Amazon Ads Part Two

[Demesnedenoir]

Okay, so, with Christmas advertising, I really let things slip out of my tight control and fell back into a shotgun fashion of targeting again. That, and patience isn't one of my virtues. Therefore I am restructuring my ads into Double Ought Buck instead of bird shot from a sawed-off shotgun.

By this, I mean I have one campaign targeting about five authors' titles and three more campaigns focused on one author's titles. This is all via ASINs and not titles or author names, which keeps things again laser-focused on digital products.

Despite using the suggested bids, the three single-author campaigns are showing very few impressions so far, but I'm okay with that for the time being. The other campaign ran out of budget a couple of hours ago and basically spent the entire budget on one author. Every click but one! My relevance numbers should be reeeaaal good! The funny thing is that this author has been targeting Eve of Snows since the launch of the book in 2018; she follows me like a bloodhound. So it's quite possible that my books have a built-in relevance with her titles seeing as they've been linked for years. I've also targeted her in the past, but not to this scale.

My one add that I had to appeal is still in Appeal. I've never seen Amazon move this friggin' slow.

Demonstrable sales are at $20 and EoS's rankings have scooted up more than cash sales would suggest, so it's hitting KU readers, which has been a bugaboo lately.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Oh! Part of the targeting was determined by looking at my author page and the 6 authors at the bottom where there the "Customers Also Bought items By" gave me an immediate link to who is already connected to my books.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Oh! Part of the targeting was determined by looking at my author page and the 6 authors at the bottom where there the "Customers Also Bought items By" gave me an immediate link to who is already connected to my books.

Very helpful from Amazon to give us these useful lists of people to target...

Good luck with your appeal. I always get the idea that AMZ finds these authors to be a real hassle and doesn't actually want to deal with them other than to get their books and money.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

It's more amusing seeing as I have ads running for the same book that was denied. I've had weird hiccups like this with both Amazon and Fb, but never has it taken days to get resolved.

Very helpful from Amazon to give us these useful lists of people to target...

Good luck with your appeal. I always get the idea that AMZ finds these authors to be a real hassle and doesn't actually want to deal with them other than to get their books and money.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

A side goal of my current targeting is to knock at least one of those six authors out of their spot and replace them with writers who are more relevant. One had zero books I would consider as targets, so I just used 5 of them.

Very helpful from Amazon to give us these useful lists of people to target...

Good luck with your appeal. I always get the idea that AMZ finds these authors to be a real hassle and doesn't actually want to deal with them other than to get their books and money.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Still mostly tinkering while building the war chest for the next release in late May, but the experiment logged one success by ditching the "least relevant" author with zero books I would target. Two have changed, picking up Wheeler & Wiseheart.

The bad thing is my one ad is blowing through my tinkering budget; out of budget by 9:30 central this morning. So, I'm lowering some bids to maybe get the ad to stretch out. Relevancy with that target is apparently not a problem, heh heh.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Good grief! I put up the Pre-Order for my new novel and today went to target it...

The suggested Bid was $2.90 with a high of $4.80 and the low at $1.42. I can't afford to bid against my own book! LMAO.

Oh wait, it's not getting much traffic yet anyhow; I haven't begun to really advertise.

 

[Prince of Spires]

The suggested Bid was $2.90 with a high of $4.80 and the low at $1.42. I can't afford to bid against my own book! LMAO.

Those are some crazy numbers... Sounds like you're a popular target.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I suspect that it might be the keyword "Contessa" driving it up... but new releases can also draw attention. I try to target a bunch because folks are shopping but can't read it yet.

Those are some crazy numbers... Sounds like you're a popular target.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Okay, my Amazon Ads concept (after the initial crapshoot, shotgun, spaghetti at the wall release of my first book... okay, honestly, it's been a long time so I don't remember, but it went surprisingly well in hindsight) was to start low and try to figure out what was working, raising bids as I went along.

New strategy, start high and bring them down, hopefully building "relevance" with the Amazon algorithm and lowering CPC. I'm doing this with a low budget as my next release is months away and because it is proving necessary to keep ads running, LOL. Today by 7:30 one ad running at Abercrombie was about out of budget. Mind, this is an author I probably have some built-in relevance with, but at the same time, many believe that relevance will reset with a new ad, and this is backed up at least a bit by Amazon's words. So, in an attempt to keep this ad running past morning, I am lowering bids again. Same with another target.

KENP page reads have steadily jumped since targeting the 5 now 7 authors listed on my Author Page, but sales have dipped, not surprising with the change in targeting and ad spend. The curious part is that Clicks are about 1/4-1/5 what they were not long ago, while reads are up, so the laser targeting on KU authors must be working.

 

[pmmg]

Good grief! I put up the Pre-Order for my new novel and today went to target it...

The suggested Bid was $2.90 with a high of $4.80 and the low at $1.42. I can't afford to bid against my own book! LMAO.

Oh wait, it's not getting much traffic yet anyhow; I haven't begun to really advertise.

I dont follow this. Is this an auction?

As for Contessa in the title, I think its a bonus to have something female on the cover.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Amazon ads default to giving you "suggested bids" which are based on how much is being paid to target the product. These are disturbingly accurate. My guess is that the keyword "contessa" is driving the high price of bids here, even though I list against the ASIN.

However! I could be entirely wrong about that, today, the product page is populating with ads, and the high end of the suggested is now $5.04, suggest $3.60, and the low is $1.40. Mind you, I've barely run an ad and ~50 books are already targeting it directly or indirectly. I don't think that targeting me by name will put an author in the related products carousel.

Yikes. And so far this doesn't include many of the typical indie names that target my other books, like Peloquin, Rayne, Welburn, and others.

I dont follow this. Is this an auction?

As for Contessa in the title, I think its a bonus to have something female on the cover.

 

[pmmg]

So....Amazon wants to charge you the bid amount every time someone clicks on your ad?

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Yep, that's how it works. The actual amount you pay can swing all over the place and is often less than your maximum bid. Also, "relevance" will lower what you pay for a bid, as Amazon is looking for clicks and sales, so if I bid $50 against a Minions DVD (exaggerated example) my ad still might Not run against someone with a more relevant product bidding $5. They will throttle ads altogether if they are not producing.

So....Amazon wants to charge you the bid amount every time someone clicks on your ad?

 

[pmmg]

Well...the question I have is, how much do I have to sell my book for to make a profit paying amazon $4.80 every time some one clicks on it. If I get one sale per 10 clicks (and I am guessing some other overhead), I need to sell at like $60.00/book to pay for the ad. That seems nuts to me.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Therein lies the rub. There are people out there with 10-20 books who have their read-through calculated to anticipate how much they make per first book purchase. Now, $4.80 per click seems like a bitch to cover (I can't go there) but people are doing it unless lots of people are taking a loss. One other who has been running ads against my books forever... Damn, I was cruising around books that advertise against me, and she is just everywhere I looked, high in the related product carousel, which means she is spending bucks targeting a whole lot of authors.

There is also a major, major consideration that is below the surface: When Amazon finds your book relevant and clicking/selling like hotcakes, they target the relevant audience with "Suggested for you" emails that directly cost you Zilch. Nada. Zero. When EoS first came out and I hit things off, I estimated 50%+ of sales were coming through this "organic" reach. And that was when Amazon had my books totally screwed on who to target due to a Goodreads giveaway. That is the true power of Amazon ads.

Getting Recommended. In the long run, that will kick Bookbub's ass.

Well...the question I have is, how much do I have to sell my book for to make a profit paying amazon $4.80 every time some one clicks on it. If I get one sale per 10 clicks (and I am guessing some other overhead), I need to sell at like $60.00/book to pay for the ad. That seems nuts to me.

 

[pmmg]

There might be strategic reasons to do it, and maybe to take a loss. Kind of, take a loss to get a fan base of a 1000 readers, so you can make it back on subsequent books, but....Just goes to show, its better to be amazon.

 

[ThinkerX]

Well...the question I have is, how much do I have to sell my book for to make a profit paying amazon $4.80 every time some one clicks on it. If I get one sale per 10 clicks (and I am guessing some other overhead), I need to sell at like $60.00/book to pay for the ad. That seems nuts to me.

Welcome to the mysterious, insane, and expensive world or book marketing.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

It's real good to be Amazon. It's also good to learn how to use Amazon.

People aren't bidding $5 a click to lose their shirts. The point of taking a loss would be more to build relevance with Amazon's algorithm. Those recommended emails move product and can effectively cut your visible CPC in half or more. $5 becomes $2.50 or $2... There's a lot more going on, but successful advertising on Amazon seems to build a feedback loop.

There might be strategic reasons to do it, and maybe to take a loss. Kind of, take a loss to get a fan base of a 1000 readers, so you can make it back on subsequent books, but....Just goes to show, its better to be amazon.

 

[Prince of Spires]

There might be strategic reasons to do it, and maybe to take a loss. Kind of, take a loss to get a fan base of a 1000 readers, so you can make it back on subsequent books, but....Just goes to show, its better to be amazon.

There are lots of ways to look at this. As Demesnedenoir mentioned, read-through is a big factor in what an author is willing to pay. If you have a 20 book series, all priced at $4,99, with 75% read-through for the first, and 90% for all books after that, then a single sale of book 1 nets you $26. Now, $4,80 per click and 1-in-10 conversion that sale will cost you $48. However, if you get 1 sale per 10 clicks and 1 KU read, then the numbers already change. Or if you manage a 1-in-5 conversion, then that sale only costs you $24, netting you a profit long term, as well as a bunch of new fans.

The other is that you can set your bids to a maximum of $4,80, which means that you'll often pay less per click. Sometimes half or even less. Which could make the sale profitable a lot sooner.

A common strategy I've found was also to start high with your bids on relevant targets. This shows the algorythm that your book sells for certain bids, which gets you higher in all kinds of rankings. Also-boughts are less prominent than they were a few years ago, but they're still there. These are free spots which get you sales, which again could make your book profitable even if the ad isn't. But also, it lets you lower the bid later while still remaining high in the ad column, because even with lower bids Amazon now knows it will make money from you because your ad sells.

Lastly, there's the ranking effect. The higher you rank, the more likely people are to find your book organically, which means you're more likely to get free sales. Therefore, some people decide to run ads against books in specific categories where they want to rank high. This makes them more visible, again getting them free sales.

And yes, Amazon ads are an auction. So are pretty much all ads. A lot of people want to show ads. The way companies decide which ad to show is a combination of how much you're willing to pay and how much people like your ad.