As Far As Promo Goes by Margo Hoornstra

To change around the title to a question - How far does promo go? Answer: Not nearly far enough.

At least I’ve found that to be true from my limited knowledge and experience on the topic.

Last time on these pages - April 23rd to be exact - I talked about a couple of Sponsored Product promotional advertising campaigns I’d started with my self published titles.

Saturday In Serendipity

For Money Or Love

To refresh your memory, my set up was simple. I entered the names of 75 or so authors with books similar to mine, AND established track records. In other words, with a substantial number of favorable reviews. The idea being that traffic on their buy pages (impressions) would bring traffic to my buy pages (clicks). Next was a daily expense limit of $5.00 and bid limit of 25 cents.

Initially, as I noted then, I realized some pretty substantial activity. A few actual sales, more KU/KOLL pages read. So, this is how promo is done, I thought. (Rubbing my hands together with glee here) Now to sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labors. Right?

Not exactly.

Over time, like within two short weeks, the impressions dwindled, the clicks as well. And sales of both kinds came to a standstill.

Coincidentally, I attended a local writers conference shortly after I started all this. As happens when writers get together these days, the discussion turned to promo in general and Amazon ads in particular. Turns out those figures of mine weren’t nearly sufficient to generate much of anything. According to those who know much more than me on the subject, the optimum number of keywords is at least 200 and preferably 300 or more. In fact, 850 was an amount tossed around as not being out of the question.

Think the more the merrier.

Plus, the 25 cent bid and 5 dollar a day limit was lacking too. It seems the more the merrier applies here as well.

Although I plan to add many, many more keywords as my time allows, so far, all I’ve had time to do is raise my bid limit to 50 cents and my daily cost limit by a dollar to six. Even with that, the sales and borrows on those books are revving up again.

My takeaway from all of this is simple. Activity, any activity on the Amazon Sponsored Product advertising front is key. Hopefully, adding more keywords little by little will keep the momentum going.

How far does promo go? As far as you’re able to take it.

Do you agree? Any promotional words of wisdom to share?

My days to blog here are the 11th and 23rd. For more about me and the stories I write, please visit my WEBSITE

My Amazon Ad Experiment, Part Deux by Alison Henderson

If you read my post last month, you'll recall I shared the results of an experiment in which I ran a Facebook ad and an Amazon sponsored product ad during the last week of February and compared the results. As far as I could tell, all my sales came from the FB ad. Although it cost me very little, my Amazon numbers were dismal: 2,772 impressions, 10 clicks, and 0 sales. I decided I must be doing something wrong, so I decided to try again during the last week of March.

The important difference was adding more keywords. The first time, I used every category and combination of words I thought anyone might use to find books like Unwritten Rules and Boiling Point, my female bodyguard books. I also threw in the names of a couple of very well-known writers whose books are somewhat similar. I only ended up with about twenty keywords, even though every article I'd read said to aim for two hundred, and Amazon allows up to one thousand! I simply couldn't think of any more.

In the interim, I'd read another article with sound advice on how to find appropriate keywords. The author recommended checking your own books' pages, as well as those of similar books, and diving deep into the "Customers who bought this product also bought" listings. When I did this, I found a significant number of authors I'd never heard of who write some combination of romance, mystery, and suspense that includes humor. l added their names to my keyword list. I then dug even deeper, checking the "Customers who bought" lists for those authors, looking for more authors and books that might attract similar readers. You can do this almost indefinitely, but I stopped after I had doubled the number of my keywords.

Here are the results for the first week, so you can compare the numbers with my original experiment:

Boiling Point:
109,975 impressions;  54 clicks @ $.16 = $8.49 cost; 4 sales @ $2.74 profit = $10.96 
Plus 2,371 KENP pages read @ $.005 per page = $11.86
Net Profit = $14.33

Unwritten Rules:
125,161 impressions;  57 clicks @ $.17 = $9.69 cost; 5 sales @ $2.74 profit = $13.60
Plus 1 sale of Small Town Christmas Tales, which I have to attribute to increased visibility @ $2.06 profit
Plus 4,254 KENP pages read = $21.27
Net Profit = $40.80

Total Profit for the week: $52.66

I was pretty darned thrilled with that, so I decided to keep the ads going. However, the impressions and clicks slowed considerably and sales dropped from 4 a day to 0 on March 31st, as if I'd discontinued the ads. I waited a full week with very little activity, except for a large number of KENP pages read (presumably by KU subscribers who had picked the books up the previous week.) 

On April 7th, I decided to try adding a few more keywords. The impressions, clicks, and sales picked up again. 

Here are the totals for the first three weeks:
Boiling Point:
129,558 impressions; 72 clicks @ $.16 = $11.26 cost; 6 sales @ $2.74 profit = $16.44
Plus 5,309 KENP pages read = $26.55
Net Profit = $31.73

Unwritten Rules:
129,683 impressions; 86 clicks @ $.19 = $16.34 cost; 10 sales @ $2.74 profit = $27.40
Plus 1 sale of Small Town Christmas Tales @ $2.06 profit
Plus 7,803 KENP pages read = $39.02
Net Profit = $52.30

From all this, I have drawn the following conclusions:
1. Keywords make all the difference.
2. Amazon metrics show me which keywords are producing the most clicks and the most sales so I can adjust accordingly. 
3. I will probably have to make constant additions and adjustments to keep sales coming.
4. Amazon ads are much more effective for an unknown author like me if the books are part of the Kindle Unlimited program. Readers are more likely to take a chance if they don't feel like they're paying for the book--even if they are.
5. Unwritten Rules sells better than Boiling Point. This may be because it's the first book in the series, or it may be due to a more attractive cover or blurb. I'll have to give this some thought. One of the benefits of being an indie is being able to tinker with any aspect of the book whenever I decide to.

So. there you have it. Whew!
Alison
www.alisonhenderson.com

Adventures in Advertising by Alison Henderson

Like many indie authors, I keep a running monthly spreadsheet of the sales results for my independently published titles. The royalty statements from the publisher of my first three books come out quarterly and are not particularly useful, but I can learn quite a bit from the detailed reports Amazon provides.

This year, after entering the sales for December of 2016 and totaling up the year, I turned an analytical eye to each month's individual figures. Guess what I discovered. I made zero sales and zero dollars last February. That's right--ZERO. Not shocking, but disheartening. I also noticed my sales for the first half of February of 2017 were lagging sadly. What is it about February? This year, I determined to do something to try to alter that trend.

As authors, even indie authors, there aren't many things we can do to boost sales in the short run. We can amp up our activity on social media, do a blog tour, or reduce the price of our books. I decided to put both my bodyguard books on an Amazon Countdown Deal for $.99 for the last week of February to see if I could stir up any interest. I also decided it was the perfect opportunity to run an experiment with advertising, pitting Facebook against Amazon to see if I could draw any conclusions about the effectiveness of each.

I chose to do a $20 boosted Facebook post advertising the sale for the first two days, targeting an audience of women over thirty who live in the U.S. and are interested in books. That post reached 1,024 people, garnered 43 likes--mostly from strangers--and one new "like" for my page. 

The Amazon ad was a different animal. I had to choose between a Sponsored Product ad and a Product Display ad. Sponsored Product ads are the ones across the bottom of a product (individual book) page that says Sponsored Products Related to This Item. Product Display ads are larger and appear higher on the right side of the page. I chose a Sponsored Product ad because they allow you to customize a huge list of search keywords specific to your book. For example, I chose phrases like "humorous romantic mystery books" and "light mystery and suspense." You can also name other authors or books that you think are similar in some way to yours, whose readers you want to attract. I chose Janet Evanovich and "Stephanie Plum series" because those books are humorous and heavier on the suspense plots than the romance.

The Amazon ad was also my first experience with click-charge advertising. You select an amount you're willing to pay for each time someone clicks on your ad and is taken to your book's page. I chose $.25 per click because it was what showed up as a default in the selection box. Amazon has excellent metrics, although it takes 2-3 days for the information to appear. They give you a running total of how much you've spent and how many sales resulted from those clicks.

I chose to advertise both books. My results were as follows:
Boiling Point-- 1,453 impressions (# of customers exposed to the ad), 2 clicks, $0 sales
Unwritten Rules-- 1,319 impressions, 8 clicks, $0 sales
Total spent--$2.09
I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from this information. I might have needed to increase my bid per click, or my covers or blurbs are not attracting readers, or I need to refine my keywords. Since this is a very cheap experiment, I plan to make adjustments and try again.

The total sales for the week, along with my explanation of the results, were:
2/21 - 7 sales, FB ad
2/22 - 3 sales, FB ad
2/23 - 0 sales
2/24 - 1 sale, probably a friend or leftover from FB ad
2/25 - 11 sales, possibly due to Amazon directed email advertising "deals" for specific genres (I got one for $.99 romance books that day. They probably also sent them out to mystery and suspense readers.)
2/26 - 4 sales, probably leftover from whatever happened the day before
2/27 - 3 sales, possibly due to activity from 2/25. I also put a "last day" reminder post on FB but didn't boost it.

So what conclusion can I draw from this experiment? Financially, I just about broke even. Hopefully, I'll get a new review or two as a result. The Facebook boost did not pay for itself, and the Amazon ad produced nothing (possibly my fault), but Amazon may have done something for the book because I'm a KDP author and used their Countdown Deal. They're always an enigma, but sometimes they surprise you. The main takeaway, however, is that neither of these methods produced as many sales as buying a one-day ad on Just Kindle Books' website and email newsletter. 

What experiences have you had with advertising? What would you recommend?
Alison
www.alisonhenderson.com