Has anyone here found success with click-per-view ads?

I do almost nothing by way of advertisement for my indie books other than occasional posts on my blogs and elsewhere and mentions of whatever short story I am offering as a free promotion on any given month. (I tend to offer only three on a rotating basis.) As a consequence, paid sales are low and mostly involve my intellectual property book (and the audiobook version of my Mindscapes short story collection). It is my belief that marketing campaigns in the hundreds and thousands of dollars are far likelier to enrich the companies that run them than the authors that fund them--and I include costly book release packages in this. Yes, there are success stories, but these outliers are few and far between and simply help, for me at least, to prove the point that for the vast majority of indie authors in most subject areas (e.g., not zombie novels, romance, erotica and a handful of others) who do not have series of books to launch from or immediate name recognition in their indie fields, advertisement seldom pays (not even for itself).

Having said that, I do occasional book give-aways on Librarything and Goodreads and advertise from time to time on Goodreads as well. The results from these efforts have been negligible. I am unwilling to do the inexpensive but time consuming work of contacting independent book stores in the hopes of arranging book signings or to have them carry my books or engage in other direct selling efforts that I know can yield results but are not worth my time, even had I free time to pursue these activities. What I'd like to know is if anyone here has had success with other low-cost, low-impact marketing strategies through Google Ads or similar services. Please chime in.

Thanks!

I am so lazy, I haven't even tried. Sorry.

That's probably because you are wiser than I, Alice.

I tried facebook ads and amazon marketplace. The facebook ads cost the most, but only amounted to a few dollars. The amazon ads only amounted to a few cents there were so few clicks out of tens of thousands impressions! 

The overall results suggested that any increase in sales from spending more on ads would only cover the full cost of advertising. By the law of diminishing returns, it didn't seem to be worth it.

Thanks, Shelagh. I share your view as well, but I always wonder if I'm missing something. I didn't even know about Amazon Marketplace as an advertising medium--just knew about selling through AM. Since I took all of my titles off their "exclusive" list, sales there have dwindled further. So has my general opinion of Amazon as a distribution vehicle--I still buy LOTS of stuff from them, though, including books.

I buy tons of stuff from Amazon, but am worried about their drone deliveries