Amazon Attribution – My Initial Results

Hey,

I first started using Amazon Attribution tracking links in my Facebook Ads on October 3rd, so I've had them in place for just over 3 weeks now.

And today, I thought I'd share my initial thoughts, findings and best practices with you.

If you don't have Amazon Attribution setup yet with your Facebook Ads, I highly recommend doing so ASAP. You can watch my free walk-through video on setting up Amazon Attribution here.

Let's dive into it...

#1: Data Lag

Let's first address the elephant in the room. There is a definite lag in the data coming into the Amazon Attribution dashboard, which is to be expected, especially whilst this new tool is in Beta.

With time, I would hope the data lag improves, but as it stands, I'm finding it's taking 24-36 hours for the data to stabilize in Amazon Attribution.

Not a huge issue, but it does mean you'll have to wait longer than you might like to see if your Facebook Ads are actually working (i.e. converting into orders and/or borrows).

#2: Expect Some Unsatisfactory Results

You may be disappointed in the conversions you're seeing in your Amazon Attribution dashboard (I know I have been on some days).

Whether this is some form of data loss, or just variance in Ad performance (which does happen), I don't know. But I've had some days where the Facebook Ads generated 2 orders and other days, where they generated 25 orders, as you can see from the screenshot below.

But use this data to optimize your Facebook Ads accordingly.

#3: Setting Up Your Amazon Attribution Links

I've found this to be a relatively seamless process, to be honest, as you'll see from the Amazon Attribution setup video here.

Once you get your head around the difference between Campaigns and Ad Groups and how to structure those according to your Facebook Ads Campaigns and Ad Sets and Ads, it becomes second nature.

#4: Add All Books In A Series To Each Link

This is more of a best practice than an observation...

To help with full attribution, I 100% recommend that you attach all books in a series to each link.

For example, if you're advertising Book 1 of a 5-book series with Facebook Ads, I would suggest attaching all 5 books to each individual Amazon Attribution link where you're sending people to Book 1 of your series.

This way, when someone clicks on your Facebook Ad for Book 1, but purchases Book 2 instead, or borrows Book 3 as part of their Kindle Unlimited subscription, these orders and page reads will still be attributable to that Facebook Ad for Book 1.

On top of this, continuing with the same example as above, if someone buys or borrows Book 1 directly from your Facebook Ad, and within the 14-day attribution window, buys or borrows Book 2 of the series (or any other book in that series), these orders and borrows will be attributable to that Facebook Ad too.

By setting up your Amazon Attribution links this way, you'll benefit from seeing read-through data, which is incredibly valuable.

#5: Create A Unique Amazon Attribution Link For Each Ad

Rather than having one Amazon Attribution link for each Facebook Ad Set or Campaign, create one specific link for each individual Ad.

Yes, it takes a little extra setup time and more time to look at the data, but this way, you'll know how each specific Ad is performing and therefore, be able to turn off the poor performers and double-down on the winners.

This is priceless data that can save you $100's, even $1,000's of dollars per month, depending on how much you're spending on Facebook Ads.

#6: Using Amazon Attribution Links With Old Facebook Ads

I have a couple of Facebook Ads that have been running for 2-3 months now which aren't using Amazon Attribution links, so I can't track the orders and page reads these Ads are generating.

If I were to change the links in these Ads to Amazon Attribution links, I would lose all the social proof on them (currently at around 10,000 reactions and 3,000 comments).

I'm spending £90 ($105 approx) per day on these 2 Ads, so I'm not overly keen on dropping these just yet until I build up the data of the new Ads I'm working on that do have the Amazon Attribution links.

So, if you have Ads with lots of social proof that you don't want to lose, then, unfortunately, you're going to have to live without the tracking data.

Social proof is great and definitely helps with CPCs, CTRs, conversions, etc, but we're sacrificing their tracking capability and don't know for sure if they are actually working.

That's a risk you'll have to take though if, like me, you don't want to lose the social proof.

To Wrap Up...

I can honestly say, without a shadow of a doubt, that using Amazon Attribution has dramatically improved the performance of the Facebook Ads I'm running for my wife's books:

Rankings before Amazon Attribution:

Amazon.com: 2,500 - 4,000

Amazon.co.uk: 5,000 - 10,000

Rankings with Amazon Attribution:

Amazon.com: 1,000 - 2,000

Amazon.co.uk: 500 - 2,000

And the reason for this? I know what my Facebook Ads are doing. I'm not guessing, which is what we were doing before Amazon Attribution.

I hope you've found this little roundup useful and have some takeaways you can implement into your Amazon Attribution/Facebook Ads.

To learn how to set up Amazon Attribution for your Facebook Ads (or any other form of off-Amazon marketing/advertising for that matter), I've created a video walking you through the process step-by-step here.

To Your Success
– Matt