Why Amazon Attribution is an Essential Tool for Amazon Sellers

Bottom Line: Amazon Attribution is a feature that lets you track results from non-Amazon marketing channels. It’s the only way to see exactly how many sales, purchases and add-to-carts resulted from your off-Amazon marketing efforts, which makes it essential for optimizing your digital marketing campaigns.

If you’re running external marketing campaigns for Amazon products, you need to use Amazon Attribution.

How are you going to know how well your ad campaigns (e.g. Facebook, Google, TikTok) work, if you don’t know how many sales you’re getting.

There’s no way to use the Facebook Pixel, TikTok Pixel or Google Analytics on your product listing. The only option is Amazon Attribution. Attribution lets you fully track on-Amazon shopping metrics, and finally get the full picture of how your external marketing campaigns perform.

Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about Amazon Attribution, and why it’s essential for sellers in 2023.

What is Amazon Attribution?

Amazon Attribution is a free advertising tool for Amazon brands. It lets you track customers originating from non-Amazon marketing channels, and see the number of purchases, add-to-carts, and similar metrics from these customers.

This video gives you a rundown on the tool:

How Does Amazon Attribution Work?

In Amazon’s words, this feature is designed to help you Measure, Optimize and Plan your external traffic campaigns.

• Measure – the effectiveness of different publishers or channels.
• Optimize – your campaigns for maximum results.
• Plan – your future marketing strategies and business goals based on data.

You’ll create Amazon Attribution tags for particular products and/or channels you want to track. For each tag, you’ll get a unique link. When customers click through to your product listing from this link, Attribution records their actions on Amazon, and aggregates the key data for you.

You can track the following metrics with Amazon Attribution:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Detail page views
• Add to carts
• Purchase rate
• Sales

All these are viewable from within the Attribution dashboard, as well as via downloadable reports.

All metrics work off a 14-day last touch attribution window, meaning you will be able to attribute actions to a tracking tag as long as the action takes place within 14 days.

Who Can Use Amazon Attribution?

Amazon Attribution is available to brand-registered sellers, Vendor Central users, KDP authors and agencies, in supported marketplaces.

Currently, these marketplaces are:

• North America: Canada, Mexico, the United States
• Europe: Germany, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and the UK
• Middle East: Egypt

If you’re a Seller Central user, you’ll need to be enrolled in Brand Registry. As long as you’re eligible, Amazon Attribution should be immediately available to you through the Amazon Advertising Console.

Amazon Attribution is also available through the Amazon Advertising API, which means third-party tools can use and display Attribution data. (to use Attribution features in these tools, you’ll still need to have access to Attribution yourself).

How Much Does Amazon Attribution Cost?

Amazon Attribution costs nothing.

Whether this will change in the future is undetermined. But as of 2023, it’s completely free for eligible sellers to use.

How to Use Amazon Attribution

To get started, go to your Amazon advertising console. Along with tools to manage your Amazon PPC campaigns, this is where you’ll find Amazon Attribution (if you’re eligible).

Here, you can create new Amazon Attribution tags, and view all the data collected through Attribution. Tags work basically the same as tracking links with Facebook, Google, or affiliate links. Each tag gives you a URL to your product with unique parameters set to the end, which allows Amazon to track anyone who clicks the link.

Here’s an example of an Amazon Attribution link:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0833P83NP?aa_adgroupid=landingcube_group_36576&aa_campaignid=landingcube_campaign_36576&aa_creativeid=landingcube_creative_36576&maas=maas_adg_api_4786345090401_static_9_48&ref_=aa_maas

Creating an Attribution Tag

You can create an Amazon Attribution tag individually, or use the bulk upload tool to create multiple tags at once.

Here’s how.

1. In the Attribution dashboard, select the advertiser you’re creating the URL for.
2. Click “New Order”.
3. If you’re creating a link for Google, Facebook, or Instagram, you can select “Upload file to create order and tags”, and follow the instructions given.
4. Otherwise, hit “Manually create order and tags”.
5. Now choose the product listing(s) you want to track with this tag.
6. Under “Order Settings”, choose a name and an ID to help identify the traffic source/campaign.
7. Choose the Publisher (traffic channel) you’re promoting your product on.
8. Add your product listing URL under “Click-through URL”.
9. Hit “Create”, and you’re done.

Amazon Attribution Use Cases

You know how to find Amazon Attribution, and how to create tags. Now let’s look at how you’ll actually use Amazon Attribution as part of your off-Amazon ad campaigns.

You’ll want to use Amazon Attribution whenever you advertise or market your product outside of Amazon. For example:

• Google Ads
• Facebook Ads
• TikTok Ads
• Email Marketing

At whichever point in one of these campaigns you link to your product page, make sure it’s a unique Amazon Attribution link.

By doing this, you’ll be able to match sales and add to carts to each campaign, and get a true idea of the return on investment for that campaign.

You can also create Amazon Attribution links to test different factors within the same advertising channel.

Example – you’re running a Facebook Ads campaign, and you want to test video ads versus static image ads.

You’ll create two variations within Facebook Ads Manager, and create a separate Attribution tag for each.

This allows you to see the real results of each ad type, and know for sure whether video ads convert better into sales.

There’s no limit on the number of tags you can create, so create a new tag for each new marketing campaign, or each avenue through which customers might find your product. This could be a post on Facebook, a Google AdWords campaign, or a page on your own site that links to your Amazon listing.

Why Amazon Attribution is Essential for Sellers

If you’re doing any kind of marketing outside Amazon, using Attribution is a must.

Without it, you can’t know the true impact of your marketing campaigns. You might think they’re successful, because they’re generating a lot of clicks. But it might turn out that you’re attracting the wrong audience, and few are actually buying the product or adding it to their cart.

In addition, you’ll need to use Attribution to benefit from the Brand Referral Bonus program. The Brand Referral Bonus is an awesome initiative that gives you a partial rebate on your seller fees for sales you generate from external traffic.

The only thing is that these sales need to come through Attribution links, so Amazon can track and attribute these sales correctly. So, by using Attribution, you can actually get paid to drive traffic.

Considering there’s no cost, there’s no reason not to use this feature. It provides a much deeper understanding into how your off-site traffic performs.

This knowledge will help you get more sales, while spending less on advertising.

What Attribution Can’t Do

The only thing it cannot do, at this time, is send Amazon Attribution data back to ad channels and enable retargeting.

For example, with the Facebook Pixel, you can use data collected by the Pixel to create new audiences, and retarget people who entered your sales funnel, but didn’t buy.

Amazon won’t let you do that with Attribution’s tracking tags, as that would allow you to divert Amazon customers away from the Amazon platform.

It also means you aren’t able to use data from Attribution to let the Facebook/Google/TikTok advertising algorithm automatically optimize your ads for those most likely to purchase or add the product to their cart, which would be nice to have.

Alternatives to Amazon Attribution

There are no real worthwhile alternatives to Amazon Attribution at this time. Amazon is a closed system, and there are no third-party tools that are allowed to take this data and create their own tracking tool.

The only other way to see product sales from your off-Amazon marketing channels is by using unique coupon codes. Amazon Attribution reports are much more efficient and effective than this.

Instead of looking for alternatives, there are third-party tools that integrate with Amazon Attribution, to give you a complete, start to finish picture of your external traffic.

LandingCube’s Amazon Link Shortener is the best tool out there for this. Utilizing the Amazon Ads API, it allows you to create Attribution tags in one click, and view all your data – off-Amazon data as well as purchase metrics – in one convenient dashboard.

You can add retargeting pixels or additional tracking tools to your links, as well as branding them with your own domain.

LandingCube also comes with a one-click integration for Attribution with landing pages, letting you track the entirety of your sales funnel in one place.

Hit the button below to start a free trial with LandingCube and try it out for yourself.

Start Free Trial

Amazon Attribution Case Studies

An official case study from Amazon claims nutrition company Premier Nutrition saw Amazon sales growth of 96% quarter-over-quarter and 322% year-over-year for their Premier Protein lines after implementing Amazon Attribution in combination with their marketing initiatives.

In another case study, cookware manufacturers and suppliers Meyer Group Ltd made a revenue increase of 54% and decreased CPA by 48% on traffic driven from Facebook and Google.

Pet food brand “I and love and you” also implemented Amazon Attribution in their business, and discuss the improvements it has made to their advertising measurement in the video below.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, Amazon Attribution is one of the biggest new features to come to Amazon in recent years.

Before the Amazon Attribution beta arrived, Amazon listings were a black hole for marketers. It was virtually impossible to tell how many Amazon customers were actually buying your product as a result of off-Amazon marketing campaigns.

This free advertising tool is now out of beta, fleshed out, and providing value to thousands of Amazon sellers across the globe.