query that helps you check if your audience is large enough before actually creating it.

• Pre-written SQL Code - Fully editable, with inline instructions to help you customize it to your brand.

To start building, simply click “Open in Audience Query Editor.” You get the entire template into your workspace. Now you can customize and execute it without copying manually.

Step 5: Build and Customize Your Audience Segment

Now that you've chosen a template, you'll land in the Create Audience workflow. This is where you customize the audience to match your campaign goals.

• Select Advertiser: Choose the connected Amazon DSP account where you’ll activate this audience.

• Name and Describe the Audience: Use a specific name with helpful description so your media team knows exactly who this audience includes.

• Set Refresh Options: Set the “Refresh Frequency” to daily and enable “Auto-Adjust Date” to ensure your audience always reflects the latest user behavior.

• Choose Lookback Window: Pick a time frame (ex: last 7 days) based on how soon users typically convert. Use past data to align with your brand’s buying cycle.

• Edit the SQL Query: 

1. Replace placeholder ASINs (Amazon Standard Identification Numbers) with your product’s actual IDs to track specific items. 

2. Remove ASIN filters for broader targeting, or add custom logic like region or keyword interactions for refined segmentation.

• Create Audience: Once everything looks good, click “Create Audience” to submit it for processing.

Step 6: Monitor and Apply the Audience

Once submitted, your audience will show up as Pending in the Audiences panel. It will move through different statuses: Pending → Running → Complete (or Failed).

If it fails, click the details dropdown to view the error. Once marked Complete, share the Audience ID with your DSP team to activate it in live campaigns.

Step 7: Using AMC’s AI Features

Amazon Ads has introduced a generative AI-powered SQL generator within Amazon Marketing Cloud. It allows advertisers to create audience segments faster and more intuitively. Instead of manually writing complex queries, you can describe your goal in plain language. For example: Create an audience of users who saw my streaming TV ads but didn’t purchase in the last 30 days.

Once generated, advertisers can run the query in AMC to build and activate the audience in Amazon DSP or Ads Console across channels.

Current Capabilities by Sponsored Ads Format

Now that you’ve built your custom AMC audience, the next step is activating it across Amazon’s Sponsored Ads formats. Each format offers distinct ways to leverage your audience segments for better performance and campaign control.

1. Sponsored Brands

How it works: While launching a campaign, you can boost bids specifically for AMC audiences. This gives you more control when targeting high-value segments.

Best for: Increasing brand awareness and driving interest across your full product catalog.

Placement: Ads appear on search results pages and feature your brand logo, headline, and a selection of products. You can direct shoppers to your store or a product collection page.

2. Sponsored Products

How it works: Boost bids for AMC audiences during campaign setup or while managing live campaigns. This allows you to prioritize spend on high-value segments that are more likely to convert.

Best for: Driving conversions and increasing visibility for specific products.

Placement: Ads appear in search results and on product detail pages. Clicking the ad leads directly to the product’s detail page.

3. Sponsored Display

How it works: Sponsored Display allows direct targeting of AMC audiences without needing bid modifiers. This format gives you the most flexibility in reaching users both on and off Amazon.

Best for: Retargeting users, cross-selling, or reaching audiences across the web and apps.

Placement: Ads can show on Amazon, third-party websites, and apps. You can target by behavior (example: product views without purchase) or related categories.

Direct targeting limitations: 

Currently, only Sponsored Display lets you directly target your custom AMC audiences. This means you can choose exactly who you want to reach.

However, with Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands, you can’t directly select the audience. Instead, you use bid-boosting, which signals Amazon to increase your bid for users in that segment. This helps prioritize your ads for those users, but it doesn’t guarantee they will always see them.

So, if you want more control and precision when reaching your AMC audiences, especially for retargeting then Sponsored Display is your go-to format.

Each format plays a distinct role in the funnel. Use Sponsored Brands for awareness, Sponsored Products for intent-driven traffic, and Sponsored Display for retargeting and broader reach. Together, they help you run full-funnel campaigns that truly maximize your AMC audience segments.

| Related Read: Amazon Ads Placement 101: All You Need To Know

How Do Custom Audiences for Sponsored Ads Work?

Granular Audience Segmentation

Custom audiences in AMC go beyond basic segments. They’re built using deep behavioral and transactional insights. Let’s break down the core data types AMC taps into and how each helps you build more relevant audiences:

1. Transaction Data: This includes details like 

• Past purchases 

• Order frequency

• Basket size 

• Product categories

• Time between purchases 

You can learn a lot from what people actually buy. With this insight, you can create highly targeted segments for retargeting or new offers.

For example, you can:

• Create an audience of users who bought a specific ASIN in the last 30 days.

• Target frequent repurchasers from a certain category.

You can retarget these audiences with complementary items or send them reminder campaigns to boost engagement.

AMC allows you to tap into historical purchase data, meaning you can create audiences from past customers, even those who purchased 1-2 years ago. This ability helps you build loyalty loops, upsell smartly, and keep customers engaged over time.

2. Browsing Data: This data includes 

• Product views 

• Wishlist additions 

• Search history 

• Add-to-cart data. 

This behavior gives you early signals of intent, even if they don’t hit “buy.”

For example: Someone views your products multiple times but never makes a purchase. You can build an audience of these high-intent browsers and nudge them with a limited-time offer. It’s a great way to convert window-shoppers into actual customers.

3. Engagement Data: This covers interaction with ads, product detail pages, and videos. High engagement means interest, even if a user hasn't converted yet.

Here’s how AMC captures anonymized, event-level customer interactions across the purchase journey.

With AMC, you can create sequential messaging paths. For example, show an educational ad first, followed by a limited-time offer only to those who engaged with the first message. This way, your campaigns feel more like a story than spam.

4. First-Party Data Integration: AMC also lets you bring in your own data like:

• CRM lists 

• Loyalty program users

• Email subscribers

This gives you more control over targeting, especially for returning customers or VIP segments.

For example: You could combine email subscriber data with AMC signals to build a list of customers who haven't opened recent emails but have been actively browsing on Amazon. Now, instead of chasing them through inboxes they aren’t checking, you can meet them where they’re already browsing–on Amazon.

You can also use overlap analysis via AMC’s Audience Segment Insights to find shared characteristics between your existing customers and broader in-market audiences. This helps you scale smart without wasting time on the wrong audience.

Practical Ways to Use AMC Custom Audiences in Campaigns

With AMC, your audience-building options are virtually endless. If you can think of a segment, chances are you can create it. To help with creative ideas for audience customization, here are a few examples to get you started:

1. Upsell Audience:

An upsell audience allows you to promote higher-value or complementary products to customers who’ve already made a purchase. It’s one of the most effective ways to increase AOV (Average Order Value) without reaching cold audiences. 

With Amazon Marketing Cloud, you can identify shoppers who recently bought Product A and serve them Sponsored Display ads for Product B, a logical next step in their journey. It’s intent-based upselling driven by real purchase data.

2. Retargeting Past Ad Viewers: 

Shoppers rarely convert after a single ad, it’s usually a sequence of touchpoints across formats that drives a purchase. AMC gives you full visibility into this journey and lets you retarget based on past ad engagement.

You can build custom audiences of users who watched a Sponsored Brands video, or clicked a Sponsored Display ad, or saw a DSP impression and re-engage them with relevant follow-ups.

For instance, if you’ve found that exposure to a Sponsored Brands ad, followed by a Sponsored Display ad, improves conversions. You can use AMC to recreate that exact path. Build a custom audience of users who engaged with your Sponsored Brand ad earlier and retarget them with a Sponsored Display ad.

This kind of sequenced messaging keeps your brand top-of-mind and delivers the right nudge at the right time.

3. Search Behavior-Based Targeting:

With AMC, you can go beyond real-time keyword targeting and reach shoppers based on their search behavior. 

For example, if someone searched for a generic term (say wireless headphone) but didn’t make a purchase, you can build a custom audience and retarget them with a Sponsored Display ad highlighting your top product in that category.

It’s a smart way to re-engage mid-funnel shoppers who’ve shown intent but haven’t yet made a purchase decision.

4. Subscriber vs. Non-Subscriber Targeting:

Not all customers interact with your brand the same way. With AMC, you can segment shoppers based on their subscription status and customize your ads accordingly.

Let’s say someone is already subscribed to Product A. You can create a custom audience of these loyal users and promote add-ons or complementary products like Product B. On the flip side, for non-subscribers who’ve only purchased once, you could show a Sponsored Display ad highlighting the benefits of a subscription plan such as discounts, exclusive access, etc.

It’s all about context, delivering the right message to the right user based on their relationship with your brand.

5. New Audience Filters:

AMC opens up advanced audience filters that go beyond what DSP offers. This helps you segment with greater precision for Sponsored Ads.

You can target shoppers who’ve never seen your ad, users who viewed your product page months ago, or customers made a purchase over a year back. This opens up long term targeting opportunities that were previously hard to reach.

For instance, if you sell long lasting products. You can build an audience of customers who bought two years ago and retarget them with Sponsored Display ads for matching products. Timing these ads properly to coincide with their potential repurchase window can help maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Here’s How You Can Actually Do It With Atom11

All these strategies are powerful, but building them inside AMC can still be complex and confusing especially if you're not fluent in SQL or don’t have a data analyst on hand. 

atom11’s AMC Suite makes it much easier to put these strategies into action. It gives you ready-to-use audience templates and smart audience segmentation options. You can also get customized AMC reports for better data visualization. 

Moreover, you can use performance-boosting tools like the Amazon Ads Bid Booster to help you target audiences at the right moment with optimized bidding. Here, you don’t have to build from scratch. 

Limitations and Challenges of AMC Custom Audiences

While AMC custom audiences open up powerful targeting possibilities, there are a few practical limitations to keep in mind. Here’s a quick look at the few limitations and challenges that you may face while advertising through AMC custom audience:

No Negative Audiences for Sponsored Display: AMC doesn’t support creating negative (exclusionary) audiences for Sponsored Display campaigns as of now. You can't explicitly exclude a custom audience, like past purchasers or converters, which limits granular control.

No Frequency Capping: AMC Custom Audiences don't natively support frequency capping for Sponsored Ads. This means you can't directly control how many times an ad is shown to a user within a certain timeframe. Doing this can lead to overexposure or ad fatigue if not monitored externally.

High CPCs and ACOS: AMC Custom Audiences are applied as bid boosts, which often leads to higher CPCs (Cost Per Click), sometimes even going above $100 in competitive categories. As a result, ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sale) can spike, especially for niche or lower-funnel segments.

This makes it important to optimize aggressively and ensure every dollar invested brings results. Smaller, more precise audiences usually perform better but they also tend to cost more per click. The best practice here is to consistently monitor CPC trends by audience size and intent.

Audience Overlap: When creating multiple custom audience segments, there’s a real risk of overlap. This means the same user could exist in multiple groups. This can lead to inefficient budget use or data misinterpretation.

To avoid it:

• Use mutually exclusive conditions in SQL queries

• Regularly audit segment logic to minimize overlap

• Consider segmenting by distinct funnel stages (like product viewers vs. cart abandoners)

Data Quality Issues: AMC data depends on the inputs from Amazon’s ecosystem. Issues like outdated, incomplete, or misattributed data can result in low-performing audiences.

How to maintain data quality:

• Regularly update audience queries with recent activity.

• Use filters to remove stale users (like inactive past 90 days).

• Align audience creation with conversion windows and campaign goals.

Balancing Scale vs. Precision: Hyper-targeted segments often yield better results but limit reach. Broad segments scale but may dilute performance.

Consider these:

• Start with broader segments and gradually layer in precision using filters.

• Test multiple tiers (example: high-intent, mid-intent) and compare ROAS (return on ad spend).

• Use AMC reports to identify traits of high-value customers and scale those.

Budget Allocation: Without careful planning, you may overspend on underperforming segments or miss out on scaling profitable ones.

Best practices:

• Use AMC reporting to compare performance metrics across segments.

• Allocate budgets dynamically based on performance, CPC trends and audience size.

• Regularly monitor and optimize using cost-per-metric thresholds (like cost per add-to-cart or cost per new-to-brand customer).

  
  

The Future of AMC Custom Audiences

Amazon Marketing Cloud is growing into a go-to tool for marketers who want sharper targeting, better insights, and more control over their campaigns. Here’s what we can expect in the coming years:

​​Direct Targeting Across All Sponsored Ads Formats

In the future, AMC will enable direct targeting across all Sponsored Ads formats, including Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands. This will expand advertisers’ ability to apply precise audience targeting across the entire Amazon advertising ecosystem.

AI-Driven Real-Time Audience Updates

Artificial intelligence is set to play a central role in AMC’s future. AI integration will allow AMC to dynamically update audience segments in real-time, keeping campaigns relevant by responding to live customer behavior and optimizing targeting on the fly.

Cross-Channel Advertising Integration

Looking ahead, AMC is likely to integrate more deeply with external platforms such as social media, email, and display ads. By connecting Amazon’s rich customer data with other platforms, AMC could provide a unified view of customer journeys across the web, enabling more effective, synchronized campaigns that drive greater engagement and conversion across all touchpoints.

Besides these, you can expect Amazon to expand the query template library in an effort to lower the difficulty of data usage. Throughout these updates, privacy will remain a top priority, ensuring that all data usage is secure and compliant.

Conclusion

AMC has now changed for modern marketers. With AMC Custom Audiences, advertisers can tap into richer insights, reach more relevant shoppers, and elevate their campaign performance for sponsored display ads. Whether you’re optimizing bids or building full-funnel strategies, AMC gives you the freedom to test, learn, and scale with confidence.

From advanced customer segmentation to custom reporting, use atom11 AMC Suite to fully harness AMC's capabilities. Whether you're a seller, brand, or agency, atom11 brings the tools and expertise to help you navigate AMC smoothly. No complex SQL or steep learning curve required.

Ready to take the next step? Book a demo with atom11 to see how we can help you turn AMC’s potential into play.

FAQ

What is AMC Custom Audience, and why is it important for Sponsored Ads?

AMC Custom Audience is a group of shoppers created using actual data from Amazon Marketing Cloud. This data includes behavioral insights such as purchases, searches, or ad interactions. Instead of broad targeting, you’re reaching people based on what they’ve already shown interest in. That makes your Sponsored Ads way more relevant, resulting in better engagement and stronger conversions.

How much does Amazon Marketing Cloud cost?

There’s no fee to get started with AMC. Using AMC is free for eligible advertisers, and there’s no cost to access it for most standard use cases. However, costs may arise if you use premium datasets, paid features, or tap into AWS for advanced queries and data processsing. 

Do I need an AMC account to use Custom Audiences for Sponsored Ads?

Yes, you do. To create and activate custom audiences for Sponsored Ads, you’ll need to have access to Amazon Marketing Cloud. It’s what allows you to analyze customer behavior and build those precise audiences for your campaigns.

Can I exclude certain audiences from Sponsored Ads?

At the moment, AMC doesn’t support excluding audiences from Sponsored Ads. The feature for exclusion controls is offered by Amazon DSP.

How to add custom audience?

Once you’ve created your custom audience in AMC, you can export it directly to your Sponsored Ads campaigns. For Sponsored Display, you can directly target the custom audience you’ve built. For Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands, you can use these audiences to boost your bids, helping to improve campaign performance.