@Igor O ok. Well after giving your Google LM model the details and context of the basic problem (loads of related KWs discovered at 1-2 clicks each), here is what your Google LM Ads Brain spits out… And by the way, a lot of these solutions I am aware of and have done, but let’s take a close look at this and see how we can adjust our strategies. Answer: The situation you are describing is a classic "discovery bleed" that often occurs when moving from a low-spend organic state to an aggressive ad strategy like Barry KDP’s Phase 1. While you are seeing the desired effect of doubling/tripling your sales, the $2,800 spend to generate $1,200 in revenue indicates that your "plumbing" is leaking money faster than the algorithm can learn. Based on the sources, here is a diagnostic breakdown and a strategic solution for those dozens of 1-2 click keywords that are currently "biting" your budget. 1. Re-Evaluate "Phase 1" vs. "Phase 2" According to the sources (Barry KDP), the goal of Phase 1 is ranking and positioning for hyper-relevant keywords. If you are getting dozens of unrelated or only semi-related keywords with 1-2 clicks each, you may be inadvertently running Phase 2 (scaling) campaigns. The Leak: If you are running Broad Match without enough "Negative Phrase" filters, Amazon is testing your book against a massive, untargeted audience. The Solution: Barry KDP suggests that during Phase 1, you should strictly target your sub-niche (e.g., "ABC letter tracing" instead of just "tracing book"). If a keyword does not contain your sub-niche intent, it is a "negative indicator" to Amazon that your book doesn’t convert for those terms, which can actually hurt your long-term ranking. 2. Pruning "Waste" vs. "Data Collection" You mentioned waiting for 10–15 clicks before making a decision. However, Gerald Confiensa (the sources) offers a more aggressive "Advanced SOP" for this exact problem: The 10-Click Rule is for Relevant terms: You wait for 10 clicks on a keyword that should work (e.g., a direct competitor or a sub-niche keyword) because you want to give it a fair chance to convert.

@Igor O yes, I agree - lots of actionable ideas. Much of it I already know - I just need to go verify that those things are in place and functioning as intended. Additionally, I gave the LM Brain some additional information and context along with two more questions and here are some more details that are helpful … Answer: Based on your campaign details and the strategies outlined in the sources, here is an analysis of your two primary questions and a suggested path forward. 1. Pausing Broad/Phrase for "Exact Match Only" If you pause all current broad and phrase match campaigns and move only the winners to exact match campaigns, you will likely see an immediate improvement in ACoS, but you risk a "Discovery Drought." - The Risk of the "Discovery Drought": According to Chris Rawlings (the sources), the Amazon algorithm in 2025 requires "leeway" to find profitable shoppers. Broad and Phrase campaigns act as the "scouts" that find new search terms. If you switch to Exact Match only, you are telling Amazon to only show your book to people who type in those specific 15–30 words. You stop the "PPC Data Loop" (using ad data to find new winning terms). - The "Warrior" vs. "Horse" Problem: The sources note that if your discovery bids ($0.80–$1.00) weren't getting impressions, it’s because the "Warrior" (your book's listing) might not have the conversion strength to win auctions at lower prices. Amazon prioritizes books that are likely to sell. If you move winners to Exact Match, you can bid the "correct CPC" (your break-even bid), but you won't be growing your organic footprint for new, related terms. - A Better Alternative—Campaign Chaining: Instead of pausing discovery, the sources (Barry KDP and Chris Rawlings) recommend "Campaign Chaining." Keep the discovery campaigns running, but drastically narrow their scope. Use Negative Phrase (not just Exact) to block out the broad categories that are giving you those 1–2 click "leaks." Lower the bids on these "scout" campaigns to a "Soft Push" level ($0.61–$0.75). Even if impressions drop, it allows them to sit in the background and occasionally find a "gold nugget" keyword without burning your budget.

@Pamela Henkels if by “Guru Ads” you’re referring to Barry’s ad strategy- yes I can relate, but Barry’s strategy the first month or two is all about “discovery” and trusting the process - not about ROI I am in his program and trying to trust the process. I am just past 30 days of P1 campaigns with broad and phrase match campaigns to discover new KWs and train Amazon for CTR and CVR - BUT YES it’s expensive. Before Barry’s strategy, I was averaging about $300-$400 / month from organic sales (no ads spend whatsoever). Over the last 30 days of Barry’s strategy, I have doubled and tripled my monthly sales to $1k-$1200 for the last 35 days, BUT I have spent $2800 in ad spend to get there lol So obviously that’s not great to spend $3k to make $1k, but first, we know the first month or two is all about discovering new KWs and training Amazon on what works and what doesn’t. However, a large part of my ad spend was do to the fact that I’m running multiple campaigns for multiple books (about 8 books with 6 or so campaigns per book) Additionally, some of my initial KWs in those discovery campaigns were not highly targeted and a bit broad themselves - so running broad campaigns for those was even more costly. And lastly, many of my books have very low review counts (only 2-3 of them have 25-30 reviews). The rest of them are like 0-5 reviews per book and running ads to low confidence/ low social proof books is extremely costly because it causes a very low CVR in my experience. With all that in mind, it is my opinion (and I have to agree with Barry) that running auto ads to a brand new book is a mistake because Amazon doesn’t know what the book is about yet and so it’s going to be expensive while it learns. Now in all fairness, I think that’s basically what I’ve been doing with broad and phrase match campaigns as well - I just think that relying completely on Amazon with auto ads is an even bigger mistake / expense (until Amazon has been trained on your book properly first).

@Matt Radkiewicz ok. Thank you, I will be starting auto ads very soon. My books are not new, but I am very curious to see what would happen with a new book. Perhaps I’ll publish one, test the strategy and found out - it would be interesting to compare how that performs with no background sales data

I published a book 2 years ago in the spring of 2024 and then recently I noticed that someone published a book in September 2025 with the exact same title and subtitle that I published. Their book cover is terrible and the interior content seems very similar, but their book is not selling well and what little bit of looking into it I did, it seems that it’s totally legitimate to publish a title even though it’s the exact same title is already published book. In other words, according to Amazon‘s terms of service having a book published with the exact same title as another book is not a problem as crazy as that sounds

@Igor O lol, yeah exactly. Instead of reporting it I think I’ll just run my book as an ad on their ASIN and take all their sales lol And that can be there penalty for being stupid

I think your AI assessment or snapshot of author topics is probably accurate for a lot of people, but for me it’s different. I can see how AI would interpret that as the narrative, but that’s not my assessment of my own books. For me, I published a bunch of high content books over the last 2 years without understanding my readers, or knowing exactly what the niche wanted. Also, in the beginning (2 years ago for me), I ran ads to books with weak listings, bad descriptions, little to no A+ content, low reviews, and bad book covers. “The honeymoon period” made virtually no different on my case. I did not notice any sort of boost from Amazon at all for any of my first 20 books in the first 30 days. Last November I launched a new fiction book with a lot more knowledge about how to make a successful book and launch, but the first 30 days did nothing for that book either. It my opinion that the honeymoon phase is an illusion. I seriously doubt that Amazon gives any sort of bonus or advantage during the first 30 days. And so I agree with @Anil Khatri that it does not matter in the first 30, 60 or 90 days. I think any launch or optimization is tested by Amazon but not given any advantage For me, I would not know if Amazon “raised the bar” or moved it, I just did not know what I was doing and had no clear path to success and so I was ignorance on fire.

For me, my “best sellers“ are not exactly best sellers, but they are for me. One of them has 33 reviews and the other has just over 60 reviews and I never thought either one of those would do that well. Most of those reviews are organic and those two books are getting some organic sales, but I had no idea either of those books would “take takeoff” like they have. One is a conspiracy book and the other is a cookbook and I did not do any market research for either of them :-) They were just two ideas that were interesting to me and I broke the number one rule and published them without even seeing if people would be interested first, and surprisingly they are my two best sellers lol Sadly, and unfortunately, I am not even able to run ads to my conspiracy book because it’s not a book Amazon allows to be promoted. I am running ads to my cookbook and it was actually getting more organic sales than it is from ads lol. Granted I’m only one week into phase one ads, so we shall see over time. Right now I’m just trying to be patient and follow along with the process.