Alex StrathdeeShould you advertise in Canada? (Amazon.CA)
Updated: Apr 7, 2021
Anyone else remember receiving this email from Amazon?
August 25th - the day Amazon opened up the Canadian and Australian borders to foreign authors to advertise their books. The ones who jumped in immediately saw huge returns in a blue ocean of untapped readers. 7 months later - is this still the case?
Should you be advertising your book on Amazon in Canada (Amazon.ca)?
I’ll give it away here: Yes - try everything always. I also wrote an article on targeting with various languages, which you can read here. But in case that’s not convincing enough, I performed a study to give you more insight into what you might be able to expect crossing the advertising border to Canada. Being an Aussie myself, I don’t know anyone who uses Amazon there so I personally haven’t tried out the market yet but will do so soon just to verify. I’m from a very small town in Northern Australia that freaked out when we got our first traffic light somewhat recently so it might just be that it hasn’t reached such remote parts yet.
I pulled spend, sales, and orders across 12 books on how they performed in the US and CA during the first 30 days.
To perform the study I set up identical campaigns (One common word targeting, One Auto Targeting) in each market to see which would perform better. I give a little hint to the genre without giving it away too much for author privacy but enough so you get the idea for what books might work better in the Canadian market. I also am only reporting on the first 30 days in the market since all books have run for different lengths of time in each market.
12 books aren’t a huge sample size, so I wouldn’t take it at face value but it should be useful as a guide for whether or not Canada may be a good market for you to explore.
And awayyy we go.
Here is the raw data -
Book 1: Personal Coming of Age Memoir
US Market
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $2.24
Sales: $26.96
Orders: 2
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $233.69
Sales: $401.11
Orders: 34
CA Market (CAD)
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $0.52
Sales: $0
Orders: 0
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $14.63
Sales: $18.84
Orders: 2
Book 2: Self Help
US Market
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $0.42
Sales: $0
Orders: 0
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $80.27
Sales: $263.44
Orders: 24
CA Market (CAD)
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $2.28
Sales: $0
Orders: 0
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $65.73
Sales: $220.15
Orders: 14
Book 3 - Self Help
US Market
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $0.14
Sales: $12.97
Orders: 1
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $139.61
Sales: $248.37
Orders: 33
CA Market (CAD)
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: N/A
Sales: N/A
Orders: N/A
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $24.26
Sales: $32.52
Orders: 5
Book 4 - Children's Fiction
US Market
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $8.80
Sales: $29.42
Orders: 2
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $85.81
Sales: $292.00
Orders: 20
CA Market (CAD)
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $0.88
Sales: $20.69
Orders: 1
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $55.17
Sales: $147.20
Orders: 8
Book 5 - Professional Memoir
US Market
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $1.85
Sales: $0
Orders: 0
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $84.54
Sales: $45.93
Orders: 7
CA Market (CAD)
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $1.43
Sales: $0
Orders: 0
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $162.14
Sales: $125.61
Orders: 17
Book 6 - Self Help
US Market
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $0.12
Sales: $0
Orders: 0
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $24.72
Sales: $89.55
Orders: 9
CA Market (CAD)
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $.28
Sales: $0
Orders: 0
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $43.06
Sales: $59.92
Orders: 5
Book 7 - Self Help
US Market
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $1.43
Sales: $0
Orders: 0
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $20.47
Sales: $55.93
Orders: 7
CA Market (CAD)
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: N/A
Sales: N/A
Orders: N/A
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $54.49
Sales: $32.39
Orders: 4
Book 8 - International Policy
US Market
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $11.25
Sales: $24.96
Orders: 4
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $122.54
Sales: $234.68
Orders: 32
CA Market (CAD)
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $1.54
Sales: $0
Orders: 0
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $15.25
Sales: $40.08
Orders: 6
Book 9 - Spiritual
US Market
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $80.64
Sales: $166.69
Orders: 15
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $396.73
Sales: $1223.06
Orders: 98
CA Market (CAD)
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $59.16
Sales: $126.35
Orders: 10
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $52.3
Sales: $250.23
Orders: 18
Book 10 - Health
US Market
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $0.31
Sales: $29.94
Orders: 1
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $72.44
Sales: $395.05
Orders: 32
CA Market (CAD)
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $0.49
Sales: $0
Orders: 0
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $15.92
Sales: $13.42
Orders: 2
Book 11 - Writing Reference
US Market
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $0.40
Sales: $0
Orders: 0
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $31.83
Sales: $51.24
Orders: 4
CA Market (CAD)
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $0.02
Sales: $0
Orders: 0
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $41.66
Sales: $51.15
Orders: 5
Book 12 - Outdoor
US Market
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $4.42
Sales: $38.85
Orders: 3
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $120.67
Sales: $390.64
Orders: 31
CA Market (CAD)
Campaign A - first 30 days
Spend: $0.5
Sales: $0
Orders: 0
Campaign B - first 30 days
Spend: $66.5
Sales: $202.63
Orders: 14
Here is that data in a Google sheet with totals adjusted to US Dollars
Now when you combine Campaign A and Campaign B totals for the first 30 days, here is what you get.
Alright, so what is the significance of these numbers?
More than 1/3rd of total sales came from the Canadian Market and 1/5th of all orders were in Canada with profitability identical to that of the US.
Let's put this another way. Canada has 11% of the population of the US and accounted for almost 36% of sales. The land that brought us Justin Ryan Reynolds, William Shatner, and Shania Twain is also a land full of avid readers, so it would seem. If you run ads in Canada and they aren't working - you may want to check out this article on the Top 9 Reasons Why.
Do as you may with this information. I also cover all foreign markets and which ones you should be advertising in my new 2021 Amazon Advertising Author Masterclass.