Data analysis from amazon ads part three

[lgtwriter]

Hi all,

So my amazon ad has been running for a month and I think I have enough data to understand what is going on at this point. Here are my observations.

1. Amazon.uk ads will run in the middle of (their) night and somehow I end up with a ton of clicks from non-book-buying insomniacs with no sales lol. Fix for this: I turn the ads off when I go to bed and turn them back on in the morning. This is the only way I have found to keep amazon.uk ads algorithm from running out of my budget in the middle of the night. Once I did this, I am getting a much better ACOS and sales rate.

2.  I have over TWO MILLION impressions on amazon.uk ads and this has resulted in 250 books being sold in the UK as a direct result of this ad. I only have one ad running in the UK.

3. My ACOS is at 54%. I would like to see that improve

4. I have never gotten anywhere near that many impressions in the US. I get in the low five digits of impressions on ads in the US (20k impressions)

5. I am selling 6-10 units a day which is double to triple what I was selling before I started advertising in the UK. My KENP in the UK is now about what it is in the US (500-600 a day) so my KENP has doubled since the ad.

I think all of this is due to relevancy. I have a much higher rank in the UK so a much higher relevancy.

Thoughts?

[RBC]

Those impression numbers sounds really high... is that common for other UK advertisers? If not, maybe the keywords are not ideally set up and some wrong ones are showing?

Otherwise, congrats on progress already! ;)

[Crystal]

You have 54% ACoS on a KU book? Unless you're selling a lot of paperbacks, that add is profitable just on sales. That is super rare with AMS. (Though I'm sure it varies by genre). I would not mess with the ad.

[lgtwriter]

Yes @crystal. I am selling mostly ebooks. I did not count the KENP. I did sell a couple of paperbacks although I am not advertising the paperback separately (but my ebook and paperback are linked)

Yes, the ad in the UK is profitable! I was pleasantly surprised. I started out with 350 sales and the ad added another 250 so my literary fiction book is doing much better than I had hoped lol.

[lgtwriter]

Those impression numbers sounds really high... is that common for other UK advertisers? If not, maybe the keywords are not ideally set up and some wrong ones are showing?

Otherwise, congrats on progress already! ;)

The impression numbers are insanely high which is why I started posting threads on it in the last couple of weeks lol. They are much higher than same ad in the US.

I am not using keywords. I am using asins and a couple of categories.

What's really interesting is that somehow the numbers seem to be keeping my relevancy a tad higher in the US than my sales would indicate, but the sales are definitely keeping my relevancy higher on amazon.uk

Does anyone have any idea why I am getting so very many more impressions in the UK for the same ad I am running in the US? It's like 50 times more impressions.

[j tanner]

1. Amazon.uk ads will run in the middle of (their) night and somehow I end up with a ton of clicks from non-book-buying insomniacs with no sales lol. Fix for this: I turn the ads off when I go to bed and turn them back on in the morning. This is the only way I have found to keep amazon.uk ads algorithm from running out of my budget in the middle of the night. Once I did this, I am getting a much better ACOS and sales rate.

If you're in the USA, and turning it off overnight here, then that would make it off during the day (not night) in the UK. Am I misunderstanding your explanation?

[lgtwriter]

I am turning it off from 1 am UK time to when I wake up which is about noon or 1 pm UK time. I turn it back on at 1 pm UK time.

[notthatamanda]

Those impression numbers sounds really high... is that common for other UK advertisers? If not, maybe the keywords are not ideally set up and some wrong ones are showing?

Otherwise, congrats on progress already! ;)

The impression numbers are insanely high which is why I started posting threads on it in the last couple of weeks lol. They are much higher than same ad in the US.

I am not using keywords. I am using asins and a couple of categories.

What's really interesting is that somehow the numbers seem to be keeping my relevancy a tad higher in the US than my sales would indicate, but the sales are definitely keeping my relevancy higher on amazon.uk

Does anyone have any idea why I am getting so very many more impressions in the UK for the same ad I am running in the US? It's like 50 times more impressions.

Are the ASINs books that are really hot right now? It is interesting. Congratulations. If you are selling a lot of books you are making Amazon money both in the clicks and the sales. The algos are in love with you. (I picture the algos as a bunch of minions in a basement somewhere and they have thoughts and feelings.) So they keep picking your ad to post.

You might want to do some googling on your author name and titles and see if anyone blogged about you or your name is out there in some other way.

[lgtwriter]

So, the asins are a mix of popular literary fiction titles that have won literary awards, and asins of books that are what I would call "surrealist" fiction. My book has a lead character that talks to "ghosts" that are characters from some of her favorite movies. To her, they are very real (she is an unreliable narrator) and these movie character ghosts have a significant place in the plot so the book has surrealist undertones. I put asins of books that I consider cross-genre as well (ursula leguin books for example)

The categories I am using are psychological fiction and movie tie in fiction (yes that's a category lol) I think that the movie category is meant for books that are made to coincide with a movie, but I get a lot of clicks on that category and purchases from those clicks so the fact that there are movie character ghosts in my book seems to apply to the category never-the-less.

I did a google search on my name (I write with my own name. Once I start writing in a genre, I'll probably make up a pen name). Nothing much came up except some links to obscure book blogs and one interview I did for a paid marketing promotion. My book of course came up as well .

So...I have absolutely NO idea why I am getting 50 times more impressions and sales in the UK for this book lol. 

[RPatton]

The UK and the US are two totally different markets. Traditional Publishing has known this for years and often have two editions of the same book, one for the US market and one for the UK market. This is to compensate for the slight spelling differences, but the books also have different covers and sometimes even the titles are different too.

Something about your book is hitting with UK readers and they are clicking then buying. My guess is that there's something about the cover and title is interesting them. It might also be worth considering whether or not to publish two versions, a US and UK version with different covers. (As self-publishers, we can do the same thing by limiting regional rights, or at least we could, I'm not sure if it's still possible to do considering that it's probably a loophole that someone exploited a hundred times over until Amazon finally got annoyed and just removed it for everyone.)

[j tanner]

So...I have absolutely NO idea why I am getting 50 times more impressions and sales in the UK for this book lol.

My guess is your niche just isn't as saturated with ads. I could believe that about litfic.

It's on my list to test since I don't run ads in UK at the moment. I'll be sure to share when I get to it.

[lgtwriter]

Yeah, I think you are right @j tanner. I just want to ad that in the US I do not get anywhere NEAR the ACOS or number of impressions I am getting in the UK. My ACOS is double in the US (meaning I am breaking even and sometimes even losing money). It's only in the UK that I am making a profit on my ad.