AMC vs. Amazon Marketing Stream (AMS) compared
Compact comparison between Amazon Marketing Cloud (batch clean-room analytics) and Amazon Marketing Stream (near-real-time event API). Includes glossary cross-link.
Two tools, two time horizons
Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) and Amazon Marketing Stream (AMS) complement each other but answer different questions. AMC provides pseudonymized cross-channel analytics in a clean-room environment as SQL batches with up to 12.5 months of lookback. AMS delivers an event stream of individual campaign events near real-time for tactical decisions such as dayparting and bid adjustments.
Comparison at a glance
| Axis | AMC | AMS |
|---|---|---|
| Data model | Cloud clean room with pseudonymized signals and SQL aggregations. | Event stream of campaign-level ad and traffic events. |
| Latency | Batch processing with up to ~12.5 months of lookback. | Near real-time (minutes), narrow time window per event. |
| Access | SQL queries inside the AMC console (DSP MSA required). | Push API into your own AWS account (SQS queue or Kinesis Data Firehose) |
| Typical use case | Cross-channel attribution, audience building, path to purchase. | Dayparting, automated bid adjustments, real-time alerting. |
| Privacy | 100-user minimum per aggregation, no PII layer. | Campaign and event level, no user-level profiles. |
| How they fit together | Strategic analysis + audience activation in DSP. | Tactical, time-sensitive reaction to live campaigns. |
When to use which tool?
If you want to understand which channels and paths contributed to a purchase, start in AMC. If a campaign is live and you need to react at the hour-level, use AMS. The two data flows are not mutually exclusive: AMS events can be imported into AMC and there combined with audience-building workflows.