Should Authors Advertise Their Own Books on Amazon?: A Guide for Traditionally Published & Self-Published Authors
Although Amazon advertising has been available to book publishers for 10 years and self-published KDP authors for about 7 years, it only recently became an option for any author who is registered with Amazon’s Author Central.
This announcement, made on March 10, 2022, prompted many authors to ask questions like:
“Should I pay to promote my books on Amazon?”
“Doesn’t advertising fall under my publisher’s realm of responsibility?”
“What is my publisher doing to promote my books on Amazon?”
“How much is my publisher spending on Amazon Ads for my books?”
“How good is my publisher at running Amazon Ads?”
Since we manage Amazon Ads as a service for book publishers and individual authors (along with other markets outside of publishing as well), we’ve received inquiries from authors and from our publisher partners who want to know the best way to answer these questions.
This article was written as a resource for our partners, and we hope it gives you the clarity you’re looking for.
Do Amazon Ads Matter?
Let’s start with a basic, overarching question: “Are Amazon Ads necessary?” Are they important? Do they even matter? Or should publishers and authors focus only on other methods for discoverability and sales?
“The entire above-the-fold real estate on search results pages is ads”
The short answer is, “Yes, Amazon Ads matter!” They matter because, when a reader is searching for their next book on Amazon, they usually click on one of the first search results.
But the entire “above-the-fold” real estate (that’s a term for what you see on your screen before you start scrolling down) on search results pages is ads.
Here are some examples, starting with a search for “Parenting Books.”
The top row of 3 books is part of a Sponsored Brand campaign from one publisher and the next row of 4 books are all individual Sponsored Product ads.
There aren’t any “organic” search results showing up above the fold. None of the 7 book covers in the screenshot above are there because their sales history or relevance to the customer’s search earned them that spot.
But, is this unique to searches for “Parenting Books”? Let’s try a search for “Cookbooks.”
We see the same thing - a Sponsored Brand ad with 3 books from one publisher followed by a row of 4 individual Sponsored Product ads. No “organic” search results are shown.
What about searches for “Thriller Books”?
What about searches for “Self Help Books”?
We could continue to list examples, but most book-related search results pages look like the screenshots above.
Since people usually click on the books they see before they scroll down the page, it is vital to secure one of those top spots and you can only get them with an ad.
“Having the best book on a given subject is no longer enough to secure top-of-page placement in search results. ”
Amazon has increasingly become more of a pay-to-play retailer. Having the best book on a given subject is no longer enough to secure top-of-page placement in search results.
Amazon’s product detail pages, category browsing pages, customer emails, and display network are also interspersed with Amazon Ads, making it more important than ever to have a strategy for leveraging this retailer/ad channel in any book marketing plan.
So, yes, Amazon Ads matter. They make a big difference. That’s why we’ve chosen to invest so much of our agency’s time and attention on this ad channel.
Should Authors Run Their Own Amazon Ads?
But should authors run these ads on their own? That’s a complicated question to answer, but here are 4 factors to consider:
Factor #1: Is your publisher currently running ads for your book(s)?
Most of the Amazon Ad campaign types are PPC (pay per click), meaning that you bid a specific amount that you’re willing to pay for each relevant click. This creates a problem if you are bidding on the same searches and targets that your publisher is bidding on for your book(s). You will drive each other’s bids up, and both of your ads will suffer as a result.
Generally speaking, if your publisher is currently running ads, it’s not recommended to compete with them.
Factor #2: Are you experienced in ad management software?
Amazon Ads are complicated. There are hundreds of ways to structure a campaign, and if you don’t know which levers to pull, best practices to apply, campaign types to use, or settings to adjust, you will make poor ad investments.
Even Amazon’s “Automatic” campaigns have many settings to fine-tune and ways to optimize them.
Plus, Amazon is always changing, expanding, and testing ways to improve its ad channel, meaning that new features need to be explored, new best practices need to be established, and bugs need to be worked around until they are fixed.
We’ve spoken with many authors and book publishing companies who dabbled in Amazon Ads and after a few failed attempts, wrote off the ad channel as ineffective. That’s a shame. Had those authors and book publishers applied best practices to ad setup and optimization, their campaigns would’ve looked very different!
Some authors who have a background in software and ad management may be able to do a fine job with their own ads, but often, the agency that your publisher uses to manage Amazon Ads (or their internal team, if that’s the route they’ve chosen) will have more experience to apply best practices and invest your money effectively.
Factor #3: Has your publisher demonstrated expertise in managing Amazon Ads?
Have you spoken with your publishing company about their Amazon Ad strategy? If not, we recommend starting there.
Ask your main contact about their Amazon Ad strategies. Do they have confidence in this ad channel? What percentage of their ad budget for your book(s) goes to Amazon? What campaign types and targeting strategies are they implementing? What trends and shifts are they seeing in Amazon Ads?
Ask them specific questions about how they define success, like:
What do they consider a healthy ACOS (Average Cost of Sale)?
What do they consider a healthy CPC (Cost Per Click)?
How do the ads for your books compare with their benchmarks and averages?
Your publisher’s answers to these questions will help you gauge whether you should leave Amazon Ads to them or if you should consider taking them on yourself.
Factor #4: Have you published with multiple companies?
There is one campaign type that allows for 3 books to be promoted prominently at the top of search results pages. These are called Sponsored Brand ads. We referenced them earlier in the screenshots above.
In addition to the 3 books shown within the ad, customers can click through to a page where more of your books can be listed (dozens can be added).
Sponsored Brand Ads are an expensive, but very effective campaign type, so they are recommended, but if you’d like to have all of your books present across multiple publishers, you’ll need to do this through your own author ads.
Conclusion
Since Amazon Ads are so crucial to your book’s discoverability and sales, we highly recommend integrating them into your marketing strategy, but the question of who should run them will vary based on your answers to the 4 factors above.
Regardless of whether you, your book publisher, or an agency is tasked with setting up, monitoring, and optimizing Amazon Ads, it would be worthwhile to get familiar with the basics of this important ad channel.
Learn the main ways ads can intercept customers, understand the core metrics and benchmarks, and don’t give up until you see profitable results.
The following FAQ section attempts to provide more insights, but if you have any questions or would like to explore a way for Amplify to partner with you and/or your publisher, feel free to reach out.
FAQ’s
-
We have a short article dedicated to this important question.
-
The amount that should be invested in Amazon Ads for a given book will vary based on your goals, total ad budget, the strength of your digital platform, and the unique market for your book.
Daily ad spend can be as low as $2-5 (or less) and as high as $100 or more.
-
In most cases, we recommend starting pre-order campaigns 2 weeks before the pub date, but there are exceptions.
If you are a self-published KDP author, pre-order ads are not available.
If you are a NYT bestselling author, we recommend starting ads earlier (1-3 months before release) because the conversion rate for books by bestselling authors is usually strong enough to justify the early investment in ads.
Pre-orders will also help with getting on the NYT bestseller list since the sales are all attributed during launch week.
Another factor to consider is avoiding the dreaded “Out of Stock” status during the first month of your book’s release.
This is one of the worst death blows to an ad campaign (rivaled only by early 1-star reviews), and one of the best ways to avoid out-of-stock issues is to use pre-order ads to generate enough pre-orders for Amazon to increase their initial buy-in.
Even if the conversion rate is lower and the cost per sale is higher, the trade-off of avoiding out-of-stock issues is often worthwhile.
-
The conversion rate is usually higher after the publication date, so we typically recommend investing the majority of your ad budget in the first 30 days after release.
This is when you can gain momentum by earning bestseller status as a new release in a variety of relevant categories. Those “#1 New Release” flags increase discoverability and conversion.
-
Please see this short article about what is called “brand-bidding.”
-
We’ve written a concise article about 10 common objections to Amazon Ads. It would be good to be aware of these prior to discussing this ad strategy with your publisher.
-
If you decide that it is best to run Amazon Ads yourself, but you aren’t confident in your ability to do it, you can hire an experienced Amazon Ad agency to set up the ads and optimize them for you.
A variety of partnership models are available including short-term (i.e., just for the pre-order and launch month), seasonal (peak seasons), or long-term ongoing ad management.
Contact us if you’d like to explore a partnership with Amplify.
Client Testimonials
“Amplify Marketing has been our partner on Amazon ads, as well as a host of social media platform campaigns. It is refreshing to work with a trustworthy, results-oriented firm such as Amplify Marketing Services. The Amplify team will put their deep knowledge of PPC to work for your organization.”
“Franklin and his team have helped to significantly increased sales through our primary sales channels. They work extremely hard, are highly creative and have accomplished more that we expected.”
“Amplify makes a big difference! They're also responsive and thorough. I highly recommend working with them!”
“Thorough, creative, professional - genuine experts at what they do as well as being great communicators and very easy to work with. Highly recommended.”