Amazon’s new feature for authors and publishers, PPC (Pay Per Click) Advertising, is here and new authors are testing the waters to know if it is worth the money or not.
An account that is enrolled in Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) Select can have access to Amazon’s Ad Campaigns.
Meaning, authors, and publishers are given the opportunity to advertise their books on popular and best-selling Amazon book pages that are related to theirs. Making it a great opportunity to be seen by more readers.
Since our primary goal in advertising is to hit sales, Amazon’s new PPC is probably doing what it’s supposed to do for authors and publishers.
How?
Well, simply put, they display your book ad onto popular Amazon book pages, and you can expect to sell more books than before thanks to the increased exposure on the right page with the right audiences.
This is great news for self-published authors since this entails a big marketing boost. A wonderful break for Indie authors indeed because they can now advertise their ebooks on Amazon with this new pay-per-click campaign.
REQUIREMENTS:
To take advantage of Amazon PPC (Pay per click advertising), your books have to be exclusive to Kindle.
How? they should enrol it in KDP Select. Aside from that, there is a minimum campaign budget of $100.
Before Amazon’s PPC, Amazon promoted and still promotes books for free in a via the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought…” section of book sales pages.
To be honest, this may be a free service, but it was never that useful in increasing the sales because
- It was not very visible from the display screen.
- It was usually at the bottom part of the page and needed scrolling down before it could be seen.
- You had no control over if or where your book would show up.
This new advertising deal means self-publishers can really take serious promotions into their own hands.
HOW-TO:
Are you excited to give PPC a chance?
Here’s a simplified guide on how to set up and kick-start your new advertising scheme:
1. From your KDP Bookshelf, click on the new option “Promote & Advertise” under the KDP Select column.
2. On the next page, click on “Create an Ad Campaign” under the “Run an Ad Campaign” box.
3. Choose which book to advertise.
4. Choose whether to target your ad by product or interest.
(You can also choose not to target a campaign at all, which, I would imagine, involves an ad being shown largely at random- not recommended).
Tip: Choosing “By Product” means your ad will be shown to customers interested in selected and similar products. Choosing “By Interest” means the ad will be displayed to people interested in selected categories.
5. Set up your campaign name, bid and budget. Amazon will display the average bid, which ranges from $0.52-063. The minimum budget that can be selected is $100.
(Don’t worry though, you don’t have to pay out the total budget upfront. You can opt to be charged periodically in small increments as the campaign runs. Nice, right?)
6. Set the campaign start and end date. Then pick an appropriate pacing option, you can choose to either deliver the campaign as quickly as possible or allow Amazon to spread out the campaign smoothly.
7. A preview of the ad will then be generated using the book’s cover, title, and price, in the same style as most of the book ads on Amazon.
8. Select a payment option.
9. Submit the campaign for review.
IS IT WORTH THE MONEY?
During the campaign period of the ad, you are only charged by Amazon when a customer actually CLICKS your ad, NOT when an ad is displayed but not clicked. More or less, people who will click your ad are interested in your book, thus increasing your chances of selling more books.
So what happens when people click your ad?
People who click your ad will be taken to your book’s “Product Details” page where they can see more descriptions of your new book, that will most like grab their curiosity and will hopefully ONE-CLICK BUY your book.