Joseph Alexander - Learn Amazon Ads: Use AMS to Find More Readers and Sell More Books

Not everything we want to show you can be described in words.

For a free video masterclass where Mark will take you through the process of setting up your first Amazon ad, together with additional tips on finding keywords and scaling your successful ads, please go to:

selfpublishingformula.com/amazonads

Of all the marketing avenues available to independently published authors, Amazon Advertising (previously AMS) is proving to be one of the most direct and lucrative programs in the world.

The idea of Amazon ads is simple: you show targeted adverts to people on Amazon.com who are searching for books that are similar to your own. Unlike other forms of traditional advertising, you only pay when someone actually clicks your advert and views your product page.

This guide takes you through the process of enrolling in Amazon Advertising, setting up your first advert, using keywords, targeting adverts, and optimising your product page for conversions. You will also learn to understand your Amazon Advertising reports and monitor your adverts success.

We will also discuss the difference in approaches when using Amazon ads for fiction and non-fiction titles, and well give you a guide to best practices for each genre.

Until recently, there was no way for authors to advertise their work directly on Amazon. Many writers rely on Facebook advertising, Google Adwords, mailing lists, and more traditional methods, such as book tours, newspapers, and guest blogging. While many of these methods have merit (especially Facebook marketing), the difficulty is that the author must drive the viewer to a different website while simultaneously creating enough interest to turn that viewer into a customer.

Think about itwhen was the last time you visited Facebook because you were interested in buying a book?

The massive advantage you have when running adverts directly on Amazon is that the potential customer is alreadyin a buying frame of mind. The very fact that that they are on Amazon.com means they have the intention of spending money. You dont have to convert them into a buying frame of mind.

If you can show them the right product at the right time, they are much more likely to become a customer. The potential to cut out other mediums such as Facebook or Google means a more direct sales path for the customer and a much higher conversion rate for your adverts.

Another, often overlooked, feature of Amazon Advertising is that they are Pay Per Click. This means that you can have hundreds of thousands of impressions on Amazon for free! Think what that could do for your brand awareness. If no one clicks on your advert, you dont pay. Compare that to the potential cost of a TV advertisement that is shown to everyone in their living room, and think about how many people wont be interested in buying the product that a company is spending millions of dollars promoting.

While brand awareness shouldnt be the main goal of Amazon Advertising, it is an undeniable benefit to the author. You serve relevant adverts to people who are already pre-qualified to be interested in your books. They become aware of your product even if they dont click your advert.

Finally, Amazon adverts are quick to create, theyre easy to test, and they can cost as little as $1 a day. This is an extremely cheap way to test out hundreds of potential campaigns and find what works for you.

A mazon adverts display on both the search results pages and competing authors product pages. Here are two of my adverts that appear on Amazon when you search for Guitar Technique in Books:

These adverts appear at the bottom of the search results list.

As you can see, adverts include an image of the book that is automatically populated by Amazon and a short, 150-character blurb that is written when creating the advert. The advert also automatically populates the current price of the book in both the Kindle and paperback format and shows the number of reviews the book has received.

When the adverts show on competing authors product pages (or indeed, even on your own titles), they appear below the Customers Also Bought row. The following image shows a competitors book on blues guitar. As you can see, plenty of my books appear in the also bought row, but below that you can see that the Sponsored Products row contains eight of my other titles!

In the introduction, I mentioned that Amazon Advertising was a great way to increase product awareness on Amazon. This is exactly what I meant. Even if the customer doesnt click my advert, my branding and titles will continue to appear in front of them and it doesnt cost me a penny.

The next image shows my Amazon adverts appearing on my own product page. This is a great way to convince a customer who is unsure whether to purchase your title. Not only can they see the reviews and product description for their chosen book, they can see reviews and information about the other titles in my series. If they have never come across my titles before, they are suddenly made aware that there is a whole range of well-received and reviewed books in my portfolio.