WHY DO DPV’S EXCEED CLICKS?
If you place an advertisement through Amazon Marketing Services (which authors can now do through KDP Select, for example), you may notice something odd.
You might see many more detail page views (DPV) than clicks.
What’s the difference between a detail page view and a click?
- CLICK: A customer clicks on your ad.
- DETAIL PAGE VIEW (DPV): A customer views your product page after clicking on your ad, without closing the browser.
How can the number of DPV’s exceed the number of clicks?
Suppose that a customer clicks on your ad, visits your product page, checks out another book, and then returns to your product page (all without closing the browser). This will result in 1 click and 2 DPV’s. If the customer leaves your product page and returns again (without closing the browser), there will be a third DPV. And so on.
This is actually pretty common. Here are a few examples.
- A customer checking out your book may click on one of the books on the customers-also-bought list, then return to your book later.
- A customer checking out your book may click on one of your other books on your Author Central page, then return to the advertised book later.
- A customer may click on the back button on the browser to finish checking out the previous page, then go forward to return to your product page.
Is this good or bad?
If you have 2-3 times as many DPV’s as clicks, I think this is a good sign.
It shows a lot of activity on your product page.
Customers are showing their interest.
So if you have a high DPV-to-click ratio, but not a high sales-to-click ratio, it’s worth studying your product page closely and thinking of how to improve it. Those DPV’s suggest that customers are interested, but something isn’t quite closing the deal. Your product page is close, but not quite.
If your DPV-to-click ratio is about 1 to 1, customers aren’t thinking much about it. If your sales-to-clicks ratio is also low, something is making customers want to check out your book, but then they’re giving up on it right away. Maybe the ad isn’t sending the right message. Reconsider your thumbnail and title.
Clicks can exceed DPV’s.
It’s also possible to have more clicks than detail page views:
- If a customer clicks on your ad, but closes the browser or goes elsewhere before the page fully loads, you’ll get a click, but no DPV. (This click still costs you money.)
- If a customer clicks on your ad, goes elsewhere before the page fully loads, and revisits your page after 30 minutes, you’ll get a click but not a DPV. (DPV isn’t tracked in this case because the page didn’t fully load initially.) (This click still costs you money.
Repeated clicks don’t count.
It’s nice to know that if a customer repeatedly clicks on your ad, those repeated clicks don’t count as clicks.
So you don’t have to pay extra for them.
So you don’t have to worry about a single customer seeing your ad several times, clicking on your ad each time, and racking up a nice bill for you.
How do I know this?
I emailed KDP support and hit the JACKPOT.
That’s right: the jackpot.
I’ve emailed KDP support dozens of times over the past six years, and this is by far the most thorough, thoughtful, researched, and even enthusiastic response I have ever received.
Yes, I said researched. KDP spent an extra few days researching my question to get it right.
The response included several examples clearly illustrating cases when there could be more DPV’s than clicks, and vice-versa.
Chris McMullen
Copyright © 2015
Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers
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- Volume 2 on marketability and marketing
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