To help advertisers understand how their marketing performs across media such as search, display, video, and audio, Amazon Advertising is introducing Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC)—a holistic measurement and analytics solution currently in beta for eligible advertisers. AMC is built on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
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Cision Communications Cloud
Score 6.9 out of 10
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CIsion Communications Cloud is used for identifying key media and influencers, connecting with audiences, monitoring traditional and social media, and analyzing outcomes.
If you notice that a certain ad is performing well during a flash sale and want to increase the budget immediately, Amazon Marketing Cloud won’t provide real-time data. You’ll have to use Amazon Ads Manager instead. Example is that with me client has a low ad budget or a small number of customers, Amazon Marketing Cloud might not provide enough data to give you meaningful trends or recommendations. If you find a group of high-value customers using Amazon Marketing Cloud, you can’t just click a button to target them directly in Amazon DSP. Instead, you have to manually export the data and upload it elsewhere.
For a small start-up, the cost-benefit to add lift to press releases [and] particular milestone accomplishments is definitely there with the Cision [Communications] Cloud. Much of what we do, by necessity, is done internally without the benefit of outsourced press folks, so the Cision [Communications] Cloud ease of use and reporting is very important.
Influencer research: I am able to quickly find the right reporter or editor for my pitch because Cision lets me know what they write about, their communications preferences, past articles, etc.
Distribution: I appreciate a template to help streamline my pitch and press release distribution that allows me to send my news to a targeted list of contacts without having to send individual emails. I can send out communications with just a few steps, in just a few minutes.
News search: I use Cision to scan for news and monitor for mentions of my clients. I also use this feature to keep tabs on topics and key terms of interest to me and my clients to stay ahead of emerging trends and stay on top of emerging discussions in my clients' industries.
The social component could be upgraded to more accurately collect metrics on ephemeral content.
Social listening is done in a completely different program than the media monitoring - combining the two would make report creation much easier and allow for a fuller picture of an incident across traditional and social media on the built-in dashboard section.
Social listening only tracks Twitter. Public Facebook comments would be key in seeing a fuller picture of how an incident or campaign is playing out on social media.
For all of the reasons I had mentioned before, I haven't found a product that surpasses what they offer. I will maintain renewing with them for a few years and then reexamine the market to see if any new competitors arise. Until then, I have no reason to leave them for someone else.
likely because while it offers powerful insights, it has challenges in ease of use. Amazon Marketing Cloud requires SQL knowledge for queries, making it difficult for non-technical users. Unlike traditional marketing tools with simple dashboards, Amazon Marketing Cloud demands manual data extraction and analysis, slowing down decision-making. Another usability challenge is the lack of real-time data, which makes it hard to optimize campaigns instantly. If you want to adjust ad spend based on immediate performance, Amazon Marketing Cloud’s batch processing delays insights. Additionally, there’s no direct audience activation, meaning you have to export data manually instead of seamlessly applying insights within Amazon DSP. However, Amazon Marketing Cloud is highly valuable for in-depth analysis, audience segmentation, and attribution modeling. With better user-friendly features like pre-built reports, automation, and real-time analytics, usability could improve significantly, making it easier for businesses to maximize its potential.
The flexibility and customization of Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is among its most important features. Changing the dashboards, using keywords in the saved searches to pull out the best stories and the integration with marketing automation tools gives me confidence that I will able to continue using this tool well into the future. The future implementation and integration of the media contact database will complete the suite, making list management and email marketing programs much smoother. *This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
Generally, Cision performs well day to day, but it's got some annoying bugs that slow down usage/require user workarounds which is inefficient. More seriously, a few months ago, as a result of a major system upgrade, certain critical functionality was not working and I was unable to use the service for more than a day when I had time-sensitive work to execute
For Cision TrendKite in particilar, support always responded, but it was sometimes slow. For some of our booleans and search queries, we would need help refining and excluding terms/phrases that weren't relevant to our client or campaign. This sometimes took 1-2 days just to get a response back, which sometimes was too late when a last-minute report was due. This was only with the support staff, not necessarily our customer success manager or sales rep.
The online training sessions available for the Cision Communications Cloud are helpful and informative. There's more than one option - initially, I signed up for the live webinar classes on basic functions and that is what I recommend other new users do as well. If I have specific questions or something I want to learn more about, I can search the online database and find article or online training videos to get the information I need.
I have compared Google Ads Data Hub and Meta's Advanced Analytics with Amazon Marketing Cloud. Amazon Marketing Cloud is most notable for its insights into the deep Amazon ecosystem, Google for cross-platform tracking, and Meta for extensive social engagement analysis. AMC's privacy-safe query-based model is powerful but SQL-skilled, in contrast to Google's more accessible UI.
I found Cision [Communications Cloud] to be much more simple to use, and it offers the ability to track [a] wider array of media placements without additional fees attached to it. Now that it has incorporated TVEyes, it can offer print, online, radio, and TV tracking nationwide. This is [crucial] because very often your institution or company could be referenced in a variety of ways, nationally or briefly, on local TV/radio, and you would have no way of knowing about it.
It seems as though media pickups have overall been down this year, perhaps related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cision Communications Cloud has enabled us to develop numerous localized media lists for press releases, especially on grant recipients. These localized press releases have generated the best pickups that go beyond our KPIs (key performance indicators).
The ability to save media lists provide a great starting point for developing future lists. The "talking about" helps to see what media contacts are talking about, and whether they might potentially be interested in our news release.
