How my Amazon Ad Campaign went #MondayBlogs #Marketing #BookMarketing #AmWriting

I recently read an article that stated the most successful self-published authors concentrate on Facebook ads and Amazon ads. I’ve tried the Facebook ad thing – ad naseaum – without much success. Amazon recently made it easier for us indie authors to do an advertisement with them. As the vast majority of my books are sold through Amazon, I thought I’d give it a try.

There are two options for an amazon ad campaign: sponsored product or product display ad.

As far as I can tell, the big difference between the two types of ad campaigns is placement. Sponsored products are further down on the page and may be easier overlooked than the product display ad, which sits directly beneath the purchase buttons.

I chose the sponsored product ad. I’m not really sure why. (Let’s just blame that on lack of sleep and not complete idiocy, shall we?) I try to do a marketing push for one book in my library each month. I spend between $150 and $200 on these marketing pushes with $50 a fairly average amount to spend for one newsletter campaign (Bargain Booksy, Ereader news, etc.) I’ve discovered that spreading a marketing push over three days works best for me.

Amazon allows you to choose a time period in which to run your ad as well as an overall budget. Based on the above, I decided to set a budget of $15 per day for three days. How did I do? Not great.

I have to hand it to Amazon, they did do a ton of impressions of my ad – 1,450. The problem is the percentage of clicks is less than 1%. Yep, you read that right. Less than 1% of those who saw the ad actually clicked on it. Geez. To be completely fair, Amazon does not include royalties from Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) Read and my pages read has increased substantially since I ran the ad (although it’s impossible to tell if that’s from my other promotions – I ran approximately 20 promotions over the three-day period – or from the Amazon ad).

My thoughts? Is it worth it? Will I try an Amazon ad again? Sure, I’ll give it another try. The huge advantage is the cost. If no one clicks on your book, there is no cost. Maybe I’ll try a product display ad instead. I’m also planning on keeping track of whether the number of reviews makes a difference in the number of clicks. (If anyone has figured out a way to get more verified reviews, please clue me in.) Stay tuned …