Today’s guest post is by author Deanna Cabinian (@DeannaCabinian).
When I started a sponsored products ad campaign with Amazon, I was skeptical—just another hot new tool that might work for some authors but not everyone. But I figured if I can get my novel in front of customers while they’re in buying mode, it was worth a try.
While Amazon sponsored ads haven’t been a marketing miracle, I also haven’t lost that much money—and copies of my YA novel, One Night, have sold at a steady pace. My strategy was to try several ads and analyze them over the course of a month. If an ad didn’t sell any books in five days or so, I stopped running the ad. If the next ad I tried performed better in terms of click-thru and conversions than the current ad I was running, I stopped the lower performing ad. My goal was to break even or not lose that much money. I set a budget of $100 for the test.
To write the ads, I looked at my reviews and tried to use words that came up often (“sweet,” “charming,” “lighthearted”). I also tried to mention comparable authors and titles. At first I struggled to come up with 100 keywords, but as time went on, I built up the list to over 600 keywords by looking at keywords that led to sales and also-boughts of those keywords. (For more on this process, check out Amazon advertising advice from Robert Kroese.)
The results of my test are below. Here’s a quick explanation of what the terms mean:
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Click-thru rate: the percentage of people who clicked on the ad after seeing it
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Sales: the number of books sold as a result of the ad
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Conversion: the percentage of people who made a book purchase after clicking the ad
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Royalties: what I earned from book sales connected to the ad (gross)
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Net profit: what I earned from sales after deducting advertising expenses (net)
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Keywords that led to purchase: what the user was searching for on Amazon when they clicked and purchased
Amazon ad #1
I decided to mention Paper Towns, a comp title that readers have mentioned to me.

- Click-thru rate: .073% CTR
- Sales: 3 (2 print, 1 digital)
- Conversion: 1.81%
- Royalties: $9.33
- Net profit: -$13.06
Keywords that led to purchase:
- books for teen girls
- jenn bennett
Amazon ad #2
I decided to speak to a specific type of reader—those who love lighthearted romance.

- Click-thru rate: .072% CTR
- Sales: 5 (3 print, 2 digital)
- Conversion: 3.22%
- Royalties: $15.39
- Net profit: -$7.83
Keywords that led to purchase:
- 13 reasons why
- ashley poston
- we are the ants
- sarah dessen
- the importance of getting revenge
Amazon ad #3
I tried comp authors with this one.

- Click-thru rate: .11%
- Sales: 2 (1 print, 1 digital)
- Conversion: 2.56%
- Royalties: $6.06
- Net profit: -$5.67
Keywords that led to purchase:
- adam silvera
- the thing about jellyfish
Amazon ad #4
I decided to get creative with this one. I thought mentioning “quirky” characters would be good since it comes up in reviews, but based on the numbers I don’t think it worked. I guess in this case quirky was a bad thing.

- Click-thru rate: .055%
- Sales: 0
- Royalties: $0
- Net profit: -$1.94
Amazon ad #5
I’ve seen a lot of ads that pose a question so that was the tactic I tried here. It didn’t work.

- Click-thru rate: .047%
- Sales: 0
- Royalties: $0
- Net profit: -$2.91
Amazon ad #6
I was trying to speak to Elvis fans on this one since my novel has a strong Elvis element to it. My gut told me this wouldn’t work and I was right.

- Click-thru rate: 0%
- Sales: 0
- Royalties: $0
- Net profit: $0
Amazon ad #7
I tried to combine elements of ads 2 and 3, the best performing ads. This ad has been running for one week and it has already become the top performer.

- Click-thru rate: .10%
- Sales: 3 (1 print, 2 digital)
- Conversion: 5.36%
- Royalties: $8.85
- Net profit: -$0.28
Keywords that led to purchase (so far):
- jenna evans welch
- the hate u give
- upside of unrequited
Overall results from Amazon sponsored product ads
- Total sales: 13
- Print sales: 7
- Ebook sales: 6
- Royalties: $39.63
- Ad spend: $71.32
- Net Profit: -$31.69
All in all, I’m pleased with the results. Just having the data on what authors and titles lead to sales is valuable in itself. I will continue to optimize and test ads and add keywords to the campaign with the ultimate goal of turning a profit.
Have you run an Amazon sponsored products campaign? Share your experience in the comments.
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