AMC isn't a normal SQL environment. Amazon enforces privacy restrictions that br
By Anthony Nguyen 🟢 · July 6, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
AMC isn't a normal SQL environment. Amazon enforces privacy restrictions that break every habit you've built from normal databases.
What you cannot do:
- No SELECT *, you must name every column explicitly
- No ORDER BY, results come back in Amazon's order, period
- No RIGHT JOIN, only LEFT JOIN and INNER JOIN
- No correlated subqueries, no referencing outer query columns inside a subquery
These aren't bugs. They're privacy guardrails preventing you from isolating individual customer behavior.
The no ORDER BY restriction frustrates everyone. You want your top 10 campaigns by spend? You'll get the data, but you sort it after export, in your own environment. That's the deal.
The no SELECT * rule is actually good discipline. With 761 columns across 7 tables, SELECT * would be a disaster anyway.
Workaround for correlated subqueries: CTEs (Common Table Expressions). They accomplish the same logic in most cases and AMC allows them freely. I use them constantly.
If your query fails with a vague "privacy threshold not met" error, it means your result set has fewer than the minimum aggregation threshold of users. Broaden your date range or loosen your filters. Amazon won't tell you the exact threshold. Just keep widening until it works.
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