How should I structure my Amazon ad campaign?

efreysson

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I honestly have no idea what the best approach is.

Should I go with the sponsored products or lockscreen ad option? What price should I put on each click? Should I spread the budget out or finish it as fast as possible? Should I target widely or precisely?

For clarification, I have a fantasy novella coming in June, and I want to start a campaign on release date.
 

rchapman1

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Sorry to see no-one got back to you on this, efreysson. I'm not very good at Amazon ads! However, I believe sponsored ads are better value and I don't believe in putting too much on each click, especially if you are going wide. If you choose target down, you often get an impression for less than your click price. If there are no suggested click prices I go 5 or 10 cents. It all depends on what works for you, but if you want to make a profit you can't go too high. I normally go 20 or 30 cents. I think you should spread the budget out, as they say it gains momentum over time. I know you have to keep playing with them to see what works for you. Hopefully someone who is better at this than I am will reply too.
 

LJD

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You're going to have to try a bunch of things, do a bit of testing, to find out what my work for you. My personal experience (for romance is):

1) I've never really gotten lockscreen ads to do anything. Never gotten more than a handful of impressions, no clicks. I'm not sure what the secret is to getting these to run.
2) For sponsored product ads, I've had most success (still not all that high) targeting tropes (though this may just work in romance) and also categories (multicultural/interracial romance and romantic comedy in my case). What you bid is going to depend on what you're targeting, but mine are are probably somewhere around 25-30 cents on average. Sometimes Amazon recommends something higher (like, close to a dollar), but I'd never make my money back at that.
 

kittymowmow

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Should I go with the sponsored products or lockscreen ad option? What price should I put on each click? Should I spread the budget out or finish it as fast as possible? Should I target widely or precisely?

Go with sponsored products, make your cost per click low, mine's at $0.21. You have to think, for every 1,000 impressions you should get a click, and for every 10 clicks, you get about one sale. So if you pay for 10 clicks even at $0.21, that's $2.10. If your book is less than that, you won't make a profit. So figure out how low you need to go to profit, and then set the end date for 3 weeks away. Amazon sees that your ad doesn't have much time left and shows you more often. Target widely at first (search broad terms) and when you see ads that are working, make new, targeted ads like it. You'll have to let them run for a few weeks before you have enough data to know what's working. DON'T wait an hour and start messing with things. Let your ads run and check back in a week. Also, make as many low-bid ads as you can, to see what works and what doesn't.