The AmWritingFantasy Podcast Episode 7 – Amazon Ads Explained (and some advice)

Amazon Ads used to be called Amazon Marketing Services, or AMS, but it has since rebranded and are now known as Amazon Ads.

I explain what Amazon Ads are, clarify which types of ads are available on Amazon when you're marketing your books and also some recommendations along the way.

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Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Jesper (12s):
A couple of weeks ago I talked about how you have to use paid ads in order to gain any visibility as an author in 2019 I also recommended to use Amazon apps, but I didn't really get into what those ads are, so I thought I better close that loop. Today we're going to remove any confusion about what Amazon ads are and clarify which type of ads are available.

Jesper (44s):
My results and recommendations on each and by that also why you should care about Amazon ads in the first place. If you are a fantasy author, then you've come to the right place. My name is Jesper and together with Autumn I host this channel between us. We've published more than 20 novels and our aim is to help you in your writing and marketing endeavors. The first thing I need to do is to give a huge shout out to bill Finley, who is our newest supporter on Patreon.

Jesper (1m 22s):
There is a link in the description field below. If you also want to check out Patreo on, but you are going to get stuff like a fantasy bookmarks or how about a amwritingfantasy t-shirt or even you'll have the possibility to get custom made fantasy maps. But enough of that, let's get into the topic of Amazon ads Amazon ads used to be called Amazon marketing services or a M S.

Jesper (1m 52s):
S some refer to it and I still do from time to time, but they've still rebranded and they are now known as Amazon ads. It used to be so that these ads were only available for those who were selling physical devices or components and it wasn't even possible for authors to Euston. But nowadays you can fortunately run Amazon ads regardless of whether or not your books are released in the KDB select meaning if you are exclusive to Amazon on not even that they didn't use to do so.

Jesper (2m 26s):
In this case, the good news is that everyone is on a level playing field, but there's obviously also means that there is a another thing to learn. Fear. Not though because I'm going to give you an overview here to make things easy, but a good place to start is why you should even care about Amazon ads. Well, the thing is that these ads are served on the Amazon website and when people browse the Amazon website, they do so because they are looking to buy something opposite.

Jesper (3m 4s):
Something like Facebook asks, for example, where people are busy interacting with friends and family or checking out a group that they might belong to or something like that. At any rate, people are not on Facebook because they want to buy something. If Facebook I had has to catch the person's attention, then it has to get them to click the app. It then takes the PO, a person off of social media and onto a store like Amazon folks sample hoping that they will then make a purchase and as you can see, that's quite a journey with multiple clicks and the risk of losing the person's interest.

Jesper (3m 47s):
All along the way with Amazon ads the people seeing the ad is already there with the intention to buy something and they can do that within two clicks only, you know, one click on the ad and then the bike click. That's it. You've got two types of ads at your disposal, the first SD sponsored product ad and then the other is luck screen ads the lush green ads is a fairly new thing.

Jesper (4m 21s):
It has replaced the previous product display ads and the lush green ad will show up on uh, you know when people unlock their Kindle eReader. So right there on the home screen before they start reading, they can be shown an ad of your book opposite the product display ads. The luxury Nat is also capable of showing up on the new Kindle fire tablets. So, uh, sort. That's pretty cool. Let's take a closer look at the effectiveness of these lock screen ads now that we are already talking about them and then we will circle back to these sponsored product ads in a moment.

Jesper (5m 4s):
One would think that these ads should work really, really well. After all, they are showing up right there on people's Kindle, but overall and in my experience and I can only speak from personal experience, they're not as effective as the sponsor product ads. In fact, I would say very far from it. Now keep in mind that when I talked about how you have to run ads in 2019 I also said that you have to experiment on your own.

Jesper (5m 39s):
You know, just because I can't get these ads to work, then it doesn't mean that you will experience the same results. I do know of authors who have churned significant profit with lock screen ads or product display ads as they used to be called. In my case, I haven't been able to it though. Perhaps the fact that it's that the ad is showing to potential readers, right? Windeyer lying or sitting down to read is what makes them less effective.

Jesper (6m 9s):
I don't know, but at least for me, that's not the time that I'm thinking about buying a new book. I don't know about you. I think in that particular moment it's much harder to convince someone to buy a new book.

Old McGrumpy (6m 23s):
It is because you worthless. Humans are too lazy.

Jesper (6m 28s):
Well, hi there, all my grumpy. I'm glad to see that our resident co-host decided to show up today. Well, at least if you have something insightful to share today, a old my grumpy, do you have your something insightful to share? Otherwise, feel free to leave always. Well, maybe you think it's insightful, but it has to pertain to Amazon. Ads.

Old McGrumpy (6m 53s):
You should just find to advertising company and ask them to run your ads for you than you do not even have to worry about all this stuff you are babbling on about people could be writing instead of watching YouTube videos,

Jesper (7m 8s):
advertising companies, you say, well, if you do find an advertising company who wants to run your ads for you, I would advise that you think about it before you jump in. Why? Well good that you ask because an advertising company will never care as much about your books and your sales as you will besides with a bit of patience and practice desk. Nothing that they can do for you that you can't do yourself. So I would say save your money.

Old McGrumpy (7m 40s):
It always comes down to Monday with you, worthless humans.

Jesper (7m 44s):
Well, not always, but I don't think that's true, but, but many is important to us that much. It's fair enough to say, but with that set, we can move on to the sponsor's product ad because those I have been able to turn profitable first. Where do the sponsored product ad appear? Well, if a reader goes to Amazon and type in, say, fantasy book in the search bar off the Kindle store, then the results will be displayed.

Jesper (8m 15s):
However, if you as an author, I have created a sponsored product ad with the keyword fantasy book, then your ad will compete with all other ads for that specific keyword. The one with the highest bit will win the auction and be displayed as one of the search results. You can test it out yourself by going onto amazon.com for example, select the Kindle store and then search for something and when you hit enter, you will find that the top results, we'll have a little sponsored text next to them, so it says that little labeled sponsored and that's because these are sponsored product ads.

Jesper (8m 58s):
To be honest, as long as you are book is relevant to the keywords that you are betting on. I don't really think that readers care one bit about it saying sponsored on not if they are looking for a fantasy book and that's what appears at the top of the search result, they will click it. If you then done a good job with the cover, the book description, and you have some reviews to serve a social proof, then there is no reason why they wouldn't make the purchase as well.

Jesper (9m 32s):
So when you create these ads, you are asked to tell Amazon how much you want to bid per key word. Essentially every time somebody clicks on your ad, Amazon will then charge you up to that amount that you're bidding, not necessarily the full amount. It all depends on the competition for that particular keyword, but to be on the safe side, you better expect it to be the full amount when you are sort of budgeting. But don't worry, these ads are not expensive as long as, and only as long as you don't go crazy with your painting.

Jesper (10m 9s):
Of course, if you start bidding $2 per hit, then it's going to be expensive pretty fast. However, my advice is to completely ignore the suggested bit that Amazon gives you and then keep your bidding at between 30 and 50 cents per click instead somewhere in that range. Now, it obviously depends on how much you're selling your book for, so if you're selling a box set that you sell for, let's say nine 99 uh, then you can afford to bid a bit more.

Jesper (10m 41s):
Conversely, a book being sold for two 99 or 99 cents can't sustain as high as a bit as the one we talked about before if you want to turn a profit. I think the main reason for these type of ads being so incredibly effective is because that they're showing up right in the middle of the buying process. It's basically right when the reader has typed in fantasy books. If we use that example and then they're scrolling through the options to see what they want to buy, and you will add a P S right?

Jesper (11m 11s):
They're very effective in terms of the keywords. Keep in mind that you are only actually paying for the keywords that gets clicked. Therefore, the only logical course of action is to load as many keywords as you can to get maximum exposure. Eats app will accept a thousand keywords and I always recommend to include as many as you can. Most of my aunts has a thousand keywords in each of them. So you might be thinking a thousand keywords, are you crazy?

Jesper (11m 45s):
There was no way I could come up with a thousand keywords and no, I can't come up with a thousand keywords either. So that's why I will, uh, some stuff about KDP rocket within the next few weeks. Uh, it's a piece of software that will help you out tremendously when it comes to keyword research. Otherwise, you can of course use Google ad words to generate a list of keywords. If you're on a budget, at least that's free. It's not the KTB rocket ex expensive either.

Jesper (12m 15s):
But if you're looking for something free, then we'll use Google AdWords. In order to create a winning ad, you have to test out different ad copy. So test out different variations and keep loading the system with more and more ads and more and more keywords. At this point of time, I'm probably advertising something like 20,000 keywords on on Amazon and that might sound like a lot and perhaps it is, but if you are just creating like one or two ads every week, you know you'll get there sooner or later.

Jesper (12m 51s):
Oh, and something else worth mentioning to the Amazon dashboard that shows the results of your ads are, it's quite slow to populate. Sometimes it can take up to two weeks for it to show all the sales. So don't make your decisions on whether an ad is successful or not. Based on the app dashboard, you can use the a cost score, which just shows in the at at board to get sort of a general bearing about the results. So as long as you are under 70% in eco score, you're turning a profit.

Jesper (13m 26s):
Since Amazon gives you a 70% royalties. However, the only sure way to determine your success is to check your sales by the KDP dashboard and then compare your revenue with the invoices that you're getting for your ads. That way there is no second guessing. You know, if you have any questions, you know, just fire away in the comments section below. Uh, I've tried to condense this topic around ads into something that is fairly easy to understand, but I am of course also having to take the assumption that you know how to create these ads and, uh, how to operate the dashboard and so forth.

Jesper (14m 8s):
If that's not the case, well, as I said, make use of the common section. See you next Monday.