by Keri-Rae Barnum, New Shelves Marketing Manager

A few weeks ago I conducted an experiment. I set up two Amazon sponsored ads to run side by side. One ad I chose Automatic Targeting and trusted AMS to choose my keywords and audience for me. The second ad I set up using a list of keywords I had pulled myself. When I say I used a “list of keywords,” I do not mean 20 keywords or even 200. AMS allows us to enter in 1000 keywords per sponsored ad. And, knowing that every single one of those keywords is an opportunity for exposure, clicks and, ultimately sales, I always fill the keyword bank to the max. Aside from this small thing, both ads were identical. The same titles were selected to advertise, both ads ran for three days and started at the same time.

Keeping in mind that Amazon ad reports are not fully accurate for 14 days after the ad runs, I allowed some time to pass before checking in. I was absolutely blown away by the results.

Impressions: The ad Amazon targeted for me had 31,000 impressions. Sounds impressive, right? That is, it did sound impressive until I looked at the results for the ad using my own keywords which had over 412,000 impressions. That means the ad I targeted with my own list of keywords was seen on potential customer’s screens 13x as many times as the ad Amazon targeted for me. Guys, if readers don’t see your ad – and therefore your book- they certainly aren’t buying it!

Clicks: Amazon’s automatic targeting got me 26 clicks.  My ad got me 151 clicks.

ROI: Amazon’s automatic targeting cost me $7 and sold $23 worth of books. To simplify, I made $14 more than I spent. The ad I ran using my own list of 1,000 keywords cost $44 and sold $105 worth of books. I ended up with $61 more than I spent and got HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of eyes on my book over the course of three days.

Lets recap: the sponsored ad using my own bank of 1,000 keywords ended with 13x the impressions, almost 6x the clicks and $82 more in sales than the AMS Automatically Targeted ad. I think it’s pretty clear that choosing manual targeting with your own bank of keywords is the clear winner here.

Since keywords are obviously key to the success of my sponsored ad, let’s talk about them. As I mentioned above, it is important to create each ad with a full bank of 1,000 keywords. Not just any ol’ keywords will do, though. You need a carefully curated list of keywords specifically pulled with your book in mind. In fact, I collect a minimum of 3,000 keywords before I begin running my ads. Starting with a large bank of keywords allows me to run multiple ads and pull the best performing keywords together for a final, optimized list of 1,000 that I can use over and over again to create profitable ad listings.

There are free places to find great keywords and comparative titles such as Yasiv.com; however, here at New Shelves, we also have a number of paid subscriptions to include KDP Rocket and TwinWords. These specialized programs allow us to pull keywords based on real-life Amazon searches and algorithms. When creating our keyword lists we search for three things: comparative authors, similar books and like-minded audiences.

“Like-minded audiences” seem to trip a lot of people up. “What in the heck does ‘like-minded audiences’ mean?” you may be asking yourself.  Let me explain. Fred Stuvek’s self-help book It Starts With You is vastly different than Rachel Hollis’ Girls Wash Your Face. However, readers who enjoyed Girl Wash Your Face because they were looking for straight talk and the motivation to dream big would probably also enjoy the motivation and goal setting skills Stuvek teaches in his book. Like-minded audiences are those who are interested in your overall themes rather than audiences already in your target market.

Sound overwhelming? Let us help you!