#006: 3 Steps To Improve Your Amazon Ads

Hey,

The number of different books, courses, podcasts, YouTube videos, blog articles on all manner of topics for authors is overwhelming enough.

Let alone the varied opinions on how authors should run their Amazon Ads.

Every author has their own way of running Amazon Ads, and I'm sure they all work in their own way. Though it doesn't mean these same tactics or strategies are guaranteed to work for your books.

With all these different ideas brimming of how you could run your Amazon Ads, you want to test it all! Trust me, I've been there!

Unfortunately, if you persist in trying a bunch of these different strategies and tactics, before you know it, your Amazon Ads Account is going to become a complete jumble.

It's going to become bloated.

There isn't one holistic strategy that ties everything you are doing together.

The result is you get overwhelmed just looking at it your Account, let alone trying to figure out what to do with it all.

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" – Leonardo Da Vinci

Simple is better than complex.

We often overcomplicate and overthink things, which can have devastating consequences, on not only our results, but also, our productivity and motivation.

We reach a state of paralysis by analysis and end up doing (and achieving) little to nothing.

Bringing this newsletter back on track to Amazon Ads specifically...

When your Amazon Ads Account becomes bloated, you will likely take 1 of 3 actions:

#1: Turn off all your Ads and move on to the next shiny object

#2: Leave the Ads on (unwittingly) and move on to the next shiny object (and coming back to an unexpected Amazon Ads invoice)

#3: Put on your big girl pants or big boy pants and try to figure out the wood from the trees in the mess that is your Amazon Ads Account

Either way, when an Amazon Ads Account gets to this stage (and I've seen a few now), you really have to drill down into the data to figure out what is and isn't working.

So today, I'm going to share with you how I solve this very issue of bloated Amazon Ads Accounts, and how you can do the same:

Step 1: Analyze The Data

Data tells a story. 

Here's how you analyze the data in your Amazon Ads Account to tell that story:

– Download the relevant Amazon Ads Reports and do some number crunching/analysis (I'd recommend the Search Term Report, Advertised Product Report and Placement Report)

– Look at multiple time periods of data (e.g. Last 30 Days, Lifetime, Last 7 Days, etc.)

– See where the money is being spent (which Campaigns and which Keywords/ASINs)

– Look for patterns/trends in the data

– Review the Campaign and Account Structure

– Check for duplication on Keywords/ASINs (a common problem I see a lot)

– Look at the bidding strategy being used and how much is being bid on relevant targets

– Review which placements the sales and page reads are coming from

All this data you've just consumed will tell you a story of what is and isn't working with your Amazon Ads. Armed with this data, you're ready for Step 2...

Step 2: Take Action on The Data

To be honest, I can be pretty ruthless when an account is in such a mess; I turn a lot of Campaigns off if they haven't generated a single sale/borrow for at least 30 days and focus on the 20% of Campaigns that are delivering 80% of the results.

If there are campaigns with 100's of keywords/ASINs in them, I look at the past 30 days worth of data and what I typically see is maybe 10-20% of those targets with impressions and clicks. And out of those, only a handful have actually generated any sales/page reads.

So, I'll turn off any targets that haven't generated any sales/page reads within the past 30 days, leaving the budget to focus on what's already working, rather than being spread too thin across too many targets.

With some accounts I've managed, the naming conventions are not only confusing, but misleading. So I also take the time to rename all the campaigns and Ad Groups  this may sound small fry, but you'd be amazed at how much time something so simple can save you.

I use The Amazon Ads Funnel (something I cover in-depth inside Jumpstart Amazon Ads For Authors) to structure accounts, which allows for every campaign to be working in harmony together – rather than each campaign off doing its own thing!

Step 3: Wait and Measure

Once you've taken action on everything in your account, the next skill to master is patience.

Let Amazon do its thing.

After the pretty major shakeup you've just performed on your Amazon Ads, I would recommend leaving things be for 7-14 days before making any more adjustments.

You can then track the numbers to figure out how the performance has changed; for the better or for the worse.

Whenever I've performed what we've just been through here on client accounts, I've seen a big jump in performance.

This is typically because the budget is now being focused on what is proven to work, rather than being spread out so thin across thousands of different targets.

With this new account structure, the targets that have already proven themselves are now receiving enough budget to make the impact you want to see; more impressions, more clicks, more sales/page reads.

From there, you should begin to see an uplift in organic performance too, as your Amazon Bestseller Rank starts to improve and Amazon starts to take more notice of you, providing more organic visibility and therefore organic sales and borrows too.

TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read)

1. Analyze the data

2. Take action on the data

3. Wait and measure

This is how you turn an Amazon Ads Account around.

You have to get in there, look at all the data and really focus in on what is actually working.

It's not to say that all these random strategies and tactics you've been testing out have been a waste of money; they have taught you how to use the Amazon Ads platform for one, but they should have also collected data that can be used in future campaigns.

Amazon Ads doesn't have to be complicated, but it can be when your Account becomes bloated.

Keep things SIMPLE, because SIMPLE works. Every time.

That's it for this week; thanks for reading. See you next Saturday!

To Your Success
– Matt