Amazon Ads is revolutionizing how brands measure and optimize their advertising strategies. At CES 2025, Amazon announced a significant update to Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC): brands can now query up to five years of Amazon store purchase signals. This update dramatically expands the current lookback window of 13 months, offering unparalleled insights for advertisers.
AMC is a secure, privacy-safe, cloud-based clean room solution that provides sophisticated planning and measurement capabilities for advertisers of all sizes. With this expanded lookback window, brands gain a more complete view of their customer journey, especially for longer lifecycle and seasonal products.
Empowering Brands with Enhanced Metrics
Amazon Ads continually expands AMC’s full-funnel planning, measurement, and optimization capabilities while simplifying its usability. Extending the available lookback window from 13 months to five years enables advertisers to understand key customer journey metrics more deeply. Metrics such as customer lifetime value and the percentage of customers buying the brand for the first time can now be analyzed over a broader timeframe based on a product’s lifecycle or customer engagement with a brand’s portfolio over time.
1. Customer Lifetime Value
Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a crucial metric for brands aiming to estimate forward-looking revenue from their customer base. With the additional historical data, brands can:
- Analyze customer behavior across multiple product categories.
- Gain insights into how CLV evolves as customers engage with different product lines.
For instance, a brand selling laundry and house cleaning supplies can now track how customers’ purchases across these categories contribute to long-term value. This expanded understanding fosters stronger customer relationships and data-driven strategies.
2. New-to-Brand Insights
New-to-brand (NTB) metrics measure the percentage of customers purchasing a brand for the first time. This broader lookback window is particularly valuable for products with longer purchase cycles, such as laptops, which may be replaced every three to five years. With extended purchase history:
- Brands can identify trends and patterns over time.
- Advertisers can refine their strategies to drive awareness, consideration, and loyalty effectively.
3. Seasonal Category Benefits
Seasonal categories like allergy medicine, lawn and garden supplies, back-to-school items, and holiday decor stand to gain significantly. The five-year lookback window provides advertisers with multi-year comparisons, enabling:
- Better year-over-year analysis.
- More informed decision-making for seasonal campaigns.
Industry Experts Weigh In
The five-year lookback of AMC purchase data allows manufacturers to understand when, where, and how consumers grow within their entire product portfolio. It helps identify which products establish the best entry point to deliver the most significant downstream impact for the company. This update eliminates the need for assumptions about the halo effect of certain products and provides the clarity and confidence needed for effective execution.
A Beta Feature with Promising Results
The five-year retail lookback is currently available in a limited beta as part of AMC’s Flexible Shopping Insights feature. Several customers are already leveraging this capability to:
- Gain a clearer understanding of their product portfolios.
- Identify the best entry points for long-term customer engagement.
Expanding AMC’s Capabilities
At unBoxed 2024, Amazon Ads introduced additional AMC features to simplify optimization and measurement solutions for advertisers. By allowing advertisers to combine their first-party data with Amazon Ads signals, AMC empowers brands to:
- Understand the customer journey in greater detail.
- Build and activate highly targeted audiences.
The Path Forward
The five-year lookback window marks a pivotal moment for Amazon Marketing Cloud. This update equips advertisers with the tools they need to succeed in today’s competitive marketplace by offering more profound insights into customer behavior and long-term value. For brands aiming to unlock the full potential of their advertising strategies, AMC’s enhanced capabilities pave the way for smarter decisions and stronger connections with customers.
Ready to unlock the full potential of your advertising strategies? Contact Teikametrics to learn how to use AMC insights to optimize your advertising strategy and drive meaningful business growth.
