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Experience with Amazon (AMS) advertising
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Anna
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Mar 31, 2018 03:05AM
From experience, I'd say you need to give it much longer than a week. Go for at least a month or more if you find it works.
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Yes, exactly. This is very early days for me.
Graeme wrote: "Thanks. It's an average.My bid price per click is 30 cents. But I've never spent that."
Thank you for the reply. I'm new to this, so I'm a bit confused, what is a 'bid price'? How can you spend or not spend it?
Hi Petra.I started a week ago, and the bids are handled automatically by amazon. The bid price is the upper limit that you want to spend on any click.
These campaigns once started run automatically. You can check them and tweak the keywords by adding or removing them or changing their bid price.
I'm still very early on the learning curve.
Got it! Thank you very much for explaining so clearly.
I'm an indie author with 2 novels on Amazon. I've been using AMS since the first of the year with good result on Product display ads. Run Countdowns and Free-days as often as Amazon allows. My release on Oct 16, 2017 stayed in top 10 in its category for month of Feb. AMS works. I stay in KDP Select and KU. Review your keywords every 2-weeks -pause those that cost money but no sales. Yes to the Kindleprenuer AMS course. Yes to getting the keywords total above 500. Thanks for the tip on looking at BookBub and other ads for keywords. Great thread. Thanks to all who contributed.
And thanks to you, Frank, for this encouraging and useful post.
Hi Frank! Yes, I am watching the Kindlepreneur AMS ad course all afternoon today. Very helpful bonus info in there that I had not uncovered through other studies and trial and error yet. Certainly worth my afternoon :)
Amie wrote: "Hi Frank! Yes, I am watching the Kindlepreneur AMS ad course all afternoon today. Very helpful bonus info in there that I had not uncovered through other studies and trial and error yet. Certainly ..."I found that course very helpful and have watched it more than once as I try to learn how to run ads. Love all the helpful advice here! Thanks all!
I've still got to check the Kindlepreneur AMS course out. I know where it is, just gotta spend some time on it.
It's in my diary... As Graeme says, 'just gotta spend some time on it.'
Has anyone tried purchasing and using the KDP Rocket that is advertised on the kindlepreneur course? And if so, do you find it useful and worth the cost? Thanks much!
Hi Carmel, purchased it two days ago, and I've started the kindlepreneur AMS course.So far it has been highly useful.
I have updated my 7 AMAZON keywords, updated one of my categories to match to a more competitive area.
I also used https://kindlepreneur.com/amazon-book... to improve the look and feel of my books product pages and I have included the keywords in the product descriptions.
Still too early to tell if this is having an impact.
One thing is clear, my initial keywords were way too broad.
Original SET: action, fantasy, supernatural, vampires, suspense, paranormal and thriller.
New Set: superheroes, vampire superhero, vampire hunters, super powers, secret society, supervillain novel, technothriller.
I was able to establish the new set based on KDPRocket results that showed they were a lot more competitive for me, i.e. I'm more likely to be near the top and some of these terms have 1000s of Amazon searches each day.
Graeme wrote: "Hi Carmel, purchased it two days ago, and I've started the kindlepreneur AMS course.So far it has been highly useful.
I have updated my 7 AMAZON keywords, updated one of my categories to match t..."
My plan is to start on the Kindlepreneur course today. It'll be interesting to hear how the changes work out for you. Little things like changing how the pages look sounds like it should be irrelevant, but I guess that can alter whether someone wants to keep reading, and how they feel about the book.
Your keywords certainly make your book sound interesting!
KDP Rocket can be a big help with a lot of things. It's worth the small price. I used it for getting competition, keywords and genre specific things. My advice, play with it. You will discover there is a lot you can do with it and it does save you tons of time when it comes to putting in "my book is like..." or finding those 100 keywords for your book.
Thanks Petra, My novice understanding is that the product description page does a couple of things.
[1] It's where you convert clicks in sales.
[2] Your keywords need to be represented in the book description as that will factor into Amazon assignment to book category and also **I think** impacts the Amazon search algo.
That's quite a lot of work.
Hi BA, fully agree, however I think the advice is to find and use 100s of keywords, and keyword phrases.I personally aiming to get my keyword lists above 400.
Graeme wrote: "Hi Carmel, purchased it two days ago, and I've started the kindlepreneur AMS course.So far it has been highly useful.
I have updated my 7 AMAZON keywords, updated one of my categories to match t..."
Ah, here is the thread I couldn't find! Thanks, Graeme. Useful information about KDP Rocket. I'll reconsider it. And take a look at my product page description again.
Thanks!
I'm still early in the Entrepreneur course, but my ads have accumulated 29 clicks without a sale - I must be doing something wrong - plus my Product page might be rubbish.I also dropped prices about half way through, so perhaps the price was too high ($4.99) to start with.
I've been running AMS adverts for 1 month now.Results are,
Cost: $6.48
Impressions: 59,009
Clicks: 39
Avg cost per click: $0.17
Avg impressions for click: 1513
% of month being run: 75% (switched off for a week while other promotions were in play).
Books sold: 0
Not a good first month.
First impressions: I'm dying on the product page, and my click rate per impression is way too low, I.e. I need a huge number of page impressions showing my adverts to attract a click.
Clearly lots of work and learning in front of me.
Graeme wrote: "I've been running AMS adverts for 1 month now.Results are,
Cost: $6.48
Impressions: 59,009
Clicks: 39
Avg cost per click: $0.17
Avg impressions for click: 1513
% of month being run: 75% (switche..."
It's a bit baffling to figure these things out. I sold three books, but then it dropped off again. I'm copying the ad and trying different ad blurbs to see if that changes the click ratio. It's tricky to catch the eye of those who would be attracted to our particular book.
Here's been my experience so far (all campaigns still running)4/15: Sponsored Product ad (automatic targeting), 10 impressions, 1 click, spend $0.02, 0 sales
4/23: Sponsored Product ad (keyword targeting 10 words), 4201 impressions, 2 clicks, spend $0.61, 0 sales
4/15: Product Display ad, 1017 impressions, 6 clicks, spend $3.27, 0 sales
Jury's still out but it would appear the keyword option for Sponsored Products is the way to go?
I'm impressed with what so many of you have accomplished with the sponsored ads. I began one on April 7, adjusting my keywords after 10 days. Here we are, 3 weeks later, and I've had 7 impressions, 0 clicks, and 0 sales. Oh, my. I have a lot to learn!
Kathleen wrote: "I'm impressed with what so many of you have accomplished with the sponsored ads. I began one on April 7, adjusting my keywords after 10 days. Here we are, 3 weeks later, and I've had 7 impressions,..."The advice I've gotten about keywords is to a) use similar/influential author names b) use your own book's title (there's some debate about this but I did it anyway) c) use misspellings.
I'm still learning/experimenting as well and am definitely interested in others' experiences.
Hello everyone,I started this hare running and was off the forum for a few weeks (busy writing!), and look what's happened.
My apologies, Graeme, that I didn't answer your direct question about impressions per click. It depends on the ad copy, of course. Ours has been around 1,000, which seems to be about average, but I haven't worried too much about it. The cost per click and the clicks/sale statistics seem to me more important. It's fairly easy to work out the Return on Investment, as I mentioned in one of my early posts. Also as mentioned, our download cost is so high that we couldn't afford to bid high, even though the book in question is priced at $5.97.
I followed the Kindlepreneur course, but also bought a Kindle book about AMS for about $8, and found both useful. Takeaways were: don't overbid; run lots of ads, because some will bomb and some will succeed; use literally hundreds of keywords; don't give up - persist, because some ads may take off late; there's little point in killing an ad, even if it isn't performing - it isn't costing either. This last is only valid if you are confident in your cover and book description - you need to measure the number of clicks needed for a sale (with or without KU 'book equivalents'). Roughly speaking, if it's around 10, you've got a good book page, if it's approaching 20 you need to improve your description and cover. Ours sits around 12 to 13, which is probably as good as we can expect for a serious nonfiction history.
I also bought the KDRocket app - very useful. Although it is not inexpensive, it's a lifetime cost, as it's regularly updated and often improved.
Good luck.
Peter
Thanks Peter. Got my first sale off a click 2 days ago.
Dear all,In case it's of interest, here are some recent AMS results for ads for my wife's nonfiction book (best described as an Anglo/German WW2 memoir). They very roughly cover the month of March and involved 28 parallel Sponsored Product ads, mostly with a maximum bid of $0.11. Numbers of keywords ranged up to 600 or so.
Campaign Name Charge Clicks Average CPC
TBT Spons 1Feb18 - 27 $0.89 13 $0.07
TBT Spons 18Feb18 - 35 $4.26 59 $0.07
TBT Spins 1Jan18 20 $13.27 140 $0.10
TBT Spons 17Dec17 - 16 $1.54 26 $0.06
TBT Spons 18Nov17 - 10 $3.12 32 $0.10
TBT Spons 1Feb18 - 29 $0.70 11 $0.06
TBT Spons 23Jan18 - 24 $3.39 35 $0.10
TBT Spons 1Feb18 - 31 $0.83 12 $0.07
TBT Spons 1Feb18 - 28 $25.36 356 $0.07
TBT Spons 12Nov17 - 7 $3.11 47 $0.07
TBT Spons 5Dec17 -15 $3.66 52 $0.07
TBT Spons 17Dec17 - 18 $16.31 180 $0.09
TBT Spons 1Feb18 - 30 $1.18 21 $0.06
TBT Spons 5Dec17 - 14 $3.39 37 $0.09
TBT Spons 7Feb18 - 3 $1.95 32 $0.06
TBT Comp 1Jan18 - 19 $4.28 65 $0.07
TBT Spons 18Feb18 - 34 $7.92 131 $0.06
TBT SponsProd 1Oct17 - 4 $5.39 76 $0.07
TBT Spons 24Jan18 - 26 $3.35 49 $0.07
TBT Spons 23Jan18 - 25 $1.06 15 $0.07
TBT Spons Aug2017 - 2 $10.64 161 $0.07
TBT Spons 2Jan18 -22 $1.39 26 $0.05
TBT SponsProd 01Oct17 - 3 $12.26 144 $0.09
TBT Spons 2Jan18 -23 $3.92 42 $0.09
TBT Spons Aug2017 1 $22.46 372 $0.06
TBT Spons 12Nov017 - 7 $6.69 98 $0.07
TBT Spons 26Mar18 - 36 $4.96 86 $0.06
TBT Sponsored Oct17 - 6 $1.88 23 $0.08
Sorry it doesn't show as a nice neat table, but you can imagine the columns are straight.
Notice the massive variation in the number of clicks, even though the ads were in many ways comparable. I think it shows that having a large number of ads running in parallel is important, because you don't know which ones are going to perform. Notice also that some of these ads have been running since August - it's worth persisting.
Return on Investment was about 150%, so definitely worth doing, even if it's not selling 1,000s of books. A total of 2341 clicks produced (in the US only) 67 Kindle sales, 19,583 KU pages (=65 'books') and 47 paperback sales.
Hope it helps to put AMS in perspective.
Good luck,
Peter
I'm making progress as I gain knowledge. I purchased KDP Rocket and built close to 200 keywords for 1 ad. I'll continue to add more. Began the second ad for the same book with the new keywords and a new ad copy. In two days, I'm up to 1000 impressions for the new ad and 3 clicks. The old ad is still running with 12 impressions and 0 clicks. Next goal is to get more clicks and some sales.
Yeah. I think this is very much a persistence and refinement game.
Agreed. But for me it is a case of shall I spend time on marketing refinements or shall I keep on writing? I ring fence each but that means that studying marketing gets pushed down the line and I may never get to it. It's currently in the diary though. Best I can do.
It's hard to achieve the right balance. I started by doing too much analysis and have backed off from that to: collecting and storing the data daily (5 minutes, and I don't actually do anything with it); reviewing monthly (about 45 minutes). Gave me more time, but the focus on writing kept me out of this forum for a few weeks.Climbing the learning curve took time, so the knowledge shared by people here may help to provide a shortcut through that.
Peter
Hi Anna. It's a key tension isn't it. I've slowed my writing over the last 3 months to pursue marketing knowledge. However, I'm pushing forward on the writing now so it's an ebb and flow between the two needs.
Sharing the knowledge on Goodreads, Peter, yes! I've learned a lot, so time has to be set aside to keep up here.I've got a book trying to get out of my head, Peter, but it's on hold until I can get the four books I have as eBooks into print. I'm attempting to do this myself so those characters in my head are getting impatient. So writing has to wait while I reread all my books before I put them into print and then make a mess of that and then... I might have to think about rebalancing this or those characters might give up and go and sit inside someone else's head and take their plot with them.
I did both the search engine and ad placement and only got one sale out of a 3 month period. Maybe its the book but people looked but just did not care enough to get it. So it cost me more than I gained in the end.
Dan, a lot of people say more or less what you say - that it costs more than you make. It's the price of visibility. So you're not the only one.Remember though that you don't only get sales, maybe you're getting reads in Kindle Unlimited - they don't show up on your AmAds chart.
I use AMS on two books. Both books are westerns.My bid cost runs about $0.14-0.17. My ROI runs between 100% and 115%. After 9 months from pub, both have 45+ reviews: avg 4.5 on one, 4.78 on second-it's been in top 10 in its category consistently since Dec. It rises to 2-3 when I run a KDP discount. (I read this to mean my covers and blurbs are working fine.)
My KU page reads pays for all my promo costs.
I love AMS because it is so easy to use and has great reporting of sales (Yes, I know it runs behind actual, but I can follow what's working and what isn't)
I too use KDP Rocket to find keywords. Use same 500 for both books since in same genre. (Not a series)
I'm still working to figure out FB (They shut down my page. I can't connect with anyone at FB to find out why) But like good sports, they continue to take my money for the ads I'm running (or at least paying for???) (It's all about the money)
I'm still working to figure out Bookbub ads. Essentially same ad (book covers) and tag lines as on AMS but few clicks or sales??
I have seen BookBub mentioned several times on this thread. I've subscribed to it and add titles from it as keywords. My question is this: some authors here have advertised on BookBub and I checked out their pricing - sticker shock! Is it worth it? Have your ads made a real impact on your sales and earnings and boosted sales even after your BB ad is finished?
Ann wrote: "I have seen BookBub mentioned several times on this thread. I've subscribed to it and add titles from it as keywords. My question is this: some authors here have advertised on BookBub and I checked..."I tried BookBub ads for a while to target UK readers, as AMS ads aren't available in the UK. I haven't had much luck so far. Most of the ads I've made haven't had many clicks and some don't seem to get shown much either, with few impressions. I made one ad which for some reason performed way better than the others in terms of clicks but in the end I gave up on it as it seemed to only be generating maybe one sale a day, and I felt it wasn't worth the cost. I now use facebook ads to target UK readers instead, and although I don't get loads of sales from that either I feel a bit more comfortable with the cost.
I possibly would try BookBub ads again in the future, but at the moment I feel like I don't really know how to get them to work well and I don't want to use up too much of my advertising budget trying to figure it out!
I tried to get an Amazon ad and I couldnt even get past the first step The first step was to add a brand. I did not want to add a brand but there is no way to proceed without adding one. It was also unclear whether Amazon considered me to be a brand and was merely asking me to register myself or if they wanted me to register someone else. I was in my account when this happened. Here's the link. https://ams.amazon.com/account
So I have now been confirmed by Amazon as the adminstrator of my myself, but nothing has changed. I am still stuck on the first step/ I hate this shit.
Well I got past that to where I am supposed to start my ad campaign, but now it will not list my book. Sucks. I hate this shit.
Don't worry Laura. Once you get past that and get your book up on AMS it'll randomly take all the money you let it and I can't really say I personally see any great results from it. I guess it's like real marketing. Dump money in an hope it's doing something! The stats you get are pretty rudimentary and don't break down in a lot of the ways I wish they would.
Laura, I've just been through this maze on Amazon Ads UK and got into a terrible mess. In the end I've had to ask them to delete my attempt as I got as far as signing the Terms and Conditions which clearly did not apply to me as a single author but still I carried on, worrying more and more. It finally flawed me at the bit which said I had to declare my VAT registration. I am not registered for Value Added Tax - I don't sell enough. I had about 6 emails of varying helpfulness until I think they've removed my attempt to post an ad in the UK. Other groups have similar threads running on this complete chaos. Some of the responses I received from Amazon were polite but not vaguely helpful. I don't think a lot of them grasp what we're trying to do.
I think we all need to let Amazon know that we'd like to place ads for our books without this nightmare. Some people have managed to get through without doing all this and I'll have another go when I've recovered!
L.K. wrote: "Ann wrote: "I have seen BookBub mentioned several times on this thread. I've subscribed to it and add titles from it as keywords. My question is this: some authors here have advertised on BookBub a..."I just realized that I didn't know about the BookBub ads - I was thinking of being featured in their emails, which is, from what I understand, as hard as finding an agent or publisher and very expensive to boot. Glad I asked the question because now I know there's a different route. Thanks!
Anna Faversham wrote: "Laura, I've just been through this maze on Amazon Ads UK and got into a terrible mess. In the end I've had to ask them to delete my attempt as I got as far as signing the Terms and Conditions which..."Some people have managed to get through without doing all this and I'll have another go when I've recovered!
reply | flag *
If it makes you feel any better, Anna, I'm learning from your nightmare. I suggest a nice glass of wine to help in that recovery! It sounds like others have run into this mess, too? Yikes. I usually manage to mess things like this up, too, and have to figure out how to extract myself, once I give myself a concussion banging my head against my keyboard! ;)
The US Amazon site is really easy to navigate to create, monitor and manage AMS adverts.
No it isn't! I am stuck because they say my one book is ineligible and claim to be unable to find the other one. I konw the rule is no hate speech but I think is alloed if addressed to Amazon.
I'm afraid that amazon's success has transformed the company into a ruthless money-machine whose integrity has been left far behind. As a publisher who has listed my books on amazon for years, I have stories, but there's no point in detailing them. Amazon is pretty much the only game in town now for selling books, they know it, and they will squeeze you for whatever they can get. And, yes, their interfaces are horrible, and often produce errors even if you're able to figure out what they want.
laura: "I feel your pain." On the US side, this is my quick route-go to KDP, bring up your bookshelf. On that page's right side is a CTA Button "Promote & Advertise." If you click that button it takes you to AMS directly, which for me, recognizes my books from KDP. From this page you can go to advertising campaigns on the box on right Labeled "Run an Ad Campaign" Click the orange CTA Button. Under "Campaign type," select "Sponsored product." Analyze books your's are like to find keywords (or purchase KDP Rocket). I use 600+ keywords relating to anything western (my genre), top selling author names, top selling book titles, and words from top selling book promos. (all in your genre)Start at $5/day to test how your ad works. On the campaign page, the KEY indicator is ACoS (Avg Cost of Sale) the last column on the right. Anything above 100% means you are losing money. My ads run around 50%, which means I spend $1 to make $2.
I know authors with top selling books have an ACoS of 10- to 25%, but I'm not there yet.
I understand you basic complain about Amazon being a money-sucking ogre. But the alternative is to find an agent who takes your MS to a publisher. Until then, suck it up and figure it out. It's really not rocket science.
I know you can do it.
