Putting the Pirate Metrics into practice

Following my post last week, I thought it may be beneficial to dig a bit deeper into how I am using the funnel to test my marketing efforts with the Salt Test using Amazon Advertising.  

My goal for Amazon Advertising is to have a reliable, consistent, and cost-effective method to promote the book. To put ‘cost-effective’ into numbers, I want my Advertising Cost of Sale (ACOS) to be below 30%. That means, for every sale, the cost to convert that sale is less than 30% of the book price.  

Looking at my recent tests, my ACOS is currently above 100%, which means I am making a loss on my advertising revenue. At first glance, it doesn’t look like a great channel, but I do have some leavers I can pull. For example, I can drop my advertising bid price. However, that will likely decrease the number of impressions I get on Amazon (think Awareness in the Pirate Metrics). That isn’t what I currently want. If anything, I want to increase my awareness. 

There are several other levers I can pull though. I could drop the price, or change the copy of the book, both of which seem a bit extreme at this point. Another option is to change the product description on the Amazon page. My hypothesis is that an ‘improved’ product description will convert more sales when someone lands on The Salt Test page. Working with the numbers, a shift by a few percent will have a significant difference on the ACOS, with the goal to get me down to less than 30%.  

Thinking back to the marketing funnel, I am focussing my efforts on converting Activation to Revenue, while keeping the same Awareness at the top. If I can get this right, I may even be able to increase my bid price, improving my awareness, which will generate more sales, while keeping my ACOS below 30%.  

Let’s see how it goes!

Using the Pirate Metrics and the Marketing Funnel for the Salt Test