Daffyjkl's questions about advertising

Daffyjkl

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Ok. I started a Sponsored Products Campaign on 13/12/2016. Initially, I accepted the Amazon recommended Keywords (about 10), set my Bid at $0.10 and waited three days. I managed to get 4 Impressions (no Clicks), which wasn't great. I then upped my Bid by $0.05 a day for the next couple of days. This got me a total of 74 Impressions (no Clicks) at $0.25 Bid price. I then decided to add Keywords, about 50 in total. Suddenly, my Impressions started to jump into the hundreds and then thousands. Eventually, I got to 275 Keywords and managed to get 221,000 Impressions (140 Clicks) over the course of the Campaign. The Campaign ended on 31/12/2016. The metrics are very poor, they don't update realtime. According to the Campaign Management page I had no sales, although the Help pages suggest it takes up to two weeks for sales to show. I have no online presence apart from Amazon and a Goodreads page so I can be fairly sure that my sales during this time were all down to the Amazon Advertising Campaign. I managed 5 sales and about 3000 pages KENP read. The total cost of the Campaign was $17.76. Sales were $12.55. I am guessing that the KENP Royalties will push that close to break-even. If so, I think it was worth the effort (approx 12 hours). I'll post again when I have firm figures. I will look at Goodreads advertising next, followed by Facebook... and of course continue writing.
 

WriterBN

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AMS is a long game and you're right: the metrics are far from real time. Sales can take 3-4 weeks to show up, even after you've terminated a campaign. It takes a fair amount of optimization to make your campaigns profitable, but it can be done. I try to keep my ACoS under 30%; if it goes above that, I kill the campaign and start another.
 

Daffyjkl

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Thanks for the reply. Have you tried Goodreads? Do they have better metrics?
 

WriterBN

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Thanks for the reply. Have you tried Goodreads? Do they have better metrics?

I spent around 8 months a couple of years ago running and analyzing Goodreads advertising campaigns. I concluded that they made no statistically significant difference to my sales.

Their metrics are more up to date than AMS; however, they lack the most critical one, which is sales numbers.
 

Daffyjkl

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Ok, thanks for the reply. I will try Goodreads in the next week or so and post my results. Facebook advertising? Have you tried that or Adsense?
 

WriterBN

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I haven't tried Facebook ads; I know a couple of authors who swear by them, but many see no results, and I dislike seeing them in my timeline, anyway. The consensus seems to be that you can only make a profit if you have a series with several books already published. Search the forums here; I think there are a few discussions on FB ads.

I like AMS because it targets potential readers who are already on the Amazon site. The only other PPC advertising that I may try is the new Bookbub advertising. I haven't heard much about how useful it is, but I'll post my results here if I do.
 

Daffyjkl

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Hi WriterBN, thanks for the reply. I am running two new Amazon advertising campaigns. Another Sponsored Product Campaign (SPC), using my previous Keyword list, but a changed Ad wording. And I'm running a Product Display Campaign targeted at Interests (PDI). It's too early to tell, but the SPC is getting a Click (48) every 820 Impressions and the PDI is getting a Click (3) every 21 Impressions. The PDI is only getting 20 Impressions a day, the SPC, 8000. The previous SPC was getting a Click every 1578 Impressions, I hadn't run a PDI before. The new Campaigns have only just started running in the last week and Sales have only been 1, so I'll post clearer results after a week or two. I aim to trial both Goodreads and Facebook campaigns by the end of the month. I am hoping to get the campaigns running to generate a couple of Sales a day at cost.
 

Daffyjkl

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An update. I have no online profile apart from Amazon and Goodreads. I have several Amazon advertising campaigns running and I'm seeing sales (about 1 a day). The Amazon reports don't record many sales, far less than I am seeing. What else could be generating these sales? I can only think that the Amazon reports are inaccurate. Thanks.
 

WriterBN

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What else could be generating these sales? I can only think that the Amazon reports are inaccurate. Thanks.
You could have sold enough books that your book is now appearing on the "Also Bought" lists. That can definitely boost sales, and it doesn't cost you a thing.
 

Daffyjkl

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FYI. I stopped one of the campaigns and I saw sales drop to nothing for a couple of days, when I reactivated it I saw sales start again. But no sales recorded against the campaign. Odd. The stats suggest I shouldn't continue the campaigns, but the real sales suggest I should. I can only assume that people look at the book, go away, and then return. It's not costing much, royalties from sales and KENP are more than I spend on advertising, so I guess I'll keep going.
 

CathleenT

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Sorry this reply is so late. I've been studying this some lately. To my mind, even an ad campaign that merely breaks even is worth doing--if nothing else, you're building name recognition. An ad campaign that makes money seems to be successful by definition. Steve Dawson, who's really good at this, warns that all ads become stale in time, so it's probably a good idea to keep an eye on your stats, which I know Amazon makes it tough to do.

And I've gone back to books and bought them later, so it seems reasonable that this could be happening.
 
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Daffyjkl

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I've definitely noticed the ads go stale. After two weeks they seem to slow down. I'm still not sure that the reports are accurate. I see sales, but nothing is reported against the campaign and I have no other online presence. Is it possibly word of mouth?
 

Daffyjkl

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Update. After 3 months of tweaking my ads, I have now got to the stage where I am selling a book a day. I have two Sponsored Product and two Product Display campaigns for my book. The Royalties are in excess of the cost of advertising. The estimated sales for each campaign is below my actual sales. I assume this is because the sales data from Amazon is not entirely accurate. Otherwise, I am making sales from word of mouth, which is even better. Apart from a Goodreads page, I have no other online presence for my book, so I can only assume the sales are from the Amazon campaigns. I will continue tweaking, adding to each of the campaigns daily.
 

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Update. After 3 months of tweaking my ads, I have now got to the stage where I am selling a book a day.
That's great--congrats!

I have two Sponsored Product and two Product Display campaigns for my book.
I now run only sponsored product campaigns, because I found the ROI on the other types were terrible, due to high CPC bids after the system got flooded. I'd be interested to hear how the two types compare for you, in terms of ACoS.

The Royalties are in excess of the cost of advertising. The estimated sales for each campaign is below my actual sales. I assume this is because the sales data from Amazon is not entirely accurate. Otherwise, I am making sales from word of mouth, which is even better.
You're selling enough copies now that you could be getting ancillary sales from the "also bought" feature. These won't show up on your AMS sales report.
 

Daffyjkl

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Hi WriterBN,
Thanks for the congrats, it's been a lot of hard work. I have built up my lists to be 1000's of targeted authors and books. My Sponsored Product campaigns are not showing any sales. My only sales are against the Product Display campaigns and according to that it's running at a loss, but overall my advertising costs are less than my advertising. I wish I knew where the sales are coming from, word of mouth would be great, but as I have no other online presence I have to assume it's from the campaigns. I need to get back to writing and get the next book out. Thanks for the support.
 

Daffyjkl

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Is there any way of seeing how many times your book features in the "also bought" category without clicking on countless books? Thanks in advance.
 

WriterBN

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Is there any way of seeing how many times your book features in the "also bought" category without clicking on countless books? Thanks in advance.
Not that I know. I generally stumble upon them when looking at other books and authors that are similar to mine.
 

Daffyjkl

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The ACoS for me are about 120%. But I persist because the only online presence I have is KDP and Goodreads, so I have to assume my sales of one book a day are from the advertising. I don't mind making a small loss if my book is being read. When I factor in the KENP I'm in front. I have noticed that my Impressions and Clicks slow down towards the end of the Campaign. Next I will try shorter Campains of two weeks instead of four. If that doesn't help, I will try running normal length Campaigns and then cancel them midway through and restart. I will post results soon.