How to do Amazon Book Ads in 2024

hi I’m Dave chessen of kle preneur and

in this video I’m going to show you how

to set up Amazon book ads now this is an

incredible skill for authors of any kind

and any level if you learn how to create

and maintain effective Amazon book ads

you will have direct control on always

being able to send Amazon Shoppers to

see your book and buy it no more wishing

and hoping that if only people could

find and see your book because you’ll

have the direct ability to send hungry

Amazon Shoppers to see your book find it

and buy it so in order to get you

started I’ve created this video that

will not only show you the different

type of Amazon ads that you can choose

from but also how to set up an account

and get your first campaign up and

running however before I get into that

if you would like to dig deeper into

Amazon ads and get to full understanding

of it be sure to check out my absolutely

full free video course you can find that

at amsc course.com in it I will not only

teach you about the ads in the system

itself I’ll show you the key tactics to

help you find the right keywords and

things to Target as well as how to best

Monitor and adjust them over time so you

see even better profit plus I also

partnered with an Amazon Insider Janet

Margo and for those of you who don’t

know she used to work for Amazon

building the Amazon ad system so she has

some really key Insight that is

important for authors to know and again

it’s an absolutely free full video

course there’s no gotcha moment at the

end where I have some page course where

you know you got to pay to see the real

stuff it’s everything there is to the

Amazon ad system and it’s 100% free and

again be sure to check that out at amsc

course.com and with that let’s go ahead

and begin okay so as you can see there

are many different types of

advertisements you can do however for

the purposes of this video we’re going

to focus on setting up sponsored product

ads with keyword targeting and product

targeting this is because these are two

of the most effective in the system and

others like sponsored brand ads are more

advanced and can be complicated to make

work first go into your KDP account find

the book that you want to set up for an

Amazon ads campaign and click on promote

and advertise once you’ve done that

you’ll want to look at the Run ad

campaign section and select the

marketplace you want to advertise in in

this case the us then click create an

add campaign if this is your first time

doing so Amazon will at some point ask

you for information for your ads account

including information on how you will

pay for the ads since Leonard already

did that it won’t ask us for this after

you’ve done that to start we’ll select a

sponsored product ad next we need to

select whether we want to add custom

text to our ad or not now be careful

here adding custom text is something you

should only do once you have a few ads

up and running and are looking to make

more sales using custom text write can

help add more to your book and later on

in this course I’ll show you how to

write custom text that sells but if you

are just starting out on ads you’ll want

to avoid this for now next is if you

want to add any more books or versions

of your book to the ad campaign I

usually leave this alone since I already

chose the book I was going to advertise

we’ll then want to select manual

targeting in manual targeting we get to

select our keywords whereas with

automatic targeting Amazon selects them

for you based on information about your

book known as metadata I highly

recommend you do manual when starting

out because the automat targeting is

very problematic and usually Amazon

selects terms that are very competitive

which means more costly next is

targeting with this we have two options

and you can only do one per campaign

there is Target by keywords or Target by

a product let’s start with keyword

targeting this means that you want to

tell Amazon which keyword phrases you

want your ad to show up for these are

the terms that people would type into

Amazon when they are searching for their

next book you have three ways to select

your keywords suggested enter list and

upload file suggested is a list of

keywords that Amazon thinks are

associated with your book they have

pulled these based on your book’s

metadata which is from things like your

title subtitle seven selected keywords

inside the book and other factors

however you’ll notice these aren’t

always a great fit for this book enter

list is where you can manually enter

keywords phrases and add them this is

usually the best option for us and will

be the best way to select your keywords

don’t worry later in in the course I’ll

show you exactly how to find the right

phrases and keywords for the section

upload file is where you can upload an

Excel file of keywords however you have

to use Amazon’s templated CSV in order

to do this so if you have an export or

an Excel file full of keywords but

didn’t use Amazon template it won’t work

and using Amazon’s templated file is

problematic and timec consuming so I’m

not a fan of using this below these

three sections you’ll find three parts

bid f filter by and sort by with bid you

can select whether you want any keyword

you add to just use the suggested bid

which is what Amazon thinks you should

bid in order to get seen for it or

custom bid which is a bid you choose for

that selection or default which is just

a set number you can enter next is the

section called filter by which lists

broad phrase and exact what this means

is that you are letting Amazon know how

liberal they can be with the keyword

phrases you selected I’ll explain broad

means they can show your ad for any

phrase that contains the keywords in any

order and includes plurals variations

synonyms and related keywords so say

your selected keyword phrase is fantasy

with Coming of Age hero as an example

using broad means that Amazon can also

show your ad for phrases like hero

Coming of Age fantasy hero fantasy with

hero heroes in fantasy and more phrase

means they can show your ad for any

phrase that contains the exact phrase or

sequence of keywords including plurals

using the same example this would show

for examples like fantasy hero Coming of

Age hero and fantasy with coming of age

but no rearranging any of the words that

were in that original phrase and finally

exact means only this exact phrase as it

is so in this case it could only show

fantasy Coming of Age hero and nothing

else The Only Exception here is it will

show plurals I personally like to make

all of my keywords broad phrases so as

to give Amazon the best chance to show

my book because remember you don’t pay

Amazon until a shopper clicks on it and

Shoppers only click on your book if it

is something they are interested in

therefore it doesn’t hurt to give Amazon

more opportunity to show your book so I

select broad match for my keywords now

the sort by section has two options

sorting by click shows you which of the

suggested keywords historically have the

most clicks while sorting by orders

shows you which ones have historically

made the most orders this can be useful

if you are searching for which keywords

might get the most traffic on Amazon as

a whole but there tends to be a lot of

junk in the results so I wouldn’t put

too much stock into these okay so as you

can see you can not only select keywords

from suggested but also go in and add

some manually as well before clicking to

add ensure you’ve selected whether you

want broad phrase exact and what bid

type then once you click add the

necessary information will show up okay

next is the negative keyword targeting

this is a section where you can tell

Amazon to absolutely not Target any

keyword that contains any specific words

or phrases so for this I leave both

exact and phrase checked and will only

list words where they would have a

negative effect on my book for me there

are only two cases where I enter

something in here the first is to

counteract Shoppers looking for deals or

free things so I enter in words like

free free books and free ebooks I

believe this is important because if

people are typing into Amazon free

anything and Amazon shows my book they

may click on it costing me money but are

going to be harder to convince to buy

something because they started their

search looking for freebies therefore

it’s best to ensure your ad doesn’t show

up in front of these Shoppers the second

is any phrase that might mislead or

confuse a shopper what I mean is if

there is a topic I absolutely don’t want

to be associated with and want to ensure

I don’t show up for or confuse my

Shoppers say I wrote a very one-sided

political book that followed a

Democratic leader I wouldn’t want that

book to show up for searches made by

pro- Republican Shoppers that could cost

me money and cause me to get bad reviews

no thank you another example would be if

I wrote wholesome Christian romance I

wouldn’t want my book showing up for

erotica or hot and steamy again again

the cover might not show erotica or

steamy but to The Shopper they typed

something in and they saw your book they

might still click and be disappointed

now don’t go overboard on this and start

listing lots of terms that might be

different or potentially confusing for

now only use phrases here when you

strongly believe it would confuse your

Shoppers or be something you vehemently

don’t want to be a part of later on

we’ll learn how you can expand on these

negative keywords to make your ads more

effective for me I’ve only filled in the

free terms since I don’t write in

anything that needs strong clarification

or I’d vehemently be opposed to show up

for so I’ll just write my usual free

free book free ebook Okay so now that

we’ve looked at keyword targeting let’s

go back and look at product targeting

unlike keyword targeting where we input

what words or phrases we want to show up

for in product targeting we ask Amazon

to generally show us around for certain

categories or specific products and

books here we have the option to either

select categories or individual products

let’s start with categories now usually

Amazon will show a couple of suggested

categories that they believe fit your

book there are two very important things

you should know about their categories

though number one the suggested

categories listed here are not

specifically the categories that you

selected for your book or are attached

to your book they are ones that Amazon

believes would fit your book based on

the list of categories they use for this

type of AD which brings me to my next

Point number two the categories they use

here are not the full list of

140000 plus book and ebook categories

Amazon has instead this is a very

limited list of book and product

categories that Amazon for some reason

has designated as the ones they’d use

for this type of AD so you have the

recommended ones or you can search for

some here while this might seem nice

it’s been my observation and many other

authors observation that targeting

through categories is very fruitless and

has a poor return so if you are running

category ads just know that the risk may

not be worth the return though you can

learn from these ads what type of

readers are attracted to your book

however I wouldn’t say the same for

targeting individual products in this

case you can tell Amazon specifically

what books or products you want to show

up for by finding them or typing in

their Asin number in a later video I’ll

explain how and why this can be an

excellent type of campaign but for now

keep in mind that when we refer to

product targeting in this course we will

be using their Asin number to identify

specific books now we are at the bid

section and just like keyword targeting

you get a suggested custom and default

bid we’ll follow the same path as for

keyword targeting and make a default bid

here of

65 okay so you can either do a keyword

targeting or product targeting depending

on which one you do you can now move on

to the creative section which is where

you can add your custom text what’s neat

about this is that in this section here

you can see what it will look like after

we have decided if we want to add custom

text the next section is the campaign

bidding strategy I’ll cover bids and

bidding strategy in the next section but

as for the purpose of this you have

three options Dynamic bids up and down

which allows Amazon to change the bid up

or down however they think will help

your ads best and fix bids where you

give a bid amount and it stays that way

Dynamic bids down which allows Amazon to

lower your bid Whenever there is the

opport oity to and still allow your ads

to show fix bids which means Amazon will

not change the bid amount you set which

one you choose is dependent on how

comfortable you feel when I first

started off making my first set of

campaigns for my book and this was

offered I chose Dynamic bids down that

way I always knew that I’d never pay

more than what I had set as a bid

however Amazon can actually limit your

impressions if you do this so if you

want to stay safe it’s better to just

choose fixed bids that way you let your

ads get high Impressions and are also

protected against overspending but now

that I’m experienced and know that my

books do well on Amazon I prefer to

start my first set of bids as Dynamic

bids up and down letting Amazon make

decisions on how best to position my

books and make more ad sales then scroll

down and give your campaign a name I

personally like to call my campaign the

name of the book using an abbreviation

an abbreviation of what type of campaign

I am doing such as SPO for sponsored

product ad or LSA for lock screen ad

also I’ll add something that identifies

what I am specifically doing for this ad

like targeting something think of that

as a campaign descriptor and finally

I’ll add the date later on when you are

advertising many books or testing

different things this naming structure

will help you to quickly see which

campaign is which thus making managing

your ads much easier next you can set

the date personally I like to leave mine

with a no end

unless I am setting up this campaign for

a specific promotion week or to coincide

with something special but otherwise

it’s best to leave it at no end date

next you’ll need to give yourself a

daily budget this is the max amount of

money you are willing to spend per day

in this campaign if at any time you need

to leave and can’t finish then just

click save as draft once you’re good to

go with your campaign click launch

campaign and that’s it you’ll receive an

email from Amazon letting you know that

you submitted a campaign and that it is

currently under review by their

moderators this takes between 1 to 3

days and once approved you’ll be live

okay so in this video you learned how to

set up a sponsor product ad that

targeted keywords and also product

targeting and if you’d like to learn

more and get more serious with Amazon

ads then absolutely check out my full

free video Amazon book ads course in

that course Janet Margo and myself we go

into detail into the right target

strategy and some of the things that you

can do to improve your conversion rate

as well as decrease your cost and thus

increase your profitability plus we take

a look at all of the brand new Amazon ad

systems and some of the bidding systems

and show you exactly how you can utilize

those to maximum effect there is no

gotcha moment and there’s no paid course

after that or anything this is

everything that we know that we put

together for you and you can find that

at amsc course.com so be sure to check

that out all right with that I’m Dave of

kleur signing off cheers