Please don’t go to Amazon search, look for my book, and click it just to see what the ad looks like. (Unless you intend to buy.) Every click costs me money.
Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing offers ad campaigns. The book advertised shows up in the “Sponsored Product” list in response to a search.
Setting up an ad for Members of the Cast was not complicated. You can choose to have Amazon automatically decide if a customer might be interested in your book, or you can set your own key words. When trying out KDP Ads, I chose my own keywords. An ad may be paused at any time.
The initial campaign setup allows the author to set a limit they are willing to spend a day. This is a good safety valve to avoid a bill that would turn your stomach. If your daily limit is reached, the ad is no longer displayed.
Choose the words in your ad carefully. A human looks at each ad before it is approved, and my first ad took five days to be accepted. If you are unhappy with the text of your ad, you must start a new ad and go through the acceptance process. I am not overly happy with my ad but am letting it run a few days.
Campaigns put your title/s in the Sponsored Products displayed with a search. The placement of your book ad depends on how much you are willing to pay for the position. The more you are willing to pay, the higher your book is in the carousel. Each time your book is put in the carousel is called an impression. Amazon keeps track of impressions, but you have no idea if it came into view. If your book is number 25 in the carousel, the buyer may never scroll that far. The good news is that you only pay when someone clicks on your book, and this is where the game begins.
Like life insurance, you are betting a certain amount to have your book in front of a potential buyer. Each keyword has three offerings you can choose or not choose to offer: Exact, Phrase, and Broad. For “Clean Teen Book,” exact would only present the ad if those exact words were in the search. The phrase would trigger if “Clean Teen Book coming of age.” Broad might include “Clean romance book.” None of this is exact, as an algorithm is making the choice.
In this figure, the prices I have set for various keywords and phrases are shown. Keywords and prices can be changed on the fly. You can cook up as many key word/s as you want and set the price you are willing to pay for the impression.
Amazon keeps track of clicks and sales. A click today and a purchase three days from now count as a click-sale. Amazon sometimes sends an e-mail asking if you are still interested. A click enthuses Amazon as much as it does the author. Amazon likes to sell your book. If your book isn’t selling, they are not getting their cut.
Amazon produces an Advertising Cost of Sale (ACOS). ACOS tells you if you are making money on the ad. Below is a report on Members of the Cast after three days. The ad is “successful” in the sense that I have made more than I have spent. Two books are out there that probably wouldn’t have been purchased. As I have mentioned before, I hope the readers enjoy the book and tell their friends. The problem is that the impressions have resulted in 5 clicks on the ad. From the 5 clicks, two purchased a book. The 3308/5 impression to click ratio is terrible. I am pleased with the 2/5 purchase per click ratio.
Update. After seven days, I have slipped heavily into the loss category by 261.2%. This reminds me of the farmer who was losing $12 per acre raising corn. They asked him how he could stay in business. “Volume,” he said.
Update
Analysis of the numbers can help guide what you are willing to offer. This next image shows what the prospective customer typed to trigger a keyword or phrase. The chart shows 6 of the 38 total clicks for the campaign.
Are Amazon Ad Campaigns worth it? For me, it is too early to tell. Once friends, e-mail lists, Facebook, and Twitter folks have purchased Members of the Cast, who will see the book among the millions of books on Amazon? You can hope the keywords you choose for your book will draw customers. Amazon only allows a few keywords—for free. If you want more, it may be KDP Ads time.
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