Ads vs earnings

Ads vs earnings (the button at the top of the calendar page) puts your ad spend next to what the advertised books earned, so you can see which ads pay for themselves.

Upload your reports

Click Upload report and choose a file. SwapWrite recognises each kind of report. Uploading a report again replaces the days it covers, so it is safe to upload overlapping dates.

1. KDP sales: in KDP open Reports → Orders, pick the dates and click Download report (.xlsx). Every book in the file is read, with its royalties and Kindle Unlimited pages.
2. Amazon Ads: in the Amazon Ads console open Reports → Create report, choose Sponsored Products, report type Advertised product, time unit Daily, then download it (CSV or Excel). The Advertised product report includes each book's ASIN, so campaigns match books automatically.
3. Facebook ads: in Ads Manager choose Breakdown → By time → Day, then Reports → Export table data (CSV or Excel).

Match campaigns to books

Facebook doesn't know which book an ad promotes. In By campaign, choose the book for each Facebook campaign once; SwapWrite remembers it. Do the same for Amazon campaign reports that have no ASIN column.

How earnings are counted

• Sales use the royalties in your KDP Orders report. Sales in other currencies (Canada, UK and so on) are valued at the book's average US royalty per copy in the same report, so no exchange rates are needed.
• Kindle Unlimited earnings are KU pages × the KENP rate. Set the rate in Royalties and KENP rate; KDP announces each month's rate about mid-way through the next month.
• Royalty per copy is filled in from your KDP report. It is only used for days with sales but no royalty figures.

The figures are estimates; your KDP royalty report is the final word.

Reading the page

• Back for every $1 spent: earnings divided by ad spend. Over $1.00 means the ads pay for themselves.
• Verdict per book: Paying off (back $1.15 or more per $1), About break-even ($0.90 to $1.15), Losing money (under $0.90).
• Ads vs newsletter swaps compares average daily earnings on days a partner sends for your book (the They send dates on your swaps) with other days.
• Amazon reports its own ad orders and sales in By campaign. Facebook reports spend and clicks only.

Good to know

• Amounts are shown in US dollars.
• To start over, use Remove… next to a data source in Where the numbers come from.
• Automatic syncing with Amazon Ads is planned; for now, upload a fresh report when you want to update.