Celebrating Independent Authors
Guest Post
by Dave Chesson
Amazon ads can be a big opportunity for authors looking to up their sales especially during a time where it’s difficult to write the next book (like now, for instance). But if you don’t know how to use them intelligently, they can also be a big waste of money and time.
In this article, we’ll look at 9 tips all authors can use when advertising on Amazon, including: Continue reading “9 Tips for Creating Amazon Ads that Convert”
Indie authors are an amazing bunch. We’re here to help each other and cheer each other on. And if you’re lucky, another author will tell you when you’ve gone seriously astray.
Recently I participated in a free five-day online workshop presented by Bryan Cohen to learn how to do Amazon ads. I had yet to dip my toe into those waters, so I thought it was worth checking out. And it was, if only because I learned a painful truth by doing it. Continue reading “How to Match Your Cover to Your Genre”
Yesterday, I shared part one of this post, about how to use AMS ads for fun and profit. Today, let’s start by looking at how I examine some of the numbers I get on my ads. If you click on the ad from your dashboard, you’ll see a number of different columns, including impressions, clicks, cost per click, etc. If you single click any of them, they will show you their performance in that category, from bottom to top. Click it again, and you’ll see the same information from top to bottom.
Overall, there are some numbers I use as benchmarks to decide if an ad is working. I like to see close to one click-through per 1000 impressions. Too much lower than that and Amazon will stop serving your ad, no matter how high you bid, because readers are not responding to it, and relevance is a big part of the algorithm that decides how and where your book appears. Then, I really want to see one sale per every 7-8 clicks. If my average cost per click is $.20, and it takes me 12 clicks to get a sale, then I’m losing money on every $2.99 book I sell. Continue reading “Tips for Successful Amazon Marketing Services Ads”
How time flies. I wrote a post on Amazon Marketing Services in January, 2015. Like many of us, I made a number of attempts at making AMS ads work for me at that time. None of them did and eventually I relegated them to the back burner, intending to revisit them someday.
That “someday” happened about four months ago, when I started hearing of authors who were using the ads effectively. That encouraged me to jump back in and start experimenting with them again. It took quite a few false starts, but by January, I was running a number of ads that were profitable. Now, I am focusing more and more of my time and ad dollars in this arena.
Let’s start with the basics. Continue reading “The Key to Amazon Marketing Services Ads: Keywords”