Well, the title says it all, doesn’t it? Following my small success with Amazon Marketing Services, I’m about to scale up my promotions. I have been reading up on AMS and to reach that goal I’m planning to increase everything, ie:
- Number of keywords and products,
- CPC* bid,
- Budget, and
- Number of ads.
* Glossary used in this post:
- CPC is the Cost Per Click; how much you pay each time someone clicks on your ad.
- KENP (Kindle Edition Normalized Pages) is the number of pages people have read on a book available on Kindle Unlimited.
- ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sale) is a metric used by Amazon to measure the performance of your Amazon Sponsored Products campaigns.
Keywords/products
Keywords are probably the most important thing to research. According to Michal Stawicki, a guest at Dave Chesson’s (aka Kindlepreneur’s) excellent blog:
- Amazon’s suggestions aren’t worth much so don’t rely on them, and
- It’s better to target your competitors directly instead of using descriptive words.
So, with that in mind, what is the right number for my keywords? Michal suggests we use at least 300 keywords. I plan to use even more. I’ll select them by going to a similar book to mine, check out the “also boughts” in the same genre and respective sub-genres, and add them to my keywords. I’ll also add their “also boughts,” then their “also boughts,” until I have enough keywords.
Once that happens, I’ll top them up by going through the best-seller list and adding keywords based on books found in my genre/sub-genres.
Bid
At Shana Gorian’s suggestion, I plan to start my bids at $0.35 and bid no higher than $0.70. I’ll spare you the math, but the idea here is that you need to at least cover your expenses, and that will be impossible if I bid higher than that. As for placement, I will stick to sponsored ads, not product display.
Budget/Number of Ads
I will start with a $200 budget. I usually budget for $100 but Amazon has never taken all of it; they usually take a few pennies each day, until the campaign ends a natural death. This time, the extra keywords will probably mean the budget will disappear. Still, I’ll keep that going for as long as I can. The reason is that Amazon stats are delayed, and, in my experience, sales can take up to five days to show up. Also, I’ve noticed that Amazon’s acos numbers and statistics are way off. I can’t imagine why that is, but my experience suggests I’m better off ignoring them. Instead, I’ll use Book Report to make sure that sales include KENP as well.
I will also scale up the number of ads by copying each campaign. I’ve read from people who are running dozens of copies of their campaign, so I’ll use ten of them, with a budget of $20 each and slight adjustments to the keywords/products. I’ll wait for a week and weed out the ones that are under-performing. I have to trust Amazon’s acos for this, so I’ll ditch any ads that aren’t giving me 100% acos. Hopefully, this will cover both KENP, Amazon’s own royalty, and the delivery costs.
I expect the ads to run their course in a matter of weeks. When that happens, I’ll copy the most successful ones and run them again (assuming I’m not broke by then).
Which Book?
This is another question I’ve been struggling with. I’ll promote Pearseus, as this is my best-seller at the moment. However, I have two options: one is to promote Rise of the Prince, the first book in the series, for $2.99. The other is to promote the Pearseus five-book bundle for $4.99. Obviously, the latter is better value-for-money for customers and will give me a higher profit.
However, there are two things to consider:
- The bundle is Kindle-only. This means I’ll lose anyone who doesn’t own a Kindle or prefers paper.
- If someone reads Rise and moves on the rest of the books in the series, I stand to make $12.95 instead of $4.99.
Of course, one idea is to run two separate campaigns, one for each book, and see which one performs better. Or even, if I do manage to make a profit, to keep them both running.
So, keep them crossed and I promise to let you know how it goes! If you’ve tried AMS in the past, do share your experience, and please let me know if you see any faults with my logic.
bridgittelesley said:
Reblogged this on Pizzazz Book Promotions.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Steve Boseley said:
Interesting article,Nicholas. CPC, KENP , ACOS. what do they signify?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nicholas C. Rossis said:
CPC is the Cost Per Click; hoe much you pay each time someone clicks on your ad. KENP (Kindle Edition Normalized Pages) is the number of pages people have read on a book available on Kindle Unlimited. And ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sale) is a metric used to measure performance of your Amazon Sponsored Products campaigns.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Steve Boseley said:
Thanks Nicholas. You just made a great article that much better for me 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nicholas C. Rossis said:
You’re too kind, Steve. Actually, I slapped myself for forgetting to add the definitions within the post itself. Thanks for the reminder 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Story Reading Ape said:
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog and commented:
Nicholas has a cunning plan…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Teagan Geneviene said:
Ugh… it gives me a headache to think about thinking about it. Probably because I simply don’t have time for marketing — and resigned myself to no sales because of it. One can only do so much…
But I’m curious about the key words. I didn’t know you could use so many. I guess that’s different for the marking stuff than it is for listing your book.
Thanks for sharing this, Nicholas. Best of luck! Hugs.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Lol – thanks! Let’s hope things work out as planned 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lyn Horner said:
Reblogged this on Lyn Horner's Corner.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lyn Horner said:
Thanks for sharing your strategy, Nicholas. I have been thinking about trying Amazon ads. Your experience may give me the push I need.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Yay! So glad I could help 😀
LikeLike
Tina Frisco said:
Best of luck, Nick. Look forward to hearing about your results 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Thanks, me too 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
John Fioravanti said:
Reblogged this on Words To Captivate ~ by John Fioravanti and commented:
Nicholas Rossis shares how he plans to use Amazon Marketing Services to market his books in the next few weeks. Very helpful!
LikeLiked by 1 person
noelleg44 said:
Thanks for all this info, Nicholas. I am going to force myself to do more marketing this spring and your budget is a reasonable one.
LikeLike
kimwrtr said:
Reblogged this on Kim's Author Support Blog.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Anna Dobritt said:
Reblogged this on Anna Dobritt — Author.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Don Massenzio said:
Reblogged this on Don Massenzio's Blog and commented:
Check out this post on Nicholas Rossis’ blog where he shares his Amazon ad strategy.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tara Sparling said:
This is superb information – if scary as hell. Thanks so much for sharing. Your generosity alone deserves at least a bestseller spot 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Can you let Bezos know? I’ll also accept any Hollywood cont(r)acts you may have.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tara Sparling said:
Sure thing. Let me go through my address book. It’s fairly packed as you may imagine.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Bezos should be under B, so that’s in volume 3? or is it 4?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tara Sparling said:
My filing system is a little different. If memory serves, Bezos is under “S” for “Saviour/Satan”. Volume 666.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Ah. Right before a certain orange-haired politician, I take it?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tara Sparling said:
Nope. He never even made it in, I’m proud to say.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Huh. Not even under P for “Prince of Lies?”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tara Sparling said:
Nah. That’s reserved for actual Princes. I’m that well connected.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nicholas C. Rossis said:
😀 😀 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Friday Roundup – 24th March | Stevie Turner, Indie Author.