That was a really good video. I just started using Amazon Ads at the end of April. The biggest lesson I've learned so far is to start slowly and be patient. Even though I have large savings that I would like to invest, it doesn't make sense. After about 3 months I'm at $10 - 13/day that I invest in ads. In the last 30 days I have spent approximately $370 and made 186 sales. My ACOS is at 24%. I would be happy if I could bring my ad spending to $50/day by the end of the year and keep my ACOS that low. All I want to say is: Be patient with the ad spending and slowly work your way up!
@@andreasommerrock7775 I've been self-publishing since 2014, so many of my books have a longer sales history (and Amazon has the data). Because Amazon has this data (e.g. which keywords customers used to find my books in the past and buy them), I started with Auto Ads and optimized them regularly. Because Auto Ads now allow me to see which keywords and products I'm currently in the process of creating separate portfolios for all the books I'm setting up 4-5 campaigns within these portfolios. So far, the campaigns have been unprofitable but I think that is normal and I have to optimize them in the long run.
My book lunching on free promotion as got me the BSR badge #1 New release and the free promotion has just ended, can i run Ads to build on the momentum or what yoir opinion?
Slightly off topic here Chris. If you create a wordsearch or a childrens learning book, anything that has a spelling requirement, how do you approach the issue of UK English vs American English. Can you produce two separate books with 90% similar content but have the 10% different spelling as a big enough difference to not get done for duplicate content? Whats your approach or is it something you haven't considered?
Thanks for clear information. Question. I wrote a book a decade ago (non fiction, high content, expert in field). I never used ads. It sold well as i blogged and did media. I got sick and it no longer gets natural promo, so sales have fallen over past years (and others are using ads!). Am I better off doing manual targeted ads? I can see a couple of books i could "product target." But i am totally new to ads. I don't want to waste money with amazon maybe showing it to the wrong customers through automation. But it's still kinda daunting as I am totally new to ads.
Your book has a long sales history. This means that Amazon already has a lot of data, for example keywords that sold your book. That's why I would set up an auto ad campaign for the book. Over time you will see which keywords/products generate sales. You can take these keywords / products and set up manual campaigns.
I have trouble with mid-game in ads. I've just launched a word search book, got a 4-digit ranking, a #1 new release badge and even got an #1 bestseller badge in UK but what then? I ran with a minimal price and spent quite a lot of money in the month since the book was released. What's the correct path of weaning the book off ads and starting to make some money from it?
Yeah so I think what happens is people run the ads to get the super low BSR, and then continue to desire that BSR with a lower ad spend. But really, even if dropping your ad spend means your BSR doesn't look as nice, you still need to make money from it. Likelihood is you reduce your ads and the BSR takes a little hit - but provided you are already making organic sales, you can probably afford to do it. A low BSR doesn't mean much if you ad spend is pissing away profits - whereas a BSR of say, 10k on the UK store with less ads might mean you're actually in profit. So I would take a look at the ads current ACOS and see if you can drop your CPC. For me, if I am getting over 10-15 clicks a day, then I am happy to drop the bid down a few cents, then leave it for a few days then repeat. Without seeing your exact situation, it's a little hard, but that's what I do - I weigh up if the organic sales are strong enough to reduce the ads, and in some case for my books I don't have any ads running now - but I definitely suggest you keep campaigns going, but as you know, you can't just keep running them forever at a loss. Feel free to share some more details about the CPC, ACOS, spend etc
@@ChrisRaydog the ACOS for these book was quite ok - between 32 and 50% but the CPC is high. I started with 1.00 and then gradually reduced to 0.50 for UK and 0.70 for US. If it gets lower I start to loose impressions. maybe it's because it is a competitive niche + a new book. A couple of days ago I had a bad review (which could be from a competitor) and decided to make an experiment. Because of this review the ads results got worse, so I switch off the ads for US and left them on in UK (where the reduction of sales because of bad review wasn't as bad). Plus I reduced the price to minimal for US again. I'll wait several days to see what happens. Maybe some new reviews will arrive meanwhile.
@@ChrisRaydog sorry, I've left a reply but youtube seems to have filtered it. the ACOS was ok - below 50 percent most of the time which I think is ok for a new book. the CPC was quite high - 70 cents and 50 pennies in US and UK. now I was forced to shut down the ads anyway. got a couple of bad reviews and the acos rose dramatically. so I shut the ads down and lowered the price again. I'll wait for some time until more favorable reviews and ratings arrive and see if the book can hold organically.
This strategy made me lose a lot of money. I should have known better. Amazon doesn't have much data on a brand new book, so the keywords that it uses are too broad and irrelevant. Manual targeting is best to start. Do a keyword research and use relevant ones to give Amazon data before launching an automatic one.
Thank your very much Champ!! 🏆🙏
Soothing, easy-to-listen-to voice, I really appreciated that.
That was a really good video. I just started using Amazon Ads at the end of April. The biggest lesson I've learned so far is to start slowly and be patient. Even though I have large savings that I would like to invest, it doesn't make sense. After about 3 months I'm at $10 - 13/day that I invest in ads. In the last 30 days I have spent approximately $370 and made 186 sales. My ACOS is at 24%. I would be happy if I could bring my ad spending to $50/day by the end of the year and keep my ACOS that low. All I want to say is: Be patient with the ad spending and slowly work your way up!
What kind of ads did you start with?
@@andreasommerrock7775 I've been self-publishing since 2014, so many of my books have a longer sales history (and Amazon has the data). Because Amazon has this data (e.g. which keywords customers used to find my books in the past and buy them), I started with Auto Ads and optimized them regularly. Because Auto Ads now allow me to see which keywords and products I'm currently in the process of creating separate portfolios for all the books I'm setting up 4-5 campaigns within these portfolios. So far, the campaigns have been unprofitable but I think that is normal and I have to optimize them in the long run.
Yes please
Thank Chris, It's very helpful to us
This video will help me a lot. Thank you, Chris. I've started running Automatic ads for one of my books, and I hope it will yield good results.
My book lunching on free promotion as got me the BSR badge #1 New release and the free promotion has just ended, can i run Ads to build on the momentum or what yoir opinion?
Slightly off topic here Chris.
If you create a wordsearch or a childrens learning book, anything that has a spelling requirement, how do you approach the issue of UK English vs American English.
Can you produce two separate books with 90% similar content but have the 10% different spelling as a big enough difference to not get done for duplicate content?
Whats your approach or is it something you haven't considered?
Thanks for clear information. Question. I wrote a book a decade ago (non fiction, high content, expert in field). I never used ads. It sold well as i blogged and did media. I got sick and it no longer gets natural promo, so sales have fallen over past years (and others are using ads!). Am I better off doing manual targeted ads? I can see a couple of books i could "product target." But i am totally new to ads. I don't want to waste money with amazon maybe showing it to the wrong customers through automation. But it's still kinda daunting as I am totally new to ads.
Your book has a long sales history. This means that Amazon already has a lot of data, for example keywords that sold your book. That's why I would set up an auto ad campaign for the book. Over time you will see which keywords/products generate sales. You can take these keywords / products and set up manual campaigns.
I have trouble with mid-game in ads. I've just launched a word search book, got a 4-digit ranking, a #1 new release badge and even got an #1 bestseller badge in UK but what then? I ran with a minimal price and spent quite a lot of money in the month since the book was released. What's the correct path of weaning the book off ads and starting to make some money from it?
Yeah so I think what happens is people run the ads to get the super low BSR, and then continue to desire that BSR with a lower ad spend. But really, even if dropping your ad spend means your BSR doesn't look as nice, you still need to make money from it. Likelihood is you reduce your ads and the BSR takes a little hit - but provided you are already making organic sales, you can probably afford to do it. A low BSR doesn't mean much if you ad spend is pissing away profits - whereas a BSR of say, 10k on the UK store with less ads might mean you're actually in profit.
So I would take a look at the ads current ACOS and see if you can drop your CPC. For me, if I am getting over 10-15 clicks a day, then I am happy to drop the bid down a few cents, then leave it for a few days then repeat.
Without seeing your exact situation, it's a little hard, but that's what I do - I weigh up if the organic sales are strong enough to reduce the ads, and in some case for my books I don't have any ads running now - but I definitely suggest you keep campaigns going, but as you know, you can't just keep running them forever at a loss.
Feel free to share some more details about the CPC, ACOS, spend etc
@@ChrisRaydog the ACOS for these book was quite ok - between 32 and 50% but the CPC is high. I started with 1.00 and then gradually reduced to 0.50 for UK and 0.70 for US. If it gets lower I start to loose impressions. maybe it's because it is a competitive niche + a new book.
A couple of days ago I had a bad review (which could be from a competitor) and decided to make an experiment. Because of this review the ads results got worse, so I switch off the ads for US and left them on in UK (where the reduction of sales because of bad review wasn't as bad). Plus I reduced the price to minimal for US again. I'll wait several days to see what happens. Maybe some new reviews will arrive meanwhile.
@@ChrisRaydog sorry, I've left a reply but youtube seems to have filtered it. the ACOS was ok - below 50 percent most of the time which I think is ok for a new book. the CPC was quite high - 70 cents and 50 pennies in US and UK.
now I was forced to shut down the ads anyway. got a couple of bad reviews and the acos rose dramatically. so I shut the ads down and lowered the price again. I'll wait for some time until more favorable reviews and ratings arrive and see if the book can hold organically.
Can i start kdp with 30 dollars for advertising
This strategy made me lose a lot of money. I should have known better. Amazon doesn't have much data on a brand new book, so the keywords that it uses are too broad and irrelevant. Manual targeting is best to start. Do a keyword research and use relevant ones to give Amazon data before launching an automatic one.
It makes sense! Can share after what time would launch ads? And what is the minimum budget? Thank you