I have been experimenting with two types of Amazon advertising campaigns, sponsored product and sponsored brand. Sponsored product was my first campaign. A book is a product, so I started with my first book, The Spy who Sank the Armada. I launched the campaign on both the UK and US markets. It generated some sales, but not a fantastic number.
Next I tried a sponsored brand campaign on the UK market. A series of books can be considered a brand. I thought that advertising my series would generate more sales, and indeed it did. In December the sponsored brand campaign sold twelve books. The drawback was that the cost of that advertising was £367. It simply was not worthwhile.
The basic metrics of online advertising are impressions, clicks, and sales. You chose key words or phrases that potential customers might search for, then you set a bid that you will pay to get your advertisement appearing on the screen of that potential customer. An impression is when your advertisement appears on the potential customer’s screen. A click is when they click on it. If they then buy your book, that’s a sale. You pay for clicks, not sales. My problem was getting too many clicks, and not enough sales.
I tried refining my keywords and focusing on the ones that generated the most sales. Eventually I had to cut my losses and revert to the sponsored product campaign. The average costs per click are much lower. So far in January I have sold 14 books, all in the UK. The cost of my UK sponsored product campaign in January has been £0.16. However, none of those sales have been directly from clicks. The problem is you simply don’t know the effect of impressions. People may have seen my advertisement and bought it later, without clicking on the advertisement. Alternatively, those sales my have been generated by word of mouth recommendations. They may be people who have enjoyed one book in the series, and bought another. Either way, six shillings a month to advertise, is vastly more affordable than hundreds of pounds.