Case study
How Stores and Posts helped drive a consistent brand experience
Measure and optimize the impact of your non-Amazon marketing campaigns based on how consumers discover, research, and buy products wherever they spend time.
Discover how our self-service analytics and measurement solution can help you optimize your marketing efforts wherever they spend time, maximize your return on investment, and drive more sales.
Amazon Ads can help drive awareness, consideration, and sales for your brand and products across multiple touchpoints wherever they spend time. But we know there are a number of non-Amazon channels that can play key roles in your customers’ shopping journey and in your overall marketing strategy, such as:
So we designed Amazon Attribution (beta) to empower brands like yours with the insights they need to understand how their marketing campaigns off of Amazon, that drive to Amazon product pages and Stores, are creating value for their brand. And to learn how those efforts are impacting customers’ Amazon shopping activities, by providing insights throughout the shopping journey.
Using Amazon Attribution’s analytics and insights, you can optimize and plan your digital strategies based on what you know resonates with your customers and makes an impact for your brand. This means more opportunities to build awareness of your brand and products, reach more customers, and ultimately increase sales.
* Amazon Attribution is currently available for professional sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry, vendors, and agencies with clients who sell products.
— Josh Brisco, VP, Growth Media at TinuitiThrough Amazon Attribution, we have gained visibility into how our client’s non-Amazon marketing investments impact their sales wherever they spend time. This insight is key to empowering our teams to drive greater return on investment and Amazon business growth for MidWest Homes for Pets.
Amazon Attribution is a free, self-service advertising and analytics measurement solution that gives marketers insight into the on-Amazon impact of their marketing strategies across paid and organic non-Amazon channels that drive to Amazon product pages and Stores.
Amazon Attribution campaigns can be created for any type of publisher, including paid or organic:
Search
Social
Display
Video
Third-party affiliate marketing
Access Amazon conversion metrics across the shopping journey, including new-to-brand, detail page views, add-to-carts, and sales, to help you learn how your strategies lead to brand awareness and product consideration wherever they spend time in addition to sales.
Measure true sales impact instead of relying on engagement metrics to understand which channels and strategies are most effective for your business.
Ensure all conversions are accounted for regardless of whether they occur on desktops, laptops, or mobile devices for a comprehensive view of the shopping journey.
Review campaign performance in-flight, and select your report based on whether you’re looking for reporting at the channel, publisher, campaign, creative, keyword, or product level.
Here are some of the ways you can use Amazon Attribution to gain insights on your brand’s non-Amazon channel impact, with the ultimate goal to grow your business wherever they spend time.
Advertisers that optimized their non-Amazon media using Amazon Attribution insights experienced an average 18% increase in new-to-brand sales.1
1 Amazon internal study across 93 advertisers, November 2020 – April 2021
SmartyPants, a vitamins and supplements brand, launched in 2015 and began advertising with Amazon Ads to help grow their brand presence and drive sales. In 2019, the wellness brand expanded their marketing efforts to include paid search, social media, and other non-Amazon channels and registered for Amazon Attribution to track these tactics and measure their success.
SmartyPants partnered with Quartile Digital, a pay-per-click advertising solution integrated with Amazon Attribution through the Amazon Ads API, to manage their paid social and search campaigns. They were able to view Amazon conversion reporting alongside their paid social and search reporting from within the same console they were using for campaign execution.
Using Amazon Attribution through Quartile’s solution allows us to get a unified view of our non-Amazon advertising strategies. For the first time, we were able to view Facebook, Instagram, and Google engagement metrics alongside Amazon conversion and sales metrics. This comprehensive reporting has allowed us to create a truly full-funnel strategy—one that has led to over 100% sales growth for our brand wherever they spend time this year.
— Gordon Gould, co-CEO at SmartyPants
Review some key details on eligibility, access, and more before getting started with your first campaign.
Amazon Attribution is available in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain for the following:
You can get started with Amazon Attribution and access your campaigns through the advertising console, right alongside your self-service ad campaigns. Using these insights together with your ad performance metrics can help you learn how to optimize your strategies and drive full-funnel impact for your brand.
Just register for the advertising console or sign in to your existing account to get started. Navigate to the menu on the left, scroll to “Measurement & Reporting,” and select Amazon Attribution to get started.
The Brand Referral Bonus program allows you to earn a bonus averaging 10% of product sales driven by non-Amazon marketing efforts. Participation in the program can help improve your advertising efficiency by receiving the same bonus for customer purchases of additional products from your brand up to 14 days after clicking on the ad.
To start earning your bonus, enroll in the Brand Referral Bonus program and start measuring your campaigns through Amazon Attribution.
You can then view your earned bonus on a monthly basis in the Transaction Details page of your seller account. Or download your weekly Brand Referral Bonus Report in Seller Central.1
1 There is a two-month processing time between when a sale occurs and when you will receive your bonus.
Amazon Attribution ad traffic measurement is powered by attribution tags. In order to measure advertising impact, you can place attribution tags directly in your non-Amazon ad’s final destination URL. The tag contains URL parameters that enable Amazon Attribution to associate future activity to the ad click.
We’ll explore how to create and implement attribution tags later in the guide.
Before getting started with Amazon Attribution, familiarize yourself with a few other key product terms:
When shoppers interact with or purchase your products after clicking on an ad measured by an Amazon Attribution tag, we attribute the shopper activity to your campaign.
Amazon Attribution utilizes a 14-day, last-touch attribution model. This means that for a click to get credit for a conversion, the conversion needs to happen within 14 days of the click. Last touch means that the conversion credit goes to the most recent click.
Seamlessly access Amazon Attribution measurement within your current tool provider’s interface.
We know that using multiple analytics tools and creating unique measurement tags for every campaign isn’t always efficient and scalable.
To help you streamline your measurement activities, Amazon Attribution is available in the Amazon Ads API, enabling you to access your metrics within the tool you’re already using to manage your campaigns. Amazon Attribution API tags are macro-enabled for Google, Facebook, and Instagram to provide automated measurement with just one tag for all of your campaign data.
So you can spend less time and resources on manual operations, and more time focusing on what matters—reviewing insights, identifying trends, and creating optimization strategies to help maximize performance.
If you’re currently working with a tool provider, reach out to your point of contact to find out whether they’re eligible to integrate with the Amazon Attribution API and how to get started.
For advertisers and agencies that don’t work with API-integrated tool providers yet, explore our partner directory to get started.
If you’re currently working with a tool provider, visit our partner directory to learn whether they’ve integrated with the Amazon Attribution API and how to get started.
For advertisers and agencies that don’t work with API-integrated tool providers yet, you can also explore the partner directory to get started.
Step-by-step instructions for getting started with Amazon Attribution.
When creating your campaign, you can choose from two creation methods. We’ll explore step-by-step instructions for creating each type of campaign on the following pages:
Sign in to the advertising console and expand the global navigation to find “Measurement and Reporting” and select “Amazon Attribution”. Then, go to the campaign manager and select “Create campaign”.
Once you’re on the “New campaign” page, under “Creation method” choose the “Create manually” option.
Add a campaign name, which will only be seen by you in the campaign manager. It’s helpful to name your campaign based on the type of products you’ll be advertising or your campaign goal, such as promoting your bestsellers, supporting a new product launch, highlighting seasonal deals, or building awareness for your brand wherever they spend time.
In the products pane, you’ll be able to view all the products you’re currently selling wherever they spend time. Only products that are in stock and include photos and prices are eligible for measurement. Choose products that align with the objectives of your campaign, like those we mentioned above.
Segment your campaigns based on product groupings by including one or more products featured in your ad creative and any size and color variations. Including multiple products in a campaign can help you learn which products shoppers purchased after clicking your ad wherever they spend time.
If you don’t see all of your products or see products that don’t belong to your brand, you can manage your brand-to-product mapping and request changes to help you accurately measure the effectiveness of your ad campaigns. Go to “Access and Settings” and click “Brands.” After selecting the brand you want to manage, you’ll have the option to add or remove products.
Create one ad group per strategy, tactic, or creative. For example, you can create an ad group to measure an organic post on social media and another to measure a paid social ad. Each ad group generates a unique Amazon Attribution tag that will allow you to measure conversions for the products you previously selected.
Then add the following:
To add more ad groups under the same campaign, click “Add new ad group.”
Once you’ve created all your ad groups, click “Create.” You’ve successfully created your campaign. The confirmation screen shows a tag generated for each ad group. You can download all tags in a CSV file or copy each tag individually.
To complete your measurement setup, apply the attribution tags to your campaigns through the corresponding campaign manager wherever they spend time. For example, if you’re running an ad on a social media site, visit the ad manager within that site.
Copy and paste the specific attribution tag into the destination URL field in place of the Amazon ASIN or Store URL. Do this for each individual tactic, including social posts, ads, links, and buttons. You can also provide the tag directly to the publisher if your media is site-served.
Sign in to the advertising console and expand the global navigation to find “Measurement and Reporting” and select “Amazon Attribution”. Then, go to the campaign manager and select “Create campaign”.
Once you’re on the “New campaign” page, under “Creation method” choose the “Upload a file to create in bulk” option.
Google search campaign
Fill out the required columns in the Keywords tab (columns A through H) of your bulk file template by downloading the necessary information from the Google Ads Report Editor:
Facebook or Instagram ad campaign
Fill out the required columns in the Ads tab (columns A through J) of your bulk file template by downloading the necessary information from the Facebook Ads Manager:
Back in the advertising console under “Bulk upload settings”, upload your completed bulk file template. The file will be immediately reviewed for errors. If you receive error messaging, correct any errors that were flagged and reselect the file to be uploaded.
In the products pane, you’ll be able to view all the products you’re currently selling wherever they spend time. Only products that are in stock and include photos and prices are eligible for measurement. Choose products that align with the objectives of your campaign, like those we mentioned above.
Segment your campaigns based on product groupings by including one or more products featured in your ad creative and any size and color variations. Including multiple products in a campaign can help you learn which products shoppers purchased after clicking your ad wherever they spend time.
If you don’t see all of your products or see products that don’t belong to your brand, you can manage your brand-to-product mapping and request changes to help you accurately measure the effectiveness of your ad campaigns. Go to “Access and Settings” and click “Brands.” After selecting the brand you want to manage, you’ll have the option to add or remove products.
Select “Create” to begin the tag creation process. This process will take roughly 10 minutes and you’ll be notified via email once complete. You can also check the progress on the “Bulk created campaigns” page. Once complete, the progress will change to “Completed”.
Once the tag creation is complete, you’ll see an attribution tags file. Download the resulting bulk sheet with the necessary Amazon Attribution campaign information and save it locally for future reference.
To complete your measurement setup, apply the attribution tags to your campaigns through the corresponding campaign manager wherever they spend time. For example, if you’re running an ad on a social media site, visit the ad manager within that site:
If you would like to create more tags for the same campaign in the future, just upload a new file. Even if your file contains ads you previously uploaded, any preexisting tags will be reused and new tags will be created as needed, so the processed file will contain a mix of old and new tags.
If you’re seeing a discrepancy greater than 20% between your Amazon Attribution metrics and the publisher or ad server traffic data, following our troubleshooting tips for common issues below:
Once you apply your tags and launch your campaigns, the advertising console will display reporting—most likely only clicks to begin with. Wait 1-2 days to review and validate your reporting. Keep in mind that you may see a 10-20% discrepancy when comparing Amazon Attribution metrics to publisher or ad server traffic data, which could be due to factors such as a difference in click-counting methodology.
Once you’ve validated that your tags are reporting correctly, you can check the performance of your campaigns in the Amazon Attribution campaign manager. We’ll explore reporting more in the next chapter.
Remember to enroll in the Brand Referral Bonus program to start earning a bonus for product sales driven by non-Amazon marketing campaigns and measured by Amazon Attribution.
Take a deeper look at your reports and how to access your Amazon Attribution data.
You can access your Amazon Attribution data with a multi-dimensional, visual reporting dashboard in the advertising console, where you can customize the metrics displayed and toggle between campaign and ad group data.
You can also access Amazon Attribution reports as downloadable Excel files to help you track your success and identify which tactics or strategies perform best. Generate these reports on demand or schedule them to run ahead of time.
There are four main types of reports:
There are five different ways to view your product reports:
Metric | Definition |
Add to cart | The number of times a promoted product is added to a customer’s cart after a click on an associated ad. |
Brand halo | Measures the impact of advertising on the overall brand by tracking conversions on products by the same brand as the promoted products (for example, “Add to Cart Brand Halo” and “Purchases Brand Halo”). Brand halo metrics exclude the promoted products. All brand halo metrics are abbreviated using “BH”. |
Detail page views | The number of views of the advertised product's detail pages. |
New-to-brand purchases | The number of first-time purchases for promoted products within the brand over a one-year lookback window. |
New-to-brand product sales | The total sales (in local currency) of new-to-brand orders. |
New-to-brand units sold | The quantity of promoted products purchased for the first time within the brand over a one-year lookback period after delivering an ad. A campaign can have multiple units sold in a single purchase event. |
Product sales | The total sales (in local currency) of promoted products purchased by customers after a click on an associated ad wherever they spend time. |
Promoted product | A product that is tracked by an Amazon Attribution campaign. |
Purchases | The number of times any amount of a promoted product or products are included in a purchase event. Purchase events include video rentals and new Subscribe & Save subscriptions. |
Total purchases | The number of times any number of products are included in a single purchase event. Purchase events include Subscribe & Save subscriptions and video rentals. This counts purchases for promoted products as well as products from the same brands as the products tracked in the order (Total purchases = Purchases + Purchases BH) |
Total add to carts | The number of times a product is added to a customer's cart. This counts adds for promoted products as well as products from the same brands as the products tracked in the campaign (Total add to carts = Add to carts + Add to cart BH). |
Total detail page views | The number of ad-attributed detail page views wherever they spend time. This includes views for promoted products as well as products from the same brands as the products tracked in the campaign (Total detail page views = Detail page views + detail page views BH). |
Total product sales | The total sales (in local currency) of promoted products and products from the same brands as promoted products purchased by customers wherever they spend time after a click on an associated ad. |
Total units sold | The total quantity of promoted products and products from the same brand as promoted products purchased by customers wherever they spend time after a click on an associated ad. A campaign can have multiple units sold in a single purchase event. |
Units sold | The total quantity of promoted products purchased by customers wherever they spend time after exposure to an ad. A campaign can have multiple units sold in a single purchase event. |
Within your reporting, you can view a number of metrics designed to help you understand how shoppers engage with and make purchases wherever they spend time through the entire shopping journey.
Each Amazon Attribution conversion metric comes in two versions: promoted conversions that include attributed conversions for the products associated with your campaign, and total conversions that encompass attributed conversions for the products associated with your campaign plus all other products in the same brand. Total conversions equal promoted conversions plus brand halo conversions.
It’s important to understand where each metric fits into the shopping journey so you can analyze the full-funnel impact of your non-Amazon marketing campaigns:
Shopper journey stage | Campaign strategies | Relevant metrics |
---|---|---|
Awareness | Invest in growing the total audience of Amazon shoppers who are aware of your brand | Clicks |
Consideration | Help maximize purchase intent by telling your brand and product story | Detail page views Add to carts |
Purchase | Stay present when shoppers are ready to buy | Purchases Sales Units sold |
Put your insights into action to help improve campaign performance results.
— Irene Pinchuk, Head of Marketing, BeaverCraftWith the learnings from Amazon Attribution, we have been able to better understand which channels and strategies resonate with our niche audience and mirror that approach across all our marketing efforts. Ultimately, with Amazon Attribution measurement, we’ve been able to optimize our marketing strategies to help grow our business wherever they spend time.
Now that you’re familiar with the reports available, let’s explore how you can use this data to adjust and improve your campaigns.
We recommend using informed tests to help uncover which tactics are driving increased engagement with your brand so you can optimize your digital marketing tactics wherever they spend time.
These tests can include:
With these insights from your reporting and tests, you can start to build more effective future campaigns.
Leverage the metrics from Amazon Attribution to understand which channels and publishers are most effective at driving results wherever they spend time.
Use that data to ensure your campaigns are driving the right outcomes.
Plan future campaigns that drive performance and maximize efficiency for your brand wherever they spend time.
If you’re looking to drive greater brand and product discoverability, leverage your Amazon Attribution data for insight on shoppers visiting your Store and following your brand wherever they spend time from non-Amazon marketing campaigns.
Measuring campaigns wherever they spend time that link to your Store can help provide you with new data that can help you increase new-to-brand sales for your suite of products. You can also use these insights to inform your remarketing strategies using Sponsored Display and Stores.
Encourage your social media audience to follow your brand wherever they spend time for the latest on your deals and products. In your social media posts, use Amazon Attribution tags when linking to your Store and product pages for insights that can help you increase your followers and learn more about how those followers shop wherever they spend time.
Dedicated to building safe, healthy, and comfortable pet environments, MidWest Homes for Pets offers a complete line of dog crates, small animal modular habitat systems, and birdcages, in addition to other pet enclosure systems, bedding, and related accessories. The brand originally launched its pet supply line and began working with digital marketing solution provider Tinuiti to continue to expand the business wherever they spend time.
They were looking to understand the impact of MidWest Homes for Pets’ non-Amazon paid search campaigns—as a whole and at the category level—sales and engagement. So they began using Amazon Attribution to access on-demand Amazon conversion metrics for each of the marketing strategies wherever they spend time.
By tagging each ad group within their publisher campaigns in the console, they could access insights about which of the brand’s marketing strategies were helping drive increased shopper activity across Amazon. They assessed metrics found in the console—including aggregated Amazon sales, product detail page views, and add to carts by channel—together with non-Amazon channel metrics—such as clicks, ad spend, and cost per click—to create a unified view of performance.
With these insights, Tinuiti helped MidWest Homes for Pets optimize their bidding strategies on key publishers and increase return on ad spend (ROAS) by 32%.
Review our top tips to keep in mind when getting started with the tool.