[CassieL]

I wonder about series titles, rather than book titles. For example, if author John Boogermeister has a cozy mystery series called Murder Most Fowl (set on a chicken farm, naturally - haha), I wonder if the series title would work as well as author title. On the theory that sometimes readers remember the name of the series better than the name of the author who writes it.

Not quite the same, but I did it with fantasy worlds. So, for example "pern" as well as Anne McCaffrey and found that the author name had far more impressions than the world. In that example, I had ten times as many impressions for the author as I did for the world and click through rate was about the same.

 

[JRTomlin]

In every case, I get many, many more impressions with author names than with titles of individual novels or of series. Not sure why, but the difference is huge.

There is also a notice up that data reports may be incorrect, I assume because of the DDoS.

 

[Decon]

In every case, I get many, many more impressions with author names than with titles of individual novels or of series. Not sure why, but the difference is huge.

There is also a notice up that data reports may be incorrect, I assume because of the DDoS.

I'd say that was usually the case, but I have one book with 50,000 impressions on one title keyword out of 75,000 on one book. I think Amazon must have put it on auto pilot by mistake

 

[Marseille France or Bust]

I'm about to try the sponsored ads at $2 a day. Does Amazon charge your card $100 minimum? When do they charge?

 

[CassieL]

I'm about to try the sponsored ads at $2 a day. Does Amazon charge your card $100 minimum? When do they charge?

Are you sure you're choosing the sponsored ads option?

 

[BlouBryant]

I'm about to try the sponsored ads at $2 a day. Does Amazon charge your card $100 minimum? When do they charge?

As Cassie asked, you're likely talking about product display, which has the 100$ requirement. For those adds, no, they only charge you as you go... for instance, my last 4 campaigns cost a total of a few bucks, and that's all that was charged. For sponsored product, I don't believe there is a 100 buck minimum. And if there is, they don't bill you... they bill for what is actually spent. You can cancel either at any time, without any further cost (so it's not really a minimum, is it?)

BB

 

[Marseille France or Bust]

I am referring to sponsored products. Thank you both for your reply!

As Cassie asked, you're likely talking about product display, which has the 100$ requirement. For those adds, no, they only charge you as you go... for instance, my last 4 campaigns cost a total of a few bucks, and that's all that was charged. For sponsored product, I don't believe there is a 100 buck minimum. And if there is, they don't bill you... they bill for what is actually spent. You can cancel either at any time, without any further cost (so it's not really a minimum, is it?)

BB

 

[Nancy_G]

I'm excited to try this! I just got an e-mail from Amazon offering a $50 credit, so I'm taking it. I've learned everything I need to know to start this up. Thanks, Alexa!

 

[Lady Vine]

I'm excited to try this! I just got an e-mail from Amazon offering a $50 credit, so I'm taking it. I've learned everything I need to know to start this up. Thanks, Alexa!

I, too, received one of these emails. It looks a little dodgy though. Does anyone know if it's genuine? The address is @a10.amazon.com.
If it's legit, I'll use it then stop the ad before it goes over.

 

[Decon]

Just a guess, but I reckon sponsored ads will die a death in the next few months as more pile in, if it hasn't already. They wouldn't be offering free $50 unless they were seeing a large churn of authors coming and going, because many are trying it since it included books outside KU. A month ago 15 pages was the norm for popular books, now it's 40 pages on some popular books.  At 8 books per page, that's some impressions to work through. I can see that Amazon will be pleased with this, as it means you would have to bid high to get on the early pages of popular books and authors. Great for Amazon, but I doubt that will be cost effective to make a return. If it takes 25 cents to get to where you are likely to get clicks and your book is say $2,99, then you would have to get a ratio of 8 clicks to one sale to break even.  Luckily there are still some books like my own that only have 2 to 8 pages, so there is still some slack, but I have seen that rise over the last few weeks and it is only going to get more competitive. Two to three weeks ago, I had no sponsored books on my sales pages.

I'm also seeing on book pages that many sponsored books are not related in any way to the genre on my own and other books, which baffles me. You really need to avoid the scatter gun approach to keywords.

As an example, if I take Deadly Journey in my signature, I have 2 pages of sponsored ads the majority of which are completely unrelated to my story, style and genre. Click the link in my signature if you are in an area that has sponsored ads on the sales pages. I can't  see how any of those unrelated books will entice readers to buy if they are looking for books similar to mine, assuming they are the same ones that I see.

I can't complain with my own results to date, but clicks and sales have now slowed down to a trickle since it was thrown wide and more are trying it out and people increasing bids. I've had just over 1.1 million impressions between 5 books, from that I've had 739 readers click on a book cover. With low bids, those clicks have cost me $23.98, with retail sales of $221.75. (That's a touch over 3 cents per click) That's  around 11% cost of the retail sales figure and with royalties at 70% it means I have made 59% on those retail sales, but that's over many months. That works out at around  74 sales to 739 clicks, or 1 sale to 10 clicks. But like I say, clicks and sales have taken a nosedive this past few weeks, and others might have a better click to buy ratio.

I also don't see much of a connection between sponsored ads and KU page reads. I only get an increase in page reads via other promos, so I discount page reads in working out the viability. Readers only know you are in KU if they click on the cover, whereas also boughts show above the cover that it is in KU.

I know everyone will have different experiences, but all that tells me that if I'd bid 50c and paid an average of 25c per click, I'd have made a loss to date

Good luck giving it a try. You have to be in it to win it, but like a lottery, the odds are now high and they are getting higher.

.

 

[Nancy_G]

I, too, received one of these emails. It looks a little dodgy though. Does anyone know if it's genuine? The address is @a10.amazon.com.
If it's legit, I'll use it then stop the ad before it goes over.

It took me right to my Amazon account in the AMS dashboard and is pending approval now after submitting my ad. It's legit.

 

[Nancy_G]

Just a guess, but I reckon sponsored ads will die a death in the next few months as more pile in, if it hasn't already. They wouldn't be offering free $50 unless they were seeing a large churn, because many are trying it since it included books outside KU. A month ago 15 pages was the norm for popular books, now it's 40 pages on some popular books. At 8 books per page, that's some impressions to work through. I can see that Amazon will be pleased with this, as it means you would have to bid high to get on the early pages of popular books and authors. Great for Amazon, but I doubt that will be cost effective to make a return. If it take 25 cents to get to where you are likely to get clicks and your book is say $2,99, then you would have to get a ratio of 8 clicks to one sale to break even. Luckily there are still some books like my own that only have 2 to 8 pages, so there is still some slack, but I have seen that rise over the last few weeks and it is only going to get more competitive. Two to three weeks ago, I had no sponsored books on my sales pages.

I'm also seeing on book pages that many sponsored books are not related in any way to the genre on my own and other books, which baffles me. You really need to avoid the scatter gun approach to keywords.

As an example, if I take Deadly Trade in my signature, I have 2 pages of sponsored ads the majority of which are completely unrelated to my story, style and genre. Click the link in my signature if you are in an area that has sponsored ads on the sales pages. I can't see how any of those unrelated books will entice readers to buy if they are looking for books similar to mine, assuming they are the same ones that I see.

I can't complain with my own results to date, but clicks and sales have now slowed down to a trickle since it was thrown wide and more are trying it out and people increasing bids. I've had just over 1.1 million impressions between 5 books, from that I've had 739 readers click on a book cover. With low bids, those clicks have cost me $23.98, with retail sales of $221.75. That's around 11% cost of the retail sales figure and with royalties at 70% it means I have made 59% on those retail sales, but that's over many months. That works out at around 74 sales to 739 clicks, or 1 sale to 10 clicks. But like I say, clicks and sales have taken a nosedive this past few weeks, and others might have a better click to buy ratio.

I also don't see much of a connection between sponsored ads and KU page reads. I only get an increase in page reads via other promos, so I discount page reads in working out the viability. Readers only know you are in KU if they click on the cover, whereas also boughts show above the cover that it is in KU.

I know everyone will have different experiences, but all that tells me that if I'd bid 50c and paid an average of 25c per click, I'd have made a loss to date

Good luck giving it a try. You have to be in it to win it, but like a lottery, the odds are now high and they are getting higher.

.

They've offered $100 before to others. When they first started this, I could have used it but didn't because I had no idea what this was. Now I wish I had used it but will take the $50.

 

[Anarchist]

Just a guess, but I reckon sponsored ads will die a death in the next few months as more pile in, if it hasn't already. They wouldn't be offering free $50 unless they were seeing a large churn of authors coming and going, because many are trying it since it included books outside KU.

I suspect Amazon is building AMS to critical mass. They're looking at authors' Facebook ad spends and want that money. They're looking at Bookbub's ad platform and want to prevent it from becoming the #1 ad platform for authors.

Google did the same thing with its Adwords platform.

I'm betting AMS will introduce a quality score algo in 2017. It'll work in the same manner that it works for Adwords. Clickthroughs (and possibly sales conversions) will dictate how much authors must spend per click.

 

[A past poster]

As others have reported earlier on this thread, sales dropped after two weeks. I've added keywords almost every day, but it seems fair to conclude that books are rotated in their system after approximately two weeks. How long do you pause a campaign before re-starting it? I'm hesitant to pause any campaigns because of my on-going struggle to get one. I have been trying to get a campaign for a book since November 20. Amazon keeps telling me that they're looking into the problem. Meanwhile, nothing happens.

 

[Nancy_G]

As others have reported earlier on this thread, sales dropped after two weeks. I've added keywords almost every day, but it seems fair to conclude that books are rotated in their system after approximately two weeks. How long do you pause a campaign before re-starting it? I'm hesitant to pause any campaigns because of my on-going struggle to get one. I have been trying to get a campaign for a book since November 20. Amazon keeps telling me that they're looking into the problem. Meanwhile, nothing happens.

Thanks for sharing. I will definitely keep an eye on it if it gets approved. I'm not sure what the reasons would be to not? I was inspired by Alexa's $1.00 a day budget results so am hoping for that. We'll see! I'm only doing it for my first book, hoping for sell-through to others. I worked on my little 30-word ad sort of like a log line for a movie and studied others out there.

Oh, and I've used popular authors' names close to my genre, like Nicholas Sparks and Fern Michaels as keywords. I would never have known to do that if I didn't see this thread, very cool.

ETA: Ad has been approved. Yay! Hopefully, I'll still be saying yay through this, lol

 

[mmandolin]

I suspect Amazon is building AMS to critical mass. They're looking at authors' Facebook ad spends and want that money. They're looking at Bookbub's ad platform and want to prevent it from becoming the #1 ad platform for authors.

^^ Yup.

 

[CassieL]

I too have seen a decrease in effectiveness since they allowed everyone to use it and have actually turned off my ads for romance books because I couldn't afford to pay for the visibility.  As it matures it'll be yet another ad platform that works for the big players with deep catalogues and deep pockets and leaves those with just one or two books behind.  But I do think it's a long ways from tapped out since right now the ads only display in the U.S. market.

 

[Nancy_G]

Since my ad started today, I had one click and one sale. Not sure if coincidental or working? I like it if so.

 

[Lefevre]

Just a guess, but I reckon sponsored ads will die a death in the next few months as more pile in, if it hasn't already. They wouldn't be offering free $50 unless they were seeing a large churn of authors coming and going, because many are trying it since it included books outside KU. A month ago 15 pages was the norm for popular books, now it's 40 pages on some popular books. At 8 books per page, that's some impressions to work through. I can see that Amazon will be pleased with this, as it means you would have to bid high to get on the early pages of popular books and authors. Great for Amazon, but I doubt that will be cost effective to make a return. If it takes 25 cents to get to where you are likely to get clicks and your book is say $2,99, then you would have to get a ratio of 8 clicks to one sale to break even. Luckily there are still some books like my own that only have 2 to 8 pages, so there is still some slack, but I have seen that rise over the last few weeks and it is only going to get more competitive. Two to three weeks ago, I had no sponsored books on my sales pages.

I'm also seeing on book pages that many sponsored books are not related in any way to the genre on my own and other books, which baffles me. You really need to avoid the scatter gun approach to keywords.

As an example, if I take Deadly Journey in my signature, I have 2 pages of sponsored ads the majority of which are completely unrelated to my story, style and genre. Click the link in my signature if you are in an area that has sponsored ads on the sales pages. I can't see how any of those unrelated books will entice readers to buy if they are looking for books similar to mine, assuming they are the same ones that I see.

I can't complain with my own results to date, but clicks and sales have now slowed down to a trickle since it was thrown wide and more are trying it out and people increasing bids. I've had just over 1.1 million impressions between 5 books, from that I've had 739 readers click on a book cover. With low bids, those clicks have cost me $23.98, with retail sales of $221.75. (That's a touch over 3 cents per click) That's around 11% cost of the retail sales figure and with royalties at 70% it means I have made 59% on those retail sales, but that's over many months. That works out at around 74 sales to 739 clicks, or 1 sale to 10 clicks. But like I say, clicks and sales have taken a nosedive this past few weeks, and others might have a better click to buy ratio.

I also don't see much of a connection between sponsored ads and KU page reads. I only get an increase in page reads via other promos, so I discount page reads in working out the viability. Readers only know you are in KU if they click on the cover, whereas also boughts show above the cover that it is in KU.

I know everyone will have different experiences, but all that tells me that if I'd bid 50c and paid an average of 25c per click, I'd have made a loss to date

Good luck giving it a try. You have to be in it to win it, but like a lottery, the odds are now high and they are getting higher.

.

I agree. Once, everyone piles in, things change. I started using this 6-7 months ago and my data is already showing diminished returns despite optimum iteration and testing. The key to this strategy is selling paperbacks.

 

[Nancy_G]

I get a kick out of seeing my book on the first page of some great authors in my genre. Eyeballs are on it. I've had some sales and borrows/page reads after starting this up today and 10 clicks and over 16,000 impressions. My CPC is .25 on some lower impression keywords and .30 on the higher so I can outbid someone in the auction, but have only spent .4 to .14 a click. I put my keyword into search and can find my book in all those books pages. I've spent a total of 1.22 with a daily budget of 3.00. It's a little addictive and I need to write.