Experience with Amazon ads

[Annabelle]

So in another thread a bit ago, people were asking about Amazon pay per click ads. I said I'd post my experience, so here it is:

I used two ads, one Product Display and one Sponsored Products. I let them pick out the keywords. After one month....

Product Display: about 10,000 impressions with 110 clicks and four total sales. I am down about $8 on this ad.

Sponsored Products: about 1,000 impressions with 1 click and zero sales.

So in summary, I got some sales out of Product Display, but am down moneywise. Sponsored Products seems pretty useless.

Anyone else want to share their experience?

[Dylan]

Without rounding up the actual numbers, I would say that my experience is pretty much the same. Product display ads seem to be pretty pointless. Not enough impressions to make a difference.

[Ken]

Annabelle wrote: "Sponsored Products seems pretty useless...."

Don't use the suggested keywords! They're usually too generic. Instead, do your research and choose your own targeted keywords. Sponsored Product campaigns are my most profitable ones these days.

[Annabelle]

Wow, that's interesting. How do you decide on your keywords?

[Marie Silk]

My interest based AMS ad did not amount to much (2 sales), but the ratio of clicks to impressions was much better on interest than on the product one I tried this past week. I terminated the product ad when it hit $24 and still didn't show any sales, but two days later I saw that it had run up to $49 after I terminated it. I contacted Amazon about this and am waiting to hear back. (By the way, still no sales at $49 spent!)

[David]

I actually had very good results with product display ads (at least what I would call good results). I spent more than I made, but have gotten a lot of page views, and reasonable sales.

The trick is choosing where your ads will be displayed. I found that going through the top 100 sellers in my specific categories, plus adding some additional related titles worked pretty well. It sometimes takes some adjusting and what worked last month (or week) won't necessarily work this month.

Also, page views & clicks don't necessarily turn into sales, which means something needs adjusting -- either your page, or where you're advertising. Bottom line is that success or failure is dependent on your interaction. Simply starting a campaign and expecting it to automatically generate sales on its own is a recipe for failure.

[Ken]

Annabelle wrote: "Wow, that's interesting. How do you decide on your keywords?"

I usually try keywords related to the book in the Amazon search box to see what other words come up. I also use keywords that target similar books and authors.

David wrote: " Simply starting a campaign and expecting it to automatically generate sales on its own is a recipe for failure. ..."

Wise words, indeed!

[Larry]

Thanks for these great tips. I did an Amazon add but I had no idea what I was doing and consequently got no results. I am trying another add based on your advice-- thanks again!

[Amie]

Okay, so I was interested in placing an ad via Amazon and when I pulled up the website I immediately saw the statement "Amazon Marketing Services is currently available to Amazon vendors and KDP authors."

Seriously??? If you published outside of KDP you can't advertise? Anyone have any experience with this? I published with BookBaby so that would count me out. :(....