The 14-Day Author Ad Profit Challenge

Day #1: How to Log Into Your Account and Create the Easiest Amazon Ad

Brought to you by Bryan Cohen’s Author Ad School

Here’s What You’ll Learn on Day #1

How to log into your Amazon Ads account
How to set up your first Sponsored Product Auto Ad

Quick Tip: Logging Into Amazon Ads

Most self-published authors who use Kindle Direct Publishing will go to Advertising.Amazon.com and click “Sign In.” From there, you’ll select “United States” (yes, even if you’re not in the U.S.), and then “Advertising Console.” Once you sign in with your Amazon KDP credentials, you’ll likely be let right in (if not, we have some other options in the next section).

You will need to enter a credit card for Amazon to bill (hot tip: use one with reward points), so click on the gear icon in the bottom left corner and choose “Billing.” Click “Payment Settings” to select the card you want to use when readers click on your ads to go to your book’s sales page.

Other Login Options

If you have a KDP account and the previous direction doesn’t work for you, then you can go to your Bookshelf and find the book you’re interested in advertising. Click the “Promote and Advertise” button, and then, under the “Launch a Sponsored Products Campaign” header, you’ll choose Amazon.com as the marketplace and click the “Go to Campaign Builder” button.

If you don’t have a KDP account, you can still run ads for your non-KDP books through Author Central at Author.Amazon.com. After setting up your account, go to “Books,” then “Add a Book,” and make sure you’re connected with the book you wrote or published. Then, you’ll go to “Reports & Marketing,” and on the right-hand side, you’ll see the “Amazon Advertising” box, where you can select “United States” and “Go to Ads Console.”

This should cover 99% of you who want to run ads, but in case it doesn’t, please feel free to comment in our Facebook or Slack group and our team is happy to help!

Starting Strong

Now that you’re logged in, you’re ready to create your first (or 50th) ad campaign, and we want to start things off as simply as possible.

Today, we’ll go over how to create the easiest ad on the platform, which is called a Sponsored Product Auto Ad. Auto Ads use your book’s special hidden information to decide where the ad should show up, and we call this info “metadata.”

By ensuring that the metadata is as relevant as possible to your book (i.e. your book’s info accurately conveys your book’s genre), you can send more readers to your books in the form of clicks on your ads. And while you’ll be creating ads all Challenge long, it’s not recommended to expect immediate results; for now, simply setting up your ads and submitting them to Amazon is something you can and should celebrate!

What is an Auto Ad?

A Sponsored Product Auto Ad is an ad campaign where Amazon picks the targets for you (i.e. the book pages and searches where your ad may show up). This ad is the easiest to set up because you don’t have to spend the time researching the different book titles or search terms customers might use to find your campaign.

The issue is that since Amazon is using information you provided about your book when you published it, you may have to take a second look at the keywords, categories, and subtitles you’ve used on your books (since they might not be accurate). If those aren’t as accurate as possible, your Auto Ads might not work as well as you want. (Don’t worry, we can help you navigate this process!)

Today, we’ll just create one, but you only need to create a maximum of one Auto Ad per version of your book (ebook, paperback, hardcover, etc.).

When you run an Auto Ad or any Amazon ad campaign, you’ll get charged a certain amount for each time a reader clicks on your ad. That charge is based on a bid you set and a daily budget that you choose (we tend to keep these low).

We’ll go over the best practices on keywords and categories during the upcoming lessons!

How Does an Auto Ad Work?

Auto Ads run on metadata, which is a collection of information you submitted when publishing your book. Metadata includes your book’s title, your 2+ categories, your 7 KDP keywords, and other things like your book description (a.k.a. blurb). Though it may come as a surprise to many authors, Auto Ads can actually be some of your highest-traffic ads, even though many in the community struggle to get traction.

If your metadata was not optimized when you published, then you may need to review some of these areas before your Auto Ads begin getting traffic to your books. Once you have tidied up these aspects of your book, you may begin to see more indirect results, like your book showing up higher for certain keyword search results.

Creating an Auto Ad

From your Ad Dashboard, you’ll click on the “Create Campaign” button, followed by the “Continue” button under “Sponsored Products”
Different accounts may see the ad creation screen in a different order, so I’ll explain which settings go with each header (but don’t worry too much about the order)
For “Ad Format,” you can choose “Standard Ad,” which will bring up the “Ad Groups” header where you can use the name SPA 1 for now. As this is a standard ad, there is no need to worry about adding any copy
For “Products,” you’ll select your book from the list or search for your book in title case format (meaning with the correct capitalization for a title) before clicking the “Add” button
For “Targeting,” you’ll keep “Automatic Targeting” selected, and under “Automatic Targeting,” you’ll change your Default Bid to $0.39 for a series starter or $0.34 for a standalone book, a kids’ book or low content books
You can leave “Negative keyword targeting” and “Negative product targeting” blank
For “Campaign bidding strategy,” you’ll select “Dynamic Bids – Down Only” from the list and ignore the “Adjust bids by placement” link
For “Campaign name,” you’ll create a shorthand version of your book title (for example, my book “Self-Publishing with Amazon Ads” becomes SPWAA) and use that shorthand + the ad type + the bid you’ve selected (again, for my book, I’d create a campaign name like SPWAA SPA 39)
For “End,” you’ll choose either the last date of this month as your end date or no end date, and for “Daily budget,” you’ll set $5 as your amount
Double-check each of the sections (especially the bid) and then click the “Launch Campaign” button

Note: Some advertisers, such as those residing in the EU, may be subject to VAT (Value Added Tax). We recommend being aware of your local tax requirements to ensure you budget appropriately.

Finding More Relevant Readers

Auto Ads help Amazon to connect the right kind of readers with our books, but we have to meet them halfway with the most relevant metadata we can come up with. Knowing where to look for your ad stats as well as your royalties will help you to determine later on if your book or series are profitable in the long run.

As you create more ads in the form of Category and Keyword Ads, you’ll be attempting to put your book/ad campaigns in front of readers who would want to click and then buy your title. The best news about targeting only the most relevant readers for your books is that you’ll be able to pay less for ad clicks to increase your chances of publishing profitability.

Ready to See This Process in Action?

Be sure to watch the screen share at 11:48 to follow along with the visual portion of this lesson!

Day #1 Homework

Sign into your KDP and Amazon Advertising accounts and make sure your Payment Settings are up to date
Create one Auto Ad for your book using an acronym for the title you’ll remember (i.e. SPWAA SPA 39), select no end date or the last day of this month for the end date, and use a $5 daily budget
Use a 34 or a 39 cent bid and make it a Standard Ad (which has no ad copy)
Create your campaign, take a screenshot of your newly set up ad, and post the picture in a brand new post in the Facebook or Slack group with the hashtag #AdDay1 (as well as a hashtag you make up for yourself for easy searching, like #bryguy40)
Comment on another author’s homework post with some encouragement, GIFs, or stickers!

On the Next Day of the Challenge

We’ll discuss how to make sure that your ad costs stay low when you create your next ads.

We’ll also talk about where to look to find your ad stats, your sales, and more.

Thank you for being a part of the Challenge, and we look forward to seeing you in the next video!

Sincerely,
Bryan & the Team