The Optimization Goal

Once you’ve polished your book, crafted a book page that sings to your target audience, nailed your research for the right targets, and set your campaigns running (phew, just writing that made me need a coffee!) — what’s the next step?

Let’s not sugarcoat it: Amazon is a bustling marketplace. There are millions of books jostling for attention, and only a few make it to the spotlight. To tip the scales in your favor, we need to maximize two key things: getting seen (impressions) and getting clicked (interactions).

Why? Because both pave the road to what we all want: purchases and/or reads!

The Secret to Maximizing Success: Break Even Goals

BooksFlyer’s optimization approach is inspired by expert advice (shoutout to Ricardo Fayet) and tried-and-true results we’ve seen ourselves. The magic formula? Aim to break even—cover your ad spend with the revenue you generate from ads.

But why break even?

• Competitive bids are key. Since Amazon asks for competitive bids, we want to give it as much as we can, without cannibalising our total revenue.

• Snowball effect. If your book resonates with its audience, this visibility feeds into overall sales and page reads, boosting your rankings and revenue.

Standalones: A Clear Goal

For standalone books, the math is simple. Aim for your ad revenue (as displayed in the Amazon Ads dashboard) to match your ad spend.

Series: Choose Your Strategy

Advertising a series? Here’s where things get a little trickier. Your break-even goal depends on how you approach the campaigns:

1. Advertise only Book 1 in the series. If you aim to break even solely on Book 1’s revenue, it’s going to be tough to stay competitive. Instead, factor in the revenue from read-through—the sales and page reads from subsequent books in the series. This gives you a more realistic break-even point, even if it won’t show up directly in your Amazon Ads dashboard.

2. Advertise all books in the series. By promoting multiple books in the series, a portion of your read-through revenue will be reflected in your Amazon Ads dashboard. In this case, you can aim to break even based on immediate ad revenue, similar to the standalone strategy.

💡 Pro Tip: Deciding whether to advertise just Book 1 or the entire series can be a bit of a challenge. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, but I’ve shared some tips here. 

Next steps

Now that we understand the break-even goal, it’s time to configure BooksFlyer’s metrics to align with your strategy.

P.S.: Thinking of mixing books from different series or formats in the same campaign? Resist the urge. Keep things organized to ensure your campaigns are optimized effectively.