Amazon Ads For Authors – How Commercial Display Of A Book Is Beneficial

All over the globe selling and purchasing are happening every microsecond. If you are a seller then your main aim is to reach the consumer in the best economical way so that you can earn the best possible profit. This is mainly done by advertising the product. In the world of books, Amazon is the largest platform for purchasing and publishing e-books in the world and has undefined power and reach. Therefore it is very important for authors to advertise on Amazon. As e-books are the new way of reading especially in urban populations and among youngsters.

So any author can not deny the importance of digital platforms in today’s time and Kindle by Amazon is the leading platform. So to reach the target audience, an author must use “Amazon ads for authors” to market and promote their book.

Amazon ads for authors are part of Amazon’s advertising and marketing services. In 2018 Amazon marketing underwent a few changes and thus leading to “Amazon advertising”. An author via his Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) account can sell ebooks on the platform directly.

Do Amazon Ads Work For Books?

Well, advertisement always helps in lifting up the sales on whichever platform they are uprooted, be it digital or paper or audio format, etc. But as we all are aware of the fact for many authors, this platform is still new and they hesitate to put their work on digital platforms. But why do they feel so, why do they think that “Do Amazon ads work for books”?

The answer is yes, Amazon’s ads can really help in bringing the sales to a new high if you are aware of the little know-tows of the Amazon advertising. There are two main places where your ads will be seen running. They are as follows:

1. Search results for specific genre/keywords
2. On the product page, in also bought section

There are other ways too in which amazon will run your ads like in sponsored products related to items, similar items, more items by the same author/publisher, etc. But the above two mentioned places get the maximum traffic and footprint.

Not to forget that the process of amazon ads for authors needs time and practice to understand the details for optimum results. The authors who invest their time, learn and create their ads properly, are the ones who get immense benefits from Amazon advertising for authors.

Amazon ads for authors, can be learned on Amazon itself, with the help of Amazon ads masterclass for authors and amazon also offers free online tutorial to understand the process.

Amazon has basically two main types of ads for books:

• Sponsored product ads: these ads promote products which are searched by the ‘Keywords’ through the shopper. it also includes similar products category of the product or the same author.

• Lock screen ads: these ads are based on the interest of the shopper and they pop up when a shopper starts using the Kindle platform for reading or shopping.

In an advertisement, the main content/text is referred to as a Copy. So, for a successful Amazon ad for authors in the book domain needs to be crisp and short copy. Amazon gives a maximum of 150 characters to write down the copy. Also the placement of ads differ, they can appear either at top of the page or bottom or in between. The placement of the ad is dependent on keywords, Cost Per Click and applicability.

How Do I Advertise My Book on Amazon?

Amazon advertising enables the seller to sell anything from clothes to beauty products to books etc. There is a separate program for authors/writers on Amazon advertising which you can access via KDP dashboard. When you reach your KDP dashboard you will get an option in Kindle ebook actions termed “Promote and Advertise”. On clicking this option you get access to set up an ad campaign for the book.

Recently Amazon has opened other doors to advertise on their platform even if the author/writer does not have a KDP account. In this case, the author can log in to Author Central, then go to Reports + Marketing and look out for the Amazon ads yellow box. Then click the option “Go to ads console” and go ahead to advertise your book.

If the author chooses to create and run a sponsored ad, then he goes through a process called “dynamic bids”. Amazon ads for books in Amazon advertising give you three options for bidding which are: dynamic bids down only, dynamic bids up only and the last one is fixed bids. As the name suggests in fixed bids the author chooses the bid at a fixed value, but in dynamic bids the amount changes depending on the fact whether there will be a generation of a sale or not. This is decided by Amazon in a real time, dynamic bids help in lowering the cost per click and has better chances of more conversion rates i.e clicks into sales.

How much does it Cost to Advertise your Book on Amazon?

To advertise on amazon you can either choose a daily budget (for sponsored products) or a lifetime budget for lock screen ads. The budget for daily ads is $5 or above whereas in lifetime one it’s $100. The costing or expenditure on an ad is dependent on the choice of the author. One more important thing is the sponsored product ads are quite expensive especially if you do not choose any end date and will continue to run if not stopped manually. So, a high daily budget with no end date can lead to expensive Amazon ads for authors.

For placing ads on Amazon, authors should be aware of the CPC (Cost Per Click) or also known as “Pay Per Click”. CPC is the amount that an author bids when he creates an ad campaign and it donates the maximum value of the click. That means when a user clicks on your ad, the author will pay the bid amount that he has chosen.  The most effective way to decide CPC is to have multiple ads with low CPC rather than having one or two ads with higher CPC.

Suggested Read – Amazon Book Marketing Services

Amazon advertising also provides the details on a monthly basis about the sales. The Amazon advertising billing section is very clear and it shows how the author is spending. This can help the author to understand where he needs to cut down or increase the expenditure. Like if an author has multiple ads running and the ads getting least clicks by the consumer can be eradicated when the author is reviewing his billing section. Similarly, he can increase expenditure on the most clicked ad which is generating maximum sales for him.

There are no two ways about the power of advertisements, we have seen record-breaking numbers of sales if an ad clicks with the audience. With the digitalization ads have evolved too. Their reach has become enormous and that’s why they have become an inevitable part to promote and sell the product. Amazon is one of the biggest online platforms which caters to consumers and sellers. The Amazon advertisement programme is helping authors to reach the global audience at the click of a button and that’s why Amazon ads for authors have been on rise as it is able to shoot up the sales, the main aim of any advertisement.