In continuing our conversation from last week – after launching an ad, you’ll receive an email letting you know it was submitted, including a note that the review process is usually completed within twenty-four hours (though could take up to three days). I received an email four hours later letting me know it was reviewed and accepted (look for the use of “eligible to be served”). There is also a note that it could take up to three days for the ad status to then change to ‘delivering’. I took this screenshot about twelve hours after the second email just as a visual to show you what to expect as we chat about what this means – it was already in delivery mode and had one impression.
As noted last week, you are not charged for impressions. An impression simply means that the ad showed up in someone’s view on the platform. The speaker noted that it is unlikely that you will see any clicks before the impressions have reached one- to two-thousand clicks.
You will be charged for clicks. This means someone clicked on the ad to see the page for your book. Hopefully, they continue on to actually buy your book. Below the bar chart in reports, you’ll see a table filled with all of the campaigns you are running. Here are the header rows:
The speaker recommends clicking on the columns dropdown menu and limiting the number of columns you see (partly to keep it from becoming overwhelming). They recommend keeping Impressions (number of times the ad was displayed), Spend (the total you’ve spent on the campaign), CPC (cost per clicks), and Sales (total sales resulting from the ad). There are a number of notes letting you know it can take a few days to update – so a sale that occurs today may not show until a couple days later. The speaker also noted that the Sales column isn’t always super accurate, and that it’s best to keep an eye on your KDP sales reports (or order report if your book promo includes the prices set to free).
The speaker recommends $0.34/$0.39 for these initial ads to keep cost low while you get a handle on things. You may opt to change this default bid (but remember – be realistic on what you can spend because it’s not a guarantee that clicks will lead to sales; if you are getting a lot of clicks but only a couple sales, you’ll likely want to revisit your metadata, keywords, book blurb/cover, etc.).
When it comes to figuring out actual profit versus ad spend, make sure you look at BOTH the ad platform (for total spent) and the KDP platform (for the total sales) – and make sure you pick the same time period for both spots.
You also want to consider how many clicks it takes to make an actual sale (does it take ten clicks? a hundred?). If it takes on average ten clicks to make a sale, you are spending $3.40 or $3.90 to make that sale – compare this to your royalties earned for that sale. (You’ll want to do this over several months to get a better average number of clicks.) If you are spending more on those ads/clicks than you are making in royalties, it’s time to review things like metadata, your ad set up, maybe even your blurb and cover. (According to the speaker, the hope is to achieve a sale every six to eight clicks.) As you start to tweak things, remember to only change a couple things at a time so that you can better track what resulted in any bumps in sales.
Second Generation Ads (Category and Keyword ads specifically): After you have a number impressions and clicks, you can run reports that will show you which keywords were gaining those clicks. You can mine these initial ads (which, again, the speaker initially recommends 100-150 keywords) and narrow down to the keywords getting clicks – and then run another ad with only those keywords.
Third Generation Ads: Repeat this process to further narrow your keywords by running reports for which keywords your second gen ads to see which keywords were getting the most clicks. The speaker noted that you might be able to get down to about ten keywords – but these are the keywords that will work hardest to get you clicks.
The first ad I ran was the auto-sponsored ad, which was the first we went over last week. It ran for two weeks. My default bid was $0.34, and I set the daily budget for two bucks. (I was just learning the process, so I started low.) I ended up with 919 Impressions and one click, which cost $0.08 (remember that ‘dynamic bids – down only we clicked?). This click occurred on the last day of the ad run.
My second ad ran for two weeks. This was a Sponsored Product Category Ad. It again ran for two weeks, but I added my own list of keywords (I did not include a hundred keywords – my list was shorter) and ad copy*.
*Ad Copy: At the start of the challenge, they sent a list of video titles for each day – which implied they would address ad copy several days in a row – but it ended up being on brief fifteen-minute overview. If you’ve ever submitted to a Twitter Pitch Fest (specifically before they double the characters possible), this advice from the speaker will sound the same.
For fiction, answer three questions – What does the MC want? What stands in their way? What happens if they don’t get it? Be concise.
For nonfiction, ask a (positive) question. Pitch your book as the solution.
The speaker recommends writing five variations so that you can get to the best possible iteration. Then work on word economy – you only have, after all, 149 characters for this.
When you create an ad (as we walked through last week), instead of choosing ‘Standard Ad’ under “Ad Format,’ leave ‘Custom Text Ad’ checked. After you pick your product (i.e. book), a ‘Creative’ box will appear lower down. This box provides a textbox and a preview of what the ad will look like with the text. Copy/paste your text into the textbox, and the preview will update with it.
Ami Maxine 