Amazon Ads (AMS) can be the most cost-effective book marketing channel available — or a money pit. The difference is in how you set up your campaigns.
Amazon Ads (formerly AMS — Amazon Marketing Services) can be the most cost-effective book marketing channel available to a self-published author. It can also be a money pit that drains your royalties with nothing to show for it. The difference is almost entirely in how you set up and manage your campaigns.
This guide covers the fundamentals that separate profitable AMS campaigns from expensive experiments.
Amazon offers several ad formats, but for KDP authors, two are worth your attention: Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands (if you have a series or multiple books).
Sponsored Products are keyword-targeted ads that appear in search results and on product pages. They are the foundation of any AMS strategy because they target readers who are actively searching for books like yours.
Sponsored Brands appear at the top of search results and allow you to feature multiple books. They are most valuable once you have a backlist of 3+ books in the same genre.
Start with Sponsored Products. Add Sponsored Brands once you have a backlist.
Sponsored Products campaigns can target either keywords (search terms readers type) or products (specific ASINs or categories). Both have a place in a mature strategy, but beginners should start with keyword targeting because it is easier to understand and optimise.
For keyword targeting, use three match types: exact match (your keyword must be typed exactly), phrase match (your keyword must appear as a phrase within the search), and broad match (your keyword can appear in any order with other words). Start with phrase match for the best balance of reach and relevance.
The most common beginner mistake is bidding too low. Amazon's algorithm needs data to optimise your campaign, and data requires impressions, which requires competitive bids.
For a new campaign, bid at or slightly above Amazon's suggested bid for the first 2 weeks. This generates the impression and click data needed to identify which keywords are converting. After 2 weeks, lower bids on non-converting keywords and raise bids on converting ones.
ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales) is your ad spend divided by ad revenue, expressed as a percentage. A 30% ACoS means you spent $30 in ads for every $100 in book sales generated by those ads.
Your target ACoS depends on your royalty margin. For a $4.99 ebook with a 70% royalty ($3.49 royalty), you break even at approximately 70% ACoS. Anything below that is profitable advertising.
Most authors target 30–50% ACoS for established books and accept 70–100% ACoS for new launches where the goal is visibility and reviews, not immediate profit.
Start with three keyword categories: your genre + trope combinations (e.g., "cozy mystery with recipes"), your top 5 comparable author names, and your top 5 comparable book titles. These are high-intent searches from readers who already know what they want.
BookIntelReport's AMS ad keywords module generates a complete set of ready-to-paste keyword targets for your manuscript, including comparable author names and title targets your competitors are bidding on.
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