Scribe Media Amazon Ads Guide
Book Marketing

Amazon Ads Recommendations for Authors

Setting up Amazon Ads for your book can be a great way to earn consistent sales, but only if the ads are built and managed well. This guide walks you through how to set up Sponsored Products campaigns and, more importantly, how to structure and optimize them for a positive return. Not every book or every ad will turn a profit, but a good system tells you quickly what's working and what to cut.

What to expect

A few honest expectations before you dive in.

Daily spend is usually modest

A starting budget of around $10 a day per campaign is plenty for most authors to gather meaningful data. You can scale up once you see what converts.

You'll generate a lot of impressions

Even campaigns that only break even put your cover in front of thousands of readers, which is low cost exposure.

Not every book turns a profit, and that's fine

The point of a well structured account is that it tells you quickly what works and what doesn't, so you can cut losers before they cost much.

The core strategy: auto for discovery, manual for profit

This is the most important part of the guide. The old approach of guessing a few hundred keywords up front and hoping for the best wastes money. The approach that actually works is a simple two campaign loop where Amazon does the keyword research for you, and you double down only on what converts.

1

Run an automatic campaign to discover

Start with an automatic Sponsored Products campaign and let it run for about two to four weeks. Amazon matches your book to searches and competing book pages you'd never think to target yourself. You're not trying to turn a profit here; you're buying information about which searches actually lead to sales.

2

Read the Search Term Report

This report shows the exact searches that triggered your ad and which ones converted. Check it weekly.

3

Promote the winners into a manual campaign

Take the search terms that produced sales and add them to a manual campaign as exact match keywords.

4

Cut the losers

Take search terms that got a lot of clicks but no sales (say, 10+ clicks and zero orders) and add them as negative keywords in the auto campaign so it stops wasting money on them. Also, add your promoted winners as negatives in the auto campaign so your two campaigns don't bid against each other for the same search.

Targeting: keywords and products

Understand the three match types

When you add manual keywords, you choose how loosely Amazon matches them.

Broad
Widest reach, loosest match. Good for early testing and finding new terms.
Phrase
A middle ground. The shopper's search has to contain your phrase, in order.
Exact
Tightest control and usually the best ACOS. This is where your proven winners live.

Don't mix match types in one campaign

Keep broad, phrase, and exact in separate campaigns (or at least separate ad groups). Mixing them makes it impossible to manage bids sensibly, because you can't tell which match type is doing the work.

Relevance beats volume

The old instinct to pile in 200 to 300 keywords "even if they don't seem relevant" burns budget and muddies your data. Let the automatic campaign do broad discovery, and keep your manual keywords tight and relevant. A focused list of terms you can actually manage will outperform a giant list you can't.

Target competitor books and authors

This is some of the most valuable targeting available, and Amazon allows it. Add the titles of comparable books, authors in your genre, and relevant series and category terms. You're reaching readers already shopping for books like yours.

Add product (ASIN) targeting, not just keywords

Alongside keyword targeting, you can target specific competing book pages by their ASIN, as well as categories. Product targeting has become increasingly effective as Amazon's system matches shoppers to similar titles.

Step by step setup

Getting into the campaign builder

Create your automatic campaign first Campaign 1

  1. Ad format: Choose Standard ad (it lets you advertise your book without writing custom copy, and you can include more than one format). Add your book.
  2. Targeting: Select Automatic targeting. Amazon handles the keyword and product matching.
  3. Bidding: Under the campaign bidding strategy, Dynamic bids - down only is a safe starting choice.
  4. Settings: Name the campaign something you'll recognize later (for example, "Book Title Auto"). Avoid any profanity in the name, or Amazon won't let the ad run. Set a start date, leave the end date blank so it keeps running and learning, and set a daily budget around $10.
  5. Launch it, and let it gather data for two to four weeks.

Then build your manual campaign Campaign 2

  1. Create a second campaign the same way, but choose Manual targeting, then Keyword targeting (and add Product targeting for competitor ASINs and categories).
  2. Keywords: In the Enter list tab, add one keyword per line and click Add keywords. Seed it with the converting search terms from your auto campaign's Search Term Report, plus relevant competitor titles and authors. Keep match types in separate campaigns (start your proven winners in exact).
  3. Bids: Base each bid on what the term actually costs in the auto campaign rather than just accepting the suggested bid.
  4. Name it (for example, "Book Title Manual Exact"), leave the end date open, set your budget, and launch.

Optional: create a portfolio with a budget cap

If you want a hard ceiling on what you spend across all your campaigns, put them in a portfolio and set a budget cap on it. A portfolio is simply a container that groups campaigns together, and its budget cap limits the combined spend of everything inside it. It's a useful safety net so a handful of campaigns can't quietly add up to more than you intended.

  1. Create the portfolio. In the Amazon Ads console, open the Portfolios page from the left hand menu (under Campaign Manager) and click Create portfolio. Give it a clear name (for example, "[Book Title] All Campaigns") and save.
  2. Add a budget cap. Open the portfolio and click Modify portfolio (you can also set this while creating it). Under Budget cap, change the dropdown from the default No budget cap to either a recurring monthly cap or a date range cap, then enter your amount. That figure is the most Amazon can spend across every campaign in the portfolio for that period.
  3. Put your campaigns in the portfolio. There are two ways. When you create a campaign, choose this portfolio in the Portfolio field in campaign settings. For campaigns you've already built, go to the Portfolios page (or edit the campaign) and assign them to it. Put both your automatic and manual campaigns in the same portfolio so the cap covers all of them.

ONE IMPORTANT CAVEAT: Once combined spend reaches the cap, every campaign in the portfolio pauses until the period resets (for a monthly cap) or until you raise the cap. So treat it as a guardrail against overspending, and still set sensible daily budgets on each campaign to control day to day pacing.

If you use a Custom text ad

A Custom text ad lets you add a short line of copy but limits you to a single product. If you use one, keep it clean: no ALL CAPS and no links, lead with a hook or a line of social proof, and stay within the limit of about 150 characters. Note that saving as a draft can revert the format to "standard," so if you want custom text, confirm Custom text is selected and your copy is in the Creative section before you launch.

A final word

Amazon reshuffles button labels and screen layouts in the campaign builder from time to time, so a word or two in the interface may drift, but the strategy here holds regardless of where the buttons move: discover with auto, profit with manual, and manage against your break even.

We hope this helps you make even more of an impact with your book.