Inspired by the “How to Start & Scale Your Ads” masterclass with Alex Strathdee
I have never attempted to advertise on Amazon ads. My first book on Amazon is now six years old as I write this and not something I want to invest in to promote, and my second book was published through Lulu, so it doesn’t appear in my KDP platform at all.
I’ve been listening and watching a lot of Amazon tutorials lately though, and while it’s very similar to social media advertising, there are some tips and tricks that could save authors without digital advertising experience some time.
This episode from the (now defunct) Self-Publishing School podcast is fantastic (listen on Apple here and Spotify here), so this blog is inspired by the information shared there. This was the second to last episode of the entire series, which aired in January 2025.
Who should and shouldn’t run Amazon ads?
Some background: Amazon had a lot more demand before supply in 2015 when it started selling ads. Today, the landscape is a lot more cluttered and so those courses of old are no longer applicable. Clicks were cheaper. Only indie authors were using them, and now every commercial author willing to pay higher for clicks is using ads as a sales funnel.
To have a commercially successful book, authors need to sell at least 20,000 copies. You can find ways to “seed” copies on a grassroots level and then use Amazon ads to support that strategy. It’s said that you have to seed 1,000–20,000 copies into a micro community. When you have your ideal sale number, then you can test your product marketing and get your book into the hands of people who need it.
Then break down the tools available to you to seed those copies. There’s speaking in the media and at events, Amazon ads, and more, all of which will take time and money. If you have a large ad budget and are a busy executive/entrepreneur/author, this is one of the best ways to get your book to readers, but it will take anywhere from US$3 to $20 to acquire that reader. You need a comprehensive marketing strategy on how to send traffic to Amazon.
Alex shares Joseph Nguyen’s Don’t Believe Everything You Think as a case study. Nguyen had zero followers, worked with a publishing company, and hit The New York Times‘ bestseller list. But what Nguyen did really well was send Amazon traffic.
The more you send traffic to Amazon, the more it will show your book organically. If you run Facebook ads or influencer campaigns to Amazon and run ads, your listing will do a lot better because of the high viewership and clicks. You don’t even need to be selling books on Amazon—you just need to be sending traffic there.
Host Chandler Bolt quoted Perry Marshall who said your first $1000 is simply paying tuition to learn any ad platform. You try 10 things, and hope 3 of them work, and try again.
Who shouldn’t run ads are authors who consider their book as a side project and aim to sell 1,000 copies. If you have a smaller budget and more time than money, do grassroots marketing vs. ads. That said, Amazon loves some titles and will promote them regardless, but that’s one in a thousand books. Books are on Amazon at the right time.
Is it true that you need to spend $1000 just to learn how to run Amazon ads?
There’s no gaming or hack with Amazon ads. If you try to hack your way into Amazon ads, it can backfire on you. Know your audience and how to craft good ad text for them.
If you use Amazon’s auto-campaign feature, it takes the data it has about your book and crafts your ads with them, including reader profiles (people who have bought your book). Don’t spend too much time on metadata. Focus on getting reviews from readers who are your ideal audience—you don’t want fiction readers being the primary buyers of a business book.
Unless you have 1000 people buying your book right off the bat, you’ll need to drive the right people to your book before setting up your ads so they can do better.
It’s hard to get readers without ads, but we need readers to do ads properly, so…
How can we maximize our bang for our book with Amazon ads?
Do your best to sell those first 1000 copies. Build an email list of at least 100–200 people. Message all the social media connections who might buy your book. James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter format is brilliant; you can batch produce this.
If I’m breaking even on Amazon ads, how do I scale up and maximize a $1000/month budget to improve ad performance?
The Amazon ads dashboard doesn’t provide you with data that other advanced platforms offer. It carries data for a maximum of 65 days, so if you download your search term reports every 30 days and add long-term metrics, that will help you make more informed decisions and see what your highest converting targets are that you can use for subsequent campaigns.
There are glitches on Amazon’s back end. Some books strangely won’t show impressions, and that’s why some authors go to Alex’s company, ShelfLife, for help. They bombard Amazon support to say something’s wrong and that impressions aren’t showing. Overnight, clicks and impressions come in. Reach out to Amazon support in your ads dashboard if you’re experiencing this issue.
Some authors pay $10 a bid and get no clicks, but instead of Facebook, which looks at traffic, Amazon also looks at convertability and sales—not just views. That’s when it makes money. So ShelfLife suggests trying to raise your book price to get ads to perform better and your book to sell more. Amazon likes to make more.
It’s a big science experiment; sometimes Amazon discounts your book and then pays you a lower royalty.
Some people say they get 1 purchase for every 30 or 50 clicks, but ShelfLife says 20 clicks for every purchase is an average conversion rate. 1 in 30 is still healthy.
What are the biggest levers that make the biggest difference and improvements in ROI (return on investment)?
A good book description will give you a good start. James Clear (or his publisher) changed the description for Atomic Habits eight times this past year, perhaps even more. Similar to a website, Amazon likes freshness and activity on your book page. This tells Amazon things are changing. Decreasing impressions tells Amazon things aren’t working and it won’t encourage conversions.
If you have a low click-through rate (CTR), consider changing your book cover. ShelfLife’s clients have a 0.1 CTR, but conversion is still high. That isn’t a problem. If it’s lower than that and you don’t have a lot of reviews, changing the cover might help.
What’s the most monthly ad spend you’ve worked with, and what are you doing differently at scale to keep a high return on ad spend (ROAS)?
Alex said they spent $45,000 in one month—apparently the highest, according to Amazon—on one client’s nonfiction book. At this point, they are getting ads to appear on pages of similar books and encouraging readers to buy, so Amazon sees related books and organically shows them together (in the “Products related to this item” section) on a large scale.
On the advanced level, you test beyond Amazon ads and see what influences them. You weave strategies together that will propel your ads.
How do you use book funnels in tandem with Amazon ads to increase ROI?
It’s good to test your cost per lead, because an Amazon funnel doesn’t give you reader data, vs. your website or social media. Having a conversion page at the start of your book, audiobooks, and free courses work well to get to a 20–30% conversion rate. Anything that gives readers extra time helps.
Create resources that complement your content to create more leads (i.e. reader magnets for lead generation).
If you want to work with Alex Strathdee at ShelfLife, he charges US$1000/month (before your ad budget). You can also listen to his podcast, Before The Bestseller, on Apple or Spotify, or buy his books, Before The Bestseller and Book Funnels & Amazon Ads.
Need a book coach, ghostwriter, editor, or formatter to help you write or publish your book so you can get it in the hands of readers? Read more about my services here and contact me if you’re ready to begin!
Note: This post contains affiliate links.
