Amazon Ads Unleashed

1. Advertising Strategies: Tailor your approach to your resources and goals.

Failing to determine your exact strategy is a key reason for failing at ads.

Four main strategies. The book outlines four distinct strategies for Amazon ads, each suited to different circumstances and goals: small-scale profit, higher-scale profit, breaking even for better profit, and investing in loss. The small-scale profit strategy is for beginners or those with limited resources, focusing on making a small profit directly from ads. The higher-scale profit strategy requires a long series or boxed set to leverage impressions and optimize for higher conversion rates.

Breaking even for better profit. This strategy involves running ads at the break-even point to stimulate organic sales through Amazon's recommendation engine. The invest-in-loss strategy is the riskiest but potentially most profitable, involving spending more on ads to achieve a high sales rank and long-term visibility. Each strategy requires a different level of investment, optimization, and risk tolerance.

Choosing the right strategy. Selecting the right strategy depends on factors such as the size of your backlist, the length of your series, your risk tolerance, and your overall business goals. It's crucial to understand the consequences of your choices and apply the correct advertising strategy to avoid wasting money. For example, following advice suited for a long series when you only have a few books can be disastrous.

2. Targeting Expertise: Precision beats broad reach for higher conversions.

The better you target, the better your results.

Targeting is key. Expert advertisers understand that precise targeting is more effective than broad targeting. Broad targeting, such as category ads, can lead to wasted impressions and clicks because the audience may not be interested in your specific subgenre or style. The goal is to stack the deck in your favor by identifying patterns and matching your book to the expectations of potential readers.

Understanding customer expectation. Customer expectation plays a significant role in conversion rates. When a prospective buyer is browsing a specific type of book, they expect to see similar books in the ads. Meeting these expectations increases the likelihood of a click and a sale.

Laser-like targeting. This involves refining your targeting to highly optimized levels by considering factors such as subgenre, cover design, blurb, author gender, and publishing type (indie vs. traditional). By choosing target keywords wisely and fitting the pattern of expectation, you can increase your conversion rate and bid high enough to get more impressions.

3. Refining Ad Placement: Focus on ebook ads, not paperback.

I rarely target keywords by either author name or book title anymore... I target my Sponsored Product ads by selecting the product targeting option and then the individual products option, pasting in ASIN numbers of my target ebooks from a master list.

The ebook vs. paperback dilemma. Amazon often displays ebook ads on paperback listings, which can lead to wasted impressions and lower conversion rates. This is because buyers browsing Amazon's Book Store (dominated by traditional publishers) are mostly not ebook buyers. Amazon does this to tempt paperback buyers away from traditionally published books and into the Kindle Store, which is dominated by indies.

Targeting ASINs. To avoid this issue, expert advertisers target their Sponsored Product ads by selecting the product targeting option and then the individual products option, pasting in ASIN numbers of their target ebooks from a master list. This ensures that your ad is only displayed on relevant ebooks, increasing your click-through rate and conversion rate.

Creating a master list. Finding highly relevant ASIN numbers and copying and pasting them into a master list takes a lot of effort, but the results are worth it. This list can then be used for new ads for new books when they're released, ensuring consistent and effective targeting. This strategy reduces impressions, but these were ineffective paperback impressions.

4. Relevance is Key: Amazon rewards ads that resonate with customers.

The less relevant or related your book is to your targeting, the less likely it is your ad will perform.

Relevance score. Amazon, like Facebook and Google, uses a relevance score to determine ad placement. The better your relevance score, the more Amazon shows your ad and the cheaper it is to deliver the ad. Amazon's statement even shows that CTR appears to be the main factor in determining the score, but they don't say it's the only one.

Click-through rate (CTR). CTR is a major component of the relevance score. A high CTR indicates that your ad resonates with customers, while a low CTR indicates that something is wrong with your ad (targeting, cover, title, price, reviews).

Other factors. Metadata, such as ad copy, search term keywords, and product description, may also be taken into account. Reviews may also play a role, but they are weighted much lower than CTR and conversions.

5. Metrics Mastery: Use data to optimize, not to paralyze.

Impressions are the foundation of success with Amazon ads.

Key metrics. The book emphasizes the importance of understanding and using key metrics to optimize your Amazon ads. These metrics include impression volume, click-through rate (CTR), cost per click (CPC), conversion rate (CVR), sales, and ACOS. Impression volume is the foundation of success, as you need impressions to get clicks and conversions.

Click-through rate (CTR). A high CTR indicates that your ad resonates with customers, while a low CTR indicates that something is wrong with your ad. Cost per click (CPC) is the amount you pay for each click, and it's generally lower than your bid.

Conversion rate (CVR). CVR is the percentage of clicks that result in a sale, and it's a critical metric for measuring the effectiveness of your ads. Sales is the most self-explanatory metric, but it's important to convert the "sales" figure into actual dollars earned according to your royalty rate.

6. Measuring Ad Success: Choose the right formula for your goals.

How many of you have kept paying for ads and keywords that were losing you money because organic sales were coming in separately and being falsely attributed to the ads?

ROI vs. ROAS. The book distinguishes between ROI (return on investment) and ROAS (return on ad spend). ROI is a strategic assessment used to analyze the overall financial success of a book, while ROAS is a granular metric used to measure the effectiveness of individual ads or keywords.

Different methods. The book outlines several methods for measuring ad results, including the comparison method, baseline comparison, direct attribution, and direct attribution with flow through. The comparison method compares total ad spend against total book profit, while the baseline comparison establishes a baseline of conversions before advertising.

Direct attribution. This relies on the Ad Dashboard and measures ad or keyword performance with the ROAS formula. Direct attribution with flow through is the most accurate method, adding estimated sell-through and read-through rates for subsequent books to the ad revenue component of the ROAS formula.

7. Ad Longevity: Ads don't die, they're killed for poor performance.

If your ads die, there’s a reason. Find it and fix it. That’s the path to success.

Ads don't die. The book challenges the common belief that ads simply die over time. Instead, it argues that Amazon kills ads that are not providing a good customer experience. This is because Amazon rewards relevance and punishes irrelevance.

Feedback loop. PPC advertising is a feedback loop. You put something out there, and get results back that you learn from. Then you refine. Keep doing this. Giving up and starting from scratch again is dooming yourself to repeating the same mistakes.

Reasons for ad failure. Ads can start well and then taper off if the target keywords relate to books that are falling in rank or if you've tapped out the target audience. In these cases, it's important to analyze the situation and adjust your strategy accordingly.

8. Bidding Strategies: Understand Amazon's suggestions and bid competitively.

The truth is that you probably should start bidding a few cents above the suggested bid price in your experimentation phase.

Amazon's suggested bids. Amazon sets suggested bids based on the data of what other people are successfully bidding for that keyword with ads similar to yours. Bidding lower than the suggested bid can result in very few impressions, while bidding higher can increase your chances of being seen.

Competition drives bids. Competition from other authors is what drives up Amazon's suggested bids, not Amazon themselves. As more authors adopt effective advertising strategies, the competition for visibility increases, leading to higher bids.

Bidding above the suggestion. It's often recommended to bid a few cents above the suggested bid price to get in front of the masses who go with what Amazon suggests. It's also important to avoid bidding with "standard" numbers, such as 70 cents, and instead bid at 71 cents or 86 cents to get above the masses.

9. Optimization Tactics: Balance data with marketing savvy.

Optimization is like a seesaw.

Optimization is key. Optimization is the process of adjusting your ads to improve their performance. This involves analyzing key metrics such as impressions, CTR, CVR, and bid, and making adjustments to your targeting, ad copy, and bid amount.

Impressions. You optimize impressions by targeting like for like. You need about 1,000 impressions to get an idea of how a keyword is going. But the first true step of optimizing is to see how fast they’re coming in.

CTR. A good CTR indicates the ad resonates with the target audience. Compared to conversions, it has a high volume. This makes it more statistically relevant.

10. Ad Placement Matters: Visibility and customer behavior are crucial.

Ad placement does matter.

Visibility is key. Ad placement matters because it affects visibility and customer behavior. The first page of search results or the first row of a Sponsored Product carousel gets the majority of views. The deeper you go, the more impressions dry up.

Customer behavior. Ad placement and ad type can, but not always do, impact CVR. This is because prospect behavior is not always the same. It alters.

The Rule of 7. The more your book is seen, whether in an ad or elsewhere, the greater the chance of a purchase. This means that the better your ad placement, and the more impressions you get, the more you drive the Rule of 7.

11. Ad Types and Uses: Match the ad to the goal and audience.

The way forward is to look at the advantages and disadvantages of an ad type, and consider how you might use it best to suit your specific situation. Then test your theory.

Sponsored Product ads. These ads appear in the Sponsored Product carousels on a product page or in search results. Targeting by individual product (ASIN) is the most effective, while targeting by category can be hit or miss.

Lockscreen ads. These ads appear on Kindle E-readers and Fire tablets. They offer high visibility, but the buying intent of prospects is low.

Sponsored Brand ads. These ads appear above the search results and offer high visibility, but they often don't convert well.

12. Product or Ad?: Know when to fix the book, not just the ad.

If you’re not selling, you have to ask why.

Advertising can't fix a bad product. No matter how good you are at advertising, it's pushing water uphill to try to sell a book that doesn't resonate with an audience. If your book isn't selling, you need to ask why.

Advertising helps identify the problem. Advertising gives your book visibility. If you're targeting books very much like your own, and you're getting impressions and clicks but a low CVR, it's time to look hard at your blurb and the first few chapters of the book.

Focus on the product. In the end, it's the product that matters most. If you can create a book that resonates with an audience, advertising will be much easier.

Last updated: April 1, 2025