more observations on international amazon ads

[lgtwriter]

Hi all,

Since I am a techie and a data/Artificial Intelligence geek in my day job (other life  ) I have been spending some time analyzing my amazon ads data. I am going to share some of my observations.

1. Impressions.  On amazon.uk I am getting 150 TIMES the impressions for the same money. Of course this is leading to more clicks and more units sold. It's NOT just a matter of winning more auctions (although that is clearly a big part of it). Everything is at a different scale. Even when I bid exactly the same relative amount adjusted to the high and low bid, I am getting 100 times more impressions. For example, my impressions on Amazon.uk is at 150,000 for a 3 day period. I never get more than a couple of thousand impressions in the US even when I bid over the highest amount in the range. This leads me to believe that somehow I am scoring differently in the relevance rankings in the UK.

2. Top of search  - Top of search is almost impossible to win in Amazon.uk no matter what I bid. I win top of search around 33% of the time in the US with similar relative bids.

3.  Conversions - For some reason, my conversions are better in the UK with the same content.

I have just started advertising in Germany today and since I will be in the foreign language categories there I am not sure I will be able to really learn anything. But again, I am getting more impressions.

I would love thoughts on this. I know there are more ways to analyze the data, but I would love first thoughts.

[Paul Gr]

I would be interested in which genre of literary fiction your book is in, in fact I would be interested in finding out the title, mostly because literary fiction is supposed to be of limited interest, yet you have been successful at it.
I'm guessing that literary fiction isn't a blanket term which covers everything, there must be genres within it, or at least they must have elements, as in a romantic element, a historical element, etc.
Ideally, I would like to find out the title.
Could it be that your ads are successful in the UK because the novel is set in the UK, as opposed to the US?
Maybe Amazon gives it more relevance because of this?

[R. C.]

REVISED

For what it is worth...

I am testing the "more impressions on the UK site" theory.  Four days of observation...

On the .com (US) site: 6 ADs - 1415 impressions - 0 Clicks
On the .co.uk (UK) site: 2 ADS - 20,101 impressions - 16 Clicks

R.C.

[lgtwriter]

Hi Paul,

I wasn't sure about self-promoting here, so I didn't post my title in any of my posts. If you DM me, I will give you the name of my book, unless one of the mods posts here that I can put my book title. 

My book has good reviews, both editorial (kirkus, blue ink, clarion) and depending on the country either a 4.4 star rating or a 4.1 star rating (I had a couple of drive-by no-comment two star ratings in the US that lowered my overall rating  )

The book is about the months after 9/11 so there is a historical component. It's not a romance, thriller or any other defined genre and uses absolutely NO tropes 

If you DM I will send you the title. I am currently sitting at best seller rank of 24k or so in the UK and 60k or so in the US so, not really selling that many copies, but I am selling 4-6 a day in UK and 2 a day or so in the US with about 500 kenp pages a day. I am ranked in the top 20 in at least one of my categories in both the UK and the US.

[lgtwriter]

For what it is worth...

I am testing the "more impressions on the UK site" theory.  I was going to wait a day or two for results but six hours is enough...

On the .com (US) site: 6 ADs - 67 impressions - 0 Clicks
On the .co.uk (UK) site: 2 ADS - 3629 impressions - 2 Clicks

R.C.

That sounds similar to my ratios. I currently have 215k impressions in 4 days. I have 65k more impressions since I posted this thread. That is for ONE ad. 
I have never gotten close to that in the US with pretty much the same bids.

[LilyBLily]

Tim can weigh in, but those of us who choose not to be anonymous routinely have links to our books in our posts. I believe we even have an outright self-promotion thread, too.

[lgtwriter]

Thanks @LilyBLily, but at this time I really don't want to give up my anonymity in publically searchable posts. I publish with my real name and I want to be able to ask really stupid questions here and not have it tied to my real name lol 

I have a successful non-writing career as my day job and don't want to have my coworkers, bosses, clients, etc searching and finding all the newbie questions and comments I make as I learn how to be a successful indie author.

So, for now, I am not going to post my personal details publically yet. This may change as I feel less like a fumbling newbie. 

[LilyBLily]

I publish under my real name but I pontificate online under pseudonyms. It's all good.

 

[alhawke]

That sounds similar to my ratios. I currently have 215k impressions in 4 days. I have 65k more impressions since I posted this thread. That is for ONE ad.  . I have never gotten close to that in the US with pretty much the same bids.

Congrats! An ad sometimes takes off for one reason or another that can be completely out of our control. I, personally, have never succeeded through AMS and will never try AMS again. I got excited with the international market when it became available for AMS a few years ago. The UK market was more successful for me then the US market then as well. But the cost of running the ad was not worth it. The only ads where I benefit from are BookBub. But even with BB, there are so many ads that just wither and decay. Once you got one working, enjoy the sales. 

edit} I should mention that I am not in KU. KU sensibly works better with AMS.

[lgtwriter]

@alhawke I do ok on fb too because I made a cool video trailer (probably the ONLY part of this marketing stuff that I enjoyed lol  ) Of course "ok" is relative as I am selling 6-10 books a day lol. But my KENP is way up since I started the British ad (was 500 a day and has been inching up to 1000 a day)

Bookbub ads were a failure for me. So were all marketing newsletters except for the Bookbub "New Releases for Less" (I tried Fussy Librarian, Booksy, and one with Kindle in the title)

I think what I am going to do is split my amazon spend 2/3 UK 1/3 US for now until I see the numbers go down and keep my facebook targeted to both places.

[j tanner]

@alhawke I do ok on fb too because I made a cool video trailer (probably the ONLY part of this marketing stuff that I enjoyed lol  ) Of course "ok" is relative as I am selling 6-10 books a day lol. But my KENP is way up since I started the British ad (was 500 a day and has been inching up to 1000 a day)

That could be great or could be terrible. All depends on what your daily ad spend is.

[Paul Gr]

Personally, as a reader, and I am not recommending it, I only ever look at digital book spot dot com.
This is entirely because it's convenient, because I don't have to subscribe to it.
Here's something.
Willow Rose, a best selling author, uses it, but Mark Dawson, also a best selling author, doesn't use it.
Or if he does, I've never seen his books on it.
He does use facebook ads, though.

[lgtwriter]

@alhawke I do ok on fb too because I made a cool video trailer (probably the ONLY part of this marketing stuff that I enjoyed lol  ) Of course "ok" is relative as I am selling 6-10 books a day lol. But my KENP is way up since I started the British ad (was 500 a day and has been inching up to 1000 a day)

That could be great or could be terrible. All depends on what your daily ad spend is.

I am a techie and data geek in my day job so I have applied some algorithms to keep my spend small and my roi at least a bit profitable. Right now I am getting more buys but that could be because it was the holidays, because I am new to advertising on amazon.uk, who knows lol. I got 15 buys a day in the UK alone the last couple of days and that aligns to having just started a new ad. May just be a coincidence, I don't have enough data to know yet.

[alhawke]

Personally, as a reader, and I am not recommending it, I only ever look at digital book spot dot com.
This is entirely because it's convenient, because I don't have to subscribe to it.

BKnights through Fiverr uses that website when promoting their books. Why do you like it? I'm curious only because I've always wondered why BKnights has its popularity. I'm guessing it's due to being around for a while in the business. Or is there something else about its layout that you prefer?

[Paul Gr]

BKnights through Fiverr uses that website when promoting their books. Why do you like it? I'm curious only because I've always wondered why BKnights has its popularity. I'm guessing it's due to being around for a while in the business. Or is there something else about its layout that you prefer?

The only reason I use it is because it's convenient, I don't have to log in or subscribe.
The layout isn't particularly good, there are no categories, and there are ads. between just about every book.

[idontknowyet]

I use BKnights because it sells books and its cheap. For like $12 I get 30-50 free downloads or .99cent sales.

[alhawke]

The only reason I use it is because it's convenient, I don't have to log in or subscribe.
The layout isn't particularly good, there are no categories, and there are ads. between just about every book.

The convenience and age of the site might be the source of BKnights success.
I have an email with lots of mailers. I find myself skimming through them daily--which is why it pays to be the first book on promo emails, imo.

I use BKnights because it sells books and its cheap. For like $12 I get 30-50 free downloads or .99cent sales.

Yeah, they are good and affordable, particularly if you use their newsletter feature