25 October 2023
Amazon Marketing Cloud now offers sandbox environment
Announced at unBoxed 2023
What’s launched?
Advertisers and partners can now simulate advertiser Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) activities in the sandbox environment, without affecting any live AMC instances. AMC sandbox mimics the functionality of advertiser AMC instances, but contains only synthetic signals that are artificially and programmatically generated to reflect the structure and statistical properties of advertiser signals. Advertisers and partners can use AMC sandbox to assist with their hands-on learning, signal investigation, query iteration and software development pilot with AMC.
The AMC sandbox also includes unique functionalities such as aggregation control toggles and table preview.
With aggregation controls toggle, users can view event-level information of reporting, run on synthetic signals:
- With aggregation control on, users can generate aggregated and anonymous reports based on synthetic signals. This simulates the advertiser analytic reporting experience of using AMC.
- With aggregation control off, users can view event-level synthetic signals when querying. This helps users inspect the underlying composition of the reports. This view is NOT available in advertiser AMC instances.
Example sandbox output with aggregation control on
Users can generate aggregated and anonymous report based on synthetic signals. This simulates the real analytic reporting experience of using AMC.
Example sandbox output with aggregation control off
Users can view event-level synthetic signals when querying. This helps users inspect the underlying composition of the reports. This view is NOT available in advertiser AMC instances.
With table preview, users can quickly inspect the schema and concrete source information of selected tables. This helps foster more contextual understanding about table structure and record format.
Example view of “Table preview” feature
Why is it important?
By mimicking nearly identical AMC features in a safe environment, the AMC sandbox helps advertisers and partners with:
- Hands-on learning: Use AMC sandbox together with other AMC trainings to try out features and use cases, without risking disruptions to live executions
- Signal investigation: Run queries with Aggregation Controls turned off, and inspect non-aggregated reporting in details to understand and optimize queries
- Query iteration: Test and optimize queries constructed in the sandbox, using lighter synthetic signals, and as a result faster query speed
- Paid features exploration: Explore the schema and potential use cases of AMC paid features (beta) outside of the 30-day trial period
- Software development pilot: Enable software and tool developers with or without existing access to advertiser instances to start building on AMC.
Where do I access it?
- AMC UI via the account home page (instance list page)
- AMC API
Who can use it?
- Managed service
- Self-service
Where is it available?
- CA
- MX
- US
- BR
- DE
- ES
- FR
- IT
- NL
- SE
- TR
- UK
- KSA
- UAE
- AU
- IN
- JP