Ads Studio

Ads Studio

Plan and manage connected ad campaigns, then compare network-attributed results with your retailer sales data.

What is Ads Studio?

Ads Studio brings campaign planning, creative, audiences, spend, and results into one workspace. It supports Amazon Ads reporting alongside connected social and search ad networks, with per-pen-name and per-title views where the underlying data can be reconciled.

Tip

Retailer analytics is included with your account and feeds the same normalized sales records used by Sales Studio. Network-attributed results and overall retailer sales remain separate when their attribution scopes do not match.

Note

Team seats limited to some of your pen names can't use Ads Studio yet. Teammates with access to all your pen names can. A limited seat sees "Ads Studio isn't available for your team seat yet. Ask the account owner."

The Ads home

The Overview tab is your Ads home. From the top:

  • Your ads, in plain words. Pick the pen name, choose the window for the ad platform numbers, and use Make an ad to start a new ad.
  • Get your ads set up. A ring shows how many setup steps are done, and the list marks each step Done, You are here, or Ahead. Steps that don't apply to you aren't counted.
  • What should I do next? Up to three things worth your time, picked from what the page already knows: connecting an ad account, choosing which ad accounts belong to a pen name, a group that is costing more than it brings in, campaigns that need a title, or the next setup step. Each card has one button that takes you to the right place. If you can't make that change, the card says who can.
  • What the ad platforms report. Spend, ad sales, return and orders as the ad platforms count them, by market and by title.
  • Your campaigns, by group. Your campaign groups, with their own window picker.

Each section says which days it covers, so you always know what you are looking at.

Features

Campaigns
Plan and manage campaigns across connected ad networks
Amazon Ads
Connect Amazon Ads and sync your spend
Books
See spend, sales, and status per book

Campaign groups

The Ads home shows your campaign groups: labels like "Curses launch Aug 26" that roll every ad they contain, across every network, into one card. Each card shows spend, book revenue, ROAS, clicks, cost per click, and budget, with a plain-words verdict:

  • Earning its keep / Close to even / Costing more than it brings in: for a group with no target, measured against break-even on your actual royalties.
  • Beating your target / Near your target / Missing your target: for a group where you set a target when creating the campaign. A group can miss a high target and still earn more than it costs, so it never says "costing more" when it was judged against your target.
  • Too early to tell: a group younger than seven days shows no verdict, because launch spend always looks bad before sales data catches up.
  • Not enough to tell yet: no mapped books or no spend yet. Map books to the group's campaigns so it can be judged.

A per-platform strip under each card shows where the money works. Per-platform ROAS appears only when a platform's books are advertised nowhere else in the group — when two platforms push the same book, sales data cannot honestly say which one sold it, so those platforms show real cost metrics instead of an invented split.

Campaigns not yet in a group collect in the Ungrouped bucket at the bottom, with checkbox assignment and name-match suggestions. Ads created through the Create ad wizard are born grouped — pick or type the group name on step one.

The summary strip (P&L)

The strip above the group cards is the pen name's profit-and-loss view. The underlying rules are unchanged:

  • Total ad spend — everything you have spent across Amazon, Meta, Google, and TikTok for that pen name
  • Amazon-attributed revenue — sales and estimated KENP royalties attributed by Amazon Ads for the selected window
  • Amazon contribution and ACOS — calculated using Amazon spend only, never spend from unrelated networks
  • Retailer performance — a separate business-level view of earnings, ad spend, and title performance from retailer analytics

You will also see an est. KENP royalties line. This is a reference figure showing roughly how much of your revenue came from Kindle Unlimited page reads. Amazon reports this as an attributed estimate and can restate it. Ads Studio keeps the estimate labeled and does not use it as attributed revenue for other networks.

Note

If any of your books earn royalties in a currency other than USD, those are shown in a separate line rather than being converted and folded into your USD totals. Currencies are never mixed together in a single number.

Campaigns and Book Mapping

Below the P&L, you will see a table of every active campaign for the selected pen name, along with which book (or books) each campaign is tied to:

  • Amazon campaigns map automatically. Amazon tells us which ASIN a campaign is advertising, and Ads Studio matches that ASIN to the right book for you — no setup required.
  • Meta, Google, and TikTok campaigns you map yourself. Click Map books on any campaign row to open a dialog and pick which book (or books) it is promoting.
  • Box sets and series work too. A single campaign can map to multiple books at once — useful for series box sets or “whole series” promotions.
  • Overlaps are flagged, never hidden. If more than one campaign touches the same book, that book gets an overlapping badge so you can see it. Your totals never double-count spend or sales, no matter how many campaigns share a book.

No Double-Counting

However many campaigns point at a book, your P&L and book-level totals are only ever counted once. Mapping campaigns to books is just a lens for slicing the data — it never changes what the underlying numbers say.

Pixels (tracking tags)

A pixel tells an ad network when someone who saw your ad later buys or signs up on your site, so the network can report results and find more readers like them. Open Ads Studio → Campaigns → Pixels and pick an ad account to see its pixels.

  • Add a pixel with Add tag on Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, X and ChatGPT ad accounts. Give it a name (TikTok allows up to 40 characters).
  • One per site is usually enough. Pixels can't be deleted once created, so reuse an existing one when it already covers your site. LinkedIn and X keep one pixel per ad account.
  • Google Ads pixels are listed here but are created in Google Ads itself.
  • Conversion destinations (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, Google and ChatGPT) are shown under the pixels list.

Note

Installing a pixel on a Shopify store in one click needs the store to be approved for pixels. If your store was connected before that, StorytellerOS asks you to re-approve it, with the approval link when one is available. Otherwise, reconnect the store on the Social Accounts page.

Tracking setup

Open Ads Studio → Tracking for a step-by-step setup that runs per pen name and saves as you go, so you can stop and pick up where you left off.

  1. Links. Add the pages your ads send readers to: a book's Amazon page, your own store, or a sign-up page. Your books' Amazon pages are suggested for you. Mark the one most of your ads use as primary.
  2. Plan. See, for each link, which results will be counted, which will be estimated and which can't be measured at all, before you spend.
  3. Pixels & tags. Create or pick a pixel for each connected ad network and install it. On Shopify one click puts it on your store; for other site builders follow the steps shown. Meta also offers a product catalog synced from your Shopify store.
  4. Is it working? Check that each pixel is reporting. Meta can be checked from here; for other networks, confirm it in their Events Manager.
  5. Tracked links. Get each link with campaign tags added, a short link that counts clicks, and for retailer links, advice on whether a bridge page on your own site is worth it.
  6. Amazon. Add Amazon Attribution tags and mark books in Kindle Unlimited, so sales and pages read from your ads are reported.
  7. Summary. What your results will show for each network, and the one thing to fix wherever a number is missing.

Below the setup, Link health checks that each link still reaches its page.

Note

Teammates who can view Ads but not edit it can look through every step; only people with edit access can change the setup.

Getting set up

When you open Ads Studio, a card called Get your ads set up walks you through four steps for the pen name you have selected. It shows how many steps are done, and the next one opens on its own.

  1. Connect your ad accounts. Amazon, Meta, TikTok, Google, LinkedIn, Pinterest and X each connect with a sign-in. Only the account owner connects ad accounts. For Meta and TikTok, connect a social account for the pen name in Social Studio first.
  2. Choose your Facebook Page and Instagram account. For now this step is for your information. It shows the Page your Meta ads run as when we know it, and choosing a Page and Instagram account for each pen name here is coming soon.
  3. Set up your pixel. Pick a pixel or create one, then check that it is reporting, so your ads can learn who buys. You can do it right in the card.
  4. Choose how to start. Pick one way in: Draft a strategy, Check my current ads, Just make an ad, or Work through it with your AI assistant. This step is done once you pick one, or once you have started something another way.

Note

A pen name needs a social account connected in Social Studio before your setup can be saved, the card can be hidden, or your current ads can be checked. Amazon can still be connected without one.

"Not needed" and "For your information"

Not needed means the step doesn't apply to what you have connected. The Page step says this until Meta is connected, and the pixel step says it until a network that uses a pixel, such as Meta, TikTok or Google, is connected. For your information means the step is there to inform you and doesn't count toward finishing. Neither one holds you up.

Hiding and showing the card

Hide for now hides the card while you finish setup. A short line with Show setup stays in its place to bring it back. When every step is done, the card shows as one line, Setup complete, when you come back to it, and Show setup opens it again. Right after you choose a start, it stays open so your results or assistant steps stay visible.

Check my current ads

This reviews the ads you ran in the last 30 days on your connected accounts and gives a plain verdict on up to 10 campaigns, each with a link to Campaigns. If nothing was running, it says so. Amazon ads connected in StorytellerOS aren't part of this check yet. You'll find them under Campaigns.

Work through it with your AI assistant

Prefer to talk it through? Choose this start and the card shows three short steps. It works the same in Claude, ChatGPT or another assistant that supports connectors.

  1. Add the StorytellerOS connector address to your assistant. Look for Connectors, Tools or Integrations in its settings. The address is https://storytelleros.com/api/mcp, and the card has a Copy button for it.
  2. Copy the starter message from the card and paste it into your assistant.
  3. Come back anytime. The checklist updates as your assistant finishes each step.

Note

Teammates who can view Ads but not edit it can see every step but can't change anything. Teammates with Ads edit access can set up the pixel, choose a start, hide the card and check ads. Only the account owner connects ad accounts.

Look before you spend

On Ads Studio → Strategy, four quick reads help you size up a book before you spend anything. Pick a book and a genre, then click one. For the first three, AI works out what to search for from your brief and the book. Every read shows exactly what it looked up.

  • Keyword ideas. Search phrases readers type, from Google. Needs a connected Google Ads account.
  • Reach estimate. How many people Meta could show your ad to: readers in the United States of the ages shown, who match at least one of the reader interests listed. Needs a connected Meta ad account.
  • Ad library scan. Ads comparable books are running right now, in their own words, from Meta's public ad library. This one searches ads shown in the United Kingdom and Ireland, not the US (see below).
  • Review audit. The phrases real readers use in your book's reviews. Needs a book with an ASIN.

Each genre starts from its own search phrases, reader interests and age range, so the reads and the plan's suggestions fit what that genre's readers expect. Urban fantasy, paranormal romance and cozy paranormal are on the list too. Cozy paranormal is the gentle end: witches, ghosts and small-town mysteries.

Why the ad library scan doesn't show US ads

Meta only shares ordinary ads (anything that isn't political) when they were shown in the UK or the EU, and only for a year after they ran. That comes from European transparency rules. Meta doesn't provide ads that ran only in the US to StorytellerOS, so the scan can't show them. Many US authors also run their ads in the UK, so you'll often see familiar names.

To see US ads, click See US ads for this search on Meta under the results. It opens Meta's own Ad Library on the same search, filtered to active ads in the United States. You read those on Meta's site; they aren't brought back into StorytellerOS.

Troubleshooting

"Unmapped ASINs" card

If Amazon Ads is spending against an ASIN that does not match any of your books, it shows up in an Unmapped ASINs card below the campaign table instead of being silently dropped. To fix it, add that ASIN to the matching book's variation in Project Studio — the spend will attach to the right book the next time it syncs.

Campaigns showing "Unmapped"

A Meta, Google, or TikTok campaign shows an Unmapped badge until you tell Ads Studio which book it belongs to. Click Map books on that row and select the book (or books) it is promoting.

Getting Started

The quickest way is the Get your ads set up card on the Ads home. See Getting set up. Or do it step by step:

  1. Connect Amazon Ads — one click, then pick which advertising profiles belong to this pen name
  2. Connect your Meta, Google, or TikTok accounts — if you run campaigns on those platforms
  3. Check your P&L on this page — spend and revenue update automatically
  4. Review your Books view: see which books are winners, which need watching, and which to stop