I'm a german author. Yesterday I followed your tutorial and today I got 7 sales! Last two months I only sold books at physical events, not one damn book by amazon. Made the ad with your tutorial and 7 ebooks in one day - and the day is not even over yet!!! Thank you so much for your tutorial! Got some hope again - so I really needed to put a thanks-comment here. Danke!!!
Thats great to hear! Congrats! I had a question tho...When you create a second campaign for the "Manual Product" how do you go about doing it? for the key words, you can use winning key words, but for the Manual product campaign does amazon tell you what winning books that you placed in your campaign were mostly searched so you use those books again when you create the second manual product campaign?
@@KenSelfPublishing When you're right, you're right! At 16 days in following your recommendations, my ACOS per day shifted into the profitable range and it has been since. The hardest part is not checking on my ads campaigns every minute. But for those who are nervous to try ads, Ken's system is a good one--it just takes patience and a little bit of frustration tolerance. Thank you again for sharing your strategy. This is an unsolicited comment, btw.
You can have the best ad campaign but if your cover and title aren't any good people simply aren't going to click on it. Clear and concise. One of the best videos I've seen so far on ad campaigns.
Thank you so much for presenting this in a clean and concise way which makes it so much easier to understand and walk step-by-step through it with you. I published my first book in June and have been completely overwhelmed by the thought of marketing. I've finally accepted that it must be done, but was struggling with comprehending some of the information. This video helped tremendously, and I have the first 3 campaigns running. I'm looking forward to seeing how things go over the next couple of weeks and then will create the winning campaign. Wow. Thanks again!
Really glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the kind words. Don’t be scared, book marketing is as simple as finding a keyword with demand, creating a desirable book, and getting it seen. Goodluck! :)
I was afraid of advertising, now because of your simple tutorial I'm excited to give it a shot. Fingers crossed that I wrote something others are interested in reading. We'll find out soon enough.
Hi, Ken This is a very informative video, but if I may make a suggestion for making it better then you should make the screen bigger and take away your face. I’m watching this video on an iPad and I’m finding it difficult to read the screen because of the size of the letters.
I published my first book on January 30th and was so scared of running ADS until I found you. You are so freaking AWESOME! Thank you so much for this amazing video. I implemented everything you taught here and nine days into running my ad campaigns I have 7 sales. The Manual Keyword Campaign brought in all 7 sales, so I paused the other two campaigns. Should I have done that? They were running for 8 days and no sales came through, so I paused them. I have 2 winning keywords so far because they have 2+ sales each. The other keywords only have one sale each. The ACOS for my winning keywords are below 18%. Today is DAY 9, should I keep running the ad? Or should I pause and create new campaigns. Hopefully this made sense. I am so new to this. Thank you so much. God bless!❤
Really glad you’re getting value from my videos! If you have an 18% acos, definitly keep it running. You can always remove or add keywords to optimize the campaign. I would keep them running! Great job keep it up:) it’s fine to turn off campaigns that aren’t performing and focus on ones that are especially if you have limited budget. If it stays below 25%, you can even increase your bid slightly (5 cents) this way you hover around 30% acos and they might even perform a little bit better. Goodluck! :)
Great video. Question: So how many winning keywords do you suggest having before creating the winning manual ad? I heard 25, 50 or 100 but is is a solid number? Thx
Did exactly that today and added some new ones (campaigns), I don't mind breaking even, or a slight loss upfront, as long as the notebooks are being seen, because they're selling without my help, so reckon they should do fine with some Ads help, thanks again Ken@@KenSelfPublishing
I'm confused but I know this just takes a couple of watches and maybe note-taking... you did a great job, it's just me. too much info at once. Whoosh! over my head! lol! But the video is brilliant... just needs a few view to wrap my head around it. Doh! lol
Glad you enjoyed it! Remember. Focus on your book and keywords. Amazon ads aren’t complicated when you nail those things. If you aren’t seeing results it’s almost entirely to do with your book and keyword not the ads them self.
Hi again. So I created my first automatic campaign for one of my books. Then a couple of days later, I decided to do the same for another book. However, I went to the ad group that my first book a ad belongs to, and clicked on, "Add Products to Advertise." Does this feature simply duplicate the exact same ad settings from book 1 for book 2? So how I created my first ad, will now automatically be the same for the ad for my second book. Is that right?
I guess technically yes, however, I like to do separate campaigns for each book. Just keeps it organized and so you only see one set of data for each book on the main dashboard. I will also separate different types of ads. 3 campaigns for 1 book. 1 auto, 1 manual keyword, and 1 manual product.
Hello and congratulations for this video, exhaustive and very well done! One question: as I create the winning keyword campaign, what do I do with the initial campaign? Do I always let it run? Do I insert the winning keywords as negative terms in the first campaign? Thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it! Yea you can add them as negative. Or if the campaign doesent have many keywords and is a manual campaign, you can optimize around the performers and removed the ones that aren’t.
One other quick question. After establishing a strong grouping of keywords, is it worthwhile reconsidering the categories set as part of the book's publishing parameters? Assuming, of course, the categories that had been applied initially are significantly different than what appears from the keyword evaluation campaign.
I've only had one sale in 3 weeks of running the ads and that's from 138 clicks. I'm not sure which part needs optimising - the product page and description or the ad targeting! Is this a normal ratio for clicks to sales? It'd be great to know.
I would it’s the either the product page, reviews, or potentially keyword targeting. People are interested in your book but for some reason aren’t buying….s good ratio is 1 sale per 10 clicks. The biggest thing here is making sure you have A+ content to showcase the interior and experience and enough reviews for social proof. You can also make sure your targeting the right keywords people don’t click on your book and realize it’s not what they’re looking for.
Hi Ken, love these videos - thanks so much, this one is amazing. When trying to assess the correct figure for sales within a campaign, the amount shown within the ad group in 'search terms' is different from the royalty estimator in the main KDP dashboard. Any idea which one I should trust when trying to determine the effectiveness of a campaign?
Really glad you’re enjoying the content! Well the add campaign data is for the ads-which is also not 100% perfect. The royalties estimated is for all sales. So basically organically sales as well. Your royalty estimator will be and absolutely should be different than your Amazon ads (hopefully higher) because it’s all sales (ebook, paperback, organic, from ads) not just Amazon ad sales. So I look at them both for different purposes
Hi! I like the great quality of your video! I have a question. When I move the best keywords on a winner keyword campaign , should I close the keywords on the other campaign? Thanks
When setting up the bill payment method for Amazon ads, it asks for the advertiser name. Do I put my real name in this or my pen name? I wouldn't have thought it would be my pen name, as I have more than one and the payment method is for ads overall. Not for each individual pen name. Also, in the account Indentifier box. It has a place holder title of, "Sponsored Ads - Author." Should I change that or leave it as it is? If yes to changing it, what should I put in the box? I would really like some help with this, as this is stopping me from doing my first ad campaign, since I really don't want to possibly risk having my legal name public.
Definitly not your pen name. Any sort of billing stuff or account related stuff, always do business or personal information. It has nothing to do with your pen name. The pen name is only linked with your book and anything to do with that book (email marketing for that specific audience, etc), nothing more.
Thanks for your strategy, never heard others doing it this way. Unfortunately it will require a lot of money for ads per day, not everyone can afford 😅
Glad you enjoyed it! You can do the same strategy, but determine your budget for the month, and build them around that. Will still be able to make sales and get data. I’d recommend forgetting the product campaign and just use the auto test and the keyword campaign. Or even just the auto test. Like I mentioned if you have a good niche and focus on optimizing your book you’ll still get alot of traction. Unfortunately though, with ads you have to spend some money. There’s no way around it. We can’t spend 5$ to make $1000, doesn’t work like that. You can still start slow, at like 100$/month or less and if done well can easily make good money, then slowly up your budget as you get returns. Just build it around what you’re working with! if you don’t have much budget at all, have a look at my review strategy video. This will help you optimize your book and you should get a lot of organic sales. With enough reviews and a good book even $50/month on ads can give you some good returns and your book will slowly build over time.
This is the most clear, concise and straightforward Amazon KDP tutorial....I'm super confident the results will be significant. Thank you for delivering tremendous value!!!
Hi, Ken. First, thank you for the fantastic training video. I handle marketing for an author and she has just decided to start running campaigns on KDP (which means me). I just set up the first of the four campaigns (the automatic) and the dashboard for the new campaign reads: "Status: Ads are not delivering" but the ad group for said campaign reads "status: delivering." Can you explain what this means? Maybe I missed it in the video. Thanks!
Really glad you enjoyed it! The only thing I can think of is the ad campaign is still “in review” or her book has something in the title that doesent allow her to advertise. (Healing, cure, etc) but unless I see it I’m not too sure. Ads do take time to get approved to if it’s still not delivering Feel free to post a screenshot in the Facebook group and I can get a better understanding!
Hi , My Account has been closed temporarily because of unnecessary repetitive words in title or subtitle, i reinstate my account by replied to the email, my question is : i have a book with the same issue 3 repetitive words in subtitle , the book sell well,with good reviews, what can i do with it if i unpublished it i will loss the rank of book Any advice please
Yes avoid unpublished it as you will have to relaunch it like a new book. Not to sure what to do, potentially just leave it and hope for the best because unpublishing it will ruin the ranking/remove reviews
Not personally no! If you follow this basic strategy it should be more than enough. Like I mention it’s not the ads itself, it’s how much demand their is for our book.
Thanks. I started studying Amazon Ads this morning. Now three hours later, with your crisp and fast moving video on top of Mark Dawson's PDF and tour through the KDP marketing process I understand how to get under way. You provided an excellent summation and overview. Much appreciated.
Really glad you benefited from it! You’ll have them mastered before you know it. The secret: continue to optimize your book and test new covers. Ads are just showing yoir book to people, that’s it. They have to want your book for yoir ads to do well!
Really great video! I just put out my first ever book, it's a self help book on personal growth. After watching this video, I went and got over 30 reviews, many being verified reviews based on the free book promotion for kindle. So I followed the ads setup you provided to a T, and I think they're set up pretty well. My question is that it's been about 3 days now, and the 3 ads combined have only spent just over $2, when I have a daily budget of $12 on each because Amazon had recommended that. It does have 3,500 impressions, but is this normal to start out this slow out of the gate? I'm used to Meta ads where they always spend your daily budget. Is it just a time thing that will get better after a period? Thanks for the tips!
Hey man, thank you for this video. I am new to publishing on KDP, and I'll definitely be watching your videos as I learn more. Very informative. Subscribed!!. Thank you
Thankyou to all the commentors. There are so many RU-vid videos on KDP that I base what I watch on the amount ofpositive comments. I read quite a few here and only saw really heartfelt support for this channel. I am just starting my KDP journey and need all the help I can get. Hopefuly this will help with my sales. Thanks again!
Excellent explanations and advises. Quite expensive though, running four campaigns for weeks at 40 euros a day is not cheap especially during the test period
Well unless you have a good book with lots of reviews, the odds of you spending that is slim. You only pay per clicks. So I highly doubt you’ll actually spend that much. You don’t normally hit your daily spend until your book gets more credible. However, you can cater this approach to any budget. You can only do 1 of the campaigns or only allow the campaigns to run a few days per week. It’s up to you! What you can also do it have one campaign, with multiple ad groups. So your 5$ a day goes towards product targeting AND Manual targeting. Hope this helps!
@@KenSelfPublishing Thanks again, Make sense, I think my second comment was deleted so I write it again, have you experience in google ads too and if so, which is more efficient for promoting KDP content ? .
Your videos are seriously so good, you are very skilled at explaining things in a way that makes others understand very easily. Are you suggesting using 3-4 campaigns for 1 book?
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it. Yes, absolutely. Basically you want a campaign targeting your main keywords, a campaign targeting products in your niche, and an auto test campaign for extra sales and to find some winning keywords as they are usually not what we expect. Of course, make adjustments with your budget to work for you, but this way we spread a wide net and our book gets seen the maximum amount. Once you get more reviews and your book becomes more established, all these campaigns should be profitable and your book will be shown in all the relevant places.
@@KenSelfPublishingyou’ve got it wrong. Early on, reviews are the most important metric. So the best way is to set up an ad campaign to advertise your FREE ebook. Once the purchases and reviews starting rolling in, then you stop the ad, create a new one for a fair price on the paperwork while keeping the ebook free. Let that run, then new ad again with a higher price on the paperback and a fair price on the ebook. U have to crawl before u can walk
Having looked at several other videos on this topic and having been struggling with my KDP ad campaigns, this is JUST WHAT I NEED. AWESOME!!! Thank you, Ken!
When you create a second campaign for the "Manual Product" how do you go about doing it? for the key words, you can use winning key words, but for the Manual product campaign does amazon tell you what winning books that you placed in your campaign were mostly searched so you use those books again when you create the second manual product campaign?
I’ve been deflated with ads, ad courses, and everything ad-related. I found success early on but took almost two years off due to personal issues. When I returned, everything changed, and I haven’t been able to regain any traction. I’ve spent $$$$ so much money on courses that are supposed to be game-changers, leaving me feeling like I need to go back to school to become a data analyst or some guru. This!!! I’ve said from the beginning, in layman’s terms, which you’ve accomplished. I need to sit down and play this back several times and tweak my AMS Ads. At a glance, I can already see some of my ad's ACOS is extremely high, and you’ve explained what to do with it. Thank you!!! I just requested to join your group.
Hi , i'm new in amazon kdp but i've created few low content books. Should i run separete campaigns for each of my products ? Or can i create one campaign and put all of my books into this single campaing? Thank you for answer
I just watched your video and made a few campaigns while you talked. I now realize why my last attempt at a campaign did nothing. I'm very optimistic about this one. THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Thank you for Useful video, i need help how i can get keywords or which software i need to use to find keywords for laptops, trimmer and tumbler, awaiting for your kind response
Hi Ken, I have created many planners, journals, notebooks and logbooks. Do I need to create ad for each one? Before, I runned one lottery ad for all books.
Thank you for this video. After watching your video, I have created 3 campaigns as per your lesson. This is what was missing to sell my books. Thank you so much indeed!
Great video Ken! This made me feel a lot more confident about launching Amazon ads. Question, when you start to build out the winning campaigns with the key words that meet the profitability guidelines, do you turn those keywords off on the initial campaigns that we set up?
Because then the campaign budget is 100% focused on those keywords to maximize them. Otherwise, a campaign is spending money on a lot that aren’t performing and not the ones that are.
@@KenSelfPublishing Thank you. Now I will start 3 campaign for each of my 87 books plus the winning one, for the 4 countries I want to target, that is 1,392 campaign, good grief... Make sense, I like your videos.
Thank you so much. This video is packed with helpful info on how to start an ads program. I have already started and would have been lost without this guide. So many details that you point out that would have stumped me if I hadn't had the opportunity to see this vid. Very grateful to you for making this.
firstly THANK YOU for the great explanation, second do i need to run 3 campaigns? or its optional.. I am thinking of doing one for now, but what's your advice for more effective results?
Really glad you enjoyed the video! Do whatever your budget allows. If you want, skip the auto test campaign and focus on the keyword /product campaigns targeting the best keywords/products in each and having them at 5$/day. (If most likey won’t spend this) hope this helps!
hello, just found your video. I already have 3 ads for my book and e-book. I have 42,000 impressions, some clicks and no sales. I've actually used the KDP Rocket tool. I don't have any reviews yet. What do you suggest?
I would say definitely aim for some reviews and have a look at what you’re targeting. Is it too broad? 43,000 reviews with few clicks seems to me too are targeting way to broad. You definitly need some reviews, and ensure your targeting keywords that are specific too your book. Another thing, I personally don’t run ads to ebooks, only the paperback version. Very hard to get profitable ebook ads.
This is my first video that I have watched for Amazon KDP ads, super straight to the point and I will be back to give an update in a few weeks. Super excited!
Back for an updates, followed your video and strategy and I've been able to make sales! I will continue to adjust the campaigns as I go along but this is a really great start!
Wow, this was so clear! It gives me more confidence that I can do this myself, rather than hiring people as I've done before. Many thanks. Just subscribed.
Really glad you enjoyed it! Amazon ads for books are definitly something you can do yourself. Focus on a good keyword, a good book, and some reviews and your ads will perform fine!
Maybe you could clear something up for me? For the winning campaigns products - I use the the ASIN shown under Matched Product, right? Your help is really appreciated.
Thank you so much for this comprehensive and easy to follow video. I have published some ads while following along. It's probably too early for me to do so as it's my first book and I only have 20 reviews so far, but we shall do a little trial and see how it goes. Thank you again.
I would start them as soon as you have a couple reviews. The first 30 days are important to let Amazon know people are interested in your book. It helps with your ranking
If I run these ad campaigns for 4 days at only 10 dollars a day, how many people will buy the book, even if it's really impressive? I mean, what's the upper limit for buying with so little money and in such a short time?
When you move keywords from the automatic campaign to the manual winning campaign, should we leave the automatic campaign running with the same settings? Or should we use the winning keywords as negative keywords for the auto campaign such that we only have the winning keywords running from the winning campaign?
Yes, you can add the winning keywords as negative keywords in the test campaigns. Should have made that more clear! No need for them to be targeted twice. You can always test and keep them in both campaigns and see if it's effective!
These bits means when people buy the book by click the adds so the bits will get charged from author? If every day set $10, with 3 different types of the adds, it will be $30 a day, which will be about $900 a month for the adds. Am I correct?
Hypothetically, bust most likely it won’t spend that. It’ll only spend when people click. This is just a baseline, adjust them as you wish to fit your budget. Skip the auto test ad and just to two campaigns at 5$/day. If it also spends 900$ you absolutely make more than that in sales. And if yoir ACOS is high yiu just need more reviews and to optimize your book, but if enough people want to click your book it spends it all, that’s a good thing. People don’t click your book if they aren’t at lest somewhat interested.
Hi Ken. When running an auto campaign alongside manual, is it better to have those manual keywords/products on the Excluded list of the the auto campaign, to avoid paying for duplicate cost per click?
Hi! I followed this and am a week post set-up. I find the system to be confusing. How long does it take to get metrics. For example I am not seeing impressions and ACOS but its saying the ads are delivering. This is the second time I'm struggling to succesfully run ads.
Hello Ken! Wouldn't it be more correct to launch a campaign for 10-15 keywords + product campaign in the first stage, and wait some time for amazon to gain stats and training. And after that, as soon as amazon is trained, launch an automatic campaign. Please tell me what you think?
I don’t believe they would be linked and It wouldn’t take other ads into consideration. It’s a good theory and maybe I am wrong but it doesn’t work this way as far as I know! The auto test campaign learns from itself so if you have the budget it is worth while to start it earlier. Eventually turning it off and focusing on manual campaigns for maximum profitability
Hi , i'm new in amazon kdp but i've created few low content books. Should i run separete campaigns for each of my products ? Or can i create one campaign and put all of my books into this single campaing? Thank you for answer
Thanks Ken! Really helpful. I started up Amazon campaigns for my romcoms again this month and am hoping for more sales this year. Your point about working out what is a good keyword is really useful (and easy to understand).
Brother will help me with an information. I work in Amazon KDP. Can I market my book on the marketplace? Creates an Amazon Associate account. Will there be any problem in the account? It would help me a lot if you let me know.
This did not work for me. I don’t know what I did wrong but I ended up having a high Acos of 70%. So my acos was higher than my sales. I had to stop all my ads because I don’t know where i went wrong
If your ACOS was unprofitable, like I mentioned, you’re gonna need to make some changes to your book. Why is it unprofitable? How many reviews? How’s the keywords? Your title, cover? If your Amazon ads aren’t converting it has nothing to do with the Ads At all. Your ads are just showing your book to people, if they don’t work out well it means people aren’t wanting to buy your book. Go to the root of it all and make some changes, then try the ads again. But it’s always the book and keyword!
Thanks so much for this! I have a rebranded hardcover for my Slasher trilogy, so does this work the same for hardcovers? Also, most Amazon ads tutorials focus on eBooks instead, do you feel like it works best for paperback/hardcover rather than eBooks?
I would say so! Conversion rate might be lower if it’s a higher price. Yes, I personally don’t advertise to ebooks. They don’t have enough royalties to warrant it! Unless your ebook is 5$+ and that’s what your audience prefers. Thanks for the support :)
@@KenSelfPublishing Thanks! After one week I've only had 1 hardcover sale, but lots of impressions. (My sales seem to do better on FB ads for now) Most of them are on Stephen King, should I delete that keyword? And you said lower your bid by 0.10c, is that for every single keyword in all 3 campaigns?
I'm Dutch but wrote my novel in English meaning that my reviews are (going to be) there on the Dutch site, but not yet in the US: is it worth starting without reviews? All the rest is in great shape but don't want to waste money. Amazing video btw, thanks!!
I would absolutely go for verified reviews (people who purchase the book) because a verified review shows up worldwide! I definitely think having a few reviews goes a long way if you can get them.
