AMS Amazon Ads for Self-Published Authors: A Beginner's Complete Playbook

The name AMS still shows up in old posts. The product you buy inside a KDP account today is Amazon Ads. KDP's help topic "Advertising for KDP books" says the ads put your book in prominent placements in the store while someone is browsing, and that you set the budget so you control the spend.

This is advertising, which means it is a way to spend money. Nothing on Amazon's pages promises a profit, a rank, or a review. If you cannot afford to pay for clicks that do not turn into sales, do not turn a campaign on. The notes below are the published rules, not a forecast.

Two formats KDP actually describes

Sponsored Products appear in shopping results and on product detail pages. A click goes to your book's detail page. KDP says to start there. The ads are cost-per-click: you pay when a customer clicks, you choose the bid, and you set the budget. After you launch, the campaign goes through moderation before it can run.

Sponsored Brands let you show a selection of books, or run a video that sends a shopper to a detail page. KDP's requirement is specific. To create a Sponsored Brands campaign you must have at least one pen name with three unique titles on Author Central. A single debut does not meet that bar. Add the books to Author Central first. A new pen-name claim can take up to 48 hours to show up in the ads account after Amazon verifies you hold the rights.

Amazon's guide to its ad products adds the budget shapes. Sponsored Products use a daily budget, the most you want to spend per day. Sponsored Brands can use a daily budget or a campaign budget, which is a cap for the whole run. A daily budget can go up or down. A campaign budget can only be increased, so if you might want to lower it later, the daily option is the flexible one. The same guide says there is no minimum spend requirement and that you can test from a budget as low as $10. It also says you will not be charged more than your bid for a click.

Where a KDP book can be advertised

For books you publish through KDP, co-authored books, and books published outside KDP, ads are available in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, India, Australia, and Japan. Ads for audiobooks are currently available only in the United States. Traditionally published titles, meaning books that are not self-published through KDP, have a shorter country list: United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Canada, and Australia.

An ads account is created for each country where you list products. You switch country in the console rather than assuming a US campaign also runs on Amazon.de. KDP notes that campaigns in more than one marketplace are billed separately, which is one reason a card statement can show what look like duplicate charges.

If the book is in a language other than the marketplace where the ad will show, KDP requires a language disclaimer in the title on the ad and on the detail page, such as a parenthetical edition note, and any custom headline has to be in the language of that store.

In Japan, indie fliptoon and indie manga series ASINs are not eligible. Indie manga episode ASINs are.

Opening the account from KDP

KDP's path is the Marketing tab, then the Amazon Ads section, then the button that leads to an overview of Sponsored Products. Choosing a marketplace before you continue drops you into that country's console after you register. The Start Advertising button opens the campaign workflow. You can also reach the console at advertising.amazon.com, which is the only place KDP says you can check performance. The KDP marketing tab is a door, not the report.

Before you spend, KDP tells you to make the detail page ready: a clear summary, and support on the page for any claim the ad makes. Its example is a "New York Times bestseller" line, which the detail page has to be able to back up. A+ Content, where you are eligible, can add images and comparison tables on that page. The ad sends people to the page. The page has to finish the job.

Book advertising has a moderation step and a creative-acceptance policy. A campaign you just saved is not live until that review finishes.

The $50 line on your card

When you add or update a payment method, Amazon Ads places a temporary $50 pre-authorization hold to check that the card is valid. KDP's FAQ says this is not a charge. The bank releases the hold in 3 to 7 business days, and you are only charged for actual ad spend. The hold amount can vary by marketplace and by payment method. If a campaign pauses for an unpaid invoice after you have paid, KDP says to wait 12 to 24 hours, confirm the payment in your bank history, sign out and back in, and contact Amazon Ads support if it is still paused after 24 hours. Billing questions go to Amazon Ads, not to a general KDP metadata ticket. KDP's own FAQ has a section on which desk to contact.

What ACOS is, and what it is not

Amazon Ads defines advertising cost of sales as ad spend divided by ad revenue, times 100. In the company's example, $50 of spend and $100 of ad revenue is a 50 percent ACOS. Return on ad spend is the inverse, ad revenue divided by ad spend, which is 2 in that same example. A lower ACOS means less spend relative to the sales the ads are credited with. Amazon's guide says that is not the only goal, and that a campaign aimed at being seen rather than at an immediate sale will not show its whole effect inside that ratio.

For Sponsored Products, Amazon describes ACOS as ad spend compared with promoted-product sales. For Sponsored Brands, the same guide describes it as ad spend compared with overall brand sales. Do not treat the two percentages as the same kind of number.

Here is an illustrative example, arithmetic only, not a result you should expect. Suppose a click costs 40 cents and the royalty on one US ebook sale, after the delivery cost Amazon deducts on the 70 percent option, is about $2. You would need one sale for every five clicks before that click cost is covered by those royalties. Many clicks will not become a sale. The point of the arithmetic is to decide a daily budget you can lose while you learn, not to predict a conversion rate. Royalty estimates belong on KDP's pricing page, because delivery fees and the buyer's country change the number.

Keyword match types, from Amazon's ads guide

Amazon's keyword-targeting guide defines three match types:

Broad match has the widest reach. Ads can show for related searches in any order, including variations and synonyms. Amazon's example is a keyword "tennis shoes" matching searches such as "athletic sneakers."

Phrase match requires the words in order, with other words allowed before or after. "Running shoes" can match "women's running shoes" and should not match "shoes for running."

Exact match is the tightest. The query has to be the keyword or a very close variant. Amazon's example is "white running shoes," which might also match "running shoes white," and not a looser synonym.

The guide's practical order is to start broader, read the search-term report, and then add the queries that actually sold as exact-match keywords. Negative keywords, described in Amazon's ads FAQ, stop an ad from showing on searches that waste the budget.

Backend KDP keywords are a different form. Those seven fields have their own bans, including other authors' names. An ad keyword is not that form, but it still has to comply with Amazon's ad policies, and a detail page that cannot support the claim will fail moderation.

BookIntelReport can suggest ad phrases from a manuscript. You still set the bid, the country, and the daily number you are willing to spend, and you still read the ads console rather than hoping the first week was typical.

Pick a daily budget you could explain to yourself if every click this month failed to sell a copy. If that number is zero, wait.

Rules and definitions used here

• Advertising for KDP books
• Understanding Amazon Ads
• What ACOS means
• Keyword targeting