Are also boughts still crucial?

[Lysmata Debelius]

Trying to up my game and update my (absolutely miserable) knowledge of book marketing, so I'm reading articles and books. Here's something that puzzles me. I'm finding a lot of advice about the importance of not messing up your also boughts, so that your book will be recommended to the right kind of people. But I'm also seeing people say that also boughts are no longer important because they are "below the fold" - that is, you need to scroll to see them on a book's page.


Is this accurate?

[TimothyEllis]

Amazon keep moving them.

One day up the top, the next day down the bottom, no rhyme or reason to it.

But yes, also boughts are essential. I can tell which days the majority of my books have the AB slider at the bottom and which at the top, since being at the top improves my sales for the day.

But there are 2 things in play here.

First, the slider is full of other people's books, and this means your book is on theirs, most likely in the exact same spot. Which is advertising your book to that books readers for free.

The other thing is when all or most of the books on the first page of the slider are you own, and this pushes people just finding you into your existing books.

When a book is new, the slider has books form all over. As the book gets older, the first page becomes and more my own books. And this is good, because it means my back catalogue is selling, and every single sale back there is sheer gravy with icing on top.

People do go looking for the AB slider, wherever it is. and a lot of readers are aware of how much authors pay for ads, and try not to make us pay for their buy.

Personally, I consider the AB slider the most important part of the whole product page. After the product of course.

[Bill Hiatt]

First, the slider is full of other people's books, and this means your book is on theirs, most likely in the exact same spot. Which is advertising your book to that books readers for free.

Unfortunately, the Also Boughts are not necessarily reciprocal. They benefit the whale far more than the prawn.


I'm not sure how the algorithm works, but it has something to do with volume relative to your total sales. in other words, if you're a big seller, maybe people who bought 3,000 other books also bought yours, but there isn't room for that many also boughts, so the system picks out the recent ones that have the largest volume. If you're a small seller, by contrast, your Also Boughts may reflect every single book that was purchased by the same people who bought yours.


What that means in practice is that, if you're a prawn, your book may not be appearing on most of the pages of most of the books you see in your AB. I have at times checked this out, especially when books I knew were big sellers were in there, and in almost every case, my book wasn't appearing on their pages. 


That doesn't mean ABs aren't important, but like so many other things, their value increases as your books sell more often.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Personally, I consider the AB slider the most important part of the whole product page. After the product of course.

I agree.

[idontknowyet]

The majority of books that I buy are also boughts. I don't buy from ads I just don't trust them. Seeing  erotica in clean and wholesome's  sponsored ads just leaves me scratching my head and taking 2 steps back,

[Jeff Tanyard]

The majority of books that I buy are also boughts. I don't buy from ads I just don't trust them. Seeing  erotica in clean and wholesome's  sponsored ads just leaves me scratching my head and taking 2 steps back,

This stuff will eventually reach a breaking point.  The use of ad blockers has increased each year for the past few years, and it's not hard to see why.  The 2018 projection is that 30% of all internet users are employing/will employ ad blockers.  If that trend continues, then it's only a matter of time before the advertising landscape undergoes a radical change.  What that change will look like is anyone's guess.

[WasAnn]

I don't buy from ads either and I find them a huge distraction. What I want, as a reader, are the alsoboughts. What another person who liked a book that I liked is more likely to appeal to me.

What kills me is that Amazon knows that. It knows that by its own numbers. The only point of the ads is to harvest money from authors. Period.

Yes, it might get eyes on something new for some, but so would using their already known data.

Alsoboughts are still crucial, but it seems pretty obvious that Amazon is trying to get rid of them. For them, they're looking at those genuine facts as people getting free advertising and they don't like it. They know that enough people will pay to get ads that their data will put books from the alsoboughts into the ad carousel.

Stacking your ABs is possible, but it takes a real and concerted effort, as well as costing money. You can target an ad so tightly to a book that's "one step up" from yours and spend until enough people buy it wind up in the AB carousel. Then do it for the next one, then the next. BUT, you can spend thousands doing that.

[PiiaBre]

Help. Where have the alsoboughts gone?

I can only see personal recommendations on computer, and sponsored books on mobile.
The alsoboughts are important to me, I use them to find similar books to buy. You'd think Amazon wants money, right?
So did they do away with the feature or is it just my browser? I'm using Safari, but I also have Firefox, Opera, and Chrome, so I can try those if it makes a difference.


I never buy from the ads either. They are insultingly off topic to whatever I'm browsing.

[Lysmata Debelius]

I'm still seeing also-boughts? Just below the book - or, if there's a series, just below "books in this series". Looking on Amazon.com with Chrome on desktop. But maybe it's different for different people, or depends where in the world you are?

[PiiaBre]

Oh, it might be regional. That would suck.
Then again, I'm in the Nordic wilderness, so I'm used to the "sorry not in your country" notice.

[DrewMcGunn]

Oh, it might be regional. That would suck.
Then again, I'm in the Nordic wilderness, so I'm used to the "sorry not in your country" notice.

I think that Amazon has a tendency to do A/B testing on page designs. I've had the "here's four of this books' also boughts" but right now, I have the carousal of also boughts... So the Zon likes to mix up what folks on my book pages see (or possibly on what they're serving).

[Anarchist]

Also-boughts have a huge impact on my sales.

Having said that, lots of people still buy from ads. Here's an example:




That's a single keyword. (I have thousands of AMS campaigns and 100,000+ keywords.)

[Individualist]

High sales volume seems directly linked to getting Zon to give a title more also-bought positions.

More ads with relevant keywords can generate higher sales volume per title.

I think that's how it is supposed to work...

...at least for today.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Yes, also-boughts are crucial, at least for those who don't run other ads.

However...

I don't think the intermittent/bizarre behavior we've seen from the also-boughts is a result of A/B testing or anything like that.  My personal opinion--and this is just a wild guess, so take it for what it's worth--is that the also-bought servers are stretched to the limit of their capabilities and are suffering from a sort of rolling blackout effect.

I think it helps to always remember that Amazon's bread and butter is selling server capacity via AWS.  That's where their oodles of operating cash come from.  Their top-priority gig is not the e-commerce store.  In fact, I think the e-commerce store loses money, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out Amazon isn't very committed to it in the long run.

Once again, though, these are just guesses on my part, and on the internet, no one knows you're a dog.   

[Anarchist]

Once again, though, these are just guesses on my part, and on the internet, no one knows you're a dog.   

[PiiaBre]

Ok, I did a little test ('cause, what else am I gonna do? Write? Pshh.)

I fired up each browser I have on my elderly Macbook, and here are the results:


-Safari - No alsoboughts visible (actually, I can't even see 'the other books in this series' which is odd)
-Firefox - Alsoboughts visible
-Opera - Alsoboughts visible
-Chrome - Alsoboughts visible


So, I can only draw the very scientifically sound conclusion that they have somehow been disabled on (my?) Safari. What's causing it and why? No clue.

[Robin]

I also hate the ads when I'm browsing and never click on them because most of the time they aren't even relevant to what I like. The Also Boughts on the other hand are usually very helpful.