AMAZON PUBLISHING
Email & Native Amazon Ads |Â 2014
Amazon Publishing is a service that provides authors the ability to self-publish their own eBooks and hardcover copies. My role involved creating emails and ads to merchandise thriller/mystery, romance, and children genres.
​
Top authors received book deals where their series are promoted through email and native ads on Amazon’s site. ​ The email and ad designs, copy, and tone are standardized to maintain Amazon’s brand. Copy was written in a direct, but sometimes smart and witty tone.
​
​ I determined segments based on customer’s purchase and viewing history. I conducted subject line A/B tests often to test promotions. Throughout my time at Amazon, I found that the most avid buyers were those of romance novels. Within my first 10 weeks, I generated $300,000 of revenue.
Read through my Amazon Publishing's marketing story
KINDLE EMAIL 1
This email featured a popular Amazon Publishing book, "The Woman on the Orient Express", for the historical fiction genre. This campaign sent users to a landing page with a selection of books by Amazon Publishing for $2 and under for historical fiction and related genres (e.g. historical romance). Targeting was determined by what books they viewed, genre pages visited, and purchase history of customers.
An insight I was able to glean through A/B tests was that open rates were generally higher the closer the price is to the beginning of the sentence. An example would be, "$2 for Historical Romance Books" vs. "Historical Romance Books for $2". This behavior was true for any genre.
KINDLE EMAIL 2
This was a promotional email for, "A Merciful Death", which is a book published by Amazon Publishing. Top authors received promotional packages with their book deals which included emails. These emails featured the book as the "hero" of the email. Some template made it the largest book cover image of the email.
Other books included with the "hero" of the email are selected based on being an Amazon Publishing book within the same or similar genre and having a high quantity of positive reviews. Non-Amazon Publishing books were likely featured if they were popular or award-winning books.
KINDLE AD 1
This was a “site stripe” placed at the top of every genre page to promote an Amazon Publishing book. Like emails, Amazon Publishing's authors also get native ads placed throughout the Kindle homepage and genre page due to their book deals. A designer used a standardized template to build an image for the display ad, which is targeted.
​
"Site stripes" were considered the most valuable ad placement due to its high visibility at the top of the page, custom display image, being a single placement, and had the highest clickthrough rate.
KINDLE AD 2
This was a “roto” and it was placed at the right-most column of that respective genre’s page to promote an Amazon Publishing author’s book. While emails and most ads had very structured and templated copy, the "roto" had a little more agency in writing copy that would pique an user's interest.
Every ad is targeted differently depending on the marketer's preference. I generally targeted by the number of times a user viewed a genre, their purchase history, dollar amount they had spent in the past, and a user's tendency to purchase per site visit. In-Device Ad: Marketers also have the ability to select titles they recommendations within the device. It is also targeted by the customer's genre preferences.
IN-DEVICE AD
I also had the ability to select titles I'd recommend users within their Amazon devices. It was also targeted by the customer's genre preferences, viewing and purchasing behavior.
