# Results of my 2017 Amazon Ads



## Mikeyboy_esq (Jan 2, 2018)

In case my fellow indie authors are curious how well AMSads perform, below are the results of the ads I bought for my 2 nonfictionbooks in 2017. 

Of the 733 total books that I sold last year, about 1/3rd of them came from AMSads (Sponsored Products). AMS ads for my 1st book (about college teaching tips) resulted in more royalty income than I spenton the ads, while AMS ads for my 2nd book (a self-publishing guide)cost more than I earned in royalties. Overall, I broke even on my AMS ads for2017. Even though these ads didn't end up making $, I'm so glad I bought themb/c I ended up selling 253 more books last year than I otherwise would havewithout these ads. That means 253 more readers who can (hopefully) spread the wordabout my books and leave online reviews.

Also, I think my 2017 results are slightly skewed due to the learning curve Iexperienced for the first few ads that I bought. As I watched the results of myfirst AMS ads, I slowly tweaked the keywords and bid prices to make them moreeffective. In other words, my current AMS ads produce more sales per dollarspent as compared to my first few ads. In summary, I'm happy with the overallperformance of these ads for my 2 books and plan to continue running them in 2018.

NOTE: There are 2 types of AMS ads, and I also tried AMS ads (Product Display)in late 2017 and they resulted in very few clicks and ZERO sales. I'm not a fanof the Product Display ads.


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## moderan (Jan 2, 2018)

That's huge --  a third of your readers coming via that method. I wonder how it would correlate with fiction.


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## Bayview (Jan 3, 2018)

How are you tracking which purchases come from the ads? Just direct click-throughs? Or are you measuring an overall increase in sales during the time period your ads are running, or...?

(This is one of the areas I find frustrating about marketing - it's difficult to ever be sure exactly WHAT is causing increased sales! So I'm interested in your methodology.)


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## Mikeyboy_esq (Jan 3, 2018)

Moderan,
Good question.  I'm not sure if nonfiction AMS ads are more effective than fiction AMS ads. I haven't seen anyone post stats or info on that topic, but that would be good info to know.

Bayview,
The best thing I really like about AMS ads is that it keeps track of your clicks and also sales that result from those clicks.  To be fair, the AMS results that are tracked are not 100% accurate b/c it is possible that a particular user clicked on my ad, but didn't buy my book on that same visit and later that user returned and bought my book.  In that case, the user's click on my ad would be recorded, but not the later purchase.  Also, the AMS results don't adjust whenever someone returns a book/eBook.  But I tend to believe that the AMS results are probably pretty accurate overall.  With other ads (FB ads), it is hard to know for sure how effective they are unless you carefully monitor sales before and after those ads and you don't run other ads/promotions at the same time.


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## Harper J. Cole (Feb 9, 2018)

I think I might give this a try. What sort of daily ad money did you find effective?

HC


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## Mikeyboy_esq (Feb 10, 2018)

HarperCole said:


> I think I might give this a try. What sort of daily ad money did you find effective?
> 
> HC



During 2017, I averaged about $60 per month in Amazon AMS ads ($60 is total for both of my books), but I ramped it up in December.  Keep in mind that when you set up an Amazon AMS ad (sponsored ad), you can set how much money you bid on each key word (e.g., 25 cents) and your daily maximum spending limit per day (e.g., $10).  Most of the time, I set my daily max limit at $10, but I increased it to $20 in December.  However, I don't think I ever hit my maximum daily limit as far as I could tell (if I did, I would have spent about $300 per month on each ad!).  From what I've heard others say, it is very difficult to spend the maximum daily limit on Amazon and that has been my experience.  

I definitely recommend you try these Amazon ads.  They are easy to set-up, show excellent stats for each ad (e.g., shows how many folks clicked on which key words and how many key words resulted in actual sales) and after a few weeks, you can always go in and tweak the keywords and bid prices (e.g., increase bid prices on key words that tend to result in sales and either pause or decrease bid prices on keywords that result in lots of clicks, but no sales).  Good luck!


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