Ad Spend Tracker

How does Ad Spend Tracker work?

You log the campaigns and the spend yourself. Ad Spend Tracker does not sign in to Amazon, Meta, or any other ad site, and it does not read Sales Tracker. Add a campaign for a book, then log each bit of spend: the date, the amount, and, if you have them, impressions, clicks, sales, and revenue. ROI is calculated from the spend and revenue you typed in.

Getting started with Ad Spend Tracker

Ad Spend Tracker is where you record what you spend on book advertising and what that advertising earned you, so you can see which campaigns pay for themselves. Everything is entered by you: the tool doesn't connect to ad platforms or pull numbers in automatically. The workflow has two parts. First you create a campaign (for example, an Amazon Ads campaign for one book). Then you log spend against it as often as you like, such as daily or weekly. Set up your first campaign 1. In the left sidebar, click Ad Spend Tracker. 2. Click + New Campaign. 3. Enter a Campaign Name (required), for example "Amazon Ads – Book 1 Launch". 4. Choose the Platform: Amazon Ads, Facebook/Meta, BookBub, TikTok, Instagram, Newsletter Promo, Bookstagram or Other. 5. Choose the Currency you pay this platform in. 6. Pick the Book from your Book Library. If it isn't there yet, choose + New Book… to add it. 7. Set the Start Date. Leave Ongoing ticked if the campaign has no end date, or untick it and choose an End Date. 8. Optionally add a Total Budget and Notes. 9. Click Create Campaign. Log your first spend 1. Click Log Spend at the top of the page (or in the Campaigns header). 2. Choose the Campaign and the Date. 3. Enter the Spend Amount. The currency starts as the campaign's currency. 4. Optionally add Impressions, Clicks, Attributed Sales, Attributed Revenue and Notes. Copy these from your ad platform's report. 5. Click Log Spend. Read your results The cards at the top show Total Spend, Est. Revenue, ROI, Active Campaigns and Avg Cost Per Click. Below them, Spend by Platform compares platforms, and the Campaigns list shows spend, revenue and ROI for each campaign. Click a campaign row to see its individual spend entries. Use the book filter and the All Time, 3M, 6M, 1Y and YTD buttons to narrow the numbers down. If you write under more than one pen name, a Pen name filter appears too. Tip: click How do I use this tool? under the page title for a guided tour. It shows example data so you can see how a filled-in tracker looks before you add your own.

How do I log ad spend for a campaign?

Each spend entry is a record of what one campaign cost on a given date, plus how it performed. You can log entries as often as you like. Many authors log once a day or once a week from their ad platform's report. Log a spend entry 1. In the left sidebar, click Ad Spend Tracker. 2. Click Log Spend. 3. Choose the Campaign. Campaigns are listed with their platform, for example "Launch Push (Amazon Ads)". 4. Set the Date the spend applies to. 5. Check the Currency. It is filled in from the campaign, but you can change it. 6. Enter the Spend Amount (required). 7. Fill in any of the optional fields: - Impressions: how many times the ad was shown. - Clicks: how many people clicked it. Used for the average cost per click. - Attributed Sales: how many copies the platform says the ad sold. - Attributed Revenue: the money those sales brought in. This is what the revenue and ROI figures are based on. - Notes: anything you want to remember, such as a bid change. 8. Click Log Spend. If you have no campaigns yet, the window says "You need at least one campaign before logging spend." Click Create Campaign First to make one. See the entries for a campaign Click a campaign's row in the Campaigns list to expand it. The entries are listed newest first with their date, spend, impressions, clicks, sales, revenue and notes. Click the row again to collapse it. Fix a mistake Spend entries can't be edited once saved. To correct one, expand the campaign, click the trash icon on the wrong entry, confirm Delete, and then log it again with the right numbers. Deleting an entry is permanent. Tips - Revenue isn't pulled from Sales Tracker. Enter the revenue your ad platform reports (or your own estimate) in Attributed Revenue, otherwise the campaign's ROI will show as a loss. - Log entries in the same currency where you can. The totals only add up entries in your main currency (see the article on how ROI is calculated).

How does Ad Spend Tracker calculate ROI, revenue and cost per click?

The numbers in Ad Spend Tracker are worked out from the spend entries you log. Nothing is fetched from ad platforms or from Sales Tracker. The stat cards - Total Spend: the sum of Spend Amount across your entries. - Est. Revenue: the sum of Attributed Revenue across your entries. - ROI: revenue minus spend, divided by spend, shown as a percentage. For example, $100 spent and $150 earned is +50.0%. It shows a dash when there is no spend. - Active Campaigns: how many campaigns are marked Active. - Avg Cost Per Click: total spend divided by total clicks. It shows a dash when no clicks were logged. Each campaign row shows the same Spend, Revenue and ROI for that campaign alone. ROI is green when you earned more than you spent and red when you didn't. Your main currency Totals can't add euros to dollars, so the tracker picks a main currency: the currency you have logged the most spend in. Its code is shown in the card labels, for example Total Spend (USD). Only entries in the main currency are added into Total Spend, Est. Revenue, ROI, Spend by Platform and each campaign's Spend, Revenue and ROI. Entries in other currencies are still saved and still appear, with their own currency, when you expand a campaign. Filters - Book: shows only campaigns for that book, or all books in one language. The stat cards follow the filter. - Pen name: appears when you have two or more pen names. - All Time, 3M, 6M, 1Y, YTD: limit the totals to entries dated in that window. 3M, 6M and 1Y count whole calendar months, including the current one. YTD starts on January 1. The date buttons change the stat cards, the platform chart and each campaign's figures. When you expand a campaign, its full list of entries is always shown. Sorting Use Name, Platform, Start Date, Spend, Revenue, ROI and Status above the list to sort campaigns. Click again to reverse the order. With no sort chosen, active campaigns come first, newest first.

How do I edit, end or bulk-update ad campaigns?

Edit a campaign 1. In the left sidebar, click Ad Spend Tracker. 2. On the campaign's row, click the pencil icon (Edit campaign). 3. Change any field, then click Save Changes. End a campaign A campaign shows Active or Ended. To end one: 1. Click the pencil icon on the campaign. 2. Untick Ongoing and choose an End Date. 3. Click Save Changes. The status is set when you save. A campaign is Active if it is ongoing or its end date hasn't passed yet, and Ended if the end date is already in the past. If a campaign still says Active after its end date has gone by, open it and click Save Changes to update it, or use Mark Ended below. Update several campaigns at once 1. Tick the checkbox on each campaign you want to change, or tick the box next to Campaigns to select them all. 2. In the bar that appears: - Click Mark Ended to set every selected campaign to Ended. - Click Edit to open Bulk Edit Campaigns. Tick each field you want to change (Status, Platform, Currency or Total Budget), set the new value, and click Apply to (the number of campaigns). 3. A message confirms the change. Click Undo in that message if you made a mistake. Bulk changes only affect the campaigns themselves. Changing a campaign's currency doesn't change the currency of spend entries you already logged. Delete a campaign 1. Click the trash icon (Delete campaign) on its row. 2. Confirm Delete. Deleting a campaign also permanently deletes all of its spend entries. If you just want it out of the way, mark it as ended instead.

Troubleshooting Ad Spend Tracker

The Log Spend window says I need a campaign Spend is always logged against a campaign. If you see "You need at least one campaign before logging spend.", click Create Campaign First, save the campaign, then log your spend. My ROI is negative even though the ads sold books ROI only uses the Attributed Revenue you type into each spend entry. Ad Spend Tracker doesn't read revenue from Sales Tracker or from the ad platform. If you left Attributed Revenue blank, that entry counts as spend with no revenue. Delete the entry and log it again with the revenue filled in. Some of my spend is missing from the totals The totals only add up entries in your main currency, which is the currency you've logged the most spend in. Entries in any other currency are left out of the stat cards, the platform chart and the campaign figures, but you can still see them by expanding the campaign. If you log a platform in a different currency, consider converting it to your main currency when you log it. Also check the date buttons. If 3M, 6M, 1Y or YTD is selected, older entries aren't counted. Click All Time to include everything. The book and pen name filters can hide campaigns too. I can't edit a spend entry Spend entries can't be edited. Delete the entry (trash icon in the expanded campaign) and log it again. A campaign still says Active after it ended A campaign's status is worked out when you save it. Edit the campaign and click Save Changes, or select it and click Mark Ended. The buttons are greyed out, or I see No Access If you're working in someone else's account as a collaborator, your role decides what you can do. Without edit access, + New Campaign, Log Spend and the edit icons are greyed out. Without delete access, the trash icons are greyed out. If the page says No Access, your role doesn't include Ad Spend Tracker. Ask the account owner to change your role. I see a campaign I didn't create While the page tour is running, an example campaign is shown on an empty tracker. It disappears when the tour ends and can't be edited or deleted.