We’re here to save you the trouble of searching, and give you an overview of Amazon Advertising so that you can spend more time writing.
Advertising with Amazon allows you to “get your message infront of 285 million active paid customer accounts worldwide, connect with customers at the right stage in their shopping journey, use ads that integrate with Amazon’s trusted brand, [and] track and improve your campaign performance with transparent reporting” (Amazon, 2017).
We liked Amazon’s promise that “whatever your goals, Amazon Advertising can help you reach them” and their encouragement to “build awareness of your brand, boost sales of your products or service, or drive traffic to your website” so we took a look at their self-serve advertising solutions (Amazon, 2017).
Amazon offers self-service-pay-per-click solutions and also encourages customers “to contact an Amazon Advertising consultant about premium online and offline ad experiences.” Premium advertising solutions appear to be more geared towards more experienced advertisers or agencies and offer Display, Programmatic and Kindle and Fire products/services (Amazon, 2017).
That sounds great! But how can authors actually make sense of and use Amazon ads to help increase their visibility and sales?
Among other options, your ads may appear as banner ads, side bar placements, bottom of the screen sponsored ads, and/or cross-platform landing pages on the website and Amazon’s mobile apps. Some cool things to note about Amazon’s advertising options are that you only pay when a shopper clicks your ad, you can update your keywords and/or budget at any time, and Amazon offers metrics so that you can “fine tune your ads to maximize sales and reach new customers” (Amazon, 2017). They also have some sweet promos right now for $$ in free clicks when you get started. To further explain Pay-Per-Click (PPC) for those who are not familiar with it, it is a “type of paid advertising where ads display at no charge – ad impressions, or views, are free, and the advertiser is only charged when a customer clicks on the ad” (Amazon, 2017).
On to the part that we’re most excited about, Amazon specifically has advertising solutions for books, featuring the tagline “Attract readers. Build fans. Sell books” (Amazon, 2017). We like these words. The key features that Amazon advertises for authors and their representatives include “promote titles alongside similar books and authors, feature new releases to drive sales as soon as they publish, run continuous backlist campaigns to attract new readers, [and] target readers by keyword, product or interest – including related genres, titles, or authors” (Amazon, 2017). Campaign budgets start at $100.00 and Amazon Marketing Services has a video that you can check out here. Amazon recommends “at least 60 days’ campaign length to give the ads the chance to get measurable campaign results” and states that “the average daily budget minimum is $1 per day” (Amazon, 2017).
Amazon does have ad specs and policies as well as thorough brand usage guidelines you should check out. Here’s one about “branded buttons” that we found interesting:
More of the same follows regarding rules about brand phrases, Amazon capitalization & punctuation, as well as logos and imagery guidelines.
Amazon presents that the perks for customers and advertisers are “more precise and relevant ads, enhancing their experience” and “delivery of the right message to the right shopper at the right time” (Amazon, 2017). Additionally, “In a recent survey, customers chose Amazon as having the most trustworthy ads 47% more often than the average of the top six sites on the web” (Amazon, 2017).
In March, Amazon also introduced video ads where “the autoplay starts only when the ad is in view, and it automatically pauses when the ad goes out of view. Based on early testing, we’re finding that this placement performs best with strong, visually compelling content – ideally in the first five seconds – and that the optimal length is 15 seconds or less” (Amazon, 2017). That is definitely something to consider! You can learn more about video ads here.
So, if you’d like to “harness the power of ecommerce” with Amazon, we encourage you to read everything in more detail, and to get started by setting up your Amazon vendor account (Amazon, 2017). Amazon Marketing Services “are currently available to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) authors and books vendors with a retail relationship.” Not sure if you’re a vendor? Here’s where you can learn more about how to become one (Amazon, 2017).
To learn more about getting started, pricing, and eligibility, my recommendation is to start with FAQs and Amazon’s Advertising Blog.
As always, feel free to contact us with your questions and experiences, and remember, if you don’t want to do this yourself, we can do it for you.
Good luck with your writing!
Cheers,
Laurie & The Pub-Craft Team
Source(s)
Amazon (2017). Reach shoppers who are ready to buy. Amazon Advertising. Retrieved from https://advertising.amazon.com/products-self-serve?ref_=toggle
Amazon (2017). Advertise your brand with solutions across devices and offline. Amazon Advertising. Retrieved from https://advertising.amazon.com/products-premium?ref_=toggle
Amazon (2017). Drive sales and increase visibility with book advertising. Amazon Advertising. Retrieved from https://advertising.amazon.com/lp/books
Amazon (2017). Help more shoppers discover and buy your products. Amazon Marketing Services. Retrieved from https://ams.amazon.com/
Amazon (2017). Help Center. Amazon Vendor Central. Retrieved from https://vendorcentral.amazon.com/st/vendor/public/help?topicId=200237340
Amazon (2017). FAQs. Amazon Advertising. Retrieved from https://advertising.amazon.com/lp/books-faq?ref_=subnav
Amazon (2017). FAQs. Amazon’s advertising blog. Amazon Advertising. Retrieved from https://advertising.amazon.com/blog
Amazon (2017). Introducing Amazon Video Ads. Amazon Advertising. Retrieved from https://advertising.amazon.com/blog/amazonvideoads
