You already have your account set up! Now you can just let it work and completely forget about Amazon ads… Right?
If only! This tool will handle the heavy lifting of adjusting bids, but to get the best results, you’ll still need to check in occasionally. By the end of this article, you’ll know how to:
Troubleshoot your initial setup.
Adjust rules to fit your specific situation.
Analyze ad results for strategic decisions about your book and Amazon Ads.
What should you be looking for during the first few days?
Once the tool is set up wait until the rules get executed and give a day or two for ad spend to adjust. At a quick glance, the most obvious thing is to analyze if any campaigns had a sudden big drop or increase in the ad spend.
If such is the case, you can go into the Bidding History section, select the last execution that took place (on the date where the ad spend changed) and the campaign where this happened to see the changes applied:
💡Note: for now, we only show the last 3 executions in our bidding history. If you need to go beyond this, you can also see changes performed on bids in the Amazon Ads' interface, under the History tab.
For those of you that selected the Quick Rule Setup, go straight for the campaign with the highest amount of clicks check the change made for targets with more than 20 clicks. Do you like the changes it made or were the bids increased further than expected? Or on the contrary, were they lower than expected?
If the bid change was not in line with what you had in mind, then it's likely that the Metrics were not set up correctly. Unsure what to tweak? Feel free to reach out to me at sara@booksflyer.com, and we'll adapt those metrics.
What should you be looking for during the next few weeks?
The next thing you should be looking for is if you need to add/modify any rules. Examples:
"I have a few targets that get very few impressions, and it's taking forever to get any clicks on them. I'd like to increase a bit their bids to get some clicks." --> Create a new rule, Low clicks, no return: Targets with less than 15 clicks and ACOR = 0. You can set it up with "Manual" frequency, so that you only use it when you want to, or you can set it to weekly, so that it keeps executing on these type of targets.
"I prefer to wait for longer until I pause a keyword, because I want to make sure that I will not get a return from it before pausing it" —> Modify the current Clicks, no interest rule, and increase the amount of clicks to 30.
Whenever you are adding new rules though, please note the following:
1. Set a defined range in which rules should apply. Make sure each rule has a min and max limit for conditions. This prevents overlap. For example with our two existing increase rules:
If below 20 clicks and ACOR >0% up to 50%, increase the bid by 15%.
If below 20 clicks and ACOR >50% up to 90%, increase the bid by 10%.
For targets above 20 clicks, the "Automated" rule will apply. This way, none of them have any overlap, and can be executed on different targets. If you don't define clear limits for your rules, you may see unexpected changes in your bids. For instance: If you set up a rule to increase bids for targets with an ACOR of 0% to 80%, and add a second to do the same from 50% to 90%, then all those targets that have an ACOR between 50% and 80% will get a double increase on their bids, once for each rule.
2. Your rules should aim to have your campaigns close to a 100% ACOR. This will mean you are spending the money correctly as per your breakeven goal.
3. Do not overthink it. The auto-generated rules can already help out with most of the work, so if there is nothing that catches your attention, then there is nothing else to add.
What should you be looking for in the longer term?
Once you are happy with the setup, you should take into account the following tasks:
Maintain Target Relevance: Some targets won’t work out and get paused; others may fade over time. Regularly update targets (monthly is good) to keep up with new competitors and fresh keywords.
Assign New Campaigns: When adding new campaigns, remember to assign them to the correct metric group and, if needed, add them to the bidding rules—unless you use “Select All.”
Dig Deeper into Data: If targets you expected to perform never get clicks or sales, investigate. Maybe your cover, title, or reviews need improvement. If clicks happen but no sales, check your blurb and top customer reviews.
Track Revenue vs. Ad Spend: Keep an eye on profitability. You may need to adjust the Revenue Multiplier or consider whether Amazon Ads is right for you.
Find Your Best Campaign Types: Some ad types might outperform others. Use ACOR to see which campaigns give you the best bang for your buck. You can then increase budgets for top performers and reduce spend where it’s not helping.
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