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#068: Amazon Ads Has Changed (What I've Learned)

Aug 17, 2024

Read Time: 4 Minutes

 

I've been getting my teeth back into Amazon Ads over the past month or so, which is why today, I wanted to share a few of my insights and learnings.

Full disclosure... we have been spending money on Amazon Ads for Lori's books every single day since 2020. But I haven't worked with them on a weekly basis (like I have with Facebook Ads) for the past 12-18 months.

But I'm getting back into them now to help us diversify our traffic generation and rely less heavily on Facebook Ads.

And already, in the span of just 12-18 months, I've noticed things are a little different from the last time I really got into the weeds of Amazon Ads.

Ok, let's jump into the Top 3 learnings and insights I've come across over the past month or so as I get back into Amazon Ads:


#1: Use Fixed Bids


The conservative approach to Amazon Ads is to use Dynamic Bids Down Only, which I was a big fan of 12-18 months ago.

With my recent tests, however, I've found that Dynamic Bids Down Only is slow to get traction and collect data. Very slow.

In short, Dynamic Bids Down Only is one of three Campaign Bidding Strategies, which control how aggressive you are with your Amaozn Ads bids.

Choosing Dynamic Bids Down Only means that Amazon can reduce your bid (by any amount it deems fit) if its algorithm believes a click won't result in a sale.

This sounds great on the surface, but at the beginning of a new Amazon Ads Campaign, my goal is to collect data quickly.

With Dynamic Bids Down Only I found that my Campaigns were getting little to no impressions and clicks. Meaning very slow data collection.

The other thing to consider here is that Amazon's algorithm doesn't consider a "borrow" as a "sale". So, if your books are in Kindle Unlimited, whereby readers "borrow" your book as part of their subscription, Amazon doesn't consider that borrow as a "sale".

If you earn a lot of royalties from Kindle Unlimited, Dynamic Bids Down Only could be seriously hampering your results and the page read potential of your Amazon Ads Campaigns.

Food for thought...

The solution... I've found Fixed Bids to be a better option, as I can collect data much more quickly and find winning and losing targets within a matter of days rather than weeks.

Fixed Bids means your full bid will be forced into the auction; Amazon won't mess with it.

With Fixed Bids selected, I also don't run the risk of Amazon lowering my bid on a keyword/ASIN if it has the potential to generate a considerable number of page reads.


#2: Less Is More


This philosophy hasn't changed too much to be honest. Relevancy is paramount with Amazon Ads. Relevant keywords, relevant ASINs, relevant authors, etc.

But rather than putting 40, 50+ targets into a single Campaign, I'm finding I get better results with 10-20 targets per Campaign.

Just make sure every target in every Campaign is highly relevant to your advertised book.

The spaghetti-on-the-wall approach is no longer a sustainable strategy with Amazon Ads.

Relevancy matters more to Amazon now than it ever has in the past.

This is why using fewer, more relevant targets will get you better results than more targets that are only tenuously relevant to your advertised book.


#3: Negative Targeting Matters (A Lot)


Using Negative Targeting is like putting the training wheels onto Amazon's algorithm.

Negative Targeting teaches Amazon what your book is and isn't about.

It also saves you a truckload of advertising dollars.

I'm finding myself using Negative Targeting a LOT more now than I used to, in order to train and hone in the algorithm on what I want the advertised book to show up for.

With one Campaign, for example, I have 98 Negative Keywords. Not a typo: ninety-eight.


#4: One Book Per Campaign


With my previous Amazon Ads strategy, I would advertise every book in the series in every Campaign.

This meant Amazon could choose which book to show in the Ads.

But with Lori's series, readers need to start at Book 1. The story would make no sense if they started at Book 2 or 3.

What I'm doing now to control this is only advertising Book 1 of the series in each Campaign.

Plus, I'm only advertising the Kindle version of Book.

I was finding that the Paperbacks were selling a lot more copies with Amazon Ads than the Kindle versions were.

But the Kindle versions are more profitable for us, and it's where 90% of the royalties come from, so that's what we wanted to focus our advertising dollars on.

The exception to only advertising one book per Campaign is with our Brand Protection Campaigns, where we advertise every book in the series in every Campaign.

These Brand Protection Campaigns convert incredibly well because we are targeting keywords related to Lori's author brand, such as:

– Lori Holmes

– Ancestors Saga

– The Forbidden By Lori Holmes

We also target every book product page of Lori's with all the books in the series, to take up as much real estate as possible, as you can see in the screenshot below (from the product page of Book 1).


 


Wrapping Up...


There's plenty more where this came from, but I'll save that for another newsletter (or five).

One thing that hasn't changed, if you've had any experience with Amazon Ads over the years, is how long things take to get momentum and traction.

I'm finding myself leaving Campaigns to run for 14 days before I go in and start optimizing them. Some Campaigns have very little data even after that amount of time.

So, it's still a slow platform, but there are a few things I'm testing to see if I can speed up the process of collecting data and also how Amazon Ads can be incorporated into a promotion, where you want to spend a lot of money in a short space of time.

All content for another day.

I'm enjoying getting back into Amazon Ads, looking at data and spreadsheets again, and over the following weeks and months, I'll keep you updated on new learnings and insights.

For now though, thank you so much for reading and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

To Your Success
– Matt 

 

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