Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

has anyone used the kdp select ad campaigns, and if so, are they worth it?

We did for 2-3 months last year and didn't get much response. The cost was zero, so no harm done, but we haven't tried since.

I didn't see much response either. But if it's free it's worth a go.

I've had moderate success with AMS, but it took a couple of months of optimization to get the campaigns to the point where I make more money than I spend.

The cost is not zero: you pay per click, up to your bid amount.

Ken, would you be able to share how one does the ad campaign, and some tips... Also any link to an AMS tutorial, if it is a technical quagmire! Not very tech savvy here..

Basically you build an ad then pay per click. You set a lifetime budget (minimum of 100) but you only pay for what you get in clicks.

So for example let's say you run an ad on your book and you get 10,000 placements. Of these 10,000 times amazon showed your book to a customer people clicked the add 100 times. If you set your bid at 5 cents then you owe amazon 5 dollars. If of the 100 times people clicked they bought the book 10 times and your book is 5 dollars revenue per book you just made 50 dollars and spent 5.

This means you have a conversion rate of 1 in 1000 which is 0.1 percent. And you have a click conversion rate of 1 in 10.

Normal conversion rate when you start out is lower (like 0.04 percent) and click conversion is more like 3 to 5 percent for normal books.

Amazon tracks the first part do you can see your conversion rate and how much you spend. I have run about 20 different ads. Amazon recommends you set your bid about 25 but I put it at 5 cents. At 5 cents it runs slower but I have only had 1 or 2 ads not make me money (I. E. I spend less than I make per sale.) I've had some ads make me a good profit.

The trick is to have a really good page for your book so when people do click they also buy the book. Also the wording in your ad since it's short has to be awesome. Try different things and see how well people respond. You can cancel an ad at any time and only pay what you've spent so far so if an ad sucks you can just drop it.

Also sales are only a small part. When I do my books they are on Kindle unlimited and those happen a lot. I'll notice no sales in a day but my rank spikes with the unlimited purchases from people and I get consistent numbers of pages read. Sometimes an ad doesn't look like it's doing great but if you watch your rank and pages read you know people are borrowing it (and as soon as I stop the ad the page reads almost stop as well).

Anyway that is my experience with it. I've run ads on my thriller, two literary novels, a Sci fi and a fantasy. The Sci fi and fantasy spike pages read way more and the literary fiction tends to spike sales more.

I've also noticed ads decline in usage over time. I usually replace an ad at 100,000 placements because amazon seems to depreciate it about then. I think they assume people are seeing the same ad over and over and have fewer new people to show it to so it sees less placements. This is speculation however because I don't have any data to back it up, only trends on my books.

Lincoln wrote: "Basically you build an ad then pay per click. You set a lifetime budget (minimum of 100) but you only pay for what you get in clicks.

So for example let's say you run an ad on your book and you g..."
THANK YOU!

My ad will only show on their website, not on kindle readers. Apparently they find my content objectionable (which is fine for their website but not the readers?). If the ad doesn't run on the reader, I'm really not sure if it's worth the time. I have my CPC set at 50 cents and have only had 6,600 impressions over the last month.

I probably wouldn't be that upset about it if I could call AMS to ask specifically what the problem is -- but you can't call them. Even if you call Amazon, get routed to KDP, KDP can't call them. It is email only. And they wouldn't respond to my inquiry.

In short, my experience with AMS was bad. Very bad.

Luna wrote: "Lincoln wrote: "Basically you build an ad then pay per click. You set a lifetime budget (minimum of 100) but you only pay for what you get in clicks.

So for example let's say you run an ad on you..."

I can totally understand this being a frustrating situation. Which kinds of ads are you running? I know if you pick specific products it doesn't show on eReaders. It only shows on eReaders when you select by genre/category.

50 cent cpc seems really high, and even if it is only showing on the website I can't imagine only getting this few impressions unless your content was VERY objectionable. My guess is it is excluded from way more than just ereaders, but also anyone who isn't interested in reading content similar to yours.

I have personally had no luck at all in targeting specific products, and when I do target genres I usually do 6-8 genres at a time (anything I think people might be browsing who might also like my book).

Lincoln wrote: "Luna wrote: "Lincoln wrote: "Basically you build an ad then pay per click. You set a lifetime budget (minimum of 100) but you only pay for what you get in clicks.

So for example let's say you run..."

50 cents is really high. And the content isn't that objectionable, really. It's that they associate it with religious writing (which, when I read their policy seems to be placed in the category of hate speech), when in fact it's more of a philosophical work that deals with humanism. At any rate, I am not impressed with AMS.

My time is better spent with other ad systems.

AMS doesn't allow advertising for lots of categories, from straight up erotica to books with a gun on the cover. I agree that their guidelines aren't clear; I think they prefer to be deliberately vague, so they have more leeway when they do reject an ad.

@Luna, you don't have to be technically savvy to use their system, but I definitely recommend keeping a close watch on your reports. It's very easy to spend $100 overnight, if you're not careful, because the reports can be delayed by several days to weeks.

I suggest starting with very low bids, waiting a week, then increasing. Rinse and repeat.

Lincoln wrote: "Basically you build an ad then pay per click. You set a lifetime budget (minimum of 100) but you only pay for what you get in clicks.

So for example let's say you run an ad on your book and you g..."

Lincoln, thank you for taking the time to post your thorough explanation of Amazon ads. I really appreciate it. I run a daily ad on Facebook (it works similarly to Amazon, but Facebook doesn't require a minimum budget). I've had tremendous success with FB ads, and I want to try Amazon ads, but I was a little more intimidated about trying that (especially with their minimum budget). After reading your explanation, I realize it's pretty much the same as FB's process, so it doesn't seem so scary now. I'll try an Amazon ad next.

Does Amazon allow you to tailor your target audience? And how do the different countries work? Can you target by country? My guess is, you'd have to run the ad on the country's Amazon site that you want to target. On FB, you can target multiple countries with one ad. But each country as their own Amazon site, so I guess one ad can't be used across multiple countries. Does anyone know anything about this?

Thanks!

On amazon you get two kinds of targeting: by product or by category.

By product, you select set products (other books for example) and amazon shows your ad to people who look at that product.

By category it shows to anyone browsing that category.

You cannot target or tailor by anything further than that, Amazon does it internally. As far as country goes, it seems to be almost exclusive to the US and there is no alternative for UK, CA, etc.

If you target by category, amazon also shows it eReaders to people who read that category of book, so if someone owns a Kindle, the ads they see when they turn it off would be these.

It's not nearly as powerful as facebook, but it is way simpler to use and has incredible turnaround on amazon. My guess is it will be less effective once more people start using it because bids will naturally go up.

Best of luck!

Lincoln wrote: "On amazon you get two kinds of targeting: by product or by category.

By product, you select set products (other books for example) and amazon shows your ad to people who look at that product.

By ..."

Thanks, Lincoln. That gives me a lot of valuable info.

On FB, I tailor my ads very precisely. For example, I might run an ad directed at women in the US, ages 25-45, who speak English, who like romance books and contemporary romance. FB gives us total control on how we target demographics, which makes it easy to run experiments to find out where an author's best support is. Apparently, Amazon doesn't allow for that kind of targeting.

I think I'll try an Amazon ad, just to see how it performs. But I don't expect much from it if I can't tailor who the ad is delivered to.

Thanks again for sharing your insight with us. It's very helpful!

I think their logic is it is self selecting. Women age 25 to 45 who speak English, like romance books and contemporary romance are most likely to browse a category looking into English romance books so rather than narrowing down a blanket, users define themselves for you.

The romance genre us notorious for doing very well on Facebook so I doubt you'll see as much response as many other genres. With amazon their focus is more on ease of introduction for new people and value of Ads.

I've used Facebook and Google. Both are incredibly powerful but inexperienced people can get robbed by them. Google will automatically put image ads in games where people accidentally click like crazy and it costs a fortune, Facebook will target blindly without careful audience selection and cause the same thing. In general amazon and good reads have worked pretty well for me but I wish they had more powerful tools.

One thing... Ive only used it since July and it's already gotten like 10 new features and twice as valuable reporting so in a few months it might be better still. Like giveaways (which now can have people follow on Amazon or Twitter or watch videos) they keep improving it.

I've been running the Amazon add for 4 weeks now - I've had
3,691 impressions and 3 clicks. :(

Hello everyone. I'm new to this group but thought you'd might like to hear my thoughts and reflections on my experiences with AMS ad campaigns. Lincoln, thanks for all your posts. I have to say that the math/algorithms that AMS uses makes my head spin. I'll never understand DPV, ACPC, etc. I get impressions and clicks but that's about all. So thanks for breaking it down so nicely.

So, on December 27th I started a product-based ad. I have self-published a children's book. (Peas and Hambone versus Flesh-Eating Zombie Gorillas) That ad got over 90,000 impressions but just 18 clicks and only 2 estimated sales. So AMS stopped the ad. Yes, AMS can stop ads. Their reason is low relevence. Now, at first I was extremely upset. I am paying for the ads by the cost of my clicks and how many clicks I got so why should AMS care about relevance--they're getting my money. It's not costing them anything. But after thinking about it and talking with other people I realize that I am costing them money. In their view my ads weren't generating sales--I self-published with Createspace so if I make a sale they are making money. But not only that, my ad is taking up space for other ads that may lead to sales.

I thought about it so more and was still a little angry. I thought I had a good system. I listed over a hundred similar products. Most were books similar to mine--Whimpy Kid, Captain Underpants, Big Nate, etc. But I also added products that were number one in their category. Smart I thought. Why not use the ads to your advantage? As a self-published author I feel like we have to take advantage of every opportunity to increase sales.

AMS didn't think so. Now, when I e-mailed support they wouldn't tell me which products they thought were causing the low relevance. They also said that they couldn't say for certain that the ad really did lead to the two sales. What now? Then why have a column that tells you estimated sales? Don't get me started on that one. (They said I cold always start a new campaign and acknowledged that their e-mail response didn't answer any of my questions specifcially but to have a nice day.) I'm pretty sure I know which ads were low relevance, but still. It's my money. Why not allow me to spread my brand and if people don't want to buy my book I'm the one who pays.

I thought some more and have come to the conclusion that I don't blame AMS. They are doing what is best for them. Just like what I am trying to do for me and my book.

I have started two other ad campaigns. Don't laugh but AMS stopped one of the two. That one was interest-based. Now, you are limited to their categories you can select for this ad. For my book I selected categories related to children's books. I got over 31,000 impressions and only 88 clicks and zero estimated sales.

Now, this made me re-evaluate my ad. I still feel it is a good ad with a good headline. The trouble may be that the clicks may be coming from minors who can't then go and buy the book without permission from their parents. (It is a children's book which makes it harder for me to market directly to my intended audience.) The trouble may be the book cover and title. But that's another discussion. My other ad is another procuct-ad. It's basically the same one I ran before--I just removed the products that I thought AMS found low relevance. And it is still running. Go figure. (Over 60,000 impression, 30 clicks and zero estimated sales) I'm waiting for AMS to stop that one soon.

Sorry for the long post but this is such a interesting topic for me. I'm not sure I am going to continue with AMS ads. (Yes, I'm not getting direct sales but I am spreading brand awareness, I think) Twitter and Facebook ads may be more beneficial. But I hope for all of you starting or thinking of starting ads with AMS that this gives you some more information to help you make a a decision that works for you.

Cheers!

Children's books seems to be low value on ads. Like you said if people browse and click and can't buy it just hurts everyone.

Estimated sales is mostly because of refunds. On average in a month I might get 10 percent of books refunded, usually because of 1 click buy mistakes. Some genres like romance have audiences who buy read and return within 7 days to get a refund so they rarely ever buy actual Kindle books. So amazon can't say decidedly that you got a guaranteed sale. Their algorithm also seems to track independently so if someone buys it the algorithm has to guess thst the sale came from an ad leading them to the page.

It seems pretty accurate. But it is sales, not revenue, so it doesn't necessarily mean money you made, just money your book made. I think in this sort of situation amazon should accept their own percentages. For example if my book is 3 dollars and I make 2 dollars per copy and amazon makes 1 then if my ad costs 3 dollars and makes 6 they should pay 1 dollar since the ad benefited them at that rate.

But such isn't life and we always bear the brunt of corporate weight. In any case, I never knew amazon would pull ads with low relevance. I had one pulled because I broke rules they made halfway through the ad being run. They told me to just rework and repost it to follow the new rules, but I've never had one pulled for low relevance.

Also, I tried to start up an Amazon ad for my new release, but it was rejected because the cover didn't meet their guidelines. I asked and they told me it was because my book's cover featured a skull, a crucifix, and the word "blood." Yet I saw an ad for a book later on that featured a skull and two missiles, so... I have no idea what the deal is.

I do know, though, that the ad I had done for my first book had no noticeable impact on sales, so maybe I'm better off in not having an Amazon ad for the new book.

Ken wrote: "AMS doesn't allow advertising for lots of categories, from straight up erotica to books with a gun on the cover. I agree that their guidelines aren't clear; I think they prefer to be deliberately v..."

thank you so much!!

Well, I hope that it ends up being worth it. I went with the Category-based ad campaign, and I would really prefer to not have wasted $100. I am a poor Indie Author, after all.

Sage wrote: "Well, I hope that it ends up being worth it. I went with the Category-based ad campaign, and I would really prefer to not have wasted $100. I am a poor Indie Author, after all."

Sage, the best advice that another author gave me regarding AMS was this:

1) Start with the lowest possible CPC bid.

2) Wait a few days, monitor the results, then increase it.

3) Rinse and repeat until you are past the break-even point; i.e., you make more money than you spend.

It's a long, slow process, but better than burning your $100 overnight.

Just went with $0.05 CPC and $100 max for my first book, . I'll let you know how it goes. :)

Ken wrote: "Sage wrote: "Well, I hope that it ends up being worth it. I went with the Category-based ad campaign, and I would really prefer to not have wasted $100. I am a poor Indie Author, after all."

Sage,..."

Fingers crossed, then... I set it pretty low to start off with, because I'm fairly miserly about my budget. I just don't want to end up in the hole. I don't really care about making money as much, as long as people enjoy the product, and I can break even on it.

Good luck, and I hope you get great results!

I, too did several ads in the beginning and really didn't have good luck with them, although the cost never did reach the 100.00 limit. A couple of times, I only paid about twenty dollars. II chalked it up to experience. Certainly there was no appreciable rise in sales...until...I found a beautiful cover for my time travel book on Premade covers. Check out The Medieval Knight on Kindle only.
When I did my ad campaign for this book with this dynamite cover I got a surge in sales that was unbelievable. I'm not saying I shot to the best seller list or anything but for somebody who had sold maybe three books before, fifteen books being sold was like a miracle. Because I am a romance writer with other books under my name, some of those sold as well. I'm thinking that your ad campaign is only as good as your cover. Consider your cover very, very carefully. Behind that, then consider your words, the headline and the very short blurb. I'm going to run another campaign on The Medieval Knight. I'll let you know if it does as well.

The weirdest things are happening these days. :D
My first AD on Amazon didn't do too well. It ran for 3 days, got 645 views and 1 click. So I thought: maybe I should change the text, make it more attractive.
I stopped the AD and created 2 new ones, with different texts. Both bidding at $0.05. They only got very few view - less than my first ad. They started on 1/15 and until a couple of days ago, they only reached about 140 views each.
Yesterday I checked my blog and noticed a sudden increase in page views. Usually I'd get like 10 visitors per day, and suddenly there were 90-100. I checked my spam filter, because I suspected some kind of DDoS or bot attack, but I didn't see a significant increase. Still, I put it off as not being real people. Nothing special had happened, after all, like reviews being published etc., so the sudden increase didn't make any sense.
Now I just logged into Amazon Ads and was surprised by the numbers. While one AD still sits at 197 views and 0 clicks, the other has gone berserk. It has been viewed 7621 times, with 59 clicks (and no estimated sales :) but I sold an eBook yesterday, which was most likely not someone from my family/friends, and got more pages read on Kindle unlimited)
Not sure why this AD suddenly "exploded" like this, but I'm suspecting that the increased page views on my blog may be related.

I'll keep you posted on how this continues. :)

The AD is now at 21682 views, 141 clicks, at an aCPC of $0.03 and 3 associated sales. I can only hope this streak continues :)

I'm about to start a campaign. I'd like to know if you had any experience related to seasonal sales. I'm Brazilian and in my country, everything goes around carnival right now. Nothing would call people's attention but it. On the other hand, you have lots of titles at Christmas. Is there a good or a bad season for books? Here in Brazil, we have some slow time, like carnival and Christmas, for example. Can any of you enlighten me?

So, it seems from comments above that you can get out of it without paying the full $100? Because I'd love to give it a go, but I'd be a lot more willing if I could spend $10-$30, rather than $100.

Also, what's involved in making the ad? Do you write anything (FB has a tiny character limit)? Is the picture just your book cover by default?

Yes, you don't have to spend the $100 budgeted amount, because you can terminate the ad at any time. Just be careful, because the reports are delayed by several days (and even a couple of weeks, for some data) so you could end up blowing your budget overnight if you start out with high CPC bids.

There are two types of ads: product-targeted and interest-targeted. For each, you write a brief headline. There's also an accompanying blurb, which has a character limit (I forget the exact number, but it's similar to a tweet). You don't need artwork; Amazon pulls in your book cover automatically.

Ken wrote: "Yes, you don't have to spend the $100 budgeted amount, because you can terminate the ad at any time. Just be careful, because the reports are delayed by several days (and even a couple of weeks, fo..."

Thanks for the info.

I love the Amazon KDP program, but, their advertising has only wasted my time and money. They are also stingy about what you can put in your ad. They once denied me for using to much punctuation when I tried to convey excitement. (ex. Sale!!!!) they rejected it another time because I used all capital letters to convey excitement.

Then I was getting to much traffic and not enough clicks so they prematurely ended my campaign. I have since stopped using them and had much success with Twitter and Facebook. I wrote a blog about my experience with a couple of sites, you can find it here for anyone who is interested.

/author_blog...

Danielle wrote: "A bookwhack.."

Danielle, please stop bookwhacking the boards.

Owen wrote: "We did for 2-3 months last year and didn't get much response. The cost was zero, so no harm done, but we haven't tried since."

Exactly what ads do they have that are free? All I can think of are the ones where you put your own book on sale or you put it on free promotion. Did that, and had to spread the word like crazy myself, on social media.

I noticed they recently added the ability to target by keyword and so I created some ads to test it out. I'm getting roughly 5 times the amount of clicks to impressions than I would with product/interest, and have seen a noticeable increase in my sales and page reads. Still experimenting, though!

Has anyone else tried the new keyword feature?

How new is it?

To be honest I hadn't noticed it until a couple weeks ago. I'd been creating new ads using the "Copy" action....my ads were all by Product/Interest. For all I know it's not a "new" feature at all...haha...

Stacie wrote: "I noticed they recently added the ability to target by keyword and so I created some ads to test it out. I'm getting roughly 5 times the amount of clicks to impressions than I would with product/in..."

I haven't seen it; however, I terminated all my campaigns a few weeks ago due to the ongoing data issues. Once they fix the system, I'll have to try it. I only saw the product targeting and interest targeting options the last time I checked.

Talking of keywords...Are we all aware of the keywords to use in your books when publishing on KDP? (the little keywords box)

There's actually some words to use that will then split your book into sub sections of searches. e.g.

T.L. wrote: "Talking of keywords...Are we all aware of the keywords to use in your books when publishing on KDP? (the little keywords box)

There's actually some words to use that will then split your book into..."

Yep, fully aware of that. You can also email them to have your book added to ANY sub category (up to 2 I think), even if it has totally nothing to do with your book. I've seen books do that just so they can get a "Best Seller" badge next to them (in a less-competitive category).

Thanks for the help on using keywords.
I find all the information I find here helpful. However, are all of you just doing ebooks? Or does the same advice on advertising and promoting apply to paperbacks? I'm not sure if the same options are available for paperbacks.

I just started an Amazon ad campaign, and I'm very curious to see how it goes. It took me a while to get up the gumption to put $100 on the line, with no assurance of sales.

But I do believe in my book, and my readers believe in my book. Gritting my teeth, I listen to them ask me again why the book hasn't taken off yet. It's just so hard to get your name out there without spending a big wad of money.

I set my bid at $0.05, as that seems to be the recommended starting point around here. It is *really* frustrating that the impression and click data doesn't show up for 24 hours, though, so you can tweak things.

I almost wonder if Amazon has the delay in reporting on purpose, to get you to raise the bid. I mean, come on, Facebook's ad dashboard is real time! And Amazon has the server power--heck, all of freaking Netflix runs on a tiny portion of Amazon's servers.

Anyhow, I'll post an update when I have some data.

I have done same with AMAZON and others. I think it is as they state without delay. The best way to promote anything is to go out there and meet the public and promote your book.

J. wrote: "It is *really* frustrating that the impression and click data doesn't show up for 24 hours, though, so you can tweak things...."

I agree; they have no excuse for such poor reporting. I've sent them feedback, but I'm a nobody; maybe they'll listen if a few big names complain.

I've had clicks show up more than two weeks after terminating a campaign.

I'm wondering if there is a recommended CPC bid amount for $2.99 Kindle books? I started at .05, but no impressions were showing up. Now I've bumped it up to .15 and I've gotten a few impressions, but I don't know if that's just 24 hour delayed reporting from the .05, or if it was the increasing of the bid that made that add start to show up.

J. wrote: "I'm wondering if there is a recommended CPC bid amount for $2.99 Kindle books? I started at .05, but no impressions were showing up. Now I've bumped it up to .15 and I've gotten a few impressions, ..."

It all depends on your genre and targeting. $0.05 may be perfectly fine for some books and too low for others. I would wait for a week before making any changes, and then do a small increase, wait a week again, etc.

I seem to have had some success with Amazon Marketing. I was able to generate a few sales each day and make more money than I was spending on the ads. Even though this is a pretty small scale, it's nice to see a model that could make a profit.

I actually found that the "keyword" ads performed the best for me--way more impressions while only having to bid .05 per click. One trick I used was to find books that were similar, and enter their titles as keywords.

I'm also running a product targeted campaign, as well as an interest/category campaign. The "interest" style is okay, but still can't compare to the keywords. Meanwhile, I don't really like the product targeted--it seems like you have to bid high to get impressions and you can accomplish similar with the keyword campaign by adding book titles as keywords.

THE MAIN thing I like about a keyword campaign is that you can set a daily spend limit; none of this "I could go to bed and wake up with a $100 spent" stuff.

V.M. wrote: "Interesting, one would think Amazon would reject keywords based on other book titles, otherwise everyone could type in "Hunger Games" as a keyword so they show up more often.

I'm surprised Amazon ..."

Well, you are still bidding for the impression against other people who are targeting that keyword. So, if everyone tries to target that, the price will go way up. You can specify a different bid for each keyword, which is really handy.

J, I agree--the new sponsored product option is the best of the three types that I've used. My keywords don't have a huge amount of impressions as yet, but I've started low and I'm keeping it there for a while.