Well, almost half a million impressions, actually. I’ve been experimenting with Amazon advertising (AMS), figuring out how to target my audience through selecting the right combinations of key words, along with the right wording on my ads and the right bids. There are quite a few metrics and trends to monitor and tweak, but the first thing to try and achieve is impressions: which is the number of times my ad is displayed when someone is searching for something similar to my books on Amazon. I currently have around eight campaigns running, and I’ve abandoned a further six. Each time I’ve managed to improve the number of impressions that the campaign is generating. And today I passed the 500,000 mark since starting advertising just over a month ago.
But generating impressions is just the first step. The next thing is to get people to click on my ad. That’s referred to as the click-through-rate, or CTR. My CTRs are also improving. My first ads got 1 click for every 1000 impressions. Now I’m getting 2 to 3. But the final thing is to get people to then purchase. Since starting advertising, I’ve sold eight books. That’s eight more than I sold in the whole year prior!
Whilst that is hugely encouraging, I’m still a long way off making any profit out of this. At the moment, I’m spending more on ads than I’m making in sales. But my stats are improving. And hopefully, as reviews start getting posted, it will help people choose to buy my books.
I feel like I’m getting the hang of this. Hopefully it turns out I’m making the right impressions!
