A step-by-step guide for self-published indie authors/publishers wishing to promote their Kindle books and other works using the Amazon Marketing Services (AMS).
Advertising on Amazon AMS
To advertise on Amazon AMS, visit the Amazon Marketing Services official website at https://ams.amazon.com.
Click Sign In to login to your Amazon account.
Alternatively, you can try the Start Advertising route which will take you through the process of creating an Amazon Marketing Services account.
Sign in with your Amazon account credentials.
Click on New campaign
.
Choose a Campaign type by selecting Sponsored Products (or Product Display Ads).
In screenshot above, Sponsored Products is selected (highlighted).
To select a book to advertise, click Select next to one of your books from the list given.
You can change your mind by clicking Change to choose a different book.
Set your Campaign name, Average daily budget and Duration; Start and End dates.
In Duration of campaign ad, you have two options; Run campaign continuously starting today or Select a date range.
To have more control, may be it’s better to choose the latter, Select a date range.
Also, ad campaign approval review takes some time (‘up to 72 hours’ according to Amazon AMS).
As a result, Run campaign continuously starting today does not actually deliver what it says.
Select a targeting ad type as Automatic Targeting or Manual Targeting
In above image, Manual Targeting is selected.
Alternatively, you can choose Automatic Targeting, but with Manual Targeting you can better (than a robot/algorithm) target your book subject and interests.
Enter your keyword or keywords in the Keyword text box.
By default, keyword Match type is Broad (if any choice given, check other options). Enter CPC bid eg $0.25. Then press Add.
Alternatively, you can choose Amazon suggested words by clicking on Add suggested keywords.
Select a keyword or keywords from list of keywords provided based on your book title.
Keywords on the ADDED KEYWORDS screen can be changed at will by pressing the Remove or Remove all buttons as applicable.
Customise your ad by typing or pasting ad keywords in the Custom Text box. (Only about 147/148 characters with no spaces, or ~128 characters including spaces). So, choose and plan your words very carefully).
Review your ad to check exactly how it will look like under Sponsored or Sponsored Products.
Set up your payment which is usually providing a credit or debit card for your ad campaign billing.
Simply select a card from the list provided.
Optionally, you may opt for another Payment Method by adding a new card that is not in your credit and debit card list.
Check your CAMPAIGN SUMMARY under Campaign Settings, for instance, Name, Daily Budget, Duration, Targeting: Manual (or Automatic) as chosen and Keywords.
So far so good?
Click Submit campaign for review.
Also, you can Save as draft to come back later to continue, modify or complete it.
A confirmation message that your ad creation was successful.
Meanwhile, click on View advertising campaigns to familiarise yourself with the ad campaign reporting screen.
At the moment, it’s just a blank screen with headings, but it gives an overview what it will look like once it’s populated with ad campaign metrics; number of clicks et al.
Hover mouse over the question mark next to each heading to reveal its definition. For instance,
Impressions; Impressions: An impression is generated every time your ad is displayed i.e number of displays or views.
Clicks; Clicks: A click is generated when a user clicks or taps your ad.
aCPC; Average Cost Per Click: Your total campaign spend divided by the total number of clicks the campaign generated.
And so on and so forth.
After a while, you will receive an email from Amazon Marketing Services.
If your ad was approved, the message will say something along the lines, ‘Your “————- xx/xx/2018 xx:xx” Ad campaign is approved‘ in the subject and ‘… Your ad “————- xx/xx/2018 xx:xx” has been approved…’ in the message body. Plus some more info and instruction of what to do next.
If, however, your ad was rejected, the email will read something like, “————- xx/xx/2018 xx:xx ad campaign was not approved” coupled with a hint or two of possible reasons for rejection (read carefully, including between the lines).
For instance, in my case, the ‘possible reasons’ were given as;
‘ – The ad copy contains improper spacing between the words, incorrect punctuation or repetitive punctuation marks (for example, “!!!”)‘
And the typo mistake with my ad was a single comma at the end of the text – instead of a full stop (sorry, old eyes and punctuation marks being next to each other on keyboard).
Hence, it pays to study the statement in order to decipher the actual problem.
Once your ad campaign is approved, its Status will change from Pending review to Running with a green dot next to it.
Now, you can monitor and edit your ad; change the CPC bid plus Average daily budget & Duration via Campaign Settings, as well as, Pause or even Terminate (not recommended).
Your Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) account
Manage Advertising Campaigns, view Billing History, check or change Payment Settings, assign access levels or privileges for account users (Editors, Admins) and so on.
That’s it for this quick post.
About the Author
| Eng S Jama is an experienced electronics engineer turned an educational tutor and author of Visual Maths Fractions For Visual Learner Folks™, Who Find Text-based Fractions No Fun. |
| FRACTIONS VISUALLY™ is a VISUAL MATHS FRACTIONS resource For Visual Learner Folks™, Who Find Text-based Fractions No Fun. That's children who think fractions are no fun and grown-ups who have never found the best visual resources to master basic maths fractions. Ages 5-11, Grades Kindergarten-5th grader or Year group 1-6 in primary education (infants, elementary and junior schools). ADDING FRACTIONS STEP-BY-STEP is for students and older learners struggling with adding fractions. Ages 11-16, Grades 6th-10th grade or Year group 7-11 in secondary education (middle, senior and high schools). |
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