Nectar launches Customer Atlas to carry Amazon Marketing Cloud audiences into search bidding

Nectar, an Amazon Advanced Advertising Partner that manages more than $2.5 billion in annual client sales, said it launched a new product called Customer Atlas. Announced on Oct. 14, the offering is built on Amazon Marketing Cloud, with a stated goal of extending Amazon’s audience targeting capabilities from display placements into search bidding.

In a post distributed through Yahoo Finance, Nectar described Customer Atlas as a change in how marketers can use Amazon Marketing Cloud audiences. While audience targeting on retail media networks has traditionally been associated with display ads, Nectar said its new capability allows those same audience indicates to be applied to search bidding, which determines how ads compete for visibility when users search for keywords.

Nectar’s positioning centers on the practical workflow for advertisers. By moving audience targeting into search, the company is effectively bridging two parts of the digital ads funnel: discovery-style impressions (often associated with display) and intent-driven search queries. Nectar did not provide further technical specifics in the announcement, such as exactly how audiences are built, refreshed, or mapped to search terms, but it framed the launch as an expansion of Amazon Marketing Cloud’s use beyond display.

The company also did not disclose pricing or availability details in the announcement, nor did it specify which retail media accounts or customer segments Customer Atlas is available for first. As with many partner-led ad-tech offerings, the company’s messaging emphasized capability and outcomes rather than the underlying mechanics that advertisers typically ask about, including data latency, attribution methodology, and control surfaces for campaign managers.

For Amazon, broader audience activation is a recurring theme across its ad products. Amazon’s advertising ecosystem spans display and video inventory alongside search placements, and it competes in part by helping brands connect off-site and on-platform indicates to where consumers take action. A partner building tools on top of Amazon Marketing Cloud, which is designed to help advertisers use their data in privacy-aware ways, fits that strategy by potentially increasing how far marketers can extend audience targeting through the shopping journey.

For advertisers, the idea of carrying audience profiles into search bidding speaks to a common gap in retail media planning. Many teams can build or import audience segments for display campaigns, but search bidding is often managed differently, relying more heavily on keyword intent. If Customer Atlas works as described, advertisers could pursue more consistent messaging across channels while also treating search as another place where audiences can be targeted.

Still, there is uncertainty around what the announcement does not detail. Nectar did not specify whether Customer Atlas supports all Amazon search campaign types, how it handles exclusions and frequency or what guardrails exist to prevent overexposure. It also did not provide performance metrics such as improved click-through rates, conversion rates, or reduced cost per acquisition tied to the new capability.

Looking ahead, marketers evaluating Customer Atlas will likely focus on transparency and controls: campaign-level reporting, audience overlap handling, and how search bidding decisions change when the same audience segment is applied. Nectar’s next steps may include case studies or performance benchmarks, and Amazon’s own documentation or product updates could further clarify how Amazon Marketing Cloud audiences can be activated for search in partner ecosystems. Investors and competitors in the ad-tech and retail media tooling space will also watch whether similar capabilities spread quickly across other Amazon Advanced Advertising Partners.