# AMS Ads Learning



## Harald

****ALERT: long initial post****
*+ NOTE: all kinds of interesting info in the pages below. Just a few guideposts:*
-- My 2-month update: Message #73, bottom Page 3
-- Discussion about creating a Series ad (no can do!) starts on Page 4
-- Discussion about scaling up by increasing daily budget starts on Page 7
-- Discussion about running simultaneous ads and testing ad copy around Page 13
-- Discussion about running ads for non-first-in-series books starts bottom of Page 15
-- Discussion about Sequential ad copy testing (with my 7-day test results) starts on Page 16
-- Discussion about Previewing your ad starts on Page 18
-- Discussion: "What's an Impression?" starts on Page 18 -19
-- My 3rd Sequential ad copy testing report starts on Page 19, Message #460
-- Slowing of AMS effectiveness? Start reading Page 22-23
-- My 1-month update on latest ad copy change: Message #591, Page 24
-- AMS Account Mgr input starts at bottom of Page 25
-- Automatic vs. Manual Targeting discussion starts bottom of Page 27
-- My 99-day update on latest ad copy change: Message #1354, Page 55

** Introduction:* As a relatively new indie-self-publishing author, I've learned a lot here in the Kboards Writer's Cafe while preparing my fiction writing debut, so I'd like to offer some thoughts about my recent (14 days in) experience with AMS ads. I was between books and decided to spend some marketing time on AMS. This thread can go on as long as needed, and I'll be adding updates when I can. Feel free to add your own ideas and answer questions raised (including mine) or pose new ones that relate to AMS Ad Learning.

** Where I'm coming from:* I may be different from many reading this, so keep that in mind. I'm doing a novella series in Historical Fiction; early 17th century time period with New York City/Manhattan as the focus setting. Genre surely influences AMS ad performance so filter as needed. Two short books (novellas) are now out (both in KDP Select/KU); the third is releasing soon. I wanted to start AMS ads with the release of Book 2 ("1612") at its discounted price ($0.99 from $2.99) and carefully studied what I could and could not say about price in the ad, but Zon still rejected it. Rather than argue with them, I just re-submitted the ad without any price mentions and made sure the book detail page had all that verbiage. Then I quickly created and launched my AMS ad campaign for Book 1 ("1609"), which I'm keeping at a low $0.99 as a funnel into the series. Then I changed the copy of Book 2 and started a new campaign for that, eventually raising its price back to $2.99. Got it?  I'll focus here on Book 1, which has a longer run (14+ days for this post) but throw in some info from Book 2 as well.

** My AMS Setup:*
Type: Sponsored Product; avg Daily Budget: $1.00; Targeting: Manual

*Here's what I've learned after 14 days...*









_ABOVE: January 16 - 10 days of Book 1_








_ABOVE: January 20 - 14 days of Book 1_

** Dashboard Delays:* My initial routine was to view and record the single-line campaign stats (charts above) to get familiar with the workings of the system: 11:00am, 5:00pm, and 11:00pm each day (have now backed off to twice a day). AMS says right on the Dashboard: "Campaign metrics may take up to 3 days to appear..." My delays seem to be around 2 days, primarily in the Sales column. Well, that kinda makes things hard to measure, especially if some things are updating while others are not within the same campaign. For example, I noticed I would sometimes see new Sales but NO new Clicks. Huh? Assuming that AMS is only tracking sales within the AMS ecosystem, which it states it is, this doesn't make sense UNLESS it's explained by different metrics (dashboard columns) lagging others within the same campaign. Then I also noticed sales showing on my campaign line but NOT showing in the Sales column in the Keyword tab page. Then 1-2 hours later, there they'd be! So all this tells me I can't rush this stuff; gotta play the long game.

** Keywords ("KWD"):* An important subject for this AMS ad business. I started off with about 25 KWDs but soon ratcheted that up to 225. Some recommend filling all 1,000 available slots, but that seems unwieldy, especially when so many end up doing nothing. Of course, if I see new KWDs with potential, I'll add them.

The following is based on viewing the detailed "Keywords" tab in the campaign: (see chart below)

** CPC Bidding:* Because I didn't know anything, and because Amazon's suggested bidding amount was $0.25, I just went with that. But over time and with learning, I began pulling many of those bids down lower and lower. Why? One reason was because I was hitting my $1 Daily Budget too early in the day (sometimes in a couple of hours), and I wanted to track full days. Also, most of the daily budget was being drained by Clicks that didn't go anywhere, i.e., no Sales. Moving forward with new campaigns, I might take the opposite approach: Start all at minimum bids ($0.02) and ratchet them UP over time.
NOTE: the "day" for AMS is supposed to be midnight YOUR local time, but I noticed that was usually later in the middle of my night. Then I received an email from Amazon stating that the "ad day" begins at 12:01 AM Pacific Standard Time (GMT-, which is 3:00AM in the morning for me on New York time, so that explains that.

** Impressions:* I don't really care about Impressions as long as I'm getting some, and they started immediately and usually increase by several thousands each day, with the exception noted below. It's easy to get loads of impressions by just adding big, generic keywords ("unlimited," "books," "Kindle") but that's a waste effort in my opinion. But there was one exception to this idea: the keyword "fiction," which Amazon suggested in its initial grouping. I was skeptical, and it only got 1,339 Impressions in 14 days (and three clicks), but I've already gotten one sale out of it. FYI: Just for the heck of it, I even threw in "Trump" as a Keyword along the way and within days, his Impressions were beating out many of my genre's author names. But with little relevance (although he is based in Manhattan, which is my primary setting, so there actually is some relevance, if far-fetched), the Clicks are still at 0 for Prez Trump, but with a $0.02 Bid, it's an inexpensive experiment.

One anomaly with Impressions in my 14 days was the six times that the Impressions DROPPED, usually at the end of the day, and mostly after the Daily Budget had been spent. How can this be? _***Anybody know_ UPDATE: Just re-checked and it was always after the Budget was spent. So I can see the algo freezing the Impressions but not taking them away. Still curious.

** Clicks:* I check the Clicks column regularly, sorting from top to bottom, and make note of any new "top clicks" (3 or above) and adjust the CPC bid according to my bidding strategy below. FYI: it was 23 Clicks to the first Sale on both books, and both occurred on Day 3 of their respective campaigns. Interesting, eh? Wonder if that included a 2-day delay in Sales reporting?

** CTR (Click-Through Ratio: Clicks / Impressions):* CTR isn't even on the AMS chart and doesn't interest me much, mainly because it doesn't take into account off-relevance KWDs or ad placement. Besides, it's easy enough to see at a glance by sorting the Imps column and looking at the Clicks next door.

** ACPC (Average Cost Per Click):* Best viewed per KWD on the column breakout page. Doesn't mean much if you have only 1 click, but when click numbers (per KWD) go up, it's a helpful metric for adjusting the CPC Bid.

** Spend:* Self-evident. Also sortable by clicking on the top of the column.

** Sales:* An important column to sort to see how the metrics are relating. But there is that 1-2-3-day delay to deal with.

** ACoS (Average Cost of Sales):* Very important, but even more important are the ACoS numbers PER KWD. Those are what I spent time looking at and how I came up with my personal Bidding Rules (see at bottom).









_ABOVE (partial view): "1609" - Jan 16 - 10 days in_








_ABOVE (partial view): "1609" - Jan 20 - 14 days in_

** ROI:* The Return on Investment for the AMS ads is more complicated than it seems. For me, it's not an obvious: "So, did the ad campaign have an ACoS that's under the royalty rate of the book?" In theory, if you're over the ACoS, you're losing money. But that's just a surface view of the situation (to me). Why? Because there are follow-on benefits that enter the equation. Like:

1. KENP Reads in KU. Especially with a $0.99 book, this is a significant % of revenue. And my Reads of Book 1 definitely went up when AMS ads started running (see chart below). In fact, the Reads during the 14-day AMS period were more than 7 TIMES (754%) the Reads in the 14 days prior to the ad starting. Or, put another way, that's an *additional* 76% of the revenue from Reads *after* the AMS ad starting running.









_ABOVE: a 754% increase in Reads after AMS ad started running._

2. Sales Rank bump from KU "borrows" (did you know that a borrow counts as a sale?). And there are probably some additional "organic" sales from a higher Sales Rank.

3. Undefined increase in "visibility" when ads are running, and especially when showing up on Page 1 of Sponsored Products as mine did early. Again, more visibility *could* result in more sales. Hasn't really worked out that way when I relaunched "1612" with a price increased to $2.99. (NOTE: "1612" is selling at the higher price, but just not through AMS)









_ABOVE: Book 2 appears on Sponsored pages of Book 1_

4. NOTE that I'm not doing Audiobooks or print books (yet), which would add to the complexity--and richness--of the ROI.

** KWD Types:* For me (in my HF genre), besides the obvious content KWDs ("historical fiction"), the biggest Clickers and resulting Sales were the names of related authors. Not as much the book titles but the big or selling author names in my genre: James Michener, Ken Follett, et al. Which tells me that readers are searching for both Content and Author relevance (and Relevance is what the AMS ad system is mostly about).

*My Current KWD Bid Strategy: *
-- If a KWD's ACoS is under the book's royalty % *and selling*, I'll raise the bid slightly (1-3 cents) to see if I can pick up some more sales. If it's an author that seems a perfect fit and *should* be selling more, I'll go up a little more to give her more of a better shot.
-- If a KWD's ACoS is over the royalty % but under 100% (35% royalty) or 140% (70% royalty), I'll match the ACPC. Unless it's a category or an author who's perfect and then I'll increase the bid 1-3 cents more.
-- If a KWD's ACoS is over the 100% or 140% (only one instance so far), I'll start dropping the bid and watching closely.
-- I'll be updating these "rules" over time as I learn more. If anyone wants to submit their own formulas or rules about this, feel free to chime in.

*THE BOTTOM LINE:* With a current 84% overall ACoS on my $0.99 Book 1 of the novella series, I'm going to keep that AMS campaign running. However, I may tweak the copy, which means submitting a new ad and starting my tracking all over again. Book 2, with a current 237% campaign ACoS is not doing nearly as well (although still selling + KENP reading outside of AMS). I may pause it, or I may just let it run as the Spend is not costing me much. Maybe best to keep an eye on Book 2 while Book 3 in the series soon launches, then revisit.
*3/18/17 UPDATE: Paused this campaign after 2 months and getting the overall ACoS down to 52.20%; rebooted campaign with different Bid strategy for a week, then rebooted that (for a blurb change); see more below.*

How much trouble is all this? Not really that much. For me, while it did take time at the start to understand and set it all up, I found that tracking and tweaking things--especially keywords and bids--is no trouble at all; just a few minutes a day. And it's actually kinda fun! It's now just part of my daily routine: check the dashboard each day to see what's changed and make adjustments accordingly. Try it! You may just get hooked. And sell some books in the process.

I hope this is helpful to others thinking about AMS ads.

*P.S. Feel free to contribute your own findings, thoughts, or questions about AMS ads.*


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## Jack Krenneck

Harald said:


> ** KWD Types:* For me (in my HF genre), besides the obvious content KWDs ("historical fiction" "new york"), the biggest Clickers and resulting Sales were the names of related authors. Not as much the book titles (exception: "Pillars of the Earth") but the big or selling author names in my genre: James Michener, Ken Follett, Louise Erdrich, et al. Which tells me that readers are searching for both Content and Author relevance (and Relevance is what the AMS ad system is mostly about).


My experience with this is similar. I note that by using an author name as a keyword an ad can appear on _any _of the author's books. That's handy and makes things easier. On the other hand, sometimes I see my own ads for an author keyword, sometimes I don't. Alternatively, when I target a specific book my ad seems to appear more regularly.

Perhaps when Amazon is deciding relevance/ad placement the more specific targeting gives an ad a higher relevance score?


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## Harald

Jack Krenneck said:


> ... Perhaps when Amazon is deciding relevance/ad placement the more specific targeting gives an ad a higher relevance score?


Hi Jack. That, and maybe a history of Clicks and Sales on that Keyword could also be part of the relevance formula? Just a guess.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson

Thanks for posting this. It's making my head spin. I'm going to bookmark it for when/if I decide to do an AMS ad.


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## Not any more

Your observations on AMS ROI for KU books (my, doesn't that look like alphabet soup) is dead on. I have a huge negative ROI on my 99c first-in-series, but its ranking has gone up from the 125,000 level to the 12,500 level (approx.) since I started running the ad. Reads are up on it and the follow-on books. I've spent about $40 on the ad this month, made $283 on the book. AMS isn't the only factor, but I truly believe it helps.

On the other hand, the sponsored products list on my most successful book is now 93 pages across. Are all of those authors getting benefits from their ads?


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## KCecala

Thanks for posting Harald! I just started my very first AMS 'keyword' campaign and feeling clueless. Guess I should be thinking up more keywords!


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## Accord64

First, thanks for sharing your experience(s).



Harald said:


> ** Impressions:* I don't really care about Impressions as long as I'm getting some, and they started immediately and usually increase by several thousands each day, with the exception noted below.


I consider impressions a measurement of how much traffic a keyword is generating while my ad is running in it. However, when impressions suddenly decreased (or stopped), I initially considered it a sign that my daily limit was reached. After a while, I found this not to be the case. While it could mean the daily limit was reached, it can also mean that your ad isn't running in that keyword as often. Why? Not sure. I suspect there's an overriding algorithm at work, pulling ads on keywords where it detects under-performance. Just my theory.



> -- If a KWD's ACoS is under the book's royalty % *and selling*, I'll raise the bid slightly (1-3 cents) to see if I can pick up some more sales. If it's an author that seems a perfect fit and *should* be selling more, I'll go up a little more to give her more of a better shot.


I have the same strategy. If I see a lot of impressions but no clicks, I'll even search on that keyword to see on what page my ad is running on. However, if impressions start a steep decline, it doesn't seem to matter how high I bid. The ad still doesn't run as often. More evidence that an overriding algorithm has already determined that my ad is under-performing and simply won't run as often as it did during the first few days. Makes me wonder if it's better to just end the campaign right then and set up a new one.


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## Jennifer Joy

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> Thanks for posting this. It's making my head spin. I'm going to bookmark it for when/if I decide to do an AMS ad.


My thoughts exactly! Thank you so much for posting this. It's a lot of information and I appreciate the breakdown.


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## Harald

brkingsolver said:


> Your observations on AMS ROI for KU books (my, doesn't that look like alphabet soup) is dead on. I have a huge negative ROI on my 99c first-in-series, but its ranking has gone up from the 125,000 level to the 12,500 level (approx.) since I started running the ad. Reads are up on it and the follow-on books. I've spent about $40 on the ad this month, made $283 on the book. AMS isn't the only factor, but I truly believe it helps.


Glad you're seeing positive results!



> On the other hand, the sponsored products list on my most successful book is now 93 pages across. Are all of those authors getting benefits from their ads?


My two novellas are now showing 75 pages of Sponsored Products. The authors I'm using as keywords are at or over 100 pages. I would certainly be honored if Ken Follett were getting an ad benefit off of me, as I'm getting one off of him!


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## Harald

KCecala said:


> Thanks for posting Harald! I just started my very first AMS 'keyword' campaign and feeling clueless. Guess I should be thinking up more keywords!


Hope I'm providing useful clues! Shoot for at least a 100-200 kwds and see how it goes from there.


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## Harald

Accord64 said:


> First, thanks for sharing your experience(s).
> I consider impressions a measurement of how much traffic a keyword is generating while my ad is running in it. However, when impressions suddenly decreased (or stopped), I initially considered it a sign that my daily limit was reached. After a while, I found this not to be the case. While it could mean the daily limit was reached, it can also mean that your ad isn't running in that keyword as often. Why? Not sure. I suspect there's an overriding algorithm at work, pulling ads on keywords where it detects under-performance. Just my theory.


Could be (your drop in Impressions theory). I just went back over my tracking, and it looks like my Impressions only dropped after my Daily Budget was spent, although it didn't show up for a while. But within hours, the Impressions started gaining again.



> I have the same strategy. If I see a lot of impressions but no clicks, I'll even search on that keyword to see on what page my ad is running on. However, if impressions start a steep decline, it doesn't seem to matter how high I bid. The ad still doesn't run as often. More evidence that an overriding algorithm has already determined that my ad is under-performing and simply won't run as often as it did during the first few days. Makes me wonder if it's better to just end the campaign right then and set up a new one.


I agree about the algo pushing under-performing kwds down and eventually out. The decision to end the campaign for me requires looking at all the kwds as a group and individually. And I can also pause any single keyword.


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## Harald

Jennifer Joy said:


> My thoughts exactly! Thank you so much for posting this. It's a lot of information and I appreciate the breakdown.


You're welcome! And this might help, too: I have a document open where I track my daily AMS campaign results in an overview fashion. It's just a single that I update each day. Like this:
11:0AM: ___ Imps | ___ Clicks | $___ aCPC | $___ Spend | ___ Sales | ___% ACoS
(then I add little notes and observations under it; this gives me a quick way to capture ad history over time)
*Feel free to steal it! *


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## Gertie Kindle

I have been grumbling about not being able to sort. Now I know I can. Thanks so much for that. Thanks so much for the whole post, actually. I learned a lot.


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## Harald

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I have been grumbling about not being able to sort. Now I know I can. Thanks so much for that. Thanks so much for the whole post, actually. I learned a lot.


Yeah, it took me day or so to see the sorting (clicking the tops of the columns). Now I can't stop doing it!

Glad you're learning. That was my goal in posting this.


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## TromboneAl

Good rules.

One thing I've learned is that once you start changing the bid rate for a keyword, the data for that keyword will be invalid and misleading.

For example, I had a high bid for "piano sheet music" (fifty cents?) and got a bunch of clicks but no purchases. So I decreased the bid to two cents.










So now, if I look at the data, it looks like the two-cent bid got a lot of impressions, but it did not. That's old data from before I decreased the bid. The other data for that keyword is also no longer relevant. Hope that's clear.


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## Gertie Kindle

Harald said:


> Yeah, it took me day or so to see the sorting (clicking the tops of the columns). Now I can't stop doing it!
> 
> Glad you're learning. That was my goal in posting this.


I just used the sort and it only took me a few minutes to see what's what and adjust my bids.



LilyBLily said:


> How can you determine your ad has reached its daily spend limit?
> 
> Searching "baby boomer romance," which is a broad category that includes a lot of nonfiction, the first sponsored title is about a 17-year-old babysitter, and the second and third are billionaire romances. By the last couple of pages, there are no sponsored ads at all. And there is no moving band of sponsored ads below. My ads are not there, although they should be, so I'm wondering if I've reached my daily spend limit on them


It will say so on the left aide of the campaign.



TromboneAl said:


> Good rules.
> 
> One thing I've learned is that once you start changing the bid rate for a keyword, the data for that keyword will be invalid and misleading.
> 
> For example, I had a high bid for "piano sheet music" (fifty cents?) and got a bunch of clicks but no purchases. So I decreased the bid to two cents.
> 
> So now, if I look at the data, it looks like the two-cent bid got a lot of impressions, but it did not. That's old data from before I decreased the bid. The other data for that keyword is also no longer relevant. Hope that's clear.


 How much did I spend? How much did I make? That's the most important data.


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## Harald

LilyBLily said:


> How can you determine your ad has reached its daily spend limit?


It will say it at far left on your main campaign screen (the one that's titled "Advertising Campaigns"). The column is titled "Status." The normal is "Running" and if you're over your budget, it will say "Daily Budget Spent" (or something similar). It will be obvious. If it says "Running," then you have not reached the daily limit.



> Searching "baby boomer romance," which is a broad category that includes a lot of nonfiction, the first sponsored title is about a 17-year-old babysitter, and the second and third are billionaire romances. By the last couple of pages, there are no sponsored ads at all. And there is no moving band of sponsored ads below. My ads are not there, although they should be, so I'm wondering if I've reached my daily spend limit on them.


I just typed in "Amazon Books: Baby Boomer Romance" in Google and got "Stormy" by Tina Gayle as result number 1. And the Sponsored Product "band" has 132 pages (with my browser window small; the size of your browser window determines the number of pages). Reaching your Daily Budget could be one reason you're not showing up in competitive books. But I also see that for me -- I'm on some books by a certain keyworded author but not others. Not exactly sure why that is (beyond keyword relevance).


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## Harald

TromboneAl said:


> Good rules.


Thanks!



> One thing I've learned is that once you start changing the bid rate for a keyword, the data for that keyword will be invalid and misleading. For example, I had a high bid for "piano sheet music" (fifty cents?) and got a bunch of clicks but no purchases. So I decreased the bid to two cents.
> So now, if I look at the data, it looks like the two-cent bid got a lot of impressions, but it did not. That's old data from before I decreased the bid. The other data for that keyword is also no longer relevant. Hope that's clear.


Correct; it's now "rolling data." And one reason I keep a running document to help with the overall history . Like this:
*January 21, 2017:*
√ 11:00AM: 93,644 Imps | 150 Clcks *+5* | $0.09 aCPC | $13.96 Spnd | 16 Sale | 87.96% ACoS
√ 11:00PM: 96,070 Imps | 157 Clcks *+7* | $0.09 aCPC | $14.54 Spnd | *17* Sale | 86.24% ACoS

That, of course, doesn't help with each kwd row -- that would require more than I'm willing do -- but I do add important notes under my tracking lines. Like this:
*January 20, 2017: (*** DAY 14 ***)*
√ 11:00AM: 89,034 Imps | 142 Clcks | $0.09 aCPC | $13.26 Spnd | 16 Sale +1 | 83.55% ACoS
_NOTE New Click on "xxxxxxxxx" = 5.88% ACoS ($0.25 bid; $0.06 CPC), so reduce bid to $0.15 to match "yyyyyyyy"._

Not a perfect system of tracking but better than nothing.


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## Gertie Kindle

LilyBLily said:


> None of my ads say "Daily Budget Spent." Never have.
> 
> I've done the same Google search on Baby Boomer Romance and come up with the same title, Stormy, which is 694,000 and change in the Amazon store and which does NOT look like it's about baby boomers. (Bare male torso.) I got to page 73 of the sponsored 111 pages of ads--most of which are also bare male torsos--before my crap internet decided to stop building pages. So I still have no idea if my sponsored ads with those keywords are in there. But it hardly matters since mine are not bare male torso books.
> 
> I tried the same category term, "baby boomer romance," in the Books store instead of the Kindle store as I had done previously. Again, no sponsored ads. So this means if a reader is already on the Amazon site and puts in a category, the ads may not be there. Then again, they can be. I checked a couple of keywords for another of my titles and mine was on page one--but it's a nonfiction, niche category. Romance is super competitive now. It does seem that Amazon sometimes shows ads and sometimes does not--even though we are waving ad dollars and saying "Pick me!"


I had the same problem since my romances are "sweet." Although my cover stood out from the manly chests, it is obviously not in the same ballpark.


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## Harald

LilyBLily said:


> None of my ads say "Daily Budget Spent." Never have.


This is what it looks like when you hit your daily limit:











> ... I tried the same category term, "baby boomer romance," in the Books store instead of the Kindle store as I had done previously. Again, no sponsored ads. So this means if a reader is already on the Amazon site and puts in a category, the ads may not be there. Then again, they can be. I checked a couple of keywords for another of my titles and mine was on page one--but it's a nonfiction, niche category. Romance is super competitive now. It does seem that Amazon sometimes shows ads and sometimes does not--even though we are waving ad dollars and saying "Pick me!"


I don't know your books, so hard to evaluate, and not sure what you mean by "Again, no sponsored ads." My search in Books: "baby boomer romance" comes up with _Secret: Bluegrass Homecoming, Book 2_ as the #1 result. THAT does look like Baby Boomer Romance (and no bare male torsos , and it has well over 100 Sponsored Products pages. Are you in there? Is that author/title in your keywords? Just curious.


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## Harald

LilyBLily said:


> I found the same page, but no ads, even though I disabled Adblock Plus and refreshed. But regardless, sometimes the sponsored ads are running down below like a banner, and sometimes they're just the last two or three books on the page, indistinguishable to the casual shopper from whatever other titles came up in that category. Obviously, that's the better place to be.


Not exactly sure what you mean by "...sponsored ads... sometimes they're just the last two or three books on the page." On my desktop view of that "Secrets: Bluegrass..." book's (and most other books) product detail page, I see, in order going down: Also Bought panel, Sponsored Products panel, Editorial Reviews, Product Details, About the Author, Customer Reviews, What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item, Your Recently Viewed Items... panel (and then the Product Display ad on the right). ***Are you seeing something else? Can you identify more? AFAIK, Sponsored Product ads only appear in that panel dedicated to them (on the product detail page).


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## LFGabel

Harald said:


> *THE BOTTOM LINE:* With a current 84% overall ACoS on my $0.99 Book 1 of the novella series, I'm going to keep that AMS campaign running.


Greetings Harald,

So if I understand this correctly, the 84% ACoS represents an ad spend of $13.33 and an estimated total sales of $15.87. And this doesn't represent the royalty, which is 35% of $15.87, or $5.55 (your actual income from the book sales).

Are you banking on KU reads to make up for the balance of $7.78 ($13.33 - $5.55?) Otherwise wouldn't you be losing money (spending more than you make)?

Thanks for this very illuminating post.


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## Beth_Hammond

Harald said:


> Yeah, it took me day or so to see the sorting (clicking the tops of the columns). Now I can't stop doing it!
> 
> Glad you're learning. That was my goal in posting this.


This is exactly where I was too. Thank you. Your post is much appreciated.


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## LFGabel

LilyBLily said:


> An ACoS of 70% on a book for sale within Amazon's 70% royalty program is breaking even. If you have a nice little graph of what your KU sales looked like before you started AMS ads, you can compare it to what they're like after the ads have been going for a while. Then you can get a very approximate (unless you're a math nerd) idea of whether the increased KU reads are giving you a net profit.


But if you're not in KU, there's no point in going over the 70% or 35% mark. Is that correct thinking?


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## Harald

LFGabel said:


> So if I understand this correctly, the 84% ACoS represents an ad spend of $13.33 and an estimated total sales of $15.87. And this doesn't represent the royalty, which is 35% of $15.87, or $5.55 (your actual income from the book sales).
> Are you banking on KU reads to make up for the balance of $7.78 ($13.33 - $5.55?) Otherwise wouldn't you be losing money (spending more than you make)?
> Thanks for this very illuminating post.


Good question, LFGabel. And the answer (today) is: Yes, I am *easily* making up the balance of Campaign-Spend-to-Sales loss in KU Reads. Looking at my tracking notes (and my KDP dashboard) shows me the jump in Reads after starting the ads, and it is significant. So that in itself makes the campaign (for Book 1 - $0.99) running in the black. Then the other benefits I mention above (e.g., the organic sales from the bumps in Sales Rank) are on top of that. So yeah, it's worth the ad cost for this book. At least for now. [Note that I'm using a Per-Page Read Payout of $0.005 (US store) in my internal calculations. Last month's December figure was actually a bit higher at .00523954.]



> But if you're not in KU, there's no point in going over the 70% or 35% mark. Is that correct thinking?


Not necessarily; there can be other tactical benefits. For me and for a Book 1 of a series, I would be willing to skate close to the edge of breakeven or even lose money if it helps follow-on sales to the other books. Remember... THE FUNNEL!


----------



## Harald

LilyBLily said:


> An ACoS of 70% on a book for sale within Amazon's 70% royalty program is breaking even. If you have a nice little graph of what your KU sales looked like before you started AMS ads, you can compare it to what they're like after the ads have been going for a while. Then you can get a very approximate (unless you're a math nerd) idea of whether the increased KU reads are giving you a net profit. ...


Yep. And see more in my response to LFGabel above. (sorry, I missed this before I answered him)


----------



## LFGabel

Harald said:


> ...there can be other tactical benefits. For me and for a Book 1 of a series, I would be willing to skate close to the edge of breakeven or even lose money if it helps follow-on sales to the other books. Remember... THE FUNNEL!


Thank you for for this generous share of information and your time. It is appreciated.


----------



## TromboneAl

I should mention that before I started with AMS, I'm pretty sure I never even glanced at a sponsored ad.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk


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## Harald

TromboneAl said:


> I should mention that before I started with AMS, I'm pretty sure I never even glanced at a sponsored ad.


Glad you're not my target audience! 

Seriously, I did, but rarely past "page 1" or whatever was showing. Now, I'll go a little further in but not to page 99 or wherever the end is. Unless I'm looking for my own book, that is!


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## Gertie Kindle

I need to change the end date of a campaign. The instructions say that there is a pencil icon next to the campaign name which allows me to edit the duration. But, I don't see any pencil icon.

I can go into campaign settings and change the end date, but I want the ad to run indefinitely.

Can everyone see that icon except for me? Or does anyone know another way to change the duration?


----------



## Harald

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I need to change the end date of a campaign. The instructions say that there is a pencil icon next to the campaign name which allows me to edit the duration. But, I don't see any pencil icon.
> I can go into campaign settings and change the end date, but I want the ad to run indefinitely.
> Can everyone see that icon except for me? Or does anyone know another way to change the duration?


I don't see a pencil icon, but you can change the duration (Advertising campaigns > Campaign > Campaign Settings > Duration). Since mine are already set to "No end date" not sure if there is an option to change *to* that. As a workaround, why not set your end date for way off in the future. Just remember to make a note to redo it before then!


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## Gertie Kindle

Harald said:


> I don't see a pencil icon, but you can change the duration (Advertising campaigns > Campaign > Campaign Settings > Duration). Since mine are already set to "No end date" not sure if there is an option to change *to* that. As a workaround, why not set your end date for way off in the future. Just remember to make a note to redo it before then!


Thanks. That's what I've done. I guess there is no other option.


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## AisFor

If someone clicks on your ad and borrows the book through KU, does it show up as a click, or does it not register at all?


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## Harald

AisFor said:


> If someone clicks on your ad and borrows the book through KU, does it show up as a click, or does it not register at all?


You get the Click, and if they then read, you get KENP Read pages. *And* you get a Sales Rank bump. Cool, huh?


----------



## The Bass Bagwhan

Great post. But it's a daunting amount of information. I'm keen to try AMS. Is it so hard to start using them? What would you say is the most difficult aspect of creating an AMS ad? Is it coming up with 100-200 keywords that are relevant to your book?

Can you begin to build an AMS campaign, take your time to understand each step, and "Save" your progress until you're confident with what you're doing? Or do you have to complete the whole process in one login session.

And a really newbie question. What is an "impression"? I've dabbled with FB ads and still not quite understood what an impression is.

Again, thanks for taking the time to do this. It's going to be a great help to a lot of people.


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## 39416

Go to a book on Amazon and scroll down to the banner of sponsored ads. Those ads are "impressions." Also, look to the right of the screen and you will see one large ad for a book. That is also an impression.


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## Decon

Thanks for the post. A lot of useful info there.

I've been doing these ads for some time now, and to be honest, after the first month I slowed down on maintaining them by updating stuff and I've just let them run, because it was eating too much into writing time.

December was really fantastic for me with the ads, but I also interspered them with free ads on promo sites and paused them on the day of the promo, so it was difficult to get a handle on how it affected page reads.

Since December my average ACOS has risen from 11% to around 28% across the five books with a sale price of $2.99, in part due to increasing bids when everyone dived in and my ads ended up at the back of the pages. I've not run free promos on sites since to see how it made a change to results to try and discover what the ongoing organic page reads are from the ads. Bear in mind, before sponsored ads came along I was struggling to get any page reads at all and royalties were under $100 per month... way under.

It's looking as though I'll hit 30,000 page reads across the 5 books in February the same as January without any other type of promo. That's 50% down on December, but then you'd expect that because sales increase anyway in December and as I said, I ran free promos.

So basically I am earning $5 per day from page reads or around $150 per month using sponsored ads. I have to say though that this last week I've struggled to get more than 600 page reads per day and sales have noticably dropped off.

If I leave everything as is, then I'm making a profit, but it is small change, though not to be sniffed at.

I'm not sure what to do next with the ads as a strategy, other than in March, I think I'll try a series of free promos to see how that boosts things.

Basically, I doubt I'm ever going to be a mega seller of any of my books, but as it stands they will make around $250 in royalties after SA costs per month if I just let things ride with only sponsored ads for marketing.


----------



## Harald

Graeme Hague said:


> Great post. But it's a daunting amount of information. I'm keen to try AMS. Is it so hard to start using them? What would you say is the most difficult aspect of creating an AMS ad? Is it coming up with 100-200 keywords that are relevant to your book?


It's not that hard but it does take thought and effort. Your list of Keywords is vital but so is your "Custom Text" (the blurb @ 150 characters max). Actually, I agree with LilyBLily: the blurb is the #1 thing to get right; you cannot change that once the ad starts. Keywords you can add to, pause, adjust with bids, etc.



> Can you begin to build an AMS campaign, take your time to understand each step, and "Save" your progress until you're confident with what you're doing? Or do you have to complete the whole process in one login session.


Can't remember if you can save-as-you-go, but the smartest way is to create a document that includes the main elements in advance, then copy and paste. And you then have a record. Here are the main pieces:
- Book: _____
- Campaign Type: _____
- Campaign Name: _____
- AvgDailyBudget: _____
- Duration: _____
- Targeting Type: _____
- Custom Text ("blurb"): (150 characters max): _____
- Keywords: _____
(go to the AMS Help pages to see more about each of these)



> And a really newbie question. What is an "impression"? I've dabbled with FB ads and still not quite understood what an impression is.


Amazon says: "Impression: The number of times your ad was displayed." There are many places where this happens. Don't worry too much about Impressions; you'll get them unless something's very wrong.

Let us know how it goes!


----------



## Harald

Decon said:


> [...] Since December my average ACOS has risen from 11% to around 28% across the five books with a sale price of $2.99, in part due to increasing bids when everyone dived in and my ads ended up at the back of the pages. I've not run free promos on sites since to see how it made a change to results to try and discover what the ongoing organic page reads are from the ads. Bear in mind, before sponsored ads came along I was struggling to get any page reads at all and royalties were under $100 per month... way under. [...]


Hi Decon! Interesting how your ACoS is rising and mine (on my primary book) is dropping. I started off at the top of this thread at 114%, and I'm now down to 59%. Mostly by massaging and fine-tuning my keywords. I also noticed that "dive bomb" a while ago, but things seem to have stabilized (at least for me). And like you, my KENP Page Reads really took off after I started the AMS ads. There was a drop-off with those Reads for a bit, but now they're back up again. Hard to explain except there are also other factors. For me, I think genre ("historical fiction") and also the fact that I'm in a series has something to do with it. And other factors as well.

I've currently paused my other series' AMS campaigns but am still running my original Book 1 campaign, but constantly tweaking it (now only x1 per day at night). Keep meaning to do an update here but this post will have to serve for now.


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## JB Rowley

Thanks for this post, Harald. Very informative. Been trying to get my head around AMS ads for ages.


----------



## Harald

JB Rowley said:


> Thanks for this post, Harald. Very informative. Been trying to get my head around AMS ads for ages.


Thanks! Definitely a learning experience. Once you get in there and start mucking about, it gets clearer.


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## The Bass Bagwhan

Harald said:


> It's not that hard but it does take thought and effort. Your list of Keywords is vital but so is your "Custom Text" (the blurb @ 150 characters max). Actually, I agree with LilyBLily: the blurb is the #1 thing to get right; you cannot change that once the ad starts. Keywords you can add to, pause, adjust with bids, etc.
> 
> Can't remember if you can save-as-you-go, but the smartest way is to create a document that includes the main elements in advance, then copy and paste. And you then have a record. Here are the main pieces:
> - Book: _____
> - Campaign Type: _____
> - Campaign Name: _____
> - AvgDailyBudget: _____
> - Duration: _____
> - Targeting Type: _____
> - Custom Text ("blurb"): (150 characters max): _____
> - Keywords: _____
> (go to the AMS Help pages to see more about each of these)
> 
> Amazon says: "Impression: The number of times your ad was displayed." There are many places where this happens. Don't worry too much about Impressions; you'll get them unless something's very wrong.
> 
> Let us know how it goes!


Thanks for the reply (and from others, too). So today is my day to study AMS thoroughly and have a go. "AMS Help Pages"? Doh! Didn't occur to me they might exist! But in my defense, I've been on holiday. Today might need the BIG coffeepot and multi-pronged head-scratcher.


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## The Bass Bagwhan

I have to say - I _did_ spend an hour or so reading the AMS Help Pages, which was very... well, helpful (really)... then came back to read Harald's OP and lots of light bulbs went off. I "get" it now.

It occurs to me that the big, generic keywords _might_ be almost useless and not worth including, since perhaps thousands of authors will be using them _and_ possibly matching your bid. Does that render those keywords into something like a lottery? On the other hand, perhaps the system uses these common keywords to establish your base genre/demographic/target readership, before drilling down to your more clever keywords to place impressions? In other words, without basic keywords like "cozy mystery" or "teenage romance", will the wheels fall off the targeting? Are they required to point the AMS algo in the right direction and, if so, does it make sense to bid very low on these? (like they're not going to rate important, top-page impressions anyway?).

Harald's right, I can see myself getting hooked on tweaking my AMS ads.

The blurb is a very important, but kind of finite factor. Whereas thinking up really good keywords threatens to keep me awake at night. I can't imagine how you cooked up 225!

Thanks!


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## Writer&#039;s Block

Thanks for the post, very informative.
I've been running ads for a few months and once I got an ad/keyword combo that resulted in a profit, I let it run and seldom look at it now. I think that's one of the great advantages of it, in that you can set it and pretty much forget it.


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## Gertie Kindle

Graeme Hague said:


> I have to say - I _did_ spend an hour or so reading the AMS Help Pages, which was very... well, helpful (really)... then came back to read Harald's OP and lots of light bulbs went off. I "get" it now.
> 
> It occurs to me that the big, generic keywords _might_ be almost useless and not worth including, since perhaps thousands of authors will be using them _and_ possibly matching your bid. Does that render those keywords into something like a lottery? On the other hand, perhaps the system uses these common keywords to establish your base genre/demographic/target readership, before drilling down to your more clever keywords to place impressions? In other words, without basic keywords like "cozy mystery" or "teenage romance", will the wheels fall off the targeting? Are they required to point the AMS algo in the right direction and, if so, does it make sense to bid very low on these? (like they're not going to rate important, top-page impressions anyway?).
> 
> Harald's right, I can see myself getting hooked on tweaking my AMS ads.
> 
> The blurb is a very important, but kind of finite factor. Whereas thinking up really good keywords threatens to keep me awake at night. I can't imagine how you cooked up 225!
> 
> Thanks!


Don't be afraid of those broad keywords. I had my best sales on one ad from "women" which was one of the Amazon suggested keywords.


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## The Bass Bagwhan

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Don't be afraid of those broad keywords. I had my best sales on one ad from "women" which was one of the Amazon suggested keywords.


Thanks for this, I'll definitely include them. My plan is to figure out my own "special" keywords then pick the eyes out of the Amazon suggestions, which I'm expecting will include those broad references. Cheers.


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## Harald

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Don't be afraid of those broad keywords. I had my best sales on one ad from "women" which was one of the Amazon suggested keywords.


Strange thing about this for me... In my initial Amazon suggestions was the keyword "fiction." I laughed and almost deleted it because it seemed so broad as to be useless. Well, guess what? After 6 weeks in on my main AMS campaign, "fiction" is a top seller! Who knew? (Amazon, I guess) (Of course, now all of you will start using it and competing with me for clicks, but that's OK, I don't mind


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## Harald

Graeme Hague said:


> ... Harald's right, I can see myself getting hooked on tweaking my AMS ads.


Yep, it's addicting. One of my original author names wasn't doing much, and I was disappointed. But over the last week, he's shot up into the Top Five. I got a thrill out of watching him move up the Sales list. I was cheering him on!



> The blurb is a very important, but kind of finite factor. Whereas thinking up really good keywords threatens to keep me awake at night. I can't imagine how you cooked up 225!


Ha ha... see above about being addicted.

I'm well over 250 keywords now. They just keep popping up, and I add them. But my original comment at the top of this thread is still holding: on the whole, author names are doing better than book titles by those same authors (for me). But I still include both.


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## Gertie Kindle

Harald said:


> Strange thing about this for me... In my initial Amazon suggestions was the keyword "fiction." I laughed and almost deleted it because it seemed so broad as to be useless. Well, guess what? After 6 weeks in on my main AMS campaign, "fiction" is a top seller! Who knew? (Amazon, I guess) (Of course, now all of you will start using it and competing with me for clicks, but that's OK, I don't mind


Yup, I've got "fiction" too. How about "book"? Amazon suggested that one, too. I've learned to trust their keywords.


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## Kay7979

I finally maxed out my keywords at 1,000, but I'm not ready to add a second campaign.


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## Gertie Kindle

Kay7979 said:


> I finally maxed out my keywords at 1,000, but I'm not ready to add a second campaign.


Congrats! I think the most I have on any one campaign is 289.


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## Harald

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Yup, I've got "fiction" too. How about "book"? Amazon suggested that one, too. I've learned to trust their keywords.


I thought about that one, too. They didn't suggest it but might try. How much broader can we go? "life"? "read"?


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## Gertie Kindle

Harald said:


> I thought about that one, too. They didn't suggest it but might try. How much broader can we go? "life"? "read"?


My favorite Amazon suggestion ... 1+1 ... no idea.


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## Christopher Bunn

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> My favorite Amazon suggestion ... 1+1 ... no idea.


That's pretty mysterious. Maybe the universe is somehow trying to communicate with you via Amazon?


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## SC

What kind of bid per click do you guys think is a good, effective (but not expensive) one?

And I've seen some people do a budget-per-day thing, but the only option I saw when I tried was total budget, and the minimum you could enter was $100.


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## APeter

When you click on Create A New Ad Campaign, you're presented with two options.

You'll need to click on the SPONSORED PRODUCT, not the PRODUCT DISPLAY ADS


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## Harald

Shawna Canon said:


> What kind of bid per click do you guys think is a good, effective (but not expensive) one?


I made the mistake of accepting Zon's $0.25 at first. My sweet spot currently is between 0.05-0.10. YMMV.


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## edwardgtalbot

There is so much to the topic but I'll make two quick observations:

-Most people I have read about who are making significant positive RoI (let's say over $5 per day profit) are paying between 15 cents and 25 cents per click. To achieve this you need to bid between 20 and 40 cents. Yes, there are exceptions so experimentation makes sense. But very few people manage to hit even a $5 per day spend bidding ten cents per click.

-ACos is. . not completely useless but close to it. Here's why:
--The reasons already stated in this thread, page reads, list signups, sell-throughs, etc.
--As per Amazon's own KDP page on ads, it can take weeks for sales to show up. You certainly can't make week to week decisions based on it unless 20% of your sales being missing won't change your decision
--Possibly not every sale will show up even weeks later.  I am not the only one to experience this. I started ads on 2/3 for 2 books which hadn't had any sales in several months. I got 13 sales in KDP in a week but the campaigns are still showing only 10 of them and I ended the campaigns a week ago.

I could go into all the things I am experimenting with, but I'm pretty sure most of it won't work. When I find something that does, I will be sure to post. I am essentially breaking even this month and I'm fine with that. Even sold one PB via AMS ads!


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## Gertie Kindle

Harald said:


> I made the mistake of accepting Zon's $0.25 at first. My sweet spot currently is between 0.05-0.10. YMMV.


I think your genre is less competitive than my romance genre and you can bid lower. I started out at .10 and did nothing. Now, every keyword is a different bid based on the average bid per click for that keyword. I bid a few cents less than the average. I want to be on the first or second page, not necessarily at the front of the line.



edwardgtalbot said:


> There is so much to the topic but I'll make two quick observations:
> 
> -Most people I have read about who are making significant positive RoI (let's say over $5 per day profit) are paying between 15 cents and 25 cents per click. To achieve this you need to bid between 20 and 40 cents. Yes, there are exceptions so experimentation makes sense. But very few people manage to hit even a $5 per day spend bidding ten cents per click.
> 
> -ACos is. . not completely useless but close to it. Here's why:
> --The reasons already stated in this thread, page reads, list signups, sell-throughs, etc.
> --As per Amazon's own KDP page on ads, it can take weeks for sales to show up. You certainly can't make week to week decisions based on it unless 20% of your sales being missing won't change your decision
> --Possibly not every sale will show up even weeks later. I am not the only one to experience this. I started ads on 2/3 for 2 books which hadn't had any sales in several months. I got 13 sales in KDP in a week but the campaigns are still showing only 10 of them and I ended the campaigns a week ago.
> 
> I could go into all the things I am experimenting with, but I'm pretty sure most of it won't work. When I find something that does, I will be sure to post. I am essentially breaking even this month and I'm fine with that. Even sold one PB via AMS ads!


I definitely agree about ACOS being pretty useless. I think ACOS per keyword is marginally more helpful than overall ACOS. I go by what's on my dashboard plus audiobooks against what I've spent.


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## Harald

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I think your genre is less competitive than my romance genre and you can bid lower. I started out at .10 and did nothing. Now, every keyword is a different bid based on the average bid per click for that keyword. I bid a few cents less than the average. I want to be on the first or second page, not necessarily at the front of the line.


Oh yeah, my genre (historical fiction) is *way* less competitive than Romance. And genre does make a difference on bidding, which is why I gave a "YMMV" on last post. My top kwd sellers (multiple sales) have ACPCs between $0.05 and $0.09.


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## Steven Kelliher

Along the same lines of those talking about ACoS being (somewhat) useless, I've kind of been going more by sales rank improvement (or lack thereof) since launching my ads. 

I've only been doing AMS ads in terms of promotion for the last week, and my sales rank has gone from about 32k to 13k in that time, while the ACoS data would suggest a FAR smaller increase in ranking. 

Just something to consider.

BTW, does anyone know if KU pagereads improve sales rank? Or is it only sales?


----------



## Harald

Steven Kelliher said:


> Along the same lines of those talking about ACoS being (somewhat) useless, I've kind of been going more by sales rank improvement (or lack thereof) since launching my ads. I've only been doing AMS ads in terms of promotion for the last week, and my sales rank has gone from about 32k to 13k in that time, while the ACoS data would suggest a FAR smaller increase in ranking. Just something to consider. BTW, does anyone know if KU pagereads improve sales rank? Or is it only sales?


There are many things outside of AMS that can affect your sales rank. You ask about KU/KENP page reads. Every KU Borrow counts as a type of sale and boosts your sales rank (not sure if # of pages read impacts this). BTW, my reads went up 700%+ after starting AMS ads; not that high now but still above the pre-AMS baseline. So for me, AMS ties into KENP reads which ties into Sales Rank (although not exclusively).


----------



## Harald

edwardgtalbot said:


> ... -ACos is. . not completely useless but close to it. Here's why:
> --The reasons already stated in this thread, page reads, list signups, sell-throughs, etc.
> --As per Amazon's own KDP page on ads, it can take weeks for sales to show up. You certainly can't make week to week decisions based on it unless 20% of your sales being missing won't change your decision
> --Possibly not every sale will show up even weeks later. I am not the only one to experience this. I started ads on 2/3 for 2 books which hadn't had any sales in several months. I got 13 sales in KDP in a week but the campaigns are still showing only 10 of them and I ended the campaigns a week ago...


Gotta disagree a bit. I'm now 6+ weeks into AMS for my main ($0.99) series funnel book (same campaign I started with). I'm really not seeing AMS delays longer than 2-3 days. In fact, Amazon says right at the top of the Campaign Metrics screen: "Campaign metrics may take up to 3 days to appear and do not include Kindle Unlimited or Kindle Lending Library royalties generated by the ad." That's what I'm currently seeing.

I find ACoS useful, especially over the long term. Example: I'm looking at my first page with ACoS sorted top to bottom. Looking across all the columns, I see two keywords that are over 100%. I've already lowered their bids to the minimum $0.02 (they started much higher and those Spends are already booked), and they're still racking up Spends but with paltry Sales. Meaning: they're not pulling their weight. The only thing left to do is pause them.

On the other end, I've got somewhat obscure Author Names that are selling with ACoSes in the 5-8% range (they're obscure in the overall genre but not in the narrow categories I'm aiming at). Those are worth increasing bids on because if those readers see my ad, there's a decent chance they'll click and then buy.

All this is easily seen when comparing the ACoS with other columns with the caveat of taking into account any system/reporting delays. But if you take the long view (weeks/months), it makes sense to me.


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## Harald

BVLawson said:


> Harald, I am envious of your success and those of others. But I'm still finding a very quirky reporting scheme with my ads, and I've tried several different Sponsored Ads with various keyboards, bids, budgets, etc. For example, on a book that has been out for two weeks, AMS says I had one click on a keyword that resulted in sales of $25. That is impossible (unless they're suggesting that one clicker went on to purchase multiple copies of this one book). I also just started up a new book/new ad a few days ago with the same keywords/budget/genre/targeting as with a previous ad. For some reason, AMS maxes out my little $5/day budget every morning within a couple of hours, but _on this one ad only_. But none of the rest have ever done this. Why this one ad? I have no idea.


Well, I'm not immune to AMS glitches either, e.g., getting Sales with 0 Clicks. But I haven't heard of 1 Click = $25 before! Guess that's a good glitch, eh?

One thought about maxing out your daily budget: maybe because it's a new campaign and the Zon is at the moment showing it a lot? Who knows. Maybe we should record all the AMS Strange Things here.


----------



## SC

APeter said:


> When you click on Create A New Ad Campaign, you're presented with two options.
> 
> You'll need to click on the SPONSORED PRODUCT, not the PRODUCT DISPLAY ADS


It seems like everyone is talking about Sponsored Product ads. Is there a reason no one seems to be doing product display ads?


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## APeter

I've tried both methods.

From my perspective, Product Display Ads cost more and the ROI is substantially less. But with Sponsored Ads, you're better able to fine tune your campaign and control your expenditures. And the ROI is much better.


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## Harald

APeter said:


> I've tried both methods.
> From my perspective, Product Display Ads cost more and the ROI is substantially less. But with Sponsored Ads, you're better able to fine tune your campaign and control your expenditures. And the ROI is much better.


This is exactly what I heard multiple times when I researched AMS at the start, and why I went with Sponsored Product ads. It seemed the easiest/lowest-cost way to start. To me.


----------



## Harald

Hi all. I'm the original poster, and here's an update after 2 months continuously running my intro-to-series book with an AMS ad. Keep in mind that my results may (probably will) be different than yours.

*Book:* "1609" (Book 1 of _The Manhattan Series_)
*Length:* short! It was 100 pages but now Zon has inexplicably increased it to 141 pages after I updated the cover; no idea why.
*Price:* $0.99, series intro (no change during 2-month AMS period)
*Exclusivity:* KDP Select/KU throughout the 2-month AMS period
*AMS Type:* Sponsored Product
*Daily Budget:* $1
*Targeting:* Manual (keywords updating)

Here's a quick Before and After looking at the Campaign view:










*Campaign Thoughts: *

* You'll see above that I stopped the "1612" campaign after one month. I was just spending too much money for the return; wasn't getting the click-to-sales conversions. Maybe because it was Book 2 of the series? At triple the price of Book 1? And I had "booked" so much in Spend amount that it would probably not turn itself around; in fact, you can see clearly in the ACoS columns that it was going in the wrong direction. So I stopped it and focused on the series intro book ("1609").

* The big news (and something I worked diligently at) is that the campaign ACoS for "1609" dropped from 113% to 51%. Some people say that this metric isn't important but I disagree. The average ACoS shows in a quick glance where the Spend-to-Sales ratio is (if you allow for enough time to pass). Admittedly, the individual keyword ACoSes are even more important, but this one is valuable, too.

I had to work hard on getting this ACoS down to less than half of what it was. This was accomplished by incrementally adjusting all the active keywords, mostly adjusting them DOWN ($0.04-$0.09 was the best range, with some high-sellers bidding in the very low teens). In my genre (historical fiction), I got 3k-4k Impressions per day, always some Clicks per day, and 0-3 Sales per day, and I NEVER hit my $1 daily budget (usually half that) once I dropped my Bids. This created a nice, low-budget trickle effect with the following results over the 2 month campaign:
-- 638 Impressions per Click
-- 9.2 Clicks per Sale

* On the surface, you might think that a 51% ACoS is losing money (at 35% royalty), but in my case, you'd be wrong. The main reason is that my KU reads were still high compared to the baseline before I started the campaign. And with this .99 book, Reads are worth equal or more than outright Sales. Although it's hard to know exactly how many Reads were a result of the AMS campaign versus organically, here's how the Reads chart looks for 90 days:










* Then there are the other soft benefits that are also hard to quantify, but that nevertheless add to the ROI picture with AMS (in my view):
-- Sales bump from every KU borrow.
-- Increased visibility with extra exposures of book. Here's how this ad looks recently on Page 1 of a high-selling comparable book (and yes, I got AMS Sales from this ad placement):










*What's Next? *

* I may create a new "1609" ad with an updated blurb and restart. Not sure if I'll keep this one going simultaneously.
****3/10/17 UPDATE: have started a new campaign for same book and paused this one*

* I might create a 3-book series AMS ad. Amazon has given me the OK for doing this as the series has its own SKU (product page). It's worth a try.
****3/8/17 UPDATE: Amazon says: no dice on doing a Series AMS ad. Sad!*

Your comments welcome.


----------



## Philip Gibson

Harald said:


> * I might create a 3-book series AMS ad. Amazon has given me the OK for doing this as the series has its own SKU (product page). It's worth a try.
> 
> Your comments welcome.


That sounds interesting, Harald. How would it work? Would the thumbnail sponsored product ad show all three books like it appears on left of the series page?


----------



## Harald

Philip Gibson said:


> That sounds interesting, Harald. How would it work? Would the thumbnail sponsored product ad show all three books like it appears on left of the series page?


Hi Philip! Yeah, I've been wondering the same thing. Have not seen it done yet. Here is the actual KDP Support message about this:

_Hello Harald,
I apologize for the long wait.
I have received confirmation from our AMS team that you can advertise the series page (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/XXXXXXX) using the ads service.
Please make sure that the series meets "creative acceptance policies". Below I have included the link to the creative policy :
https://advertising.amazon.com/ad-specs/en/policy/KDP-acceptance
Thank you for your time and for using Amazon KDP. blah blah..._

So I guess it's you or me who are going to pioneer and find out!


----------



## 39416

BVLawson-- Re your problem of maxing out early every morning: I would recommend that you go to your keywords list and check that the amount of money you bid is actually the amount of money each keyword is listed for.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Harald said:


> Hi Philip! Yeah, I've wondering the same thing. Have not seen it done yet. Here is the actual KDP Support message about this:
> 
> _Hello Harald,
> I apologize for the long wait.
> I have received confirmation from our AMS team that you can advertise the series page (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/XXXXXXX) using the ads service.
> Please make sure that the series meets "creative acceptance policies". Below I have included the link to the creative policy :
> https://advertising.amazon.com/ad-specs/en/policy/KDP-acceptance
> Thank you for your time and for using Amazon KDP. blah blah..._
> 
> So I guess it's you or me who are going to pioneer and find out!


Interesting. Since I paused the one ad that was stalled, maybe I'll do a series page for all three of those books. Maybe I'll even beat you and Philip to it.


----------



## Harald

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Interesting. Since I paused the one ad that was stalled, maybe I'll do a series page for all three of those books. Maybe I'll even beat you and Philip to it.


Go for it, Gertie! You be the canary.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Harald said:


> Go for it, Gertie! You be the canary.


I don't know if you really want me to be the canary. I never could sing worth a darn. 

Anyway, I'm having a problem selecting the trilogy. I've got the right asin #, but it doesn't show up on my list. I'll keep at it.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Nope, the series won't come up when I enter the ASIN. You can see the series in my sig, second from last, so it's there. I've tried entering the series name, too. No dice. Great idea, though. Let me know if you have better luck, 'cause this canary died.


----------



## Harald

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Nope, the series won't come up when I enter the ASIN. You can see the series in my sig, second from last, so it's there. I've tried entering the series name, too. No dice. Great idea, though. Let me know if you have better luck, 'cause this canary died.


Hmmm... OK, Philip, you're up! (no time for me at the moment).

Thanks for the try and report, Gertie. We'll get to the bottom of this eventually.


----------



## edwardgtalbot

The series ads are intriguing - I just tried and the AMS campaign creation won't find my series when I search by either the series ASIN or the series name. Harald,  did you have to request them to make it available to you? I know that the only books which appear as options for me to advertise are ones I have published in Amazon KDP - i have books I co-authored but didn't publish myself, books with a small publisher, and kindle world books which do not appear as options for me to advertise.


----------



## Harald

edwardgtalbot said:


> The series ads are intriguing - I just tried and the AMS campaign creation won't find my series when I search by either the series ASIN or the series name. Harald, did you have to request them to make it available to you? I know that the only books which appear as options for me to advertise are ones I have published in Amazon KDP - i have books I co-authored but didn't publish myself, books with a small publisher, and kindle world books which do not appear as options for me to advertise.


Hi Edward. Here's what I asked KDP Support and what they answered. But I haven't tried it yet. Apparently it's more difficult than they say. I would suggest sending a message to them asking them what's up with this. Then let us know!

*ME TO KDP on January 1:* 
_... But here's a related question: Can I advertise (via AMS) my growing book SERIES?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/XXXXX 
The series has its own page, it's own purchase button, and therefore, its own SKU on Amazon. And I can find no prohibition against doing this in the Advertising Policies. And I could use a single book cover as the image. ***Q: Is this possible (to advertise a series vs. a single book)? Thanks._

*KDP TO ME on Jan 30:* 
_Hello Harald,
I apologize for the long wait.
I have received confirmation from our AMS team that you can advertise the series page (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/XXXXX) using the ads service.
Please make sure that the series meets "creative acceptance policies". Below I have included the link to the creative policy :
https://advertising.amazon.com/ad-specs/en/policy/KDP-acceptance.
Thank you for your time and for using Amazon KDP.
Regards... Kindle Direct Publishing_

****3/8 UPDATE****
Amazon says: no dice on doing a Series AMS ad. Sad!


----------



## edwardgtalbot

I'll let you know if I contact them, what they say. Sounds they said you can but haven't told us HOW to do so


----------



## Philip Gibson

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Nope, the series won't come up when I enter the ASIN. You can see the series in my sig, second from last, so it's there. I've tried entering the series name, too. No dice. Great idea, though. Let me know if you have better luck, 'cause this canary died.


This canary died too. May need someone with more brain than this bird.

Philip


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Philip Gibson said:


> This canary died too. May need someone with more brain than this bird.
> 
> Philip


I'm thinking with the new display of the full series at the top of the product page, we might not need to do a series ad. And I've had a few times lately where all four books were bought at once.


----------



## edwardgtalbot

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I'm thinking with the new display of the full series at the top of the product page, we might not need to do a series ad. And I've had a few times lately where all four books were bought at once.


I only have two books in the series and I have also had at least three times in the past month where both were bought at what seems like the same time due to ads. Time to get that third book out right quick


----------



## Gertie Kindle

edwardgtalbot said:


> I only have two books in the series and I have also had at least three times in the past month where both were bought at what seems like the same time due to ads. Time to get that third book out right quick


Sounds like a plan.


----------



## Harald

****NEWS ALERT!****

Well, I just got off the phone with KDP Support (Costa Rica), and they said "No, Señor, you cannot do an AMS ad for a Series; single books only." When I pointed out their email saying the opposite, they apologized profusely.

Oh well, with the new positioning of Series at the top now, as Gertie says above, the idea is probably less important. But I had a great series blurb ready!


----------



## edwardgtalbot

Harald said:


> ****NEWS ALERT!****
> 
> Well, I just got off the phone with KDP Support (Costa Rica), and they said "No, Señor, you cannot do an AMS ad for a Series; single books only." When I pointed out their email saying the opposite, they apologized profusely.


Thanks for sharing the info!


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Harald said:


> ****NEWS ALERT!****
> 
> Well, I just got off the phone with KDP Support (Costa Rica), and they said "No, Señor, you cannot do an AMS ad for a Series; single books only." When I pointed out their email saying the opposite, they apologized profusely.
> 
> Oh well, with the new positioning of Series at the top now, as Gertie says above, the idea is probably less important. But I had a great series blurb ready!


And we killed off two canaries for no reason. Oh, well.

Yes, I had a killer ad for the series, too. Isn't it always the way? Maybe I'll use it on Twitter.


----------



## SC

I have an AMS 'sponsored products' ad that started on the 7th. I only have about 56 keywords, most at 6 cents with some at 10, $1/day budget. As of right now, it's showing zero impressions. Not a single one. That seems really strange at this point, doesn't it?


----------



## Accord64

Shawna Canon said:


> I have an AMS 'sponsored products' ad that started on the 7th. I only have about 56 keywords, most at 6 cents with some at 10, $1/day budget. As of right now, it's showing zero impressions. Not a single one. That seems really strange at this point, doesn't it?


There are a number of variables, but I'd say right off that the 6 cent bid is probably too low. My suggestion is to try an increase to 15 cents for a day to see if it makes a difference. If no impressions come after that, you might have to terminate the campaign and start a new one because the AMS performance algorithms might have slowed/stopped your current campaign.


----------



## Christopher Bunn

This thread is highly educational. Thank you for sharing your experiences.

Has anyone tried using copy on an AMS ad that really has nothing to do with the book? Odd things like "Wow!" or "You'll always sleep again" etc. Basically, almost random text just to get a person to click?

I realize the potential downside is that the copy will be a complete disconnect to the book page, once the person has clicked through. But, the cover image in the ad would, of course, provide a visual connection between the ad and the book page...


----------



## Aderyn Wood

I'm curious about the ideal number of keywords we should aim for. I've heard conflicting opinions about it. Some say to get to 1000, others say to keep the number small. Any thoughts on this?


----------



## Anarchist

Aderyn Wood said:


> I'm curious about the ideal number of keywords we should aim for.


267.

Kidding, of course.


----------



## edwardgtalbot

Anarchist said:


> 267.
> 
> Kidding, of course.


I was thinking 42 

I have heard success stories with two different methods. One is blanketing with as many keywords as possible so close to 1000. Another is starting with a large number like that but then gradually raising/lowering bids and disabling keywords based on performance - performance in this case being largely based on impressions and clicks not so much on ACoS/estimated sales other than for significant enough spends without results that you can be sure you're not killing a winner.


----------



## Aderyn Wood

edwardgtalbot said:


> I was thinking 42
> 
> I have heard success stories with two different methods. One is blanketing with as many keywords as possible so close to 1000. Another is starting with a large number like that but then gradually raising/lowering bids and disabling keywords based on performance - performance in this case being largely based on impressions and clicks not so much on ACoS/estimated sales other than for significant enough spends without results that you can be sure you're not killing a winner.


Thanks for that.

I'm trialling 2 identical ads. One I'll get to 1000 keywords. The other will use the keywords that get sales, high clicks and impressions from the first ad, and maybe no more than 100 keywords in total. Or maybe 42 &#128521;


----------



## Harald

294  

That's the number I have with a new campaign I just started (just got my first click!).

And here's how the original campaign (same book) after 2+ months looked (now paused so new one can take over):
-- Total keywords: 275
-- with 0 clicks: 150
-- with 0 clicks and Imprs under 100: 95
-- with 0 Imprs (that dash thing): 18

So ~300 feels good to me, and I'll be adding newly discovered keywords as they come up. I'm not too worried about the 150 with no clicks because you never know when/if they start performing. And with low bids, there's little financial risk. But, as before, I'll be adjusting the bids for the active keywords over time. I decided to reverse my strategy from last time and use low bids to start and gradually bring them up; it's easier/faster to raise a smaller number of actives than the other way around. That's my theory anyway. Will see how it plays out.


----------



## The Bass Bagwhan

If you have a lot of keywords, but many are ineffective (or are looking to as such), are those "bad" keywords costing you anything? If no one's clicking on them, they're not costing you money, right?

But do they somehow reduce the effectiveness of the campaigns? Mess with the algorithms? Aside from making room for other keywords (assuming you hit the 1000 limit) is there any real need to disable poor-performing keywords?

Thanks


----------



## Harald

Graeme Hague said:


> If you have a lot of keywords, but many are ineffective (or are looking to as such), are those "bad" keywords costing you anything? If no one's clicking on them, they're not costing you money, right?


Right. You only pay when there's a Click.



> But do they somehow reduce the effectiveness of the campaigns? Mess with the algorithms? Aside from making room for other keywords (assuming you hit the 1000 limit) is there any real need to disable poor-performing keywords? Thanks


Two possible risks I see:
1. If you have a LOT of poor-performing keywords and are not getting clicks, then supposedly Amazon will shut you down. Hasn't happened to me so don't know what that looks like. And/or... they may reduce the displaying of a poor-performing ad.
2. If you have high bids on poor-performing keywords and they start kicking in, you could be swamped with high Spends. That's one reason I'm starting off my new campaign at low Bids.


----------



## CassieL

I'm trying one right now using all the keywords that have resulted in a purchase of that title.  55 in total.  So far not looking as impressive as the other two ads I've run on this title.


----------



## The Bass Bagwhan

Harald said:


> Right. You only pay when there's a Click.
> 
> Two possible risks I see:
> 1. If you have a LOT of poor-performing keywords and are not getting clicks, then supposedly Amazon will shut you down. Hasn't happened to me so don't know what that looks like. And/or... they may reduce the displaying of a poor-performing ad.
> 2. If you have high bids on poor-performing keywords and they start kicking in, you could be swamped with high Spends. That's one reason I'm starting off my new campaign at low Bids.


Interesting... I'm trying to tweak a bad advert into life. Makes me think I'd be better off stopping that campaign and launching a new one. I wonder, if Amazon was to close down a poor ad, if they flag the book and prevent new campaigns aimed at "bad" books"?


----------



## Harald

Cassie Leigh said:


> I'm trying one right now using all the keywords that have resulted in a purchase of that title. 55 in total. So far not looking as impressive as the other two ads I've run on this title.


1. Give it time.

2. Did you also include Amazon's "suggested keywords"? I've found that they're actually really good even though I was doubtful on some at first.


----------



## CassieL

Graeme Hague said:


> Interesting... I'm trying to tweak a bad advert into life. Makes me think I'd be better off stopping that campaign and launching a new one. I wonder, if Amazon was to close down a poor ad, if they flag the book and prevent new campaigns aimed at "bad" books"?


No. They don't. I once had them shut down an ad related to my budgeting title that I had targeted at high-end televisions and jewelry. (I did get a sale off of it, but only had maybe 2 clicks in 30,000 impressions.) I've since run ads on that book no problem.


----------



## CassieL

Harald said:


> 2. Did you also include Amazon's "suggested keywords"? I've found that they're actually really good even though I was doubtful on some at first.


2. This ad is just to see what happens when I have an ad that only includes the "winners". (My last ad was only those that had zero or no impressions.) There are a few generic keywords in there that did come from Amazon's suggestions on my original ad (like "edition" and fiction") but most of my successful words are related to authors I've found.


----------



## edwardgtalbot

Harald said:


> 1. If you have a LOT of poor-performing keywords and are not getting clicks, then supposedly Amazon will shut you down. Hasn't happened to me so don't know what that looks like. And/or... they may reduce the displaying of a poor-performing ad.


Yeah, it's the reducing the displaying that is the concern. I don't think anyone really knows if this happens, though there seems to be some general sense that poorly performing ads start seeing their impressions diminish more quickly that well performing ones. And, I'm not even sure how they calculate "poorly performing" since KU reads aren't included and sales ofetn take 3,4,5 days to show up on the dashboard.


----------



## Harald

Cassie Leigh said:


> 2. This ad is just to see what happens when I have an ad that only includes the "winners". (My last ad was only those that had zero or no impressions.) There are a few generic keywords in there that did come from Amazon's suggestions on my original ad (like "edition" and fiction") but most of my successful words are related to authors I've found.


Ah, OK. Gotcha. Good test.

Yeah, author names work for me, too (more so than titles by the same authors).


----------



## Gregg Bell

Thanks Harald and everyone. I'm finally starting to get it too. A question: If my CPC bid is .10 and the ACPC is .07 does it make sense to lower or raise the CPC bid? It would seem to make sense to lower it but then I could get a better position if I raise it. And then I could just keep it the same. 

An observation: I seem to be doing a lot better with author names than book titles.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Gregg Bell said:


> Thanks Harald and everyone. I'm finally starting to get it too. A question: If my CPC bid is .10 and the ACPC is .07 does it make sense to lower or raise the CPC bid? It would seem to make sense to lower it but then I could get a better position if I raise it. And then I could just keep it the same.
> 
> An observation: I seem to be doing a lot better with author names than book titles.


Yes author names definitely do better.

My goal is to get on the first or second page of ads, not necessarily be the first in line. I like to keep my bids a penny or two below the acpc.


----------



## Steven Kelliher

edwardgtalbot said:


> Yeah, it's the reducing the displaying that is the concern. I don't think anyone really knows if this happens, though there seems to be some general sense that poorly performing ads start seeing their impressions diminish more quickly that well performing ones. And, I'm not even sure how they calculate "poorly performing" since KU reads aren't included and sales ofetn take 3,4,5 days to show up on the dashboard.


I think this is true.

I've been running 5 PD ads for March, and while they weren't doing great, they were each netting me between 3-5 clicks per day. For the last week, they have literally not brought in a single click, which doesn't really make sense to me. The budgets aren't even close to spent. I think there's truth to the idea that Amazon essentially stops displaying ads that aren't getting a lot of clicks.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Steven Kelliher said:


> I think this is true.
> 
> I've been running 5 PD ads for March, and while they weren't doing great, they were each netting me between 3-5 clicks per day. For the last week, they have literally not brought in a single click, which doesn't really make sense to me. The budgets aren't even close to spent. I think there's truth to the idea that Amazon essentially stops displaying ads that aren't getting a lot of clicks.


Yes, I had an ad that went dead. I paused it for five days and added maybe 30-40 keywords. I enabled it Thursday morning and impressions and clicks have picked up again, along with sales (only one) and page reads for both the original book and the second in series.


----------



## edwardgtalbot

I do better with book titles, not author names. It may have to do with genre and bid amount. I write action thrillers and my bids are between 32 and 52 cents. Or it could just be coincidence. The amount of data I have is not large enough that I would draw a conclusion that authors or titles work better in particular.


----------



## Philip Gibson

Gregg Bell said:


> Thanks Harald and everyone. I'm finally starting to get it too. A question: If my CPC bid is .10 and the ACPC is .07 does it make sense to lower or raise the CPC bid? It would seem to make sense to lower it but then I could get a better position if I raise it. And then I could just keep it the same.


It seems to be the case that ACPC is always less than half of the CPC bid. At least in my case. So it would seem to make sense to increase the bid in an effort to gain more exposure.

But, so far, nobody really knows.

It's a mystery.

Philip


----------



## Harald

Philip Gibson said:


> It seems to be the case that ACPC is always less than half of the CPC bid. At least in my case. So it would seem to make sense to increase the bid in an effort to gain more exposure....


But in some cases, CPC and ACPC can be very unrelated. I have ACPCs that are 3x higher than my CPC bid because I started bidding high and gradually dropped the bids. The average is still high, so not that useful to me.

Also (for Gregg), don't forget to take into account Sales and ACoS. If a keyword is selling, and your ACoS is low, then there's no reason to drop your bid. Keep it where it is or even go up a little. My theory anyway.


----------



## Accord64

Steven Kelliher said:


> I think there's truth to the idea that Amazon essentially stops displaying ads that aren't getting a lot of clicks.


Not just an idea, but fact. Amazon has confirmed that a performance algorithm is at work. They sent this reply to a Kboard member in this topic (Page 1 http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,245230.425.html

_"Yes, it is true. If customers did not engage with your ad campaign when there are many impressions (impressions are the number of times your ad was displayed.); but, no clicks for it, your ad may get stopped.

We're unable to provide you with specific numbers or algorithm on how it works. I'm sorry for any inconvenience that has caused.

However, we do actively compare the effectiveness of an ad with other similar ads. We want to ensure that ads are both of interest to our customers and effective to advertisers like you.

In such cases, we highly encourage you to create a new campaign with an eye towards more specific interests and products your potential customers would likely have. Refining your targeting options, ensuring your book's cover, title, and price appeal to customers and adding ratings and reviews to your detail page may help increase the effectiveness and relevance of your ad."_


----------



## amdonehere

Accord64 said:


> Not just an idea, but fact. Amazon has confirmed that a performance algorithm is at work. They sent this reply to a Kboard member in this topic (Page 1 http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,245230.425.html
> 
> _"Yes, it is true. If customers did not engage with your ad campaign when there are many impressions (impressions are the number of times your ad was displayed.); but, no clicks for it, your ad may get stopped.
> 
> We're unable to provide you with specific numbers or algorithm on how it works. I'm sorry for any inconvenience that has caused.
> 
> However, we do actively compare the effectiveness of an ad with other similar ads. We want to ensure that ads are both of interest to our customers and effective to advertisers like you.
> 
> In such cases, we highly encourage you to create a new campaign with an eye towards more specific interests and products your potential customers would likely have. Refining your targeting options, ensuring your book's cover, title, and price appeal to customers and adding ratings and reviews to your detail page may help increase the effectiveness and relevance of your ad."_


I know they say that, but IMO they do a pretty lousy job at it. I almost NEVER see AMS books of relevant genre in the books I want to target. For the record I currently write WWII historical fiction. I'd make more money than royalties if I can get a dime for every time I see steamy romance, dark romance (ie kidnap and abuse type romance), sheik romance, in the line of AMS ads for say, a fiction book about the horrors of the Holocaust.


----------



## botolo

Hello friends,

Here is my experience. I have run two campaigns in the past few days and carefully monitored them daily. One of the campaign is a Product Display campaign and I decided to terminate it today. Here is some data.

My book is in the genre of women's fiction / romance. I targeted 50 books similar to my book.

At a $0.50 bid, I was generating about 1,000 daily impressions but almost 0 clicks (1 click here and there once in a while). Average CPC was at $0.39.

I increased the bid with the goal of generating way more impressions and clicks.

At a $1.00 bid, I was generating about 6,500 daily impressions (good), and about 15 daily clicks (good) but conversion was at 0 sales (very bad). Average CPC was at $0.48.

I stopped because even if I generate a sale, this requires way too many clicks and can cost way too much. Even if I start getting 1 sale per day, that sale would cost me $7.20 (at current daily click rate).

I am now running a keyword based campaign and I will report back in the next few days.


----------



## amdonehere

botolo said:


> Hello friends,
> 
> Here is my experience. I have run two campaigns in the past few days and carefully monitored them daily. One of the campaign is a Product Display campaign and I decided to terminate it today. Here is some data.
> 
> My book is in the genre of women's fiction / romance. I targeted 50 books similar to my book.
> 
> At a $0.50 bid, I was generating about 1,000 daily impressions but almost 0 clicks (1 click here and there once in a while). Average CPC was at $0.39.
> 
> I increased the bid with the goal of generating way more impressions and clicks.
> 
> At a $1.00 bid, I was generating about 6,500 daily impressions (good), and about 15 daily clicks (good) but conversion was at 0 sales (very bad). Average CPC was at $0.48.
> 
> I stopped because even if I generate a sale, this requires way too many clicks and can cost way too much. Even if I start getting 1 sale per day, that sale would cost me $7.20 (at current daily click rate).
> 
> I am now running a keyword based campaign and I will report back in the next few days.


$1 a bid! Wow, that's way high. Maybe your genre is very competitive? Can you target your ads with more focus so you can lower the CPC? If you're in a competitive genre, you'll probably have to be more vigilant in tweaking your ad.


----------



## Mindflutters

Great information! I'm coming back to this when I don't have a head cold!


----------



## CassieL

AlexaKang said:


> $1 a bid! Wow, that's way high. Maybe your genre is very competitive? Can you target your ads with more focus so you can lower the CPC? If you're in a competitive genre, you'll probably have to be more vigilant in tweaking your ad.


Romance is incredibly competitive. It's why I've stopped running ads for my romances. I don't have enough of a catalog to justify the cost. botolo's experience matches mine as well.


----------



## IreneP

AlexaKang said:


> I know they say that, but IMO they do a pretty lousy job at it. I almost NEVER see AMS books of relevant genre in the books I want to target. For the record I currently write WWII historical fiction. I'd make more money than royalties if I can get a dime for every time I see steamy romance, dark romance (ie kidnap and abuse type romance), sheik romance, in the line of AMS ads for say, a fiction book about the horrors of the Holocaust.


I've noticed this too, and I think the problem for both of us is that we are in smaller sub-genres. Romance is a MASSIVE genre and, even using relevant keywords, like "historical" for a historical romance, they bleed over into smaller genres and subgenres. And romance is so popular, those books probably get a lot of clicks _somewhere_, and the authors have a higher budget, because you probably have to spend more to get any traction in romance with all the competition. So, from an algo standpoint - what the 'zon probably sees is that the mainstream titles get WAY more clicks and are therefore more "successful" ads. I'm in a small sub-genre of romance. I do well when I can get placement on books in my same sub-genre. But the ads on those books are dominated by "mainstream" romance books, because the 'zon sees them as getting more clicks overall (_guessing_). Hopefully the algos will continue to learn and refine they way they view "success" from a standpoint of which books cross-promote well rather than just which books are getting overall more clicks.

Again, I'm just guessing here - but it makes sense that this would be the reason that romance titles are dominating subcategories where they aren't the best match.


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## Gregg Bell

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Yes author names definitely do better.
> 
> My goal is to get on the first or second page of ads, not necessarily be the first in line. I like to keep my bids a penny or two below the acpc.


Thanks Gertie but I'm not following your thinking on keeping your bids below the acpc. If it took say a .10 bid (and let's say the ACPC was .09) to get impressions and clicks, and I go to .08 cents aren't I going to be shutting myself out?


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## Gregg Bell

Philip Gibson said:


> It seems to be the case that ACPC is always less than half of the CPC bid. At least in my case. So it would seem to make sense to increase the bid in an effort to gain more exposure.
> 
> But, so far, nobody really knows.
> 
> It's a mystery.
> 
> Philip


Yeah, that makes more sense to me. If you lower the bid you're getting less exposure.


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## Gregg Bell

Harald said:


> Also (for Gregg), don't forget to take into account Sales and ACoS. If a keyword is selling, and your ACoS is low, then there's no reason to drop your bid. Keep it where it is or even go up a little. My theory anyway.


Okay. That makes sense too.


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## Gregg Bell

I have my book titles as keywords. And I got a click and a sale through that but how does that work? They enter my book title into the Zon search engine. It brings them to my book and then they click on the sponsored ad


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## Gertie Kindle

Gregg Bell said:


> Thanks Gertie but I'm not following your thinking on keeping your bids below the acpc. If it took say a .10 bid (and let's say the ACPC was .09) to get impressions and clicks, and I go to .08 cents aren't I going to be shutting myself out?


Not necessarily. If your goal is to be the first in line, then underbidding the acpc isn't going to work. But, I feel that being on the first page or even the second on the carousel can get you noticed. The ad I restarted on Thursday had 177 clicks. I now have 200 with two sales and the equivalent of a full book read. For me, that's pretty good.


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## Gertie Kindle

Gregg Bell said:


> I have my book titles as keywords. And I got a click and a sale through that but how does that work? They enter my book title into the Zon search engine. It brings them to my book and then they click on the sponsored ad


Maybe they saw your other books in the carousel and clicked on that.


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## CassieL

Gregg Bell said:


> I have my book titles as keywords. And I got a click and a sale through that but how does that work? They enter my book title into the Zon search engine. It brings them to my book and then they click on the sponsored ad


Remember that these ads also show in search results so it could be that they saw your ad on a search results page and clicked on it there. Also, your titles don't look like they're so unique that the only option is your book page. Amazon keyword matching is fuzzy not exact.


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## A past poster

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Not necessarily. If your goal is to be the first in line, then underbidding the acpc isn't going to work. But, I feel that being on the first page or even the second on the carousel can get you noticed. The ad I restarted on Thursday had 177 clicks. I now have 200 with two sales and the equivalent of a full book read. For me, that's pretty good.


I raise my bids by a few cents to keep them on the first page. When a bid gets too high, I pause it if it doesn't pay for itself in sales. Amazon will keep raising your bids so you have to be watchful.


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## edwardgtalbot

Gregg Bell said:


> I have my book titles as keywords. And I got a click and a sale through that but how does that work? They enter my book title into the Zon search engine. It brings them to my book and then they click on the sponsored ad


Keyword ads (aka Sponsored Product ads) appear in both search results and in a row of sponsored results (the "carousel") below Also Boughts on book description pages. As an example, look at the book page for your book "The Find" and you'll see them there. It is my suspicion that overall more fiction readers are going to buy books off the book description page after having arrived there some other way than via search. Popularity Lists, Bestseller lists, also boughts, deals, amazon emails, etc. Therefore, I suspect that a substantial majority of keyword ad clicks and conversions come from people clicking on these sponsored results on book description pages.


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## Gregg Bell

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Not necessarily. If your goal is to be the first in line, then underbidding the acpc isn't going to work. But, I feel that being on the first page or even the second on the carousel can get you noticed. The ad I restarted on Thursday had 177 clicks. I now have 200 with two sales and the equivalent of a full book read. For me, that's pretty good.


Thanks Gertie. So do you check all your keywords to see what page they're showing up on? Could that not be extremely time consuming?


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## Gregg Bell

Cassie Leigh said:


> Remember that these ads also show in search results so it could be that they saw your ad on a search results page and clicked on it there. Also, your titles don't look like they're so unique that the only option is your book page. Amazon keyword matching is fuzzy not exact.


Thanks Cassie. I've just been examining my stuff. I have one book with another book title for the keyword and 27 impressions and that book does not show up in the carousel. I have another book that does not have the same book title as a keyword (but it does have the author's name) and that book of mine has no impressions and no clicks and yet that book shows up on page 25 (of 31) on that book's title.


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## edwardgtalbot

Gregg Bell said:


> Thanks Gertie. So do you check all your keywords to see what page they're showing up on? Could that not be extremely time consuming?


I would strongly advise against doing more than spot checking for general sense of positioning. Two different people will likely (though not always) see the book in a different spot in the search results or the carousel). Someone not logged into amazon (no buying history) will see yet again something different. Basing decisions on only what you see logged in as yourself is missing a good fraction of the picture.


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## Gregg Bell

edwardgtalbot said:


> Keyword ads (aka Sponsored Product ads) appear in both search results and in a row of sponsored results (the "carousel") below Also Boughts on book description pages. As an example, look at the book page for your book "The Find" and you'll see them there. It is my suspicion that overall more fiction readers are going to buy books off the book description page after having arrived there some other way than via search. Popularity Lists, Bestseller lists, also boughts, deals, amazon emails, etc. Therefore, I suspect that a substantial majority of keyword ad clicks and conversions come from people clicking on these sponsored results on book description pages.


Thanks Edward. Makes sense.


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## Gregg Bell

edwardgtalbot said:


> I would strongly advise against doing more than spot checking for general sense of positioning. Two different people will likely (though not always) see the book in a different spot in the search results or the carousel). Someone not logged into amazon (no buying history) will see yet again something different. Basing decisions on only what you see logged in as yourself is missing a good fraction of the picture.


Thanks but don't you mean '...strongly advise doing more...'?


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## Gregg Bell

I'm pretty sure I have one of those books that's being shutdowon for lack of impressions/clicks. I'm bidding between .10 and .15 cents on maybe 100 keywords. It's only on two days and has 536 impressions and no clicks. So does Amazon tell you they're shutting you down? What's the best strategy? Just start a new campaign with the same book?


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## edwardgtalbot

Gregg Bell said:


> Thanks but don't you mean '...strongly advise doing more...'?


No, I mean don't waste much time checking the positioning of your keyword ads. I might see your ad on page 4 of the carousel and you might see it on page 1. Amazon uses its algorithms to determine how to display ads. So making a decision based on where you see it would be mostly folly. Possibly for books and searches with very few bidders, there would be more consistency from reader to reader, and it might be more useful. But in that case only if you're really getting results. You have to decide whether the time spent doing so is going to get you the sales you need for it to be worth the time. Certainly once you're paying 20 cents or more per click (and likely bidding over 30), it means there are enough bidders out there that the location you see will not be all that consistent across readers.

The way you tell if a keyword is working is looking at impressions and clicks and conversions, with conversions of course being significantly delayed and possibly incomplete. If you're going to raise and lower bids, that's what it should primarily be based on. And I don't have any specific advice on when to raise or lower bids. Like everyone else, I experiment some with it. But I haven't yet seen any "system" of doing it that seems likely to be reliable, despite individuals having had some success with certain systems.


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## Gertie Kindle

edwardgtalbot said:


> I would strongly advise against doing more than spot checking for general sense of positioning. Two different people will likely (though not always) see the book in a different spot in the search results or the carousel). Someone not logged into amazon (no buying history) will see yet again something different. Basing decisions on only what you see logged in as yourself is missing a good fraction of the picture.


Agreed. I'm doing okay with impressions and clicks although sales could be better. Better, always, but still way more than I was doing this time last year. Maybe my system is working?


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## edwardgtalbot

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Agreed. I'm doing okay with impressions and clicks although sales could be better. Better, always, but still way more than I was doing this time last year. Maybe my system is working?


I'm sort of in the same boat. Can't say I really have a "system" yet, though! Doing split testing is so difficult with AMS that it's more a case of muddling along until something works and then trying to keep it working.


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## Gertie Kindle

edwardgtalbot said:


> I'm sort of in the same boat. Can't say I really have a "system" yet, though! Doing split testing is so difficult with AMS that it's more a case of muddling along until something works and then trying to keep it working.


I guess I have a basic system but it needs tweaking on a daily basis. I just don't allow myself to put too much time into it. I have three ads running and I try to work on one each day.


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## edwardgtalbot

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I guess I have a basic system but it needs tweaking on a daily basis. I just don't allow myself to put too much time into it. I have three ads running and I try to work on one each day.


I have four keyword ads running, one for each book that I control (I have some others I don't). I also have a variety of Product Display ads, but those are at low bids and have generated zero impressions thus far. I tried a lot of different ads in Feb, but now I am letting them run for longer. I will probably try adding a second ad per book soon, but many people find that this can impact performance of existing ads so I want to be careful.

I download data every day and load it into my database, but I'm still fiddling with a formula for making keyword decisions.


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## Decon

I've not experienced any of my 5 book ads being suspended by amazon and the results vary wildy. I've had the slow down regards impressions, but then they've picked up again.


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## The Bass Bagwhan

Folks, there are a few basic concepts I'm not getting...

For example, one of my keywords with a bid maximum of 0.15 has 330 impressions and just one click costing 0.06. So I've been asking myself, why bother raising the bid on that word? I haven't come to the maximum spend per click.

Maybe I've figured it out... did my 0.06 come from deep in the Sponsored Product carousel? Do I need to raise my maximum bid (assuming this is a good keyword) to compete for a slot in the first few pages of carousel?

Likewise, some keywords with plenty of impressions but no clicks... okay, maybe the cover art, etc, sucks, but could it also mean my impressions are buried on high-numbered pages? Does someone have to actually view your advert, see it on their browser page, for it to be counted as an Impression? Or can an Impression be buried deep on the carousel and not actually seen, but still gets counted as an Impression?

Maybe I just need to read this thread from start to finish?

Thanks!


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## Accord64

Gregg Bell said:


> I'm pretty sure I have one of those books that's being shutdowon for lack of impressions/clicks. I'm bidding between .10 and .15 cents on maybe 100 keywords. It's only on two days and has 536 impressions and no clicks. So does Amazon tell you they're shutting you down? What's the best strategy? Just start a new campaign with the same book?


1. No, Amazon won't tell you if they're shutting you down. The only way you can tell is when impressions slow/stop. In your situation, however, it's difficult to tell because you didn't say if the impressions had slowed. Did you get most (or all) of the 536 in the first day? Then perhaps so, although I think it's a bit soon for AMS to shut things down. It could be that your bids are too low and you're simply getting buried on the back pages for most of your keywords.

2. What's the best strategy? Wish I knew. The only thing I could suggest it to raise your bids for a day (or two) to see if it makes a difference. Also, do a search (preferably as an unregistered user) on some of the keywords to see how you're positioned. It could help you to zero in on a good bid price.

3. Start a new campaign? That's what Amazon suggested. I tried it once and it bombed worse than my first one. My best result came when I waited a week before starting it again.

Overall, the wild card is the performance algorithm. AMS won't explain how it works (no surprise), so we're left guessing at what to do in order to keep a campaign effective. To me, it's more like trying to play poker with a deck of cards that constantly changes. You might be holding all four aces, but the other players have better hands - with additional aces.


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## Chinmoy Mukherjee

I have never got even 100% ROI on "Amazon Ads".


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## A past poster

edwardgtalbot said:


> The way you tell if a keyword is working is looking at impressions and clicks and conversions, with conversions of course being significantly delayed and possibly incomplete. If you're going to raise and lower bids, that's what it should primarily be based on. And I don't have any specific advice on when to raise or lower bids. Like everyone else, I experiment some with it. But I haven't yet seen any "system" of doing it that seems likely to be reliable, despite individuals having had some success with certain systems.


I agree. It's difficult to have a "system" with AMS delayed reporting. That said, I've had some success with raising bids for keywords that are getting solid impressions and clicks to keep them on the first page of the carousel. I also monitor bids and pause them when they get too high for my daily budget.


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## Decon

Here are some figures. Not sure what to make of them, or how they compare with your own.

                  Impressions          Clicks  % of clicks to imp        sales          % of sales to clicks.    Average Bid cost      ACOS              Keywords

Book one:    905,299              801            0.09%              87 units              10.86%                  $0.08              25.83%                    404  

Book two:    765,997              355            0.05%              20 units                5.63%                  $0.06              38.36%                    687

Book three:  749,453              337            0.04%              21 units                6.23%                  $0.07              36.84%                    476

Book four:    529,227              279            0.05%              21 units                7.53%                  $0.06              24.88%                    471

Book five      351,449              281              0.08%              14 units                4.98%                  $0.03              22.15%                    354

================================================================================
TOTALS      3,301,425          2,053            0.06%                184 units                8.96%                  ?              25.00%


Note: I haven't ever stopped any of my ads and started them again as new ads, I have only paused them if I had a promo for say 1 day, and impressions have kicked off again when released back on sale.I have however, increased/reduced bids, and added or removed keywords, but basically I just now let it run and have done for some time. I understand the more data they have, the more likely they are to keep on giving impressions (to a point)

The only thing I have noticed is that if I run a free day promo and end up with sales giving me a better rank, I also seem to pick up sales on my AMS for that book, but once the rank falls back, sales are few and far between on AMS.

Also my book that has had most sales organically without ads, has picked up the most sales on AMS. So I'm thinking rank has something to do with clicks converting to sales in the reader's mind. At the moment it doesn't have a good rank and sales are slow for it on AMS, yet impressions soldier on.

I don't hold with the idea that they stop impressions forever if the don't produce clicks. Okay, they put a temp hold on it a week or so into a new ad and intermittenly after that while they assess the data, I've experienced that. I have one with over 5,000 clicks on a Stephen King book and no clicks, but I still keep getting impressions. I have many more examples like this.

The other thing I note is that book 2 & 3 aren't performing as well as book one, yet the impressions which were well down on book 1 (as much as 50% down) are fast catching up with that book. So that debunks the idea that they stop poorer performing ads, unless they only stop those with a rank bad ACOS that makes a loss to save us from ourselves.


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## edwardgtalbot

Great data, thanks Declan. Everything you mention I have either seen or have not seen but have not seen the opposite either. I've had two ads running for 15 days now for two books. Both books same genre (action thriller), both $4.99, both 20-25 reviews averaging 4 or more, both in Kindle Select. The same 200 keywords, all bidding at 52 cents.

One book has 147,000 impressions and  174 clicks. The other had 106,000 impressions and 71 clicks. Average CPC is around 30 cents. The first book has two sales. The second book has four plus a paperback. The first book has several thousand page reads during that time also, while the second book has only a few hundred. Including the page reads, the second book is breaking even and the first book has lost about $30.

Clearly my click-through rate is better on book one. I would say the sales+borrows per click can't be any higher than book two, though, based on observing rankings changes. So it probably does look at both click through rate and conversion rate.

It also seems likely that I need to work on my ad copy for book two.


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## amdonehere

edwardgtalbot said:


> No, I mean don't waste much time checking the positioning of your keyword ads. I might see your ad on page 4 of the carousel and you might see it on page 1. Amazon uses its algorithms to determine how to display ads. So making a decision based on where you see it would be mostly folly. Possibly for books and searches with very few bidders, there would be more consistency from reader to reader, and it might be more useful. But in that case only if you're really getting results. You have to decide whether the time spent doing so is going to get you the sales you need for it to be worth the time. Certainly once you're paying 20 cents or more per click (and likely bidding over 30), it means there are enough bidders out there that the location you see will not be all that consistent across readers.


I used to think that too but I'm not sure it's true. Yes each site visitor might see a different set of books on the carousel based on his buying records, but as far as placement in the carousel goes, my observation is that higher bid does move the book up to p.1 or p.2. I've tested this with multiple ISPs after clearing all cache and history in the same browser and different browsers. Also, I don't just observe my own book, but a couple of other fellow authors I know who are running ads too. And I've seen positive results when I up the bids on my ad when it fell to p. 3 and later on the carousel to move them up. Coincidence? Maybe. But could be bid tweaking too.

I really have no idea how to make use of the info given on the AMS sales reports. I just don't think they accurately reflect the results based on what I see from the dashboard. Even if they say this one book is getting me clicks or no clicks, I don't find that I can rely on that info. I've tried pausing ads that appear to be click bait, but immediately see a sales dip effect. I run them again and sales resume even though the report is not showing any sales. What gives? Who knows.


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## edwardgtalbot

AlexaKang said:


> I used to think that too but I'm not sure it's true. Yes each site visitor might see a different set of books on the carousel based on his buying records, but as far as placement in the carousel goes, my observation is that higher bid does move the book up to p.1 or p.2. I've tested this with multiple ISPs after clearing all cache and history in the same browser and different browsers. Also, I don't just observe my own book, but a couple of other fellow authors I know who are running ads too. And I've seen positive results when I up the bids on my ad when it fell to p. 3 and later on the carousel to move them up. Coincidence? Maybe. But could be bid tweaking too.


I think maybe I wasn't clear. Absolutely raising your bid is likely to move you up the carousel. But unless you're bidding very high (relative to the popularity of the page/book), you can't just look at the carousel and make assumptions about where it will appear for other users. My main point was don't get hung up on that. It's your impressions, clicks, and sales that will tell you whether your bid needs to go up or down, not where you see the book on the carousel. You can't really learn anything definitive from looking at the carousel that you can't figure from the other data. I almost never look at the carousel unless I see unusual behavior like a spike in a keyword impressions or something.


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## amdonehere

edwardgtalbot said:


> I think maybe I wasn't clear. Absolutely raising your bid is likely to move you up the carousel. But unless you're bidding very high (relative to the popularity of the page/book), you can't just look at the carousel and make assumptions about where it will appear for other users. My main point was don't get hung up on that. It's your impressions, clicks, and sales that will tell you whether your bid needs to go up or down, not where you see the book on the carousel. You can't really learn anything definitive from looking at the carousel that you can't figure from the other data. I almost never look at the carousel unless I see unusual behavior like a spike in a keyword impressions or something.


Edward I do know what you're saying. Problem is my experience is that I find I can't learn anything definitive from the AMS reports. What I do is in fact look at my ad's carousel placement and up the bid every time I see it falling out of p.2 of a book I want to be visible on. I'm not recommending my method to anyone else since I can't guarantee anything on it, but it's worked for me so far.


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## amdonehere

Another thing I've been doing that is going in a different direction than what some of you guys are saying is I'm running 3 ads on the same book. Does it have any negative impact? I don't know. If there is, I haven't noticed it. One ad is specifically targeted to a very precise genre that is my exact own genre. For that one I have a higher daily maximum. The second one is for cross genre books -- readers who are looking at books that have some similarities to mine. I have a lower daily maximum for that one and as expected the resulting impressions and clicks are lower, but as far as percentage ROI, both ads are the same. 50% spend of my total sales. (Note though that I bid quite high as this book is my loss leader and my goal is sell-throughs rather than this book).

I recently began a 3rd campaign and moved all the KWS of books and authors in my specific genre which are very low in ranking (like 400K and higher). I want my book to still show up on those pages whenever those books get viewed, but I don't want them taking up one of my 1000 KW spaces and competing for spent on my main campaign. I feel like in this case the low impressions have less to do with my ad than the fact that these books overall have very low browsers and buyers, but I want to maximize my visibility and it's very easy to do since they usually have low number of books on the carousel. For this campaign I set my daily maximum to only $1 and can bid at $.15 per ad, get the advantage to the rare and occasional views, and still never reacn the daily max.


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## edwardgtalbot

AlexaKang said:


> Edward I do know what you're saying. Problem is my experience is that I find I can't learn anything definitive from the AMS reports. What I do is in fact look at my ad's carousel placement and up the bid every time I see it falling out of p.2 of a book I want to be visible on. I'm not recommending my method to anyone else since I can't guarantee anything on it, but it's worked for me so far.


Alexa - certainly I can see that doing some good. When you say it's "worked", how do you define "worked"? Are you basing that on impressions, clicks, sales, what? And when are you looking at the numbers? Unless you're checking the carousel hourly or something, won't the impressions have started dropping by the time you check the carousel and then raise your bid.

The only data you have to determine whether it "worked" is the very data I'm suggesting you should mostly use instead of checking the carousel.


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## CassieL

I don't look at the carousel at all.  Each time you go to a product page it's a new auction so it's not static.  It's about who else is bidding when you are and what they're bidding and that can change throughout the day.

In terms of running multiple ads, I have three running right now on the same book with virtually identical ad copy and even fairly similar keywords.  One has been running forever, one for a few months now, and one is my "winners" ad that only includes the keywords that have generated sales for me to-date.  I paused the "losers" ad that had all my no/low impression keywords just because it was getting expensive with no sales due to the low number of impressions on each keyword and therefore clicks per word.  As far as I can see, having multiple ads doesn't create issues with each one continuing to run and generate impressions/clicks/sales.  I think I have brought it down to one ad a few times, but it didn't make a noticeable difference so then I reactivated the others or started new ones.


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## amdonehere

edwardgtalbot said:


> Alexa - certainly I can see that doing some good. When you say it's "worked", how do you define "worked"? Are you basing that on impressions, clicks, sales, what? And when are you looking at the numbers? Unless you're checking the carousel hourly or something, won't the impressions have started dropping by the time you check the carousel and then raise your bid.
> 
> The only data you have to determine whether it "worked" is the very data I'm suggesting you should mostly use instead of checking the carousel.


Put it this way, my sales begin to slow down. I then check my carousel placements on the most popular books I target for placement. Usually, it's because those books now have risen in ranking and/or the number of sponsored ads on their page has increased and my book has fallen to p.3 or 4. I up my bid on those books, my placement go back to p. 1 & 2, and sales go back up to normal rate.

I can't say there's any scientific proof that this means everyone else is seeing my ad on p. 1 or 2. I do test the placement both when I'm logged in and when I'm logged out, along with using different ISPs after clearing cache & history.

I think for sure the algo supposedly try to tailor what they show, but from my own observation, that's more when they do a overhaul and rotate books, rather than pushing a particular ad up or down the carousel. Seems to me the placement on the carousel itself is in fact determined by bidding price. For example, there are 3 authros (or an unrelated genre) who for inexplicable reasons are heavily favored by Amazon. Their books are always the first set to show up in all new releases in the books I target based on genre. I also know these ads' bidding prices are very low. I punch in the KW and set my bidding price at $.10 and always I'll be able to jump the queue above them, until other ads start to come in and push my ad down. So I'm constantly having to check and see how many new ads are populating and adjust my price from there.

Another thing that throws a curve ball is, 1/3 of the time Amazon won't show my ad on the ebook page, or my ad is buried somewhere on the ebook carousel, but I'm on p.1 for the paperback. So that makes determining what's going on even harder.


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## edwardgtalbot

AlexaKang said:


> Put it this way, my sales begin to slow down. I then check my carousel placements on the most popular books I target for placement. Usually, it's because those books now have risen in ranking and/or the number of sponsored ads on their page has increased and my book has fallen to p.3 or 4. I up my bid on those books, my placement go back to p. 1 & 2, and sales go back up to normal rate.


Do impressions and clicks go down as well, when your sales begin to slow down?


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## amdonehere

edwardgtalbot said:


> Do impressions and clicks go down as well, when your sales begin to slow down?


Honestly, I can't tell. The KWs with highest impressions and clicks don't slow down, but a lot of times the change in carousel placements aren't even books of those KWs. For the applicable KWs themselves, I gave up tracking them because at least for me, I often don't see a correlation. My placement can be anywhere from p.1-4, but often it looks like there are only impressions in the 3 digit or not a lot of clicks. I don't really see a lot of movement in clicks and impressions except for my top 6 KWs. But this can't be right because I am making sales from the ads. That's why I do't rely on AMS reports anymore, or at least I don't know what to make of the data. I look at my data report and I see a lot of 1 sale for many KWs.

One thing I am sure of is that the AMS ads are in fact driving my sales. Last week I terminated my credit card, and completely forgot it was the card I used to pay for the AMS ads. Amazon suspended all my campaigns and notified me but I missed their email. Took me a couple of days to realize this and during that time, my sales nosedived to 0-1 sales per day. Took me another 2 days to link a new credit card and let the ads do its thing again. Now those sheik romances sell very well, but I also think they are selling well BECAUSE Amazon keeps favoring their ads.

So, for me anyway, the AMS reports really aren't helping.

ETA: Another thing is, and this is a different matter, even on KWs where I do extremely well sometimes (we're talking impressions into the 5 digits, double digit click rates plus sales), Amazon would sometimes for reasons I can't understand rotate my ad out and stop showing it on those KWs. You'd think the algo would see this book is working and continue to run it, but no they don't. Instead, suddenly a bunch of books of a totally unrelated genre with minimal bid prices would take over. (I know their bid prices, they're the same sheik romances that bid at 3-5c). Why I have no idea.


----------



## Gregg Bell

edwardgtalbot said:


> No, I mean don't waste much time checking the positioning of your keyword ads. I might see your ad on page 4 of the carousel and you might see it on page 1. Amazon uses its algorithms to determine how to display ads. So making a decision based on where you see it would be mostly folly. Possibly for books and searches with very few bidders, there would be more consistency from reader to reader, and it might be more useful. But in that case only if you're really getting results. You have to decide whether the time spent doing so is going to get you the sales you need for it to be worth the time. Certainly once you're paying 20 cents or more per click (and likely bidding over 30), it means there are enough bidders out there that the location you see will not be all that consistent across readers.
> 
> The way you tell if a keyword is working is looking at impressions and clicks and conversions, with conversions of course being significantly delayed and possibly incomplete. If you're going to raise and lower bids, that's what it should primarily be based on. And I don't have any specific advice on when to raise or lower bids. Like everyone else, I experiment some with it. But I haven't yet seen any "system" of doing it that seems likely to be reliable, despite individuals having had some success with certain systems.


Thanks for the explanation.


----------



## Gregg Bell

Accord64 said:


> 1. No, Amazon won't tell you if they're shutting you down. The only way you can tell is when impressions slow/stop. In your situation, however, it's difficult to tell because you didn't say if the impressions had slowed. Did you get most (or all) of the 536 in the first day? Then perhaps so, although I think it's a bit soon for AMS to shut things down. It could be that your bids are too low and you're simply getting buried on the back pages for most of your keywords.
> 
> 2. What's the best strategy? Wish I knew. The only thing I could suggest it to raise your bids for a day (or two) to see if it makes a difference. Also, do a search (preferably as an unregistered user) on some of the keywords to see how you're positioned. It could help you to zero in on a good bid price.
> 
> 3. Start a new campaign? That's what Amazon suggested. I tried it once and it bombed worse than my first one. My best result came when I waited a week before starting it again.
> 
> Overall, the wild card is the performance algorithm. AMS won't explain how it works (no surprise), so we're left guessing at what to do in order to keep a campaign effective. To me, it's more like trying to play poker with a deck of cards that constantly changes. You might be holding all four aces, but the other players have better hands - with additional aces.


Thanks Bruce. I think I was panicking a bit. (I always think they're singling me out for egregious incompetence.) No, the impressions seem to be fairly consistent, just no clicks. I'm taking your advice on upping the bids and seeing what happens.

P.S. LOVE the poker with a deck of cards that constantly changes analogy.


----------



## Gregg Bell

Decon said:


> Here are some figures. Not sure what to make of them, or how they compare with your own.
> 
> Impressions Clicks % of clicks to imp sales % of sales to clicks. Average Bid cost ACOS Keywords
> 
> Book one: 905,299 801 0.09% 87 units 10.86% $0.08 25.83% 404
> 
> Book two: 765,997 355 0.05% 20 units 5.63% $0.06 38.36% 687
> 
> Book three: 749,453 337 0.04% 21 units 6.23% $0.07 36.84% 476
> 
> Book four: 529,227 279 0.05% 21 units 7.53% $0.06 24.88% 471
> 
> Book five 351,449 281 0.08% 14 units 4.98% $0.03 22.15% 354
> 
> ================================================================================
> TOTALS 3,301,425 2,053 0.06% 184 units 8.96% ? 25.00%
> 
> Note: I haven't ever stopped any of my ads and started them again as new ads, I have only paused them if I had a promo for say 1 day, and impressions have kicked off again when released back on sale.I have however, increased/reduced bids, and added or removed keywords, but basically I just now let it run and have done for some time. I understand the more data they have, the more likely they are to keep on giving impressions (to a point)
> 
> The only thing I have noticed is that if I run a free day promo and end up with sales giving me a better rank, I also seem to pick up sales on my AMS for that book, but once the rank falls back, sales are few and far between on AMS.
> 
> Also my book that has had most sales organically without ads, has picked up the most sales on AMS. So I'm thinking rank has something to do with clicks converting to sales in the reader's mind. At the moment it doesn't have a good rank and sales are slow for it on AMS, yet impressions soldier on.
> 
> I don't hold with the idea that they stop impressions forever if the don't produce clicks. Okay, they put a temp hold on it a week or so into a new ad and intermittenly after that while they assess the data, I've experienced that. I have one with over 5,000 clicks on a Stephen King book and no clicks, but I still keep getting impressions. I have many more examples like this.
> 
> The other thing I note is that book 2 & 3 aren't performing as well as book one, yet the impressions which were well down on book 1 (as much as 50% down) are fast catching up with that book. So that debunks the idea that they stop poorer performing ads, unless they only stop those with a rank bad ACOS that makes a loss to save us from ourselves.


Thanks Decon. The data really helps. And wow, your average bid cost is so low. Seems like if I don't bid (and I'm in thrillers too) at least .15 I get almost no action.


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## Decon

Gregg Bell said:


> Thanks Decon. The data really helps. And wow, your average bid cost is so low. Seems like if I don't bid (and I'm in thrillers too) at least .15 I get almost no action.


I don't know what to say. All I know is that I don't chase book page positions (the carousel) as some call it. Like others have said, every time someone clicks on a book that has ads, it's a new bidding process with the algos. Some pull out as they set up new campaigns, or just get rotated out, and so I must sneak in there at times. The thing is, it took 3 months for me to get any sort of results with the same campaign and I've just sort of stuck with my bids since then, not wanting to play the bidding war. I do think that reading posts over the last 3 months, many expect too much too soon and get hurt by keep stopping campaigns that haven't had a chance to get going and devolop data at Amazon's end and then they've started new ones which doesn't give them a chance to produce, but that helps me.

Also with people constantly looking at their results and cancelling none performing keywords, as opposed to campaigns, on ones where I have bid low, then it ups my chances of a click and a sale by staying constant and those make up for my higher bids.

As for not getting impressions, I listed all Erik Von Danikan's books and similar for The Killers Amongst Us: Chimera Dawn Chronicles, my lowest impression and sales book in AMS. The reason was that my story is in line with his theory of Ancient God's as aliens, especially Egyptian god's,though his stories are more textbooks. Think X-files for mine;/ mystery crime, so I struggle to slot it into an exact category of books for keywords as it crosses genre, hence I don't have many keywords that are an exact match. I thought I'd do well with his books, but I paused them all when I realized I wasn't getting one impression on them. Obviously, your meta data has to have a match or AMS will ignore your keyword in some instance, though how cook books get on my pages I'll never know, unless they are keyord stuffing out of genre at upload for that purpose. Sometimes it can happen if you are an exact match, but you meta data differs from the choosen book, so you get no impressions.

It really is all a mystery.


----------



## edwardgtalbot

Decon said:


> I do think that reading posts over the last 3 months, many expect too much too soon and get hurt by keep stopping campaigns that haven't had a chance to get going and devolop data at Amazon's end and then they've started new ones which doesn't give them a chance to produce, but that helps me.


This is perhaps the most valuable observation of this entire thread. So few people have let non-performing ads run longer than 2-3 weeks that a lot of what we think is "data" is incomplete. I am very guilty of this myself and am beginning to rectify it.

That said, two of my book ads seem to convert well enough that I am more than happy to pay .20 cents per click (bidding in the 30's). So I am still torn about whether I should bid really low on keyword ads. Given that I now intend to let them run longer, I could go quite a while without results before I figure out whether my action thrillers really do require me to bid in the .30's. I know the romance folks almost all have to bid high to get results.


----------



## Decon

edwardgtalbot said:


> This is perhaps the most valuable observation of this entire thread. So few people have let non-performing ads run longer than 2-3 weeks that a lot of what we think is "data" is incomplete. I am very guilty of this myself and am beginning to rectify it.
> 
> That said, two of my book ads seem to convert well enough that I am more than happy to pay .20 cents per click (bidding in the 30's). So I am still torn about whether I should bid really low on keyword ads. Given that I now intend to let them run longer, I could go quite a while without results before I figure out whether my action thrillers really do require me to bid in the .30's. I know the romance folks almost all have to bid high to get results.


I really don't know the answer.

All I know is that I can't control what Amazon know and I don't, so I don't try to second guess. I only have my own data that I've posted and garnered over quite a number of months. I start by knowing I only have 70% royalty ($2) to play with for the ACOS and a small % of of actual page reads income. I did a previous post how I calculated this after working it out as a percentage of AMS sales to non-AMS sales rather than considering them all attributed to AMS, which I would consider it like fools gold to apply all page reads.

From the data I've posted, I don't need to know what Amazon are upto, or where I sit on the pages. I can quickly work out from overall results or individual campaigns how increased bids would bite into my ACOS if I didn't increase sales and increasing bids only guarantees early pages not clicks and sales, but it ensures higher costs. Regardless, my click to buy ratio would likely stay the same (Think on that a moment). It wouldn't take much of an increase across the board to soon get to a 70% + ACOS, so I always keep that in mind rather than starting from high bid pricing to get impressions that I know will end up producing a loss at my sale price of $2.99 as many have shown by posting their data on here, albeit from short term campaigns.

As an example, If my average bid cost is 8c (Which means bidding more in some instances), then I have a 25-1 click rate to buy, to eat up all my royalty.

If you apply that to my data on the previous page, in relation to % clicks to sales, then it's obvious I will make a profit @ an actual cost of 6 - 8c, so 15c bids are not out of the question, so long as the don't cost me that.

If however, I bid 50c and I'm charged say 25c then it translates to a 8-1 click rate to sale to eat up my royalty. So the way I look at it is that if I don't want to make a profit, I should bid 50c because I am not getting that ratio of clicks to sales for it to work. God forbid if I bid 52 cents and I was charged 50c, which would mean it would take only a ratio of 4-1 to eat up my royalty.

I'm tired so I hope I have the math right and that I am making sense. Bear in mind that I am shy of bidding higher as I didn't get the sort of results in increased sales when I increased bids as the previous post to this enjoyed to increase(or is that decrease) my click to buy ratio for the better. Also note I have no series as they are all standalones.

You can only determine your click to buy ratio with a long term campaign. For me, that ratio determines my bid price and not the pack chasing a front page. I still get sales from ad placement down the pecking order, just not as many as if I'd bid higher.

There is a contra argument to this as a strategy, but this post is too long already.


----------



## CassieL

Decon, you've inspired me to try an experiment.  Most of my ads for my fantasy book have had bids from 25 cents to 40 cents and done fairly well, but I took one I'd paused and changed all of the bids down to 10 cents a word with a low per-day spend and I'm just going to let it run and see what it does for a month or so.  Basically, see if it captures any impressions and clicks or not.  Right now it has about 38,000 impressions and 40 clicks with one sale at $6.99.  I'll see where it goes from here and report back.


----------



## Decon

Cassie Leigh said:


> Decon, you've inspired me to try an experiment. Most of my ads for my fantasy book have had bids from 25 cents to 40 cents and done fairly well, but I took one I'd paused and changed all of the bids down to 10 cents a word with a low per-day spend and I'm just going to let it run and see what it does for a month or so. Basically, see if it captures any impressions and clicks or not. Right now it has about 38,000 impressions and 40 clicks with one sale at $6.99. I'll see where it goes from here and report back.


Thanks for that. I would be really interesting to see what your resuts are in a few months time. Fingers crossed.


----------



## botolo

Hello all,

I love this thread and I find it extremely helpful. I have many questions I would like to ask, but for the time being I have one crucial question. How do you track the performance of your ads campaigns? Do you use a spreadsheet? Also, for keyword campaigns, do you track performance daily of each keyword or the whole campaign?


----------



## Philip Gibson

LilyBLily said:


> Interestingly, when my daily spend limit was $1 or $2, it never got used up. Since I raised it to a whopping $9, the money does sometimes get spent. When that happens I push it up a dollar (big spender!).


That's is indeed interesting. If that could be repeated consistently, it could provide the answer to how to scale up successful campaigns. Couldn't be that simple though, could it, since most of what the AMS algorithm does is such a mystery.

Has anyone else had a similar experience with raising their daily spend limit?

Philip


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Philip Gibson said:


> That's is indeed interesting. If that could be repeated consistently, it could provide the answer to how to scale up successful campaigns. Couldn't be that simple though, could it, since most of what the AMS algorithm does is such a mystery.
> 
> Has anyone else had a similar experience with raising their daily spend limit?
> 
> Philip


No, but I'll be the guinea pig/canary. Two of my ads had a daily spend of $5 and one had $3, I don't remember why. But, in the interest of science, I raised the $3 to $5.


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## Philip Gibson

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> No, but I'll be the guinea pig/canary. Two of my ads had a daily spend of $5 and one had $3, I don't remember why. But, in the interest of science, I raised the $3 to $5.


I'll send my guinea pigs to join your canary with two of my box sets. I'll run the experiment for 10 days.

*Apollo box set: *
Current daily limit: $5.00. Ave no. of clicks over past 10 days = 20 clicks per day. Only ever spends half the daily limit.
Daily limit now raised to $10 for next 10 days.

*Kids box set:*
Current daily limit: $5.00. Ave no. of clicks over past 10 days = 88 clicks per day. Always spends daily limit with 3 or 4 hours to spare.
Daily limit now raised to $8.00 for next 10 days.

Anyone else in for this and other group experiments from which we could hopefully draw real conclusions?

Philip


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## IreneP

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> No, but I'll be the guinea pig/canary. Two of my ads had a daily spend of $5 and one had $3, I don't remember why. But, in the interest of science, I raised the $3 to $5.


OMG - this would be SO MUCH EASIER to track if the 'zon would give us historical data. Keeping manual records and subtracting out the old numbers to see how you are performing now suuuuuuuxxxx.


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## Gertie Kindle

Okay, Philip. Ten days it is. Your average daily click rate is way over mine and I only raised my limit to $5. I'll go raise it to $10 right now. In the interests of science, of course.

It looks like reporting is finally catching up to sales. Sort of.


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## Gregg Bell

Decon said:


> I don't know what to say. All I know is that I don't chase book page positions (the carousel) as some call it. Like others have said, every time someone clicks on a book that has ads, it's a new bidding process with the algos. Some pull out as they set up new campaigns, or just get rotated out, and so I must sneak in there at times. The thing is, it took 3 months for me to get any sort of results with the same campaign and I've just sort of stuck with my bids since then, not wanting to play the bidding war. I do think that reading posts over the last 3 months, many expect too much too soon and get hurt by keep stopping campaigns that haven't had a chance to get going and devolop data at Amazon's end and then they've started new ones which doesn't give them a chance to produce, but that helps me.
> 
> Also with people constantly looking at their results and cancelling none performing keywords, as opposed to campaigns, on ones where I have bid low, then it ups my chances of a click and a sale by staying constant and those make up for my higher bids.
> 
> As for not getting impressions, I listed all Erik Von Danikan's books and similar for The Killers Amongst Us: Chimera Dawn Chronicles, my lowest impression and sales book in AMS. The reason was that my story is in line with his theory of Ancient God's as aliens, especially Egyptian god's,though his stories are more textbooks. Think X-files for mine;/ mystery crime, so I struggle to slot it into an exact category of books for keywords as it crosses genre, hence I don't have many keywords that are an exact match. I thought I'd do well with his books, but I paused them all when I realized I wasn't getting one impression on them. Obviously, your meta data has to have a match or AMS will ignore your keyword in some instance, though how cook books get on my pages I'll never know, unless they are keyord stuffing out of genre at upload for that purpose. Sometimes it can happen if you are an exact match, but you meta data differs from the choosen book, so you get no impressions.
> 
> It really is all a mystery.


Awesome, Decon. In my rush for results I'm ready to bail on a campaign on a daily basis. You have brought sanity back into my approach. Thanks very much!


----------



## Gregg Bell

LilyBLily said:


> Yes to staying the course. I think it took me nearly two months to decide to up the daily spend on one of my ads. It was doing okay, but nothing spectacular. Then I upped the spend and upped it again, and the book is moving a lot faster, plus it's selling the second book in the series and there is a visibly higher number of page reads that more than compensates for the higher ad cost. The book now ranks at 24k, much more visible in the Amazon store--if you believe that anything is visible at all beyond the first 100 in a genre, that is.
> 
> Interestingly, when my daily spend limit was $1 or $2, it never got used up. Since I raised it to a whopping $9, the money does sometimes get spent. When that happens I push it up a dollar (big spender!).


You're really at $9/day? Doesn't that get crazy expensive fast? (I felt like I blinked at $2/day and I spent $70.)


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## CassieL

Gregg Bell said:


> You're really at $9/day? Doesn't that get crazy expensive fast? (I felt like I blinked at $2/day and I spent $70.)


I've had ads as high as $25 a day. They rarely if ever spend the full ad amount in my experience. I only ever saw mine max out around the $5 mark and then only a couple days here or there, not consistently.


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## Harald

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Okay, Philip. Ten days it is. Your average daily click rate is way over mine and I only raised my limit to $5. I'll go raise it to $10 right now. In the interests of science, of course.


Very cool, you guys. I won't be joining the experiment, but I'll add an "index" note at thread top to come to this Page 7 to start on "Scaling Up By Increasing Daily Budget."


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## The Bass Bagwhan

A couple of observations coming from this thread.

Considering that a FB campaign or even services like Freebooksy can cost $30-50 per month that can achieve nothing, AMS strikes me as a comparatively cheap form of experimenting with promotions. Sure, you might see your AMS budget as somehow wasted when you don't get sales, but you're getting solid data as to why.

And since many authors seem to be getting good AMS results from advertising well-priced books, I wonder if a good AMS campaign can remove the (perceived) need for a 0.99 cent price point? If an advert works well, will it matter if your book is priced 0.99 or 2.99?


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Graeme Hague said:


> A couple of observations coming from this thread.
> 
> Considering that a FB campaign or even services like Freebooksy can cost $30-50 per month that can achieve nothing, AMS strikes me as a comparatively cheap form of experimenting with promotions. Sure, you might see your AMS budget as somehow wasted when you don't get sales, but you're getting solid data as to why.
> 
> And since many authors seem to be getting good AMS results from advertising well-priced books, I wonder if a good AMS campaign can remove the (perceived) need for a 0.99 cent price point? If an advert works well, will it matter if your book is priced 0.99 or 2.99?


I think I can answer that. I'm running an ad (the one I just increased to a daily spend of $10 from $3) for my most popular series. I'm advertising the first book at 99c. The following novellas (3) were priced at $2.99. No sales. I dropped the price of those three books to 99c. I had 21 sales of book 2 from 2/25 to 3/3. Then I raised the price to $1.49. Two sales on 3/4 and no sell-thrus since then. I'm back down to 99c as of today. At this point, I'll just take what I can get. YMMV


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## CassieL

My fantasy books I've been advertising are at $6.99 and until today weren't in KU for the last couple months so were making money without KU borrows to boost them.  My non-fiction titles are generally at $4.99 and not in KU.  My romance novel was at $4.99 and not in KU and had 12 sales on 224 clicks for the most recent ad I ran on it. But I struggle to get my romance ads to run at the prices I'm willing to pay.


----------



## 39416

I've been running campaigns since Feb 3, have moved about 78 books (all at $3.98 except five paperbacks between $10 and $13). Ads have paid for themselves and left me with about $1.28 in profit per book. I have experimented with the campaigns up, down, and inside out, and concluded... I don't have a clue. Nothing I've tried in altering these campaigns seems to make any discernible and reproduce-able impact on the sale results.


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## Philip Gibson

Graeme Hague said:


> A couple of observations coming from this thread.
> 
> Considering that a FB campaign or even services like Freebooksy can cost $30-50 per month that can achieve nothing, AMS strikes me as a comparatively cheap form of experimenting with promotions. Sure, you might see your AMS budget as somehow wasted when you don't get sales, but you're getting solid data as to why.
> 
> And since many authors seem to be getting good AMS results from advertising well-priced books, I wonder if a good AMS campaign can remove the (perceived) need for a 0.99 cent price point? If an advert works well, will it matter if your book is priced 0.99 or 2.99?


Since starting with AMS ads late last year, I no longer even consider using any of the paid promo sites. Over the past 3 years, I've used all of them (except Bookbub) multiple times and have probably spent close to $2,000 in that time. All I've ever achieved is short term spikes in sales of discounted books and equally short term boosts in rankings. Nothing sustainable, and sustainable sales and income is what I am seeking. Isn't that the case for most of us?

With AMS ads, I advertise my books on an ongoing, daily basis at full price and make a consistent, if small, profit of a few hundred dollars each month. A substantial part of that is sales of paperback books at full price - something that never happened with paid promos. And that's without really knowing what I'm doing. As I learn more and add more books to my catalogue and to AMS ads, I am hopeful that I can achieve at least my modest goal of generating a regular monthly income (profit) of $1,000 or so by the end of this year.

Philip


----------



## Decon

Philip Gibson said:


> Since starting with AMS ads late last year, I no longer even consider using any of the paid promo sites. Over the past 3 years, I've used all of them (except Bookbub) multiple times and have probably spent close to $2,000 in that time. All I've ever achieved is short term spikes in sales of discounted books and equally short term boosts in rankings. Nothing sustainable, and sustainable sales and income is what I am seeking. Isn't that the case for most of us?
> 
> With AMS ads, I advertise my books on an ongoing, daily basis at full price and make a consistent, if small, profit of a few hundred dollars each month. A substantial part of that is sales of paperback books at full price - something that never happened with paid promos. And that's without really knowing what I'm doing. As I learn more and add more books to my catalogue and to AMS ads, I am hopeful that I can achieve at least my modest goal of generating a regular monthly income (profit) of $1,000 or so by the end of this year.
> 
> Philip


Sounds like a plan to me. I've had similar results and the best December I have ever had, but with a combo of AMS and promo sites. I think December spoiled me with profit of $600 after all ad and promo costs and I was expecting bigger things for 2017. It was like all my books were firing on all four cylinders.

Alas two and a half months on without promos and AMS hasn't cut it on it's own for me, so I've started some more promos to suppliment AMS.

Still, considering I did a post on here around 2 years ago when I was ready to hang up my keyboard after only making $5 for December, I'd say AMS has been fantastic, even if it only produces a small profit.

Talking about strategy. I have two books planned for publication this year and both will be $4.99 from the off on AMS with higher bids. I may even try one of them at $6.99 and only use keywords of trad-published titles as a trial. I'd rather do that than experiment with what I have now. Saying that, I'll still use up as many free days to get downloads at publication as I can because I'll need reviews at that price and I only allow organic reviews having given up on ARCs. I'll alkso be setting a budget I can afford to lose with AMS to try and get momentum.


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## Gregg Bell

All right, I'm starting to get some impressions and clicks but no sales. So just hold tight for a while or this a reason for concern? (My campaigns are running 11, 5, 5, 3 and 3 days respectively.) (I wish I had Decon's patience!)


----------



## CassieL

What are your numbers?  How many clicks does each ad have?  Have you noticed additional sales above your baseline since you started running the ads even if the AMS report isn't showing them yet?


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Gregg Bell said:


> All right, I'm starting to get some impressions and clicks but no sales. So just hold tight for a while or this a reason for concern? (My campaigns are running 11, 5, 5, 3 and 3 days respectively.) (I wish I had Decon's patience!)


My goodness, that's no time at all. I'm making a small profit, but it took at least a month to get that far.



Cassie Leigh said:


> What are your numbers? How many clicks does each ad have? Have you noticed additional sales above your baseline since you started running the ads even if the AMS report isn't showing them yet?


Cassie's right. Don't look at your AMS dashboard for sales. Look at your KDP dashboard. AMS says it can take up to three days to register sales. I just had several sales show up after much longer than that.


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## Philip Gibson

Gregg Bell said:


> All right, I'm starting to get some impressions and clicks but no sales. So just hold tight for a while or this a reason for concern? (My campaigns are running 11, 5, 5, 3 and 3 days respectively.) (I wish I had Decon's patience!)


How many clicks does your longest running campaign have? Depending on what you pay per click, I'd say you only need become concerned if:

1. you have over 40 clicks with no sales showing up in your KDP dashboard.

2. it takes more than 2,000 impressions to produce a single click.

Philip


----------



## Harald

Gregg Bell said:


> All right, I'm starting to get some impressions and clicks but no sales. So just hold tight for a while or this a reason for concern? (My campaigns are running 11, 5, 5, 3 and 3 days respectively.) (I wish I had Decon's patience!)


Without knowing more of your specifics, I'd hold tight on the 3-5-day campaigns and let them settle in more (minimum 7 full days). I'm surprised that an 11-day campaign doesn't have at least one sale, unless there is something preventing it (the blurb, the book price, the competitiveness of the genre, et al.). Just as a comparison, on my three campaigns, I made my first sale on Days 3 & 4. But I have inexpensive books in a relatively small genre. A lot of factors at play.


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## lincolnjcole

LilyBLily said:


> My sales dashboard shows a definite upward pattern, both KU reads and sales. It's not big money, and after I subtract the AMS ad costs, it's even less, but it is much more visibility and psychologically it is validating: The books are selling better because I am advertising them in the right venue. Other ads I've purchased in my indie career have mostly yielded either a mere dollar or two in profit, or, more typically, a loss.


That's awesome. I usually see a lot of KU page reads with ads myself, but I don't always make money. I guess visibility is worth it, though.


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## IreneP

Did y'all get the survey from Amazon?

Please, please, _please_, on that last question ask them to make historical reporting available. I have several campaigns that have been running for months, and figuring out what the effectiveness is NOW is a freaking PIA. Basically, you have to keep downloading the data and then manually compare it.


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## mythsnake

Under the keywords, what does it mean when a keyword has an actual zero under impressions rather than a dash? I've got several of those in an ad I just started this morning, and I noticed that the last time I'd looked at the keyword data before now, all of those previously had 1 impression listed for them, but now they've been zeroed.


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## Gertie Kindle

IreneP said:


> Did y'all get the survey from Amazon?
> 
> Please, please, _please_, on that last question ask them to make historical reporting available. I have several campaigns that have been running for months, and figuring out what the effectiveness is NOW is a freaking PIA. Basically, you have to keep downloading the data and then manually compare it.


Sorry, I already filled it out. I didn't think to ask for historical data probably because I've only been at this since January. I did ask for more up to date reporting and column for borrows.


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## Gertie Kindle

LilyBLily said:


> I checked here first but no one had posted about it yet. Sorry. You're correct that history would be very valuable.
> 
> I did ask for a lot of things, including separating out the print sales from the ebooks, telling us whether upping the daily spend budget results in more sales, telling us why and when they slow or stop showing our ads and what we can do to make them start up again. A bunch of stuff we're all trying to figure out blind. I emphasized that I would spend many more ad dollars if I knew what they produced. Hint, hint, Amazon.


Good suggestions.


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## A past poster

LilyBLily said:


> I checked here first but no one had posted about it yet. Sorry. You're correct that history would be very valuable.
> 
> I did ask for a lot of things, including separating out the print sales from the ebooks, telling us whether upping the daily spend budget results in more sales, telling us why and when they slow or stop showing our ads and what we can do to make them start up again. A bunch of stuff we're all trying to figure out blind. I emphasized that I would spend many more ad dollars if I knew what they produced. Hint, hint, Amazon.


I didn't get a survey, but if I do I'll echo what you said.


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## Gregg Bell

Cassie Leigh said:


> What are your numbers? How many clicks does each ad have? Have you noticed additional sales above your baseline since you started running the ads even if the AMS report isn't showing them yet?


Thanks Cassie. I'm just getting less than ten sales a day on all the books lately so there's no real baseline to compare to. I have noticed an increase in page reads on a couple of the books, though. Maybe 1k (total, not increase) a day sort of thing.


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## Gregg Bell

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> My goodness, that's no time at all. I'm making a small profit, but it took at least a month to get that far.


Thanks Gertie. I'm getting a little more patient, and it's not like it's that expensive.


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## Gregg Bell

Philip Gibson said:


> How many clicks does your longest running campaign have? Depending on what you pay per click, I'd say you only need become concerned if:
> 
> 1. you have over 40 clicks with no sales showing up in your KDP dashboard.
> 
> 2. it takes more than 2,000 impressions to produce a single click.
> 
> Philip


Thanks Phillip. By those standards I'm in the ball park.


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## Gregg Bell

Harald said:


> Without knowing more of your specifics, I'd hold tight on the 3-5-day campaigns and let them settle in more (minimum 7 full days). I'm surprised that an 11-day campaign doesn't have at least one sale, unless there is something preventing it (the blurb, the book price, the competitiveness of the genre, et al.). Just as a comparison, on my three campaigns, I made my first sale on Days 3 & 4. But I have inexpensive books in a relatively small genre. A lot of factors at play.


Thanks Harald. Yeah, the eleven day campaign has two sales. You guys are calming me down a bit. I'm hanging.


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## CassieL

Gregg Bell said:


> Thanks Cassie. I'm just getting less than ten sales a day on all the books lately so there's no real baseline to compare to. I have noticed an increase in page reads on a couple of the books, though. Maybe 1k (total, not increase) a day sort of thing.


Okay, so looking at what you posted I'd say you don't have enough impressions yet to form an opinion on the performance of any of those ads except the last one other than the fact that your impression:click ratio looks fine. If you get to 20 clicks and no sales, that's where I'd shut it down. I actually try to keep everything at 10 clicks to a sale or less.

That last one for Saving Baby something isn't working for you there. Is that one buy for 73 clicks? That's way too high IMO. I'd look to see if you have a keyword that's generating most of those clicks but not resulting in sales and shut it down.

Others may have different thoughts, though, so maybe see what they say, too.


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## SC

What's the guideline for how many clicks per impression we should be getting?

Does anyone else have experience doing AMS for short works? I had tried several different ways and didn't think my numbers were looking very good (and only one sale), but I'm not sure if I didn't let it go on for long enough or if maybe shorter stuff doesn't do as well with this.


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## Gertie Kindle

Shawna Canon said:


> What's the guideline for how many clicks per impression we should be getting?
> 
> Does anyone else have experience doing AMS for short works? I had tried several different ways and didn't think my numbers were looking very good (and only one sale), but I'm not sure if I didn't let it go on for long enough or if maybe shorter stuff doesn't do as well with this.


I wouldn't do a short work again unless it was first in series. I tried three novelettes and one novella, which happened to be my most popular book. Without follow-thru sales, all three ads bombed. They were all 99c and I don't think you can make enough at that price point. Not only is the royalty only 35c, but they are too short to build up any kind of page reads.

The one that is the first of four books is doing fairly well.


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## Harald

Cassie Leigh said:


> Okay, so looking at what you posted I'd say you don't have enough impressions yet to form an opinion on the performance of any of those ads except the last one other than the fact that your impression:click ratio looks fine. If you get to 20 clicks and no sales, that's where I'd shut it down. I actually try to keep everything at 10 clicks to a sale or less.


Agreeing with Cassie: I'd say you (Gregg) need at least 25,000 Imprs to judge anything. So wait on those books to catch up.



> That last one for Saving Baby something isn't working for you there. Is that one buy for 73 clicks? That's way too high IMO. I'd look to see if you have a keyword that's generating most of those clicks but not resulting in sales and shut it down.


Yeah, on Saving Baby, Gregg's Imprs:Clicks is fine (367:1), but his Clicks:Sales is not good (73:1 assuming that's 1 sale). Like Cassie says, look at the keywords. You may have 1-2 that are killing you (Gregg), in which case, Pause them (you cannot delete them) and put your focus on more promising keywords. Beyond that, you simply may not be making the Sale. Meaning, maybe the Product Page that needs tweaking (cover, blurb, etc.). Which may require fixing and restarting the campaign.


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## Harald

Shawna Canon said:


> What's the guideline for how many clicks per impression we should be getting?


This is not a guideline; just my stats on my main series-opening book:
A. 2-month campaign: 629 Imprs per Click; 11 Clicks per Sale
B. 1-week new campaign: 383 Imprs per Click; 11 Clicks per Sale



> Does anyone else have experience doing AMS for short works? I had tried several different ways and didn't think my numbers were looking very good (and only one sale), but I'm not sure if I didn't let it go on for long enough or if maybe shorter stuff doesn't do as well with this.


That's what I'm doing (novella series), and it's working (for Book 1 of the series; I scrapped Book 2 ads when they were not performing as well). I'm in the black taking Reads into account for a $0.99 book (the others in the series are higher-priced).


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## Accord64

Sorry to say that I'm calling it quits with AMS. I know many of you have been reporting good results, and I'm really happy that it's been working for you. I, however, experienced disappointing results after several campaigns over the past few weeks.

Overall, I think I racked up pretty good numbers of impressions/clicks. A majority of my campaigns had 100-250 keywords focusing on other authors/titles in the books genre. Each campaign typically received tens of thousands of impressions and dozens of clicks. In terms of AD placement, I feel that I achieved decent, all-around visibility without getting crazy with bids.

Conversion to sales, however, was my downfall. It was nothing to get excited about: 20 sales for 600 total clicks. Yuck. I know there are a number of variables behind this (cover, blurb, price, genre, timing of ad, etc.), but I had expected to at least break even in terms of ROI. Instead, I lost money on all but one campaign.

(As a side note, I don't base my ROI on that pointless ACoS calculation. I calculate the total cost of a campaign against the total royalty earnings. While having total sales on the report is important, I think using it to calculate the success of a campaign is grossly misleading.)

So what happened? Were my books not enticing enough? Should I just be happy with the exposure?

No clear answers, but as far as exposure goes, I don't consider it worthwhile if I don't see a bump in sales after it's all over. I feel like the only thing I've clearly accomplished with AMS is to make Amazon a little bit richer.

Besides my disappointing results, I ran across some frustrating aspects to AMS:

1. Report Data Lag. A two to three day lag on sales (and other) information is utterly ridiculous, particularly when sales is a key metric to gauging keyword performance. I keep thinking about a scene from the movie _Black Hawk Down,_ when the convoy is desperately trying to exit a lethal gauntlet, but keep missing important turns because of a lag in communication with their controllers.

2. The Mysterious AMS Performance Algorithm. Nothing like making AMS more interesting by throwing in an important variable that Amazon won't define, which can slow/stop your campaign if some shrouded performance benchmarks isn't met. Add in the reporting lag, and I wonder how anyone can stay ahead of it. As I've said before: it's like playing poker with a deck that's constantly changing.

Okay, long rant over. Thanks for bearing with me. Best of luck to those of you still in AMS. I might try it again someday, if they ever they fix those issues. I'll keep checking back on your reports.


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## Decon

Gregg Bell said:


> Thanks Cassie. I'm just getting less than ten sales a day on all the books lately so there's no real baseline to compare to. I have noticed an increase in page reads on a couple of the books, though. Maybe 1k (total, not increase) a day sort of thing.


Book one: 875 imp per click 8 clicks, no Sales. Bid cost 10c retail $3.99
Book two: 1122 imp per click 2 clicks no sales Bid cost 15c retail $3.99
Book three: 562 imp per click 6 clicks no sales Bid cost 12c retail $3.99
Book four: 1008 imp per click 5 click no sales Bid cost 11c retail $3.99
Book five 367 imp per click 77 clicks 1 sale @ $1.99 12c retail $2.99

I can understand why you should be concerned because of Saving Baby, but even that has only been running 13 days. The others have some data, but it is too early to expect results which may or may not be in the pipeline when your dashboard updates.

You are more or less the same genre as me, so I'll make some comparisons and observations
Book 5 saving baby

I'm not surprised this has a low number of impressions per click, having commented before that I thought your cover was spot on for the genre. So the fact that you are gaining clicks at a rapid rate is encouraging.

What is not encouraging is that 77 clicks has only produced 1 sale at a time when your book was $1.99 (now $2.99). So something is wrong. There are two things to consider here, and that is to double up on your keywords and to reduce your bids, but only after looking at 1st your ad blurb, then 2nd your book blurb, as something is preventing them from pressing the buy button.

I had a similar situation with Deadly Journey, but slightly different. My impression to click ratio was something like 2,000 to one click, and I reached 86 clicks with only 1 sale. The other difference was that my actual bid cost was 2c so I hadn't used up all my royalty from that 1 sale.

At 12c per bid cost with 2.00 royalty, you are on a hiding to nothing as it is as you need 16 -1 sales just to cover costs. I changed my cover, ad blurb, and my book blurb and took my average bid cost up from 2c to 6c by bidding 12 c and that book now has a 35.8 ACOS. Not great, but that still includes that initial poor performance as I didn't start a new ad.

I think that I'm averaging 1700 impressions over my 5 books to one click, so you are doing better than me in that regard, but that is to be expected because my average bid cost is lower than yours, so I will be further down the pages. However at a guess, I make up with that by having more keywords.

You need to wait for more data on those first 4 ads and only start to worry if your click to buy ratio ends up worse than say 11-1 for the genre.


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## A past poster

Cassie Leigh said:


> If you get to 20 clicks and no sales, that's where I'd shut it down. I actually try to keep everything at 10 clicks to a sale or less.


I also pause keywords at 10 clicks if they aren't performing. That said, I check the keywords after I've paused them because of the time lag in reporting. Sometimes there are sales that don't show immediately. Amazon really needs to fix the time lag.


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## edwardgtalbot

Gregg -

To add to what Declan said, I took a look at your book page. I think the root of your conversion problem is there. Especially for thrillers, your book page needs to punch the reader immediately. Quite frankly, I tuned out after two sentences. Now, I write action thrillers, which are slightly different than your sub-genre. But I'd lead the book description with something like: "What kind of a man would do that to a baby?"

Maybe that exact quote doesn't fit your book, but you get the idea. And you want to wrap h1 tags around the lead line in your description, to make it stand out. You can click on Alive From New York in my signature and the words "Praise for Edward G. Talbot" are wrapped in h1, just as an example of what it looks like. By "wrap h1 tags" I mean you type it into KDP like this:



> *What kind of a man would do that to a baby?*


Some other things related to book descriptions:
-my conversion rate has improved a bit since I started leading with the three reviews/quotes about my book. Then I put my hook next (I actually have two lines to my hook and I wrap it in an h2 tag instead of h1 to get it the way it looks). Only after that do I put actual description.

-Try for two lines per paragraph in your description -no more than three.

-Do a call to action at the end (e.g. "Pick up the thrills today!")

-Your book page has one purpose (other than possibly targeting mailing list signups which is a different issue) - get someone to buy. It is not a synopsis. Certainly every sentence and probably every single word needs to be crafted with that goal. There are two sentences in particular that I would either remove or replace:
1. "She tells her father but he thinks she's exaggerating." I'd just remove this. It's not going to hook anyone. Unless there's something with her father possibly being in on it, in which case that's what you should focus on.

2."The next day she discovers something that makes her skin crawl." This is too vague. I know you don't want to give anything away, but you need to figure out a way to say this which makes it more compelling. Since I don't know what it is, I can't really tell you how. But play around with it.

I hope this helps.


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## A past poster

LilyBLily said:


> All of my romances and women's fiction are competing with books at 99 cents. I'm not going there. I think position is more important than price with these ads at first. I have to let people know the books exist. Once the books catch readers' attention, then, if they're interested, they look at the price. Since my romances are the usual $2.99, if price is a barrier, they can read the books in KU instead, which is free. I frankly do not want to attract a large readership of people who only are willing to pay 99 cents for a 50k novel.
> 
> The thing is, I've bought a lot of 99-cent novels from Amazon and even more that were free, and I haven't read more than a few of them. I'm much more likely to read a book I pay more for. And as an author, I want readers to commit to reading my stories, not grab them up because they're super cheap and then ignore them.


It's been my experience that people who look for free books are rarely willing to pay full price for a book that's $3.99 or $4.99, so it made sense to me when I was picking my keywords to look for trad books that were in my genre and would make my books look like a bargain. Those keywords have been the most successful.


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## Decon

Marian said:


> I also pause keywords at 10 clicks if they aren't performing. That said, I check the keywords after I've paused them because of the time lag in reporting. Sometimes there are sales that don't show immediately. Amazon really needs to fix the time lag.


I shouldn't be saying this as really you could be competion and you cancelling your keyword on those terms could improve my placement, but then that would be tight of me.

A lot depends on you bid cost and if it has any ACOs on previous clicks. I personally wouldn't cancel because I don't need to at 10 clicks, because it will have only cost me around 60c.

Saying thit I might cancel but only after checking a few things. If the keyword were a title, it could be that when I seach that tiite, there were a number of books with that title and my ad was landing an a book where there wasn't a match and not the book I had intended. That has happened.

If it's an author name, again you could find that you are not getting onto the books he writes in your genre, but a book of his where they have gone outside their grenre and so doesn't match your story. Again, that has happened.


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## Harald

edwardgtalbot said:


> Gregg - To add to what Declan said, I took a look at your book page. I think the root of your conversion problem is there. Especially for thrillers, your book page needs to punch the reader immediately. Quite frankly, I tuned out after two sentences. Now, I write action thrillers, which are slightly different than your sub-genre. But I'd lead the book description with something like: "What kind of a man would do that to a baby?


Agree with edward here. Make good use of the HTML tags you're allowed in the Book Description (and in the Edit Reviews sections). Edward uses H1 tags. I use the *Bold* tags ("b"). Or use both. A very easy fix in the first graph of Saving Baby is to bold the line: *But something's not right.* There's your tension. You need tension as close to the top of the blurb as possible. For me in Book 1 in my series, I start of with: *It's September, 1609, and two worlds are about to collide.* You gotta suck in readers from the get-go.

Just a suggestion.


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## Jake Parent

Shawna Canon said:


> It seems like everyone is talking about Sponsored Product ads. Is there a reason no one seems to be doing product display ads?


Generally, search ads are more effective because the person is already trying to find something similar to the product/book you are trying to sell. That's what the genius of Google was (and still where the majority of their revenue comes from).


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## Decon

Shawna Canon said:


> What's the guideline for how many clicks per impression we should be getting?
> 
> Does anyone else have experience doing AMS for short works? I had tried several different ways and didn't think my numbers were looking very good (and only one sale), but I'm not sure if I didn't let it go on for long enough or if maybe shorter stuff doesn't do as well with this.


I haven't, but I'm about to put Lunch Break Thrillers in there, which is a collection of 12 shorts @ 65,000 words $2.99 retail. All my bids will be 3c, so I'm not expecting much,

Not sure if my cover will get past scrutiny, but if not I have an old cover that I can use. If it only enourages page reads, I'll be happy.


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## Harald

Accord64 said:


> Sorry to say that I'm calling it quits with AMS. [...] (As a side note, I don't base my ROI on that pointless ACoS calculation. I calculate the total cost of a campaign against the total royalty earnings. While having total sales on the report is important, I think using it to calculate the success of a campaign is grossly misleading.)


Sorry about your results, Accord64, and don't want to rub salt in wound here, but I gotta disagree with the comment above (or maybe I'm not reading it right). The ACoS column does exactly what you're talking about. Just by looking at the campaign's ACoS number, you can see in an instant if you're making or losing money in terms of "bare ROI" (not including Reads, sales bumps, organic visibility, etc.). What's misleading?


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## CassieL

I do use ACOS as a quick measure but just a slight quibble with it being 100% useful.  If you're selling paperbacks, too, which I do on most of my titles, it's misleading because it uses the list price of the paperback ($16.95 for my fantasy novels) in those calculations (versus the $4.25 I think it is that I make per sale).  So I have to keep that in mind when looking at ACOS since a 70% ACOS that includes paperback sales means I'm losing money.  Not an issue for people with ebooks only and who don't move between the 35% and 70% payout levels ever.


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## Accord64

Harald said:


> Just by looking at the campaign's ACoS number, you can see in an instant if you're making or losing money in terms of "bare ROI" (not including Reads, sales bumps, organic visibility, etc.). What's misleading?


If I sold one eBook at $3.99, and spent $3.99 in total clicks for that keyword, on the surface it seems like I broke even. Not so. My real earnings on the sale is actually $2.79 (70% royalty), so I actually lost $1.20. This disparity is much larger for print book sales. This is why I think ACoS is misleading. I think the AMS report needs to compare your _real earnings_ against total spend on each keyword.

As mentioned before, KU reads aren't on the report, probably because there's no way AMS could calculate a value until KU determines the per page payout. However, I could see total page reads that each keyword generated being worthwhile information. But I'm not in KU, so I'm not trying to figure out how calculate that into my real earnings.

Sales bumps, organic visibility, etc., are subjective, and not what I was talking about. I was only speaking in context of how AMS was trying to make ACoS a performance metric.


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## lincolnjcole

Marian said:


> I also pause keywords at 10 clicks if they aren't performing. That said, I check the keywords after I've paused them because of the time lag in reporting. Sometimes there are sales that don't show immediately. Amazon really needs to fix the time lag.


Yeah when they go poorly i pause and just reevaluate


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## Douglas Milewski

My current ad (for a $0.99 first in series title) is at 21,000 impressions, 18 clicks, 3 sales. Of that, my best keyword is 4900 impressions, 7 clicks, 2 sales. My second best is 3300, 4 clicks, 1 sale. None of the other keywords have sold yet. At this point, I paid $3.46 for $2.70 in return. I'll only turn positive if I hit a third book sale in the series, or if one of my collections sell.

As I'm not a big seller, I prefer running with fewer keywords that hit my preferred audience. My current tactic is to target the name of specific authors. I'm looking to match my work to a specific audience. 10,000 impressions produced half my clicks and no sales, so I'll be trimming down those keywords.


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## A past poster

Decon said:


> I shouldn't be saying this as really you could be competion and you cancelling your keyword on those terms could improve my placement, but then that would be tight of me.
> 
> A lot depends on you bid cost and if it has any ACOs on previous clicks. I personally wouldn't cancel because I don't need to at 10 clicks, because it will have only cost me around 60c.
> 
> Saying thit I might cancel but only after checking a few things. If the keyword were a title, it could be that when I seach that tiite, there were a number of books with that title and my ad was landing an a book where there wasn't a match and not the book I had intended. That has happened.
> 
> If it's an author name, again you could find that you are not getting onto the books he writes in your genre, but a book of his where they have gone outside their grenre and so doesn't match your story. Again, that has happened.


Thanks, Decon. You've made good points, especially using author keywords that go to books outside my genre. I don't write in your genre, so we're not in competition. I look at the bid cost. If I've reached my profit on the book or close to it without selling any books and have 10 or more clicks, I pause the keyword.


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## Harald

Cassie Leigh said:


> I do use ACOS as a quick measure but just a slight quibble with it being 100% useful. If you're selling paperbacks, too, which I do on most of my titles, it's misleading because it uses the list price of the paperback ($16.95 for my fantasy novels) in those calculations (versus the $4.25 I think it is that I make per sale). So I have to keep that in mind when looking at ACOS since a 70% ACOS that includes paperback sales means I'm losing money. Not an issue for people with ebooks only and who don't move between the 35% and 70% payout levels ever.


Good point, Cassie. Yes, I'm only talking about ebooks.


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## Harald

Accord64 said:


> If I sold one eBook at $3.99, and spent $3.99 in total clicks for that keyword, on the surface it seems like I broke even. Not so. My real earnings on the sale is actually $2.79 (70% royalty), so I actually lost $1.20. This disparity is much larger for print book sales. This is why I think ACoS is misleading. I think the AMS report needs to compare your _real earnings_ against total spend on each keyword. ...


But that's what the ACoS column does (or pretty close; it's based on the gross sale -- "order" in Amazon terms -- and doesn't include, I think, any file handling fees). It's the Spend divided by the Sales given as a percentage, either overall or per keyword. So, talking about ebooks only, I don't think it's misleading. It's not perfect, but it's close (for me).


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## Decon

I'll soon find out if short story compilations/anthologies work if they accept my cover which has a gun, but it's not pointed at anyone.

Only bidding 3 cents though. The odd paper book sale or page reads would be the best I could hope for, though I going for generic keywords with this one that are in "short" supply and reated only to short story meta data.


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## Gregg Bell

Cassie Leigh said:


> Okay, so looking at what you posted I'd say you don't have enough impressions yet to form an opinion on the performance of any of those ads except the last one other than the fact that your impression:click ratio looks fine. If you get to 20 clicks and no sales, that's where I'd shut it down. I actually try to keep everything at 10 clicks to a sale or less.
> 
> That last one for Saving Baby something isn't working for you there.  Is that one buy for 73 clicks? That's way too high IMO. I'd look to see if you have a keyword that's generating most of those clicks but not resulting in sales and shut it down.
> 
> Others may have different thoughts, though, so maybe see what they say, too.


Thanks Cassie. My results were a little skewed because I had one bid at $2 instead of the intended .20 and I got six clicks at .56/click. And it was actually two sales at .99 each, not one. But yeah, I'm going to let things run a bit. The most clicks I got on a keyword was 16 and at .11/click that came to 1.76. I don't know with all the impressions (4000) maybe it's best to let it run, don't you think?

And I've been seeing a few more sales on KDP. Is that what you guys mean about the delay? The sales show up on KDP and only days later on AMS?


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## Decon

I'll soon find out if short story compilations/anthologies work if they accept my cover which has a gun, but it's not pointed at anyone. (Oh, dear, make that three guns, with one on a suitcase and the other a rifle pointed at the reader) I hope they don't look too close.

$2.99 retail. Lunch Break Thrillers.

Here's the ad copy.

_12 not so short suspense stories in the thriller sub genres that make a full length book.
All crafted to make you ponder long after the story ends._

Only bidding 3 cents though. The odd paper book sale or page reads would be the best I could hope for, though I am going for generic keywords with this one that are in "short" supply and related only to short story meta data.

Your thoughts on keywords appreciated. I'm down to 7 at the moment lol.

Fiction short stories

Short fiction

short story anthology

Anthology

Short story books

Story book

Short thriller stories


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## Gregg Bell

Harald said:


> Agreeing with Cassie: I'd say you (Gregg) need at least 25,000 Imprs to judge anything. So wait on those books to catch up.
> 
> Yeah, on Saving Baby, Gregg's Imprs:Clicks is fine (367:1), but his Clicks:Sales is not good (73:1 assuming that's 1 sale). Like Cassie says, look at the keywords. You may have 1-2 that are killing you (Gregg), in which case, Pause them (you cannot delete them) and put your focus on more promising keywords. Beyond that, you simply may not be making the Sale. Meaning, maybe the Product Page that needs tweaking (cover, blurb, etc.). Which may require fixing and restarting the campaign.


Thanks Harald. It was actually two sales, though. And how do I evaluate 'more promising keywords'? I mean, to me (since I'm getting so few sales) the more promising keywords are the ones getting the clicks. And yeah, I'm going to take a look at the Product pages.


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## Alex Owens

I just wanted to chime in with my experience with AMS so far. I started one campaign for a first-in-series book on 3/10, and a second campaign two days later. (same book, different ad text and slightly different key words)

I've had a total of around 67000 impressions, with only 100 clicks... No sales according to the AMS dashboard. 

BUT... I've had enough KU page reads (on the book in question and the next book in the series) that as of today, I've at least covered my expenses so far. Total spent to date is around $20, spread over two campaigns. Even if I lose a few bucks, it's been worth it so far because that book has gone from high 100's down to 20's in the overall store. This is important for a few reasons... One, I'm going to try for a BookBub shortly, and the lower ranking might help with that. Two, I'll be putting the third book in the series up in the next week or so for pre-order, and the lower ranking might help push sales to that one as well. 

The way I see it, I'm paying for visibility right now and the page reads are a bonus.  I should also point out that I *think* I know why I'm getting all KU reads and no sales. I can see that this book is priced $1 - 2 higher than all of the books showing in the Also Boughts and all of the books showing in the ads right below that.  I intend to lower the price on the book to better fit the market, I just don't want to do it before I apply to Bookbub. 

Anyway, I wanted to thank everyone for sharing on this thread... without the information posted here I'd probably be loosing my *ss instead of breaking even


----------



## Gregg Bell

Decon said:


> Book one: 875 imp per click 8 clicks, no Sales. Bid cost 10c retail $3.99
> Book two: 1122 imp per click 2 clicks no sales Bid cost 15c retail $3.99
> Book three: 562 imp per click 6 clicks no sales Bid cost 12c retail $3.99
> Book four: 1008 imp per click 5 click no sales Bid cost 11c retail $3.99
> Book five 367 imp per click 77 clicks 1 sale @ $1.99 12c retail $2.99
> 
> I can understand why you should be concerned because of Saving Baby, but even that has only been running 13 days. The others have some data, but it is too early to expect results which may or may not be in the pipeline when your dashboard updates.
> 
> You are more or less the same genre as me, so I'll make some comparisons and observations
> Book 5 saving baby
> 
> I'm not surprised this has a low number of impressions per click, having commented before that I thought your cover was spot on for the genre. So the fact that you are gaining clicks at a rapid rate is encouraging.
> 
> What is not encouraging is that 77 clicks has only produced 1 sale at a time when your book was $1.99 (now $2.99). So something is wrong. There are two things to consider here, and that is to double up on your keywords and to reduce your bids, but only after looking at 1st your ad blurb, then 2nd your book blurb, as something is preventing them from pressing the buy button.
> 
> I had a similar situation with Deadly Journey, but slightly different. My impression to click ratio was something like 2,000 to one click, and I reached 86 clicks with only 1 sale. The other difference was that my actual bid cost was 2c so I hadn't used up all my royalty from that 1 sale.
> 
> At 12c per bid cost with 2.00 royalty, you are on a hiding to nothing as it is as you need 16 -1 sales just to cover costs. I changed my cover, ad blurb, and my book blurb and took my average bid cost up from 2c to 6c by bidding 12 c and that book now has a 35.8 ACOS. Not great, but that still includes that initial poor performance as I didn't start a new ad.
> 
> I think that I'm averaging 1700 impressions over my 5 books to one click, so you are doing better than me in that regard, but that is to be expected because my average bid cost is lower than yours, so I will be further down the pages. However at a guess, I make up with that by having more keywords.
> 
> You need to wait for more data on those first 4 ads and only start to worry if your click to buy ratio ends up worse than say 11-1 for the genre.


Thanks a lot, Decon. I'll be patient. In the meantime, I think I can definitely increase and improve the selection of my keywords. And I am always increasing my bids because I figure if I'm not meeting the daily budget why not attempt to get more action (with the higher bids)? I would say most of my bids are in the .15->.20 range. Is this not good thinking?


----------



## Gregg Bell

edwardgtalbot said:


> Gregg -
> 
> To add to what Declan said, I took a look at your book page. I think the root of your conversion problem is there. Especially for thrillers, your book page needs to punch the reader immediately. Quite frankly, I tuned out after two sentences. Now, I write action thrillers, which are slightly different than your sub-genre. But I'd lead the book description with something like: "What kind of a man would do that to a baby?"
> 
> Maybe that exact quote doesn't fit your book, but you get the idea. And you want to wrap h1 tags around the lead line in your description, to make it stand out. You can click on Alive From New York in my signature and the words "Praise for Edward G. Talbot" are wrapped in h1, just as an example of what it looks like. By "wrap h1 tags" I mean you type it into KDP like this:
> 
> Some other things related to book descriptions:
> -my conversion rate has improved a bit since I started leading with the three reviews/quotes about my book. Then I put my hook next (I actually have two lines to my hook and I wrap it in an h2 tag instead of h1 to get it the way it looks). Only after that do I put actual description.
> 
> -Try for two lines per paragraph in your description -no more than three.
> 
> -Do a call to action at the end (e.g. "Pick up the thrills today!")
> 
> -Your book page has one purpose (other than possibly targeting mailing list signups which is a different issue) - get someone to buy. It is not a synopsis. Certainly every sentence and probably every single word needs to be crafted with that goal. There are two sentences in particular that I would either remove or replace:
> 1. "She tells her father but he thinks she's exaggerating." I'd just remove this. It's not going to hook anyone. Unless there's something with her father possibly being in on it, in which case that's what you should focus on.
> 
> 2."The next day she discovers something that makes her skin crawl." This is too vague. I know you don't want to give anything away, but you need to figure out a way to say this which makes it more compelling. Since I don't know what it is, I can't really tell you how. But play around with it.
> 
> I hope this helps.


Thanks Edward. And thanks for taking the time to look some of my stuff over. I appreciate it. I agree with you. My stuff definitely needs tweaking. It's not as high-concept thrilling as yours so I'm not sure 
* tags are in order but still it can be amped up for sure. And pruned.*


----------



## Gregg Bell

Harald said:


> Agree with edward here. Make good use of the HTML tags you're allowed in the Book Description (and in the Edit Reviews sections). Edward uses H1 tags. I use the *Bold* tags ("b"). Or use both. A very easy fix in the first graph of Saving Baby is to bold the line: *But something's not right.* There's your tension. You need tension as close to the top of the blurb as possible. For me in Book 1 in my series, I start of with: *It's September, 1609, and two worlds are about to collide.* You gotta suck in readers from the get-go.
> 
> Just a suggestion.


Thanks a lot, Harald. I'm going to look over all my product pages. And I like the embolding suggestion you made.


----------



## Gregg Bell

Question: One of my books has most of its impressions and clicks in two title/keywords. However when I go to the carousel for those two titles my ad/book is in neither title's carousels. Which to me doesn't make sense because how am I getting clicks if I'm not in the carousels? 

And one more question: Doesn't it take a lot to change a campaign? Having to redo all the keywords, re-set the bids etc. (I've been thinking of changing some of my campaigns to re-do the ad blurbs.)


----------



## Harald

Gregg Bell said:


> ...
> And one more question: Doesn't it take a lot to change a campaign? Having to redo all the keywords, re-set the bids etc. (I've been thinking of changing some of my campaigns to re-do the ad blurbs.)


Just hit the blue "Copy" link at far right of the AMS Campaigns dashboard. All your keywords will still be there. Then you can change your ad blurb (+ campaign name, daily budget, etc.).


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Gregg Bell said:


> Question: One of my books has most of its impressions and clicks in two title/keywords. However when I go to the carousel for those two titles my ad/book is in neither title's carousels. Which to me doesn't make sense because how am I getting clicks if I'm not in the carousels?
> 
> And one more question: Doesn't it take a lot to change a campaign? Having to redo all the keywords, re-set the bids etc. (I've been thinking of changing some of my campaigns to re-do the ad blurbs.)


You have to start a whole new campaign in order to change the ad copy. But, as Harald said, you can download the keywords from your original campaign and copy & paste only those keywords you want to carry over.


----------



## Cherise

edwardgtalbot said:


> No, I mean don't waste much time checking the positioning of your keyword ads. I might see your ad on page 4 of the carousel and you might see it on page 1. Amazon uses its algorithms to determine how to display ads. So making a decision based on where you see it would be mostly folly.


I'm convinced the auction restarts each time someone clicks to the next screen of the carousel or brings up a particular book's page. In other words, I do not think an ad's position is set. I think there is a new auction each time the page is loaded.

If I'm right, then it is indeed folly to look for one's ads.


----------



## Decon

Decon said:


> I'll soon find out if short story compilations/anthologies work if they accept my cover which has a gun, but it's not pointed at anyone. (Oh, dear, make that three guns, with one on a suitcase and the other a rifle pointed at the reader) I hope they don't look too close.
> 
> $2.99 retail. Lunch Break Thrillers.
> 
> Here's the ad copy.
> 
> _12 not so short suspense stories in the thriller sub genres that make a full length book.
> All crafted to make you ponder long after the story ends._
> 
> Only bidding 3 cents though. The odd paper book sale or page reads would be the best I could hope for, though I am going for generic keywords with this one that are in "short" supply and related only to short story meta data.
> 
> Your thoughts on keywords appreciated. I'm down to 7 at the moment lol.
> 
> Fiction short stories
> 
> Short fiction
> 
> short story anthology
> 
> Anthology
> 
> Short story books
> 
> Story book
> 
> Short thriller stories
> 
> Short story collection


Whoopee. Can't believe they accepted the cover. Still, not complaining, My compilation of shorts is now up and running with a massive total of 1 impression. I need to get to work on more keywords.


----------



## Harald

Decon said:


> Whoopee. Can't believe they accepted the cover. Still, not complaining, My compilation of shorts is now up and running with a massive total of 1 impression. I need to get to work on more keywords.


Congrats, Decon! Looks intriguing.

Just checked out your book detail page -- may I make a suggestion? OK ...
-- Blurb has too much gray text. Would be improved with some *bolds* (or H1s) for emphasis. At least the first line and then maybe each title. See up this thread about doing that from edward and me.
-- Your first line in the blurb is not grabbing me. In fact, the second part contradicts the first. (Are they short stories or not?) My suggestion to add a little more punch there:
*Lunch Break Thrillers. Twelve short stories. Time is precious!*

Good luck with it and keep us up to date on AMS ads!


----------



## CassieL

BVLawson said:


> I didn't see where anyone else had posted this yet, but Mark Dawson's latest podcast masterclass is about AMS ads:
> 
> https://selfpublishingformula.com/episode-56/
> 
> One this he does which is interesting is have lots of ads on the same book. And he said if he has a $100 daily budget, he might spend it on 100 different $1 ads, with different keywords. But there are other tidbits in there that may be useful to some. I'm still looking for the holy grail ...


That was interesting to learn, but of course the fact that he's going to cover AMS in his newest course releasing in four days mean AMS ads in general are going to get even more flooded than they are now. I miss those few months when everyone still thought AMS ads sucked but they were working well for me...


----------



## WriterSongwriter

@Decon your Lunch Break Thrillers show me this message: This title is not currently available for purchase. Am I the only one getting this message?


----------



## Decon

Harald said:


> Congrats, Decon! Looks intriguing.
> 
> Just checked out your book detail page -- may I make a suggestion? OK ...
> -- Blurb has too much gray text. Would be improved with some *bolds* (or H1s) for emphasis. At least the first line and then maybe each title. See up this thread about doing that from edward and me.
> -- Your first line in the blurb is not grabbing me. In fact, the second part contradicts the first. (Are they short stories or not?) My suggestion to add a little more punch there:
> *Lunch Break Thrillers. Twelve short stories. Time is precious!*
> 
> Good luck with it and keep us up to date on AMS ads!


Thanks, I've added some bold. Just have to wait for it to come through to the book page


----------



## Decon

WriterSongwriter said:


> @Decon your Lunch Break Thrillers show me this message: This title is not currently available for purchase. Am I the only one getting this message?


If you are from the UK and it's four territories then it won't display for sale, only the print book by clicking on the link in my signature.

I have a UK version using UK spellings etc and it has the same title for searches but a different assin. Even I can't view it unless I use a browser that doesn't know who I am because I am in Brazil.

Sponsored ads don't cover UK books. It's one of two I need to address as all my books used to have 2 versions, but no more. I didn't change it because at one time it was very highly ranked in the UK, Alas, no more.

Edited: Made a mess of the bold in the blurb. Now I'll have to wait for it to be live on my dashboard to rectify. I've copied the Create Space HTML which is fine,


----------



## Harald

Decon said:


> ... Edited: Made a mess of the bold in the blurb. Now I'll have to wait for it to be live on my dashboard to rectify....,


Product Descriptions can be quickly edited in Author Central > Books. In my experience, it only takes an hour or less for changes to be live.

Decon, I'm looking at yours now, and looks like you just need a closing Bold tag to get rid of all that bolding. It's the same as the opening tag with with a slash in front of the "b".


----------



## Gregg Bell

Harald said:


> Just hit the blue "Copy" link at far right of the AMS Campaigns dashboard. All your keywords will still be there. Then you can change your ad blurb (+ campaign name, daily budget, etc.).


Ah, thanks, Harald. Very good to know. But wouldn't it be best, in order to take advantage of the AMS $100 clicks credit, to create any new campaigns before the March 31st deadline expires?


----------



## Gregg Bell

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> You have to start a whole new campaign in order to change the ad copy. But, as Harald said, you can download the keywords from your original campaign and copy & paste only those keywords you want to carry over.


Thanks Gertie


----------



## Gregg Bell

Harald said:


> Product Descriptions can be quickly edited in Author Central > Books. In my experience, it only takes an hour or less for changes to be live.


Yes, but I've heard that if you make a price change or keyword or content change in KDP the product description will default to whatever is in KDP, not what's in Author Central. Anybody know if this is true or not?


----------



## Harald

Gregg Bell said:


> Yes, but I've heard that if you make a price change or keyword or content change in KDP the product description will default to whatever is in KDP, not what's in Author Central. Anybody know if this is true or not?


Correct. That's why you need to keep a copy of your updated text(s) on hand and make whatever changes are needed.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Gregg Bell said:


> Ah, thanks, Harald. Very good to know. But wouldn't it be best, in order to take advantage of the AMS $100 clicks credit, to create any new campaigns before the March 31st deadline expires?


IF you can get the credit. I opened three campaigns within the time frame and I'm in Select, but they told me I'm not eligible. Apparently, the credit is only available to "certain" authors.


----------



## StephenBrennan

Alex Owens said:


> I just wanted to chime in with my experience with AMS so far. I started one campaign for a first-in-series book on 3/10, and a second campaign two days later. (same book, different ad text and slightly different key words)
> 
> I've had a total of around 67000 impressions, with only 100 clicks... No sales according to the AMS dashboard.
> 
> BUT... I've had enough KU page reads (on the book in question and the next book in the series) that as of today, I've at least covered my expenses so far. Total spent to date is around $20, spread over two campaigns. Even if I lose a few bucks, it's been worth it so far because that book has gone from high 100's down to 20's in the overall store. This is important for a few reasons... One, I'm going to try for a BookBub shortly, and the lower ranking might help with that. Two, I'll be putting the third book in the series up in the next week or so for pre-order, and the lower ranking might help push sales to that one as well.
> 
> The way I see it, I'm paying for visibility right now and the page reads are a bonus. I should also point out that I *think* I know why I'm getting all KU reads and no sales. I can see that this book is priced $1 - 2 higher than all of the books showing in the Also Boughts and all of the books showing in the ads right below that. I intend to lower the price on the book to better fit the market, I just don't want to do it before I apply to Bookbub.
> 
> Anyway, I wanted to thank everyone for sharing on this thread... without the information posted here I'd probably be loosing my *ss instead of breaking even


I have to ask, how wide did you have to go on keywords to get 67,000 impressions? I started my campaign 2 days before you did, and as of today I only have about 16,000 impressions with 16 clicks.

I know that's a good conversion rate, and I spent a fair bit of time targeting to get that effect, but I'm not really getting enough volume to consider this a success.


----------



## Alex Owens

StephenBrennan said:


> I have to ask, how wide did you have to go on keywords to get 67,000 impressions? I started my campaign 2 days before you did, and as of today I only have about 16,000 impressions with 16 clicks.
> 
> I know that's a good conversion rate, and I spent a fair bit of time targeting to get that effect, but I'm not really getting enough volume to consider this a success.


In case it matters, my data is split between two campaigns, with one being two days newer than the other. Even so, the numbers seem consistent between the two. The newer campaign is seeing about 1/2 -2/3 of the impressions and clicks that the first campaign has.

Ad #1 has 72 keywords that I started with. I've turned off a bunch of under-performing ones though. 
Ad #2 has 65 keywords, with a bunch also turned off.

I tried to drill-down my keywords to a concise set, but weirdly enough about half of my good keywords are very generic. I'd say about half of my clicks & impressions have come through words that the Zon suggested initially, like "Fiction" or "Vampires". I haven't found much luck targeting specific book titles in keywords, series titles are only marginally better. The author's names (of similar, better selling books) seem to be working far better for me.

As an example, Ad#1 has netted me over 8k impressions on the word "fiction" with with 22 clicks. That roughly 1 click for every 364 impressions. Also for this ad, an authors name with a very similar series as mine has received over 7k impressions and 10 clicks. That's 1 click for every 700 impressions. So not as "impressive" as the fiction click rate, but I can't turn that many viewers down in the niche I want to be in.

I "paused" keywords that were getting little to no impressions with no clicks, figuring that having them compete for my daily budget could potentially be holding back other, more profitable keywords.

I'll admit, I'm figuring this out on the fly though. If I see that a keyword is getting clicks, especially at a lower ratio than others, I'll increase the bid price to help boost it. If I see that a "good" keyword has an average CPC that is very close to my max bid, I'll increase my bid as well. I seem to be noticing that keywords that are performing well for me are typically showing an average CPC about 10-cents lower than my max bid. So if I see one getting a good click ratio but not much traffic, I up the bid to roughly 10-cents more than the avg. CPC and they seem to start performing even better. Does that make sense?

Overall, I have keywords with a max bit of $0.10 at the low end, all the way up to one or two with a $0.45 bid. (Those are much more competitive, but performing well for me.)

I am spending way too much time fiddling with bids and keywords than I probably should be. I'm trying to remind myself that if I change too many things at once, I won't be able to tell which of those changes caused things to go worse, or better.


----------



## Decon

StephenBrennan said:


> I have to ask, how wide did you have to go on keywords to get 67,000 impressions? I started my campaign 2 days before you did, and as of today I only have about 16,000 impressions with 16 clicks.
> 
> I know that's a good conversion rate, and I spent a fair bit of time targeting to get that effect, but I'm not really getting enough volume to consider this a success.


16 clicks from those impressions is great. You obviously have your keywords targeted at exactly the right readers of your type of books.

Clicks are far more important than the quantity of impressions. It's too early to tell if any of those will convert to sales, but if those sort of figures continue, I would expect sales and page reads to follow given time.

I'd leave it for a week to see if your impressions pick up, if not add more target keywords like the ones you have already used.

On a side note, I have one running 1 day, and I only have 169 impressions, but then I only have 30 keywords so far and it's an anthology, so I'd say you are off to a good start.


----------



## Gregg Bell

BVLawson said:


> I didn't see where anyone else had posted this yet, but Mark Dawson's latest podcast masterclass is about AMS ads:
> 
> https://selfpublishingformula.com/episode-56/
> 
> One this he does which is interesting is have lots of ads on the same book. And he said if he has a $100 daily budget, he might spend it on 100 different $1 ads, with different keywords. But there are other tidbits in there that may be useful to some. I'm still looking for the holy grail ...


There was good info in this, BV. Thanks for posting it.


----------



## Gregg Bell

Harald said:


> Correct. That's why you need to keep a copy of your updated text(s) on hand and make whatever changes are needed.


Thanks Harald. I just noticed that the changes I made to the description in KDP are in Author Central. Hmm. So you're saying make the description changes in Author Central, copy the description. Then when I make changes in KDP (price or whatever) paste the copy into KDP, right?

Update: I just got my Author Central description perfect in the "Edit HTML" but when I went to the Preview feature it took a bunch of the HTML out (eg: the

tags etc.) I know p tags supposedly don't work but they work great in KDP. I guess they don't work in Author Central.

Update #2 From Author Central:



> To keep reviews simple, we allow only limited formatting. If you paste your review from a word processor, you might receive a message about invalid HTML tags. Instead, try pasting from a plain text editor, such as Notepad. Or click the "edit HTML" tab to trim out everything except the basic formatting tags for italics ( or _), bold (* or < strong >), line breaks (
> ), and lists (
> or
> and
> ).
> 
> *_


_*



So H1 tags won't work in Author Central, so if you want to use them you have to use KDP.

*_


----------



## Gregg Bell

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> IF you can get the credit. I opened three campaigns within the time frame and I'm in Select, but they told me I'm not eligible. Apparently, the credit is only available to "certain" authors.


Yeah, it's very confusing.


----------



## Gregg Bell

Ok, I amped up my product display pages. Next up I'd like to re-do the blurbs on my AMS ads. So (thanks for all the great suggestions) I can copy the keywords from one ad campaign to another but 

1) Can I keep both campaigns open with the same keywords (and just change bid prices)?

2) If I do that, will the campaign with the higher bids be the one that's chosen for display?

What I'm thinking is since the current campaigns were opened in March and the $100 credit registration ends March 31st that if I close the current campaigns what I've spent there won't go toward the $100 credit.


----------



## Decon

Not sure what h1 tags are. This is an example of what I use for bold and para spacing both for KDP and Create Space. If you click on Lunch Break Thrillers in my signature (.com only) you will see how it turns out. The only other thing I would use would be _textgoes here_ for italics

Note: where I haven't closed the para with

after the bolded sub titles, it's because they are short story titles and I wanted the blurb for that story to continue as one para, then I close it.

* Lunch Break Thrillers - Twelve not so short stories.*

Lunch Break Thrillers is a gripping mix of suspense, mystery, disaster and murder, all interlaced with memorable characters.

Designed to intrigue and satisfy, these tales will leave you with something to ponder, long after they fade into the dark corners of your mind.

*The Mystery of the Crimson Robe.* Rookie LAPD Homicide Detective, Nancy Roberts, has a strange encounter with a figure in a crimson robe. Ridiculed by her colleagues, she has more to contend with than a silk colored garment. A story of overcoming self-doubt.

*Hide and Seek.* Carl didn't believe in ghosts. Unless you want to count the Holy one? All that is about to change.


----------



## Harald

Gregg Bell said:


> Thanks Harald. I just noticed that the changes I made to the description in KDP are in Author Central. Hmm. So you're saying make the description changes in Author Central, copy the description. Then when I make changes in KDP (price or whatever) paste the copy into KDP, right? ...


Yes. Changes work in one direction but not the other. Early on, I was tweaking the book blurbs in Author Central and not realizing that the KDP blurbs remained unchanged. So if I changed price or something, the original KDP blurb was back. Now, I just do all my text wording and rewording in a separate doc and then just copy/paste into KDP as needed.


----------



## Harald

Decon said:


> Not sure what h1 tags are. This is an example of what I use for bold and para spacing both for KDP and Create Space. If you click on Lunch Break Thrillers in my signature (.com only) you will see how it turns out. The only other thing I would use would be _textgoes here_ for italics ...


Much better! Only comment I have is that your paragraph breaks push a lot of the text below the "Read more" line, which is what people will see first without expanding the blurb. What I do is remove that first graph break after the first bold line so more text is visible in one glance. The difference in text styling (bold > regular) is enough of a visual break (for me). [you can click my "1609" book in my sig to see this]


----------



## IreneP

Decon said:


> Not sure what h1 tags are.



Tag used to indicated Heading 1. It's how people get the REALLY BIG text in their blurbs. Personally, I think it is too big.


----------



## Decon

Harald said:


> Much better! Only comment I have is that your paragraph breaks push a lot of the text below the "Read more" line, which is what people will see first without expanding the blurb. What I do is remove that first graph break after the first bold line so more text is visible in one glance. The difference in text styling (bold > regular) is enough of a visual break (for me). [you can click my "1609" book in my sig to see this]


I'll try that.

Anyway I'm up and running with someone picking it up in KU and they've started reading at least completing the first story. *It's down at 1,221,674 in rank*, so I'll see what happens.

It's interesting that my 3c bids have got me onto a first and second page on two top author anthologies, as they were the only titles as keywords that I had at yesterday, but it's hellish hard to find book titles for keywords that are similar to my genres and style for short story collections. Still, I've managed to forage around 70 keywords.

Edited: I changed my bid to 5c so I'm now on two first pages lol. Maybye I'll change it to 4c. Don't want to be losing a penny if I don't have to.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

I took a look at my ROI the other day and I'm seeing that I'm in profit on all three of my ads. Nothing spectacular because I am a prawn. But the four book series has turned into a steady earner.

So, I'm thinking that the way to gain more visibility and increase my overall profit, is to put up more ads. I have a trilogy and two bundled trilogies that I'll be working on over the next few days.

Also, I increased another of my ads to a $10 daily spend and the ad got off its butt to bring in some page reads. My spend increased by 27c. 

When I set up the next campaign, I'm going to try again for the $100 credit.


----------



## Gregg Bell

Decon said:


> Not sure what h1 tags are. This is an example of what I use for bold and para spacing both for KDP and Create Space. If you click on Lunch Break Thrillers in my signature (.com only) you will see how it turns out. The only other thing I would use would be _textgoes here_ for italics
> 
> Note: where I haven't closed the para with
> 
> after the bolded sub titles, it's because they are short story titles and I wanted the blurb for that story to continue as one para, then I close it.
> 
> * Lunch Break Thrillers - Twelve not so short stories.*
> 
> Lunch Break Thrillers is a gripping mix of suspense, mystery, disaster and murder, all interlaced with memorable characters.
> 
> Designed to intrigue and satisfy, these tales will leave you with something to ponder, long after they fade into the dark corners of your mind.
> 
> *The Mystery of the Crimson Robe.* Rookie LAPD Homicide Detective, Nancy Roberts, has a strange encounter with a figure in a crimson robe. Ridiculed by her colleagues, she has more to contend with than a silk colored garment. A story of overcoming self-doubt.
> 
> *Hide and Seek.* Carl didn't believe in ghosts. Unless you want to count the Holy one? All that is about to change.


Decon, you can do a lot in KDP with HTML tags. There's h1 and h2 tags and italic tags, non-breaking space tags and paragraph tags. This is what's in KDP for my book (in sig) THE FIND:

What can a mother do when she has no money and a dangerously sick kid?

*She can make a mistake*.

In a moment of desperation, cleaning lady Phoebe Jackson tries to pawn the diamond-bejeweled Rolex she found in a mobster's locker. Turns out the watch is a fake, but the mobster isn't--*and he's on to her*.

*What readers are saying about The Find:*

'*Amazing*. I literally could not put this book down. I started reading it before bed and ended up *staying up all night* to read it.' bygollyitshollyg

'... once I started reading The Find, I absolutely *COULD. NOT. PUT. IT. DOWN!*' Amazon customer

'This book has it all.' Read Along with Sue Book Review Blog

'This book got me from the first line, made me cry more than once, and *kept me glued* till the very end.' Lily Belle

'I could never predict what was going to happen.' T. Mav

'...interesting, exciting, *gripping*...' Julie

'Gregg Bell's writing pulls you in and you just have to finish it.' Maureen's Books Book Review Blog

'Great read...*intriguing and innovative*.' Reading Shy with Aly Book Review Blog

'Masterful story written with suspense that holds on to you until the very end.' Room with Books Book Review Blog

'Managed to keep me so interested that I *read it straight through.* Have not done that in a while.' Amazon customer

'Suspenseful, romantic, mystery, it has it all, I literally could not put it down.' Martha Flowers

'Excellent crime thriller...left wondering right till the end.' Kindle Customer

'This is a suspense novel and *you will be on edge all the time*. One of the best books I have read in a long time.' Yvonne P Butler

You'll notice the h2 tags are noticeably bigger than the * tags make it. The  tags are nice for titles. The

configuration allows you to add extra space if you want to.

Here are two places to test how your stuff will look:

https://ablurb.github.io/

The only difference is in KDP the yellow of the h tags will be black.

And here's another place:

http://www.csgnetwork.com/htmlcodetest.html

You still have to be careful but using those places helps me a lot.*


----------



## Gregg Bell

Harald said:


> Yes. Changes work in one direction but not the other. Early on, I was tweaking the book blurbs in Author Central and not realizing that the KDP blurbs remained unchanged. So if I changed price or something, the original KDP blurb was back. Now, I just do all my text wording and rewording in a separate doc and then just copy/paste into KDP as needed.


Okay, but in an earlier post you were touting how fast making the changes in Author Central was. Am I misunderstanding?


----------



## dorihoxa

I've had 96K impressions and 144 clicks. That's good, right? But the profit isn't there (or I just don't know what I'm doing). Can someone tell me if this is good or bad?

Thank you.


----------



## edwardgtalbot

dorihoxa said:


> I've had 96K impressions and 144 clicks. That's good, right? But the profit isn't there (or I just don't know what I'm doing). Can someone tell me if this is good or bad?
> 
> Thank you.


Good click/impression rate and good cost per click if it's a popular genre. But you have a major conversion problem. That's assuming you don't have KU page reads and/or other books in the series. As a comparison, on my best two books/ads, I get a sale at $2.99 or $3.99 once every 9 clicks and I'm paying about.18-.19 per click.

Most likely problem is your book description. I think maybe earlier in this thread I gave Gregg Bell some suggestions and you could look for that to get some ideas. But people are clicking and then deciding not to buy. Other possible issues:

-Your cover is inadequate or doesn't match your genre.
-You have a review rating under 3.6 or so, and/or a number of recent bad reviews
-You ad text is compelling but it doesn't really bear close enough resemblance to what the book promises.


----------



## Colin Bundschu

Does someone have a link to this mythical $100 in free AMS credit?


----------



## dorihoxa

edwardgtalbot said:


> Good click/impression rate and good cost per click if it's a popular genre. But you have a major conversion problem. That's assuming you don't have KU page reads and/or other books in the series. As a comparison, on my best two books/ads, I get a sale at $2.99 or $3.99 once every 9 clicks and I'm paying about.18-.19 per click.
> 
> Most likely problem is your book description. I think maybe earlier in this thread I gave Gregg Bell some suggestions and you could look for that to get some ideas. But people are clicking and then deciding not to buy. Other possible issues:
> 
> -Your cover is inadequate or doesn't match your genre.
> -You have a review rating under 3.6 or so, and/or a number of recent bad reviews
> -You ad text is compelling but it doesn't really bear close enough resemblance to what the book promises.


Thanks so much for the reply. My book is in KU (PNR/UF) and the series has two more books (released). My avg rating is 4.0 with 54 reviews. I don't think the cover is the problem so I guess that leaves the ad text. I quoted a reviewer then added another really short sentence about the book. Looks like I have to change that. Thanks again. I'll definitely look for the suggestions you gave to Gregg.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Colin Bundschu said:


> Does someone have a link to this mythical $100 in free AMS credit?


I don't have a link. I just wrote to KDP about it and they told me it was only offered to certain authors. I'm going to try again.


----------



## Harald

Gregg Bell said:


> Okay, but in an earlier post you were touting how fast making the changes in Author Central was. Am I misunderstanding?


I'm just saying: If you make a book description change in Author Central, make sure you have a copy of that so when/if you make your next KDP change, you pop that in. Then everything's up to date. (FYI: I have entire Google Doc pages with all my basic book info, AMS ad info, etc. I work from there.)


----------



## Gregg Bell

Colin Bundschu said:


> Does someone have a link to this mythical $100 in free AMS credit?


As far as I know you just sign up here. (scroll down for the fine print)

https://ams.amazon.com/


----------



## Gregg Bell

Harald said:


> I'm just saying: If you make a book description change in Author Central, make sure you have a copy of that so when/if you make your next KDP change, you pop that in. Then everything's up to date. (FYI: I have entire Google Doc pages with all my basic book info, AMS ad info, etc. I work from there.)


Thanks Harald. Gotcha.


----------



## IreneP

dorihoxa said:


> I've had 96K impressions and 144 clicks. That's good, right? But the profit isn't there (or I just don't know what I'm doing). Can someone tell me if this is good or bad?
> 
> Thank you.


You've spent $22 to get $4.95 in sales (or $3.46 in royalty if the book is at 70% royalty).

Unless you've picked up a ton of KU reads that don't report or you spent the whole $22 in the last couple of days and sales reporting hasn't caught up, it's not good.

You need to either massively lower your bids, tweak keywords to find the right audience, or there is a huge problem with your blurb/sample once they click through.


----------



## Gregg Bell

Okay I opened up new campaigns on my books, doing the copy thing you guys told me about. I did it to put new blurbs in. So I have basically two sets of identical campaigns now. (I haven't paused or terminated any of the old campaigns yet.) I _have _added some keywords to the new campaigns but yeah, they're basically the same campaigns. I was thinking that it might be wise to keep the first set of campaigns going so that they qualify for the $100 credit. (I don't actually know if pausing or terminating them would disqualify them for the credit.) So if I decided to keep these two basically identical sets of campaigns going simultaneously and I want AMS to use the newer set because of the new blurbs would reducing the bids (and deleting a lot of the keywords even) make AMS more likely to feature my campaigns that have the new blurbs?


----------



## Decon

dorihoxa said:


> Thanks so much for the reply. My book is in KU (PNR/UF) and the series has two more books (released). My avg rating is 4.0 with 54 reviews. I don't think the cover is the problem so I guess that leaves the ad text. I quoted a reviewer then added another really short sentence about the book. Looks like I have to change that. Thanks again. I'll definitely look for the suggestions you gave to Gregg.


I think that you likely have your answer right there. One sentence wouldn't cut it for me as a blurb and readers can go and look up your reviews if that's what they use as part of their buying process. Many will accept that with 54 reviews at an average 4 star it means that it should be okay, so I'd do away with the review in the blurb.


----------



## CassieL

Gregg Bell said:


> As far as I know you just sign up here. (scroll down for the fine print)
> 
> https://ams.amazon.com/


Here are the terms so someone like me isn't eligible:

*Terms and Conditions of the Amazon Marketing Services $100 Click Credit Promotion.

For Amazon vendors that register for a new Amazon Marketing Services account from January 1st, 2017, through March 31st, 2017, Amazon will apply a promotional credit of $100 to that advertiser's Amazon Marketing Services account. Any unused promotional credit will expire 90 days following registration.

1. Advertisers must maintain an Amazon Marketing Services account in good standing with Amazon, subject to the terms of the Amazon Marketing Services Agreement.
2. Advertisers must provide a valid payment method to receive the promotional credit.
3. This offer and the promotional credit are non-transferable, not for resale, and not redeemable for cash.
4. This offer is void where prohibited and in the event of fraud, mistake, or any failure to satisfy any terms of the offer.
5. Amazon reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to terminate or modify this offer at any time.
6. Limit one promotional credit per Amazon Marketing Services account.


----------



## Colin Bundschu

Gregg Bell said:


> As far as I know you just sign up here. (scroll down for the fine print)
> 
> https://ams.amazon.com/


Huh. I don't see anything.

Also it looks like you are getting roughly 150 clicks per 100,000 views? That seems much lower than what I am getting. I just started, but I am getting about threefold the click rate:


----------



## novelist11

I didn't get the $100 credit either even though I signed up within the time frame. They told me it was only for select users. Who are these select users? The promotion is very misleading.

Also my ads would start showing data within a day after I started them but now I just started one and it isn't showing any data after three days. Anyone else having this problem? Something has changed and I don't know what it is.


----------



## FlowerShift

novelist11 said:


> I didn't get the $100 credit either even though I signed up within the time frame. They told me it was only for select users. Who are these select users? The promotion is very misleading.
> 
> Also my ads would start showing data within a day after I started them but now I just started one and it isn't showing any data after three days. Anyone else having this problem? Something has changed and I don't know what it is.


I contacted them too and this is what they told me:

"Please note that this Click Credit promotion is only available to vendors and Amazon Advantage users are recognized as vendors, but not to KDP authors, unless they also have an Amazon Advantage account."

A credit would've been great :/

I started a couple of days ago and data is showing, although this data obviously isn't current or live.


----------



## dorihoxa

IreneP said:


> You've spent $22 to get $4.95 in sales (or $3.46 in royalty if the book is at 70% royalty).
> 
> Unless you've picked up a ton of KU reads that don't report or you spent the whole $22 in the last couple of days and sales reporting hasn't caught up, it's not good.
> 
> You need to either massively lower your bids, tweak keywords to find the right audience, or there is a huge problem with your blurb/sample once they click through.


Apparently  I've already changed the ad text and some
Keywords to see what happens. Guess I'll just keep tweaking until i get there. Thank you.


----------



## Findaway

novelist11 said:


> Also my ads would start showing data within a day after I started them but now I just started one and it isn't showing any data after three days. Anyone else having this problem? Something has changed and I don't know what it is.


This happened to me too. I began a campaign 4 days ago (my first), and I haven't had a single impression. I added a lot of keywords, and almost all of my bids are 25-30 cents. I emailed support to verify that I'd set the campaign up correctly. Their response was that my keywords might not be relevant and/or my bids are too low. Wouldn't a lower bid at least place me at the end of the line?


----------



## CassieL

novelist11 said:


> I didn't get the $100 credit either even though I signed up within the time frame. They told me it was only for select users. Who are these select users? The promotion is very misleading.
> 
> Also my ads would start showing data within a day after I started them but now I just started one and it isn't showing any data after three days. Anyone else having this problem? Something has changed and I don't know what it is.


I started about twelve ads in the last few days experimenting with Mark Dawson's low-spend multiple ad approach and about half of them have impressions and half of them have nothing. Sometimes an ad just doesn't run. Try upping your keyword bids to see if that changes things.


----------



## CassieL

Findaway said:


> This happened to me too. I began a campaign 4 days ago (my first), and I haven't had a single impression. I added a lot of keywords, and almost all of my bids are 25-30 cents. I emailed support to verify that I'd set the campaign up correctly. Their response was that my keywords might not be relevant and/or my bids are too low. Wouldn't a lower bid at least place me at the end of the line?


We cross-posted. Depends on the word and your relevance. I've had keywords related to authors who you'd think would have plenty of demand so plenty of opportunity for even low bids to hit their pages and have zero impressions. Every once in a while Amazon just decides that a keyword is not a good fit for that particular book and you can't get on that page. Or there are so many people using that keyword that a low bid will get you nowhere.


----------



## APeter

I've been running AMS ads on and off since October. At the present, I have two sponsored ads running for two different books, but only one of the books is in KU. Yesterday, I observed something very unusual--at least for me. One of the words (a book title) on my keywords list for the KU book spiked overnight. It went from ~2,000 impressions to 37,000 impressions. I immediately thought of what I've heard some people refer to as click farms, and I paused the key word. But the clicks had remained at 4. And as of earlier today, they're still at 4.

Has anyone else experienced something similar to this? And any idea as to what caused it? I could contact Amazon help, but since I'm not out any money--nor are they--I doubt it would help.


----------



## CassieL

APeter said:


> I've been running AMS ads on and off since October. At the present, I have two sponsored ads running for two different books, but only one of the books is in KU. Yesterday, I observed something very unusual--at least for me. One of the words (a book title) on my keywords list for the KU book spiked overnight. It went from ~2,000 impressions to 37,000 impressions. I immediately thought of what I've heard some people refer to as click farms, and I paused the key word. But the clicks had remained at 4. And as of earlier today, they're still at 4.
> 
> Has anyone else experienced something similar to this? And any idea as to what caused it? I could contact Amazon help, but since I'm not out any money--nor are they--I doubt it would help.


The fact that your impressions spiked isn't related to click farms. That would be if your clicks per impression suddenly shot up, which I had happen once and am not sure what caused it but I shut it down.

Amazon controls the number of impressions you get. Did you look to see if another book with a similar title to that keyword just released or perhaps was in the news or had a big promo hit?


----------



## IreneP

Findaway said:


> This happened to me too. I began a campaign 4 days ago (my first), and I haven't had a single impression. I added a lot of keywords, and almost all of my bids are 25-30 cents. I emailed support to verify that I'd set the campaign up correctly. Their response was that my keywords might not be relevant and/or my bids are too low. Wouldn't a lower bid at least place me at the end of the line?


Have we considered the impact of Amazon running that $100 in clicks promo?

I'm wondering if a lot of new accounts on-boarded recently - and with the $100 in free clicks, a lot of people wouldn't be as worried about immediate ROI.

I've noticed a slow-down since the first of the year. I guess I'm wondering if it is the normal slow-down a lot of people here talk about over time or if the field has been particularly crowded lately. I know I haven't gotten as much initial spike on new campaigns I had come to expect, either.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

IreneP said:


> Have we considered the impact of Amazon running that $100 in clicks promo?
> 
> I'm wondering if a lot of new accounts on-boarded recently - and with the $100 in free clicks, a lot of people wouldn't be as worried about immediate ROI.
> 
> I've noticed a slow-down since the first of the year. I guess I'm wondering if it is the normal slow-down a lot of people here talk about over time or if the field has been particularly crowded lately. I know I haven't gotten as much initial spike on new campaigns I had come to expect, either.


Considering how restrictive the requirements are to qualify for the $100, I wouldn't be worried that the market will be flooded.


----------



## APeter

Cassie Leigh said:


> The fact that your impressions spiked isn't related to click farms. That would be if your clicks per impression suddenly shot up, which I had happen once and am not sure what caused it but I shut it down.
> 
> Amazon controls the number of impressions you get. Did you look to see if another book with a similar title to that keyword just released or perhaps was in the news or had a big promo hit?


Thanks, Cassie.

I wasn't sure what it mean, and I was leery of offending the great Zon.


----------



## Gregg Bell

Colin Bundschu said:


> Huh. I don't see anything.
> 
> Also it looks like you are getting roughly 150 clicks per 100,000 views? That seems much lower than what I am getting. I just started, but I am getting about threefold the click rate:


Sorry, Colin, but I don't know what you're referring to by you see nothing.


----------



## Gregg Bell

Wanting better blurbs I opened up a new set of campaigns on all five of my books in AMS. I opened the new campaigns just yesterday (3/20/17). So I now have two sets of campaigns running with nearly identical keywords. I would like AMS of course to feature the keywords with the new blurbs. To complicate things I'm starting to see some sales on the old set of campaigns. When I set up the new campaigns my initial reaction was to terminate the first set entirely but now I'm not so sure it's a good idea. Of course I can keep both sets running but if I want the new set featured should I increase the bids there and reduce the bids on the old set of campaigns? Any suggestions?


----------



## Decon

APeter said:


> I've been running AMS ads on and off since October. At the present, I have two sponsored ads running for two different books, but only one of the books is in KU. Yesterday, I observed something very unusual--at least for me. One of the words (a book title) on my keywords list for the KU book spiked overnight. It went from ~2,000 impressions to 37,000 impressions. I immediately thought of what I've heard some people refer to as click farms, and I paused the key word. But the clicks had remained at 4. And as of earlier today, they're still at 4.
> 
> Has anyone else experienced something similar to this? And any idea as to what caused it? I could contact Amazon help, but since I'm not out any money--nor are they--I doubt it would help.


Yeah, I had 50,000 impressions on one keyword very quickly. Saying that, the keyword was for a new release that ended up a best seller and at the time I was one of three on the 1st page. Like you I didn't get many clicks as I guessed everyone was landing on the page to buy their book. I left it alone as the only ones with control over impressions is Amazon, and if they saw fit to put me on there 50,000 times, who am I to complain when it is what we are trying to acheive. I can understand your concern at the time though as I was initially concerned. We just came to a different conclusion. It soon dropped after everyone piled into it as a keyword, now I can't get on any of the damned pages.

After that I've stalked new releases that I thought would take off and I noticed something weird. Sometimes they would only have three books on the first page for around a week and yet I couldn't get on the page, so gave up after that with new releases

I would worry about it if it were clicks. I've often thought that it could be open to abuse if someone had an axe to grind against the author. Not in the sense that the clicks would gain an advantage to the author, on the contrary, it could end up costing the author a fortune. I just hope that if that happened then Amazon would have the data to find the culprit and give a credit.


----------



## APeter

Decon said:


> Yeah, I had 50,000 impressions on one keyword very quickly. Saying that, the keyword was for a new release that ended up a best seller and at the time I was one of three on the 1st page. Like you I didn't get many clicks as I guessed everyone was landing on the page to buy their book. I left it alone as the only ones with control over impressions is Amazon, and if they saw fit to put me on there 50,000 times, who am I to complain when it is what we are trying to acheive. I can understand your concern at the time though as I was initially concerned. We just came to a different conclusion. It soon dropped after everyone piled into it as a keyword, now I can't get on any of the damned pages.
> 
> After that I've stalked new releases that I thought would take off and I noticed something weird. Sometimes they would only have three books on the first page for around a week and yet I couldn't get on the page, so gave up after that with new releases
> 
> I would worry about it if it were clicks. I've often thought that it could be open to abuse if someone had an axe to grind against the author. Not in the sense that the clicks would gain an advantage to the author, on the contrary, it could end up costing the author a fortune. I just hope that if that happened then Amazon would have the data to find the culprit and give a credit.


I still find it amazing that I could pick up 35K impressions without collecting even one click. It wasn't a new book either, so maybe the author ran a promo.


----------



## amdonehere

I don't know if there's anything to learn here but this is a recent improvement for me this past week. If there's any method to the madness, I'm not seeing it but I'll share it if it'll help anyone, and if anyone can figure out what caused the improvement, all the better.

I've been running my campaigns since August. Up until 3 weeks ago, I had 2 campaigns running on the same book. One I target books and authors that are right on genre, the other are cross-over genres. I did this primarily to not use up the 1000 KW spaces, and to have one campaign that is more laser focus. The Main On target campaign, I set spend limit at $6, and the other one $2. 3 weeks ago I started a third campaign with $1 spend limit. My goal was to move all the KWs from the Main Campaign for books that rank in in pit bottoms to what I'll call the Secondary Genre Targetted campaign. So I got this:

1. Main Genre Targetted Campaign -- Books that sell well, rank at least below 100K at $6 spend limit
2. X-genre Campaign -- not directly on genre but good possibility of interesting some readers, at $2 spend limit
3. Secondary Genre Targetted Campaign -- Same genre books that rank 200+K to Millions, at $1 spend limit. 

For the Secondary Campaign, I figured that I could get my book visibility in case of a strand reader here and there, but it wouldn't cost me anything because the click rates would be low, due to low traffic to those pages.

Things went well for months but for inexplicable reason, sales began to decline. I periodically tweak KWs, upping or lowering prices depending on the Sponsored Ads situation on the KWs books; also adding new KWs. For some reason, sales were still kind of falling. Not dire, but falling.

Then last Thursday, I ran a 99c ENT promo which jumped my sales. During the ENT promo, I paused all the ads. When the ENT promo was over, I only restarted the Main Genre Targetted Campaign, but this time upping the spend limit to $10. 

Why I did this? I have an author friend in the exact same genre. Our results should be very similar, but I noticed that she was able to keep her sales high. I know she put in a higher spend limit than I do (I'm pretty sure it's $10), so I wanted to experiment a bit. She said all she does are AMS ads and tweet, and I take her word for it.

Since then, I've been able to maintain the sales in the low 5 digits. (Ok that might be considered failure to some of you but for my genre and what I do, that's pretty good.) In any case, the point is, the changes of upping the spend limit and runing only one campaign appear to be helping. At first I attributed it to being an ENT tail, but I'm not so sure about that. ENT was great, but my last few promos didn't give me a sticky tail like this. I think what ENT did was that it sparked the algorithm, and from there on, with the combination of the changes in my campaign, sales for now are sticking. In fact, slightly higher than my best AMS ads performance before all this happens.

I feel a bit worried that I left all the KWS from the Secondary Campaign and X-genre Campaign un-used. But things are working for now so why fix what's not broken.

I don't know what to make of this but thought I'd share anyway. I just listened to Mark Dawson's podcast on AMS ads. He's recommending the "brute force" option, which is to keep the spend limit low ($1) on each campaign and run many campaigns. His reason for it is that Amazon refuses to spend all your money when you set a high spend limit (and that is true). But I think I'd have to disagree with him there. My own observation is that Amazon only show your ad to a small audience when your spend limit is $1. And this is something I observed even back in Sept, before I upped the spend limit to $6. I have hunch that Amazon show your ad to more pages when you have a higher spend limit, and the best thing is, they won't use up your spend limit anyway so you don't actually spend $10/day.  That said, if your budget doesn't allow a potential $10/day, it can be iffy and scary.

My conclusion at this point: it's all voodoo.


----------



## CassieL

Interesting results, Alexa.

Yeah, I played a bit with Dawson's approach by setting up a dozen different ads, each one focused on a particular author and all their titles and with bids of either $1 or $2.  And...most of those ads did nothing at all.  No impressions or less than a thousand after three or four days which I don't consider good results.  I've upped the bids to see if that changes things, but I don't think it will.

Meanwhile my two main ads for this book just keep sort of limping along.  I have 1.8 million impressions on one of them and 743K impressions on the other.  I tweak which keywords are active, raise and lower the bids per keyword, raise and lower the spend for the whole ad, add keywords to one of the ads when I see new authors with relevant covers, etc. so at this point I can't tell you anything about those ads other than that they are still my powerhouse ads for this.  One running since May, one since December.

I killed my attempt to use just my "winning" keywords in an ad because that cost me $11 with no sales that I can attribute to it yet.  I also killed my attempt to replicate Decon's low-spend approach.  I'm trying an ad on book 2 starting today that will use all my winners from book 1 as well as any where I had a good click to impression ratio for book 1 but not enough impressions to generate a sale.  We'll see how that goes.

It feels like my ads are sluggish right now, but sometimes I think that and then look at the actual numbers and realize I'm wrong.


----------



## Steven Kelliher

I think I've seen people mention this before, but I definitely think my AMS ads are competing with each other. I had 2 ads running for a few days, each maxed out with 1k keywords, but totally different keywords. They were bringing in lots of impressions. I then copies both of them, so had 2 pairs of ads with the same keywords and the same bids, but different ad copy. With all 4 active, 2 completely stalled for the last 2 days in terms of impressions. Has anyone else found this?


----------



## amdonehere

Steven Kelliher said:


> I think I've seen people mention this before, but I definitely think my AMS ads are competing with each other. I had 2 ads running for a few days, each maxed out with 1k keywords, but totally different keywords. They were bringing in lots of impressions. I then copies both of them, so had 2 pairs of ads with the same keywords and the same bids, but different ad copy. With all 4 active, 2 completely stalled for the last 2 days in terms of impressions. Has anyone else found this?


At this point I have no choice but to believe this is the case. My rank is absolutely sticking and sales are better than when I had 2 ads running concurrently. Ok so Mark is now going to be telling everyone taking his course to run mulitple ads at $1 to force Amazon to spend the cash. Now I can't say for sure that he's not correct, but I am looking at my results and whatever voodoo Amazon is practicing, keeping one ad seems to yield more sales and KU reads for me. I'm going to stick with this for a while and see how it goes.

Cassie did you get my PM? Also, maybe you can try doing what I did, pause the AMS ads and run a normal promo like ENT and jump the algorithm, then run the AMS ads again. See if that might bring things back to life. I think my ENT promo did prompt the Amazon algo to refresh or something.

Doesn't have to be ENT of course. I'm sure one of the other big reliable promo sites will do the same. The trick is to jump the algo. And do it at 99c, not free promo. You want to stay on the Kindle Paid list.

And my gut feeling is that upping the daily spend limit to $10 helped, for whatever reason. And as far as I know I had not reach the daily limit on any day. Even my total spend only seem to have increased slightly. From spend to sales ratio of 51% to 53%.

YMMV.


----------



## JaclynDolamore

Steven Kelliher said:


> I think I've seen people mention this before, but I definitely think my AMS ads are competing with each other. I had 2 ads running for a few days, each maxed out with 1k keywords, but totally different keywords. They were bringing in lots of impressions. I then copies both of them, so had 2 pairs of ads with the same keywords and the same bids, but different ad copy. With all 4 active, 2 completely stalled for the last 2 days in terms of impressions. Has anyone else found this?


It seems like when you create a new ad, that one will appear everywhere when it's new and shiny. Then the algos settled and both will run. At least, I think that's what happened with mine.


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## Steven Kelliher

JaclynDolamore said:


> It seems like when you create a new ad, that one will appear everywhere when it's new and shiny. Then the algos settled and both will run. At least, I think that's what happened with mine.


Well mine was weird. When I copied the ads over and started the new ones, it was actually one of the older ads that kept bringing in impressions and one of the newer. Then the copies of them (one old and one new) stalled completely.

I have 2 ads with 1000 author names and 2 with 1000 book titles. Now, and one of each stalled, leading me to believe the keywords are cancelling each other out.


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## amdonehere

Steven Kelliher said:


> Well mine was weird. When I copied the ads over and started the new ones, it was actually one of the older ads that kept bringing in impressions and one of the newer. Then the copies of them (one old and one new) stalled completely.
> 
> I have 2 ads with 1000 author names and 2 with 1000 book titles. Now, and one of each stalled, leading me to believe the keywords are cancelling each other out.


What I wonder is, if you have 2 different books in 2 different campaigns, are you still competing with yourself?

I've seen one pretty high selling dark erotica author running all 3 books in one series. I've dabbled with putting in later books in my series in short campaigns. I couldn't tell anything from the data because presumably even if a buying reader clicked on the ad for the later book, he/she would still end up buying Book 1 first.


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## CassieL

AlexaKang said:


> Cassie did you get my PM? Also, maybe you can try doing what I did, pause the AMS ads and run a normal promo like ENT and jump the algorithm, then run the AMS ads again. See if that might bring things back to life. I think my ENT promo did prompt the Amazon algo to refresh or something.


Oops. Just saw it. Thank you.

One of my issues is that I'm trying to hold off on discounted promo of the novels until the third one is out so people can just buy their way through the whole series in one big swoop. Hopefully that'll happen by May. And then I'm going to do a big 99 cent promo on book 1 and see if I can really push things to a new level, so will definitely try that then.


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## Harald

AlexaKang said:


> ... I've seen one pretty high selling dark erotica author running all 3 books in one series. I've dabbled with putting in later books in my series in short campaigns. I couldn't tell anything from the data because presumably even if a buying reader clicked on the ad for the later book, he/she would still end up buying Book 1 first.


I have a growing series (3 short books up out of 4), and I tried this, too, running ads for Book 1 and 2 simultaneously. I gave up on Book 2 at 30 days as its ACoS grew too large (losing money) while Book 1 was getting better and better. So I'm currently focusing on ads for Book 1 and hoping/counting on sell/read-through to the other books in the series. Of course, for me, it's obvious which is Book 1, 2, 3 by the titles ("1609" - "1612" - "1625"), and there's the added incentive of Book 1 being only $0.99 and the others more. So it "feels" more natural for me to advertise Book 1, and let the others respond to the organic factors, promos, etc. Which doesn't mean I won't experiment with ads for others in series in future, but that's my current position.


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## The Bass Bagwhan

Would appreciate some thoughts on this...

I've got one campaign for a historical war/romance book (WW2 1944) which seems to be getting some results. 26,000 impressions, 34 clicks and about 4 sales with an ACoS 47%

But my other two campaigns are a challenge. Next book is a 99 cent loss-leader to a 4-book series (Novellas) and a real mish-mash of paranormal, detective, crime and lots of black humour. The cross-genre has _always_ made these books hard to promote, but I've always thought they'd appeal to an edgier "cozy" reader (I realise that hard-core cozy will reject it). So I created a campaign aimed at cozy authors/readers and after eight days I have just 2200 impressions, 5 clicks and no sales. Which suggests to me that, no matter what I think of the book's appeal, the algo's are deciding "It ain't cozy, so no impressions for you". Book is "Dead Wrong" under the penname Logan May.

Do you think the algo's can be that precise in determining these things?

Third campaign is a different challenge again. This is another 99 cent loss-leader to a six book series, and it's classic horror. 60K impressions for 31 clicks and one sale. It's got just one review, but I recently released as an audiobook and it has great reviews there, so story-wise it's okay. The thing is, horror is a very well-defined genre, comparatively small and relatively easy to target for AMS ads. But this ad is failing. So I guess I've got to look at cover design and blurb? Or do you think the obvious, popular keywords must be really competitive and require high bids? Book is "Death Wish" under my name G.M.Hague.

Cheers for any advice.


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## Decon

The click rate to impressions is good, but 5 clicks is too early to expect a sale. Nearer 10-15 would be more the mark to expect until you have more long term data. From that you can work out if your bid costs will make a profit once sales come in. 

All you are suffering from is the same as me with one book I have that crosses genre. Amazon just won't place it on a book page that doesn't match the meta data. You would need to get such as Cosy Mystery in your upload keywords for them to accept a match, but then you don't want to be fooling readers.

Yes, I think algo's can be that precice. That's what algo's are meant to be for targetting purposes.


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## Steven Kelliher

Got a rare direct response from Amazon, which basically confirms it's impossible to test ad copy against your own ads, since they effectively cancel each other out if you're using the same keywords:

Received a rarely-definitive answer from KDP support re: ads competing with each other:

[10:31] 
"Ads do indeed compete with each other. You see, if you the advertiser, create the same ad campaigns, these ads will compete against each other and other scheduled ads created by the competitor. Now, due to the fact that these ads share the same keywords and bids this is the reason why your impressions are higher on one ad than the other."


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## IreneP

Steven Kelliher said:


> Got a rare direct response from Amazon, which basically confirms it's impossible to test ad copy against your own ads, since they effectively cancel each other out if you're using the same keywords:
> 
> Received a rarely-definitive answer from KDP support re: ads competing with each other:
> 
> [10:31]
> "Ads do indeed compete with each other. You see, if you the advertiser, create the same ad campaigns, these ads will compete against each other and other scheduled ads created by the competitor. Now, due to the fact that these ads share the same keywords and bids this is the reason why your impressions are higher on one ad than the other."


I think this depends on your definition of "compete." I know someone else here posted that they had spoken with an Amazon rep who basically said that a book can not compete with itself in terms of bid. So, for example, if you two ads for the same book with the same keywords - you won't be charged a higher cpc for Ad1 based on the fact that Ad2 has a competing bid.

It would make sense, though, that they wouldn't show the same book multiple times in the same sponsor location based on the fact that there are different campaigns for it. I always thought (hoped) that they would rotate them and show the better performing campaign more often. I know you can set up Adwords to do things like this... but there are so many ways AMS is lagging in those types of features.

So, I'm not sure how definitive this actually is. I think they are basically saying that if your book appears in the sponsored ads for another book, it's only going to appear in the slider once no matter how many campaigns you have set up. And if you are appearing in a limited number of places, its going to limit how many of your campaigns can show ads at once.


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## Steven Kelliher

IreneP said:


> I think this depends on your definition of "compete." I know someone else here posted that they had spoken with an Amazon rep who basically said that a book can not compete with itself in terms of bid. So, for example, if you two ads for the same book with the same keywords - you won't be charged a higher cpc for Ad1 based on the fact that Ad2 has a competing bid.
> 
> It would make sense, though, that they wouldn't show the same book multiple times in the same sponsor location based on the fact that there are different campaigns for it. I always thought (hoped) that they would rotate them and show the better performing campaign more often. I know you can set up Adwords to do things like this... but there are so many ways AMS is lagging in those types of features.
> 
> So, I'm not sure how definitive this actually is. I think they are basically saying that if your book appears in the sponsored ads for another book, it's only going to appear in the slider once no matter how many campaigns you have set up. And if you are appearing in a limited number of places, its going to limit how many of your campaigns can show ads at once.


I would agree with that. I didn't take it to mean my bids are increasing, but I had two ads with different copy targeted at the same keywords at the same bids, and one of the ads was showing 1700 impressions in the same time the other was showing 60,000 ... so clearly, they do not rotate the ads but rather give priority to one of them, which defeats the whole purpose of testing ad copy.


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## IreneP

Steven Kelliher said:


> I would agree with that. I didn't take it to mean my bids are increasing, but I had two ads with different copy targeted at the same keywords at the same bids, and one of the ads was showing 1700 impressions in the same time the other was showing 60,000 ... so clearly, they do not rotate the ads but rather give priority to one of them, which defeats the whole purpose of testing ad copy.


I wonder how they pick which one to show, though? Best performing? Newest? Random? I mean, if they are picking best performing, they are doing the work for you. Newest or random, not so much.

I feel your frustration because their reporting is so crap and we know so little about their criteria for showing ads other than bid. But it isn't a complete loss. I'm comparing my click/impression ratio, my ACoS, my click/sale on the different ads to see which ones are performing better in those respects. More impressions is great and possibly helps build brand, but is useless unless impressions translate to clicks translate to sales. So I want to know what ad copy is giving me the best percentage of sales at the best rate.


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## Harald

Steven Kelliher said:


> I would agree with that. I didn't take it to mean my bids are increasing, but I had two ads with different copy targeted at the same keywords at the same bids, and one of the ads was showing 1700 impressions in the same time the other was showing 60,000 ... so clearly, they do not rotate the ads but rather give priority to one of them, which defeats the whole purpose of testing ad copy.


Interesting. I'm trying a different way to test my ad blurb: sequential rather than simultaneous. It's not perfect, but it's something. I'll be posting a 7-day summary soon.


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## Steven Kelliher

IreneP said:


> I wonder how they pick which one to show, though? Best performing? Newest? Random? I mean, if they are picking best performing, they are doing the work for you. Newest or random, not so much.
> 
> I feel your frustration because their reporting is so crap and we know so little about their criteria for showing ads other than bid. But it isn't a complete loss. I'm comparing my click/impression ratio, my ACoS, my click/sale on the different ads to see which ones are performing better in those respects. More impressions is great and possibly helps build brand, but is useless unless impressions translate to clicks translate to sales. So I want to know what ad copy is giving me the best percentage of sales at the best rate.


The only way to measure best-performing is via clicks and sales. Amazon directly controls the impressions. If they push one, it gets more impressions. That's just how it works. Better ad copy has nothing to do with impressions. It has to do with clicks. For impressions, the only thing that matters is keywords/bids. If they're only pushing one of the two ads because they're targeting the same keywords with the same bids, there's literally no way to know which ad copy is better. It's an extremely flawed way of doing things.


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## IreneP

Steven Kelliher said:


> If they're only pushing one of the two ads because they're targeting the same keywords with the same bids, there's literally no way to know which ad copy is better. It's an extremely flawed way of doing things.


I disagree (a little). As long as you are getting impressions on both (no matter if one is getting more) you can get ratios of impressions/clicks/sales. It's the ratio I look at. If I'm getting a significantly higher/lower ratio of sales from one ad than another, I adjust from there. Of course you are right, though. If you can't get enough impressions on both for a decent sampling, the data is useless.


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## Steven Kelliher

IreneP said:


> I disagree (a little). As long as you are getting impressions on both (no matter if one is getting more) you can get ratios of impressions/clicks/sales. It's the ratio I look at. If I'm getting a significantly higher/lower ratio of sales from one ad than another, I adjust from there. Of course you are right, though. If you can't get enough impressions on both for a decent sampling, the data is useless.


Yes but my central premise and problem is that I was NOT getting impressions on both. They literally froze one of the ads and were only pushing the other, so it racked up 1700 impressions (which is a tiny number) and then froze, while the other shot up to 70k in like 3 days.

So you're not getting impressions on both. Therefore, you literally cannot compare impressions to clicks. That's a tiny number of impressions and not nearly enough to judge the effect of ad copy.


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## IreneP

Steven Kelliher said:


> They literally froze one of the ads and were only pushing the other, so it racked up 1700 impressions (which is a tiny number) and then froze, while the other shot up to 70k in like 3 days.


Ugh - I've had them be way off in terms of impressions, but never had one freeze completely like that. Yeah, that would throw a wrench in things.


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## Craig Andrews

Steven Kelliher said:


> Yes but my central premise and problem is that I was NOT getting impressions on both. They literally froze one of the ads and were only pushing the other, so it racked up 1700 impressions (which is a tiny number) and then froze, while the other shot up to 70k in like 3 days.
> 
> So you're not getting impressions on both. Therefore, you literally cannot compare impressions to clicks. That's a tiny number of impressions and not nearly enough to judge the effect of ad copy.


It does make A/B testing more difficult, but can't you achieve the same thing by running one ad for a week, pause it, then run the other and see which performs better?


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## Harald

Craig Andrews said:


> It does make A/B testing more difficult, but can't you achieve the same thing by running one ad for a week, pause it, then run the other and see which performs better?


That's exactly what I'm doing. It's not *precisely* the same because things can change from one week to the next, but I'm almost done with a 2-week test of this. Will be reporting here in next few days.


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## amdonehere

But you guys, why would you run 2 ads of the same book with the same KWs

I ran a ads with different KWs and even then, it seems the ads competed with each other. I'm now running only one ad and sales had held up better than when I had 2 ads. I keep waiting for the ball to drop like it's too good to be true but so far it's still going, so I'm going to stay the course for now, even thoug the KWs on the other ad are left behind in the dust....


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## Harald

AlexaKang said:


> But you guys, why would you run 2 ads of the same book with the same KWs


To test two different ad copy blurbs. Same keywords, same budget, same book.


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## GrandFenwick

Does anyone/are we allowed to use "kindle unlimited" as a keyword? Like "kindle unlimited mystery"?


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## Gertie Kindle

GrandFenwick said:


> Does anyone/are we allowed to use "kindle unlimited" as a keyword? Like "kindle unlimited mystery"?


I've used the word "unlimited" and gotten 84K impressions, 50 clicks and 3 sales. Presumably, if someone types the word in a search, e.g, kindle unlimited, sky unlimited, unlimited borrows, etc., the ad will show.

I've also seen kindle unlimited used in the ad copy and used it in a just approved ad.


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## GrandFenwick

Thanks, Gertie!


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## CassieL

If you try using kindle in your keywords they won''t accept it.  I was trying to do an ad with the search results for my top authors and some of their results were "Author X Kindle books" so I put that in and got a message that kindle was a reserved term.


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## Jacob Stanley

Steven Kelliher said:


> Yes but my central premise and problem is that I was NOT getting impressions on both. They literally froze one of the ads and were only pushing the other, so it racked up 1700 impressions (which is a tiny number) and then froze, while the other shot up to 70k in like 3 days.
> 
> So you're not getting impressions on both. Therefore, you literally cannot compare impressions to clicks. That's a tiny number of impressions and not nearly enough to judge the effect of ad copy.


I have also found that the ads behave strangely when I have two running for the same book, even when I use different keywords. Sometimes both basically stall out. Other times one takes off and the other dies. Which is unfortunate because I would love to tailor my ad copy for different groups of author-names and run three or four different ads.

Honestly, the ads just do strange and unpredictable things all the time. I have one keyword that was getting me approximately 1 click for every 500 impressions over a period of about a month. It ended up with about 13 clicks from 5500 impressions or something like that.

Now, I'm using the same keyword in a new ad for the same book, with the same ad copy and bid. The ad's been running for about a week. The keyword is getting plenty of impressions but I haven't got a single click yet. Maybe that's just a fluke. Maybe I'll get a bunch of clicks real close together and it'll even out, but right now the keyword seems like it's suddenly become a dud.


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## Sebourn

Just thought I'd throw this out there:

My AMS ad has spent the last month ringing up pages read on my KENP graph.  Blue lines all over the place.  Obviously, I was very happy.

But the last four days, with two weeks or so left on my ad time, this has come to a halt.  Not a slow down, a halt.  

Does anybody have any thoughts about this?


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## Jacob Stanley

Sebourn said:


> Just thought I'd throw this out there:
> 
> My AMS ad has spent the last month ringing up pages read on my KENP graph. Blue lines all over the place. Obviously, I was very happy.
> 
> But the last four days, with two weeks or so left on my ad time, this has come to a halt. Not a slow down, a halt.
> 
> Does anybody have any thoughts about this?


The only thought I have is that the EXACT same thing has happened to me (although, now that I'm rereading your post, the time-period doesn't line up exactly with yours.)

I was getting page-reads all month during February, and very steady borrows on my series starter. The series read-through rate was making the ad very profitable even though the book is a 99 cent loss-leader. The page-reads continued into the start of this month, and then they just stopped, like somebody flicked an OFF switch. I've had a few nibbles, but most days there've been 0 pages.

To be exact, March 7th was my last day of normal and (somewhat) steady page-reads. Since then my KU traffic has all but dried up.

I'm very frustrated about it, and I have no idea what caused it since my ad continues to get clicks at about the same rate as before. Is Amazon just not showing the ad to KU subscribers or something?

EDIT: Although, to be fair, sales have also been worse over this time period. My clicks overall are roughly same or better (other than a few pesky keywords) but I'm not getting nearly as many conversions.


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## GrandFenwick

My KU pages have suddenly dropped too. Like from an average of more than 3k daily to 200 yesterday and 17 pages today.


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## Harald

Jacob Stanley said:


> ... I was getting page-reads all month during February, and very steady borrows on my series starter. The series read-through rate was making the ad very profitable even though the book is a 99 cent loss-leader. The page-reads continued into the start of this month, and then they just stopped, like somebody flicked an OFF switch. I've had a few nibbles, but most days there've been 0 pages. ...


While the page reads on my .99 series starter novella have been going up and down the last 30 days, the average daily (~100) is pretty solid (and that's with an ad running). *No* consistent drop-off the last several days.


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## Jacob Stanley

I just did the math on mine. My page reads are down by 86% since March 8th compared to what they were between Feb 1 and March 7th. Nothing's changed as far as I know on my end... No new blurb, no price change.. Nothing.  

Edit: this includes all my books, but I don't get any traffic at all from anywhere except for AMS. I have one main series right now. Last month I focused on advertising the first book, and made all my profit on the read-through. Sometimes I get sales because AMS boosts my ranking or leads to other organic traffic, so they don't all show up on my stats, but if I turn off AMS everything dries up in a hurry. 

My ad is still getting clicks at a comparable rate, but sales and ESPECIALLY borrows have dried up, and that's led to worse ranking, which means fewer organic sales, and etc... It's like somebody turned the engine off on the car while it was still rolling.


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## Gertie Kindle

Sales and page reads from 3/16 through today are almost exactly 1/3 of what they were from 3/1 through 3/15. Those are just those that I have AMS ads for. 

There are still six days to go before the end of the month (she says optimistically).


----------



## Decon

I've had a definate downward trend on my graph for borrows over this last week, culminating in my first two zero page read days in many months. Sales have also dropped off this past week. That's with 6 books in AMS.

I've had only one sale every other day to boot this past week. Not sure why there is this trend, but it's like staring into the abys.


----------



## Jacob Stanley

Decon said:


> I've had a definate downward trend on my graph for borrows over this last week, culminating in my first two zero page read days in many months. Sales have also dropped off this past week. That's with 6 books in AMS.
> 
> I'vehad only one sale every other day to boot this past week. Not sure why there is this trend, but it's like staring into the abys.


If it hadn't been for a random paperback sale on my box-set, my earnings on this pen name would be down by 96% since the 7th (in comparison to the previous good stretch starting around Feb 1st.)

Even counting the paperback sale, it's down 84%. Definitely seems like I've hit some kind of steep cliff all the sudden. But to be fair, I'm currently at the level where I feel like I'm doing great if I can average one sale/borrow per day. So when things drop even a little for me, it basically goes to zero.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Looking at February and March last year, February (being a shorter month) outsold March by about 25%. I'm just looking at the $ amounts from .com.


----------



## Decon

Jacob Stanley said:


> If it hadn't been for a random paperback sale on my box-set, my earnings on this pen name would be down by 96% since the 7th (in comparison to the previous good stretch starting around Feb 1st.)
> 
> Even counting the paperback sale, it's down 84%. Definitely seems like I've hit some kind of steep cliff all the sudden. But to be fair, I'm currently at the level where I feel like I'm doing great if I can average a sale/borrow a day over the course of a month. So when things drop even a little for me, it basically goes to zero.


Can't complain about book sales. I've had 4 paper book sales so far. Just my eBooks that are down.


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## Jacob Stanley

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Looking at February and March last year, February (being a shorter month) outsold March by about 25%. I'm just looking at the $ amounts from .com.


I took a quick look at mine for last year and March was triple February for me, but my sales were so meager back then that they aren't even worth scrutinizing, and I did a big free run in march, with freebooksy I think, so that distorted things.


----------



## quiet chick writes

Does anyone know if these ads are meant to die off after a certain period? I started my current ad in December. It took a few weeks to get going, but performed pretty well in January and part of Feburary. Then it just kind of died. Impressions slowed to a crawl and the clicks and sales slowed along with them (since nobody was seeing my ad, I presume). I had ~130k impressions from mid-December to mid-February, but then March has only gotten me about 9k more. It never even came close to reaching my daily spend, which was $5. I don't think I ever spent a whole dollar in a day.  

The click through and sales were doing fine—not great, but fine, making profit—then it just kind of died. 

Is there a way to revive it? Or am I supposed to start a fresh one? 

My bids are mostly around 0.20, by the way. My average click cost is 0.11.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Laura Rae Amos said:


> Does anyone know if these ads are meant to die off after a certain period? I started my current ad in December. It took a few weeks to get going, but performed pretty well in January and part of Feburary. Then it just kind of died. Impressions slowed to a crawl and the clicks and sales slowed along with them (since nobody was seeing my ad, I presume). I had ~130k impressions from mid-December to mid-February, but then March has only gotten me about 9k more. It never even came close to reaching my daily spend, which was $5. I don't think I ever spent a whole dollar in a day.
> 
> The click through and sales were doing fine-not great, but fine, making profit-then it just kind of died.
> 
> Is there a way to revive it? Or am I supposed to start a fresh one?
> 
> My bids are mostly around 0.20, by the way. My average click cost is 0.11.


I had one that slowed way down. I paused it for about five days and added some keywords. It's picked up again. It's something to try anyway.


----------



## The Bass Bagwhan

Sebourn said:


> Just thought I'd throw this out there:
> 
> My AMS ad has spent the last month ringing up pages read on my KENP graph. Blue lines all over the place. Obviously, I was very happy.
> 
> But the last four days, with two weeks or so left on my ad time, this has come to a halt. Not a slow down, a halt.
> 
> Does anybody have any thoughts about this?


Same for me. I wonder if it's Amazon tweaking algo's or doing something that's affecting reports. I don't think it's an AMS thing...


----------



## PearlEarringLady

Having a couple of free days between projects, I've been catching up on stuff and AMS ads are on the list, so I settled down for a mammoth session reading this whole thread. Phew! Lots of reading, lots of great discussion, one general conclusion - the ads are a huge mystery, and no one really understands how they work or how best to get them working in a generic formulaic way. It seems to be a matter of tweak and experiment and tweak some more. I started using them back in May (I have one ad that's run continuously since then), and it's definitely got harder to make a profit. 

Some general observations from almost a year of experimenting:

1) If you can get enough impressions, you get clicks, and if you get enough clicks, you get sales. Combined with paperbacks, audio and KU, even a low-level campaign can be cost effective.

2) 99c books get more sales but lower profit. (Well, duh! But visibility is good too.)

3) New campaigns do really well at first before settling down. I don't quite know how to take advantage of that, but it's interesting.

4) It's a long game. Because of the day-to-day variations and the horrible lag on sales, it takes weeks before you can assess a campaign properly and months before there's enough data on individual keywords to make judgements. 

5) Knowing what to bid is hideously difficult.

6) It seems to be impossible to scale a performing ad up.

I've worked out my own system for managing the ads which strikes a balance between driving me mad with constant monitoring and adjusting hundreds of keyword bids at a time, and cost effectiveness. Here's what I do:

1) I start each campaign by bidding 16c, 21c or 26c on all keywords (400 for the Regencies, 600 for the fantasies), depending on whether I want to be conservative, or push the boat out a bit. Why those numbers? Because most people will likely bid round numbers, so I aim to be 1c more.  That seems to be enough to get things moving for my genres.

2) I monitor the dashboard and note numbers every few days, but I do my full assessment only once a month. For each campaign, I calculate CPC, ACOS, conversion rate and cost per click *for that month*. Then I decide whether to leave the campaign as it is, tweak the keyword bids, or terminate. The tweaking is the part I find most problematic, especially for long-running ads. How do you know whether that great ACOS on a keyword actually dates back months? I'd really like monthly data for the keywords, but I'm not prepared to put in the amount of work necessary to track it myself. From time to time I add new keywords, mainly authors, taken from my also-boughts and the HNR lists.

I'm currently engaged in what's likely to be an expensive experiment - ramping up a low-key campaign on a pre-order ahead of launch, to see if throwing money at it has any effect. So far, it's been spectacularly unsuccessful, as the rank has fallen from 42K to around 160K.   I'll report my findings in due course.

Thanks to everyone who's contributed to this thread - some great information here. I hope I can contribute a little bit. This is what Kboards is so good at.


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## Jake Parent

Fantastic stuff. 

I've heard many Amazon sellers (not just authors) express frustration at a precipitous drop off of ad performance after a period of initial success. It makes me think that Amazon has to privilege new campaigns so as to get people hooked. 

I've also noticed that the system seems to punish campaigns that I've gotten greedy on. Even one's that were racking 12+ sales a day at $10 stopped almost entirely when I tried to increase the budget to $20. It's hard to understand why they wouldn't want more money to run a well performing ad more often, but it's consistent enough that now I'm scared to go over $10. 

Anyone else have that problem?


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## CassieL

PaulineMRoss said:


> The tweaking is the part I find most problematic, especially for long-running ads. How do you know whether that great ACOS on a keyword actually dates back months? I'd really like monthly data for the keywords, but I'm not prepared to put in the amount of work necessary to track it myself. From time to time I add new keywords, mainly authors, taken from my also-boughts and the HNR lists.


You can download a report on the keywords in a specific ad. Open the add and click the download button there. If you do this once a month then you can see what those keywords have done for that month. You'll have to calculate the numbers yourself, but in Excel it's pretty easy to do.


----------



## PearlEarringLady

Cassie Leigh said:


> You can download a report on the keywords in a specific ad. Open the add and click the download button there. If you do this once a month then you can see what those keywords have done for that month. You'll have to calculate the numbers yourself, but* in Excel it's pretty easy to do.*


Excel? Easy  Not to me, lol!


----------



## Accord64

Jake Parent said:


> I've also noticed that the system seems to punish campaigns that I've gotten greedy on. Even one's that were racking 12+ sales a day at $10 stopped almost entirely when I tried to increase the budget to $20. It's hard to understand why they wouldn't want more money to run a well performing ad more often, but it's consistent enough that now I'm scared to go over $10.
> 
> Anyone else have that problem?


I've heard of very few scaling-up success stories. There was a topic running on that subject a month or two back. And yes, I once doubled my daily limit from $5 to $10 after a promising start. Ad performance decreased after that. However, I found if I started my daily limit at $10, ad performance was consistently better.

But I stopped altogether because my ads hardly ever turned a positive ROI. I got tired of feeding a slot machine that never paid out.


----------



## A past poster

RobCornell said:


> Okay, so I've been tweaking as well. I've only been at this a week, so my observations are useless, but I do have a dumb question: When it comes to keywords, I've noticed most examples have them all lowercase. Do you think capitalization has any effect? I would assume not, but I prefer not to assume anything.


All keywords are converted to lower case.


----------



## A past poster

PaulineMRoss said:


> It seems to be a matter of tweak and experiment and tweak some more.
> 
> It's a long game. Because of the day-to-day variations and the horrible lag on sales, it takes weeks before you can assess a campaign properly and months before there's enough data on individual keywords to make judgements.
> 
> Knowing what to bid is hideously difficult.
> 
> The tweaking is the part I find most problematic, especially for long-running ads.


I find that I'm constantly tweaking effective keywords, which takes a huge chunk of time. If I don't tweak, my books either fall off the carousel or are so far back that no one sees them. Most people don't go beyond page 2 or 3, if that far.

Whether or not your books are in KU may be a factor in how well they do in relation to your keywords. I have a hunch that potential readers who subscribe to KU won't be as willing to purchase books that aren't in KU. This would definitely be important in selecting your keywords. My books aren't in KU, and I've seen this in the performance of my keywords, especially with popular KU titles.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Marian said:


> I find that I'm constantly tweaking effective keywords, which takes a huge chunk of time. If I don't tweak, my books either fall off the carousel or are so far back that no one sees them. Most people don't go beyond page 2 or 3, if that far.
> 
> Whether or not your books are in KU may be a factor in how well they do in relation to your keywords. I have a hunch that potential readers who subscribe to KU won't be as willing to purchase books that aren't in KU. This would definitely be important in selecting your keywords. My books aren't in KU, and I've seen this in the performance of my keywords, especially with popular KU titles.


I see that some people put "kindle unlimited" in their ad copy. So I did that and also added audiobook. It's only been a couple of days and I'm getting loads of impressions and clicks but only one sale so far. No page reads for that ad either. 96K+ impressions and 46 clicks. This is a book that usually sells well when I do a promo. Patience, patience, patience. And some more tweaking.


----------



## CassieL

It's seemed wonky for me the past three days.  Seeing activity on the ads and rankings that looked good but no sales reported and almost no pages read showing up. And then just now I had three full reads of book 1 hit the dashboard so hoping whatever it was has shaken itself out.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Cassie Leigh said:


> It's seemed wonky for me the past three days. Seeing activity on the ads and rankings that looked good but no sales reported and almost no pages read showing up. And then just now I had three full reads of book 1 hit the dashboard so hoping whatever it was has shaken itself out.


Page reads have been way down the last three days, but I've had a few sales. It seems I never get page reads and sales on the same day. It's either one or the other.


----------



## EC Sheedy

Marian said:


> I find that I'm constantly tweaking effective keywords, which takes a huge chunk of time. If I don't tweak, my books either fall off the carousel or are so far back that no one sees them.


Probably a dumber than dumb question but how exactly do you judge what makes an _*effective*_ keyword? Number of impressions? Number of clicks? Or number of sales?

And is it wise to pause a keyword that has tons of impressions, a decent number of clicks (1 per 750 impressions), but zero sales? (This after a month long ad.)

Keyword selection and click bidding--probably the basics for a successful ad--make my brain hurt.

Gratitude for this thread!


----------



## A past poster

EC Sheedy said:


> Probably a dumber than dumb question but how exactly do you judge what makes an _*effective*_ keyword? Number of impressions? Number of clicks? Or number of sales?
> 
> And is it wise to pause a keyword that has tons of impressions, a decent number of clicks (1 per 750 impressions), but zero sales? (This after a month long ad.)
> 
> Keyword selection and click bidding--probably the basics for a successful ad--make my brain hurt.
> 
> Gratitude for this thread!


I can only speak for what I do; others may treat keywords differently. If there have been close to 20 clicks on a keyword and no sales, I pause it. At that point it's fairly clear that the keyword isn't working for the book; it isn't drawing readers who want to buy it. I used to pause a keyword after 10 clicks and no sales, but discovered that this was a mistake. When I later saw that there were sales I wasn't aware of due to AMS delayed reporting, I reactivated the keywords. The most effective keywords are the ones that have the most clicks and sales. Hope this helps.


----------



## Guy Riessen

Marian said:


> I can only speak for what I do; others may treat keywords differently. If there have been close to 20 clicks on a keyword and no sales, I pause it. At that point it's fairly clear that the keyword isn't working for the book; it isn't drawing readers who want to buy it. I used to pause a keyword after 10 clicks and no sales, but discovered that this was a mistake. When I later saw that there were sales I wasn't aware of due to AMS delayed reporting, I reactivated the keywords. The most effective keywords are the ones that have the most clicks and sales. Hope this helps.


Hmmm, if you're getting lots of clicks though, can't that lead to unassociated KU page reads? Well, assuming your book is in KU anyway. Because of the variable lag in reporting there's not real direct way to link page reads to ad clicks. Or am I misunderstanding how it works? I'm new to this and am not a KU reader--so I'm not clear on the process. Couldn't a KU member click on the ad, then click on what's the "Read Now for Free in KU" button?


----------



## A past poster

Guy Riessen said:


> Hmmm, if you're getting lots of clicks though, can't that lead to unassociated KU page reads? Well, assuming your book is in KU anyway. Because of the variable lag in reporting there's not real direct way to link page reads to ad clicks. Or am I misunderstanding how it works? I'm new to this and am not a KU reader--so I'm not clear on the process. Couldn't a KU member click on the ad, then click on what's the "Read Now for Free in KU" button?


I'm not in KU.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Guy Riessen said:


> Hmmm, if you're getting lots of clicks though, can't that lead to unassociated KU page reads? Well, assuming your book is in KU anyway. Because of the variable lag in reporting there's not real direct way to link page reads to ad clicks. Or am I misunderstanding how it works? I'm new to this and am not a KU reader--so I'm not clear on the process. Couldn't a KU member click on the ad, then click on what's the "Read Now for Free in KU" button?


Yes, of course, which is why the ACOS on the dashboard isn't as useful as it could be. I go by my KDP dashboard for both sales and page reads. It's unlikely that there will be organic sales/reads outside of AMS so I can assume any sales/reads on my dashboard come from the ads I have running. I do have other sales from time to time, but I'm concentrating mainly on AMS ads.


----------



## Jacob Stanley

EC Sheedy said:


> Probably a dumber than dumb question but how exactly do you judge what makes an _*effective*_ keyword? Number of impressions? Number of clicks? Or number of sales?
> 
> *And is it wise to pause a keyword that has tons of impressions, a decent number of clicks (1 per 750 impressions), but zero sales? (This after a month long ad.)*
> 
> Keyword selection and click bidding--probably the basics for a successful ad--make my brain hurt.
> 
> Gratitude for this thread!


In response to the bolded: If I'm using an author name as a keyword, and I'm getting lots of clicks but no sales, I usually keep the ad going if its an indie author with books in KU.

This may or may not be a good way to approach things, but I know that KU readers have a lower threshold for trying things out than people who buy, so it doesn't seem odd to me that there would be borrows on books that get few or no sales.

Of course, it also depends on how much I'm paying for the clicks and exposure. When I have to bid really high to get a decent number of impressions on a keyword, I'm more likely to drop it if sales never materialize. And I also pay a lot of attention to the ratio of clicks to impressions. If the keyword is taking several thousand impressions to get a click (2000 is my cutoff number lately, and I prefer it if they're around 1000 or less) then that suggests a lack of interest, and it's more likely that I'm not getting KU reads.

So basically I've started to become more interested in the impression/click ratio than ACOS, at least for keywords derived from books and authors in the indie community.

I'm probably losing some money by approaching it this way, but I'm okay with that up to a point. Right now, maximizing exposure is substantially more important to me than maximizing profits.

Also, when I started paying more attention to impression/click ratio, it definitely seemed like my ads started performing better overall, but I made a lot of other subtle changes to my approach around the same time, so it's hard to be sure which one made the biggest difference.


----------



## quiet chick writes

PaulineMRoss said:


> 1) I start each campaign by bidding 16c, 21c or 26c on all keywords (400 for the Regencies, 600 for the fantasies), depending on whether I want to be conservative, or push the boat out a bit. Why those numbers? Because most people will likely bid round numbers, so I aim to be 1c more.  That seems to be enough to get things moving for my genres.


Clever! Thank you for mentioning this! I have certainly been one of those other people who bid only round numbers (until now!).


----------



## WriterSongwriter

I'm trying AMS ads and with a lag of more than a week KU reads are starting to go up. I had expected this sooner. I have also noticed that when I stop my campaign the ranking of the book dies. There is no sticky-ness what so ever.


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## Harald

Marian said:


> I can only speak for what I do; others may treat keywords differently. If there have been close to 20 clicks on a keyword and no sales, I pause it. *At that point it's fairly clear that the keyword isn't working for the book; it isn't drawing readers who want to buy it.*...


Or, you're not closing the sale because of something on the product detail page. You've already intrigued them with your cover-title-ad copy so they're interested. But something is stopping them when they get to the book page. Could be the price (too expensive). Or maybe the book blurb doesn't deliver on the 150-character ad copy. Or the Look Inside is turning them off. Or the reviews. Or...


----------



## CassieL

The preview your ad option wasn't working for me for probably four months but then started working for a while.  I got out of the habit of using it because of that.  Didn't seem to affect my ad performance at all.


----------



## Jena H

I've been periodically perusing this thread, but it has grown so much since I last visited that I got lost and forgot to leave a trail of breadcrumbs.

I have an odd question though, and I apologize if the topic is buried somewhere here (and if it is, a page number would be great).  The question is about running an ad for a non-first-in-series book.  Many of us write series in which books are not serialized, and each can be read as a standalone.  With that being the case, has anyone run an ad for Book 2 or 3 or whatever?


----------



## mythsnake

I had an ad running for the second book in my SF romance series, and it did really poorly (though I suspect it had more going against it than it just being book 2, and yes, it's a stand alone). I would have preferred to run an ad for book one, but AMS said no dice to the cover, so I ran book 2 instead. I'm in the process of changing the covers and branding across the whole series, and hopefully I'll be able to get past the AMS censors this time.


----------



## Harald

Jena H said:


> I've been periodically perusing this thread, but it has grown so much since I last visited that I got lost and forgot to leave a trail of breadcrumbs....


Just added this to Guideposts in Message #1 on Page 1


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## 67499

AMS isn't doing much for my sales but I, too, see a jump in reads I suspect driven by AMS.  If those reads were books sold, I could put money down on a new pair of roller skates.  Which makes me wonder - Has anyone tried leaving a first book in series in Select to use reads as loss leader PR but kept all subsequent books in a series out of Select to encourage sales in place of reads or am I a complete idiot as the two readerships barely overlap?


----------



## Jena H

Harald said:


> Just added this to Guideposts in Message #1 on Page 1


Ha, thanks. I can't be the only one thinking of this. (_Can I_) [No, I see that mythsnake did it already.]

Anyway, I'm thinking of doing this for one of my series... thought it might get a little more _oomph_ if I chose one of the later books.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Jena H said:


> Ha, thanks. I can't be the only one thinking of this. (_Can I_) [No, I see that mythsnake did it already.]
> 
> Anyway, I'm thinking of doing this for one of my series... thought it might get a little more _oomph_ if I chose one of the later books.


If the prequel ad I'm running doesn't show some sales/reads soon, I'm skipping that one and going straight to advertising the second book in the trilogy.


----------



## The Bass Bagwhan

Steven Hardesty said:


> AMS isn't doing much for my sales but I, too, see a jump in reads I suspect driven by AMS. If those reads were books sold, I could put money down on a new pair of roller skates. Which makes me wonder - Has anyone tried leaving a first book in series in Select to use reads as loss leader PR but kept all subsequent books in a series out of Select to encourage sales in place of reads or am I a complete idiot as the two readerships barely overlap?


I can see this backfiring on you, Steven. Someone who discovers your books through KU might be annoyed that subsequent titles are not also available. Plus, as you point out, through KU you're reaching an audience that browses through Amazon. I don't see how that translates across to different platforms. 
Unless I'm missing something. Good luck with it.


----------



## A past poster

Harald said:


> Or, you're not closing the sale because of something on the product detail page. You've already intrigued them with your cover-title-ad copy so they're interested. But something is stopping them when they get to the book page. Could be the price (too expensive). Or maybe the book blurb doesn't deliver on the 150-character ad copy. Or the Look Inside is turning them off. Or the reviews. Or...


I looked and this is what I found: the books that had 14+ clicks and no sales had subject matter that was different from the book that I was promoting. People who were curious because of the cover-title-ad copy clicked. I had maybe 6 or 7 keywords scattered through five different books that had keywords for book titles that either weren't in the same genre as my books or had entirely different subject matter. I threw the keywords in to see what would happen. There have been times when I've been surprised, when keywords that I didn't think would work turned out to be effective. It's trial and error. There are some keywords that I haven't been able to get impressions on that I'm sure would do well even though I've raised my bids. Go figure.


----------



## mythsnake

I've only got one ad right now, since killing my SF romance ad, and that particular ad is really doing quite well. It's for my epic fantasy trilogy omnibus, sells for $7.99 and is in KU, and while I've only sold one copy outright, the KU reads have been going gangbusters. I really thought that the lack of reviews and its initial sales rank in the 2 millions would keep people away, but in fact it hasn't. And what's even better is that a full read of the omnibus nets a bigger payout than a sale by about a buck, so while my ACos is pretty terrible (around 150%), according to BookReport, I've made back my ad expenses and am turning a nifty little profit with 1-2 borrows a day. I'm only ten days into this ad, but so far I'm impressed by what it's done for this particular book. I'm still small potatoes; a 3 figure month is a big deal for me, so the fact that I've been making about ten dollars a day in reads for the last week is seriously exciting for me. Now if only I can get my SF romance series some of that mojo.

Hadn't considered doing ads for the individual books in the trilogy, but since they have actual reviews, maybe they'd do even better than the omnibus.


----------



## PearlEarringLady

Jena H said:


> With that being the case, has anyone run an ad for Book 2 or 3 or whatever?


I've run ads for all of mine at different times. Some do better than others, but there's no overall downturn for second and subsequent books. In fact for the Regencies, which are a clearly numbered series, every ad has done well for a while (most of them they go off the boil eventually).


----------



## IreneP

RobCornell said:


> I swore I read somewhere up-thread about what a good ratio of impressions/clicks or length of time and clicks or something like that. But since I'm having no luck finding it, I'll ask a specific question:
> 
> I have an ad running with 132 keywords, almost entirely made up of relevant author names. I started this on 3/27. I have 4,743 impressions, only 7 clicks, and so far no sales reported. (I'm also, so far, not seeing any movement on page reads.) Is this as bad as I think it is?  Too soon to tell?


IMO - the click/impression ratio isn't hideous. It's too soon to tell about sales. They would be starting to show up yesterday or today at earliest (so depending when you got those first clicks...). I'm not in KU, so I can't comment on that. You've only had 7 clicks. I assume it will take at LEAST that many to get a sale. I would wait until you are about three days out _after _hitting 15-20 clicks before starting to panic. At that point, you should be seeing sales and/or page reads.


----------



## CassieL

Your issue is a low number of impressions.  I look for at least one click per 1,000 impressions and ideally like to have two clicks per thousand and you're in that range.  And I usually like to see one sale per 10 clicks minimum. (This is at a price of $4.99 - $6.99 for non-KU titles, others who price lower may have different ratios they look for and when you're in KU it can get skewed because of borrows).  So, in that scenario it's either a slow-burn ad or you need to up your bids or add keywords to get more impressions.


----------



## Harald

So here's my 7-day *sequential test* comparing two ad copy blurbs for my short, $0.99, KU series opener ("1609"). Both campaigns ran for 7 days (one after the other) before being paused. Then I waited another 7 days (on each) for any lagging metrics to show up. Both are exactly the same (same keywords, same budgets, same cover, same title) *BUT* with different ad copy texts. So, an A/B test of sorts on ad copy effectiveness.

Here's the summary:










And here are the two ad copy blurbs:
*A.* It's Sept, 1609, and two worlds are about to collide. Historical fiction. Based on true events. First book in the Series about the birth of NYC. = x144 chrs (6 left)
*B.* It's Sept, 1609, and two worlds are about to collide. First historical fiction series written about birth of NYC from beginning. Based on true events. = x150 chrs (0 left)

*Test Observations: *

* Is it valid to compare two campaigns sequentially vs. simultaneously? Well, it's been reported here that when doing simultaneous ads for the same book, Amazon will pick a winner and push the other one down based on criteria that no one seems to know. So another way to test one variable is to try it this way (sequentially).

* Notice that the Impressions of both are close, and the Clicks are identical! (with Spend almost the same) But the Sales and the ACoS tell a different story.

* I assumed that "B" would outperform "A", but I was wrong. Although the numbers are very small, the outcome has one campaign outperforming the other. But were there other factors involved? Like maybe something in the AMS system (or the world) that could have been happening during the "B" run that wasn't in the "A"? Who knows.

* What about KU Reads? It's hard to know which reads came from the AMS ads, but looking at my KENP Reads chart for this book, "A" and "B" are roughly the same over 7 days, although both are higher than the preceding period with no ads running.

*What do you think?* Is it a fair test? Can you see why (in the ad copy) "A" did better than "B"? Can you suggest an alternative "C" version I could try? 

I welcome your thoughts.

*EDIT:* NOTE: My bids are very low on these two: $0.02-$0.05. I reversed my strategy from the prior campaign (Row #4 in chart), where I had come in higher and gradually reduced the bids. This time, I came in low and will raise bids slowly once I restart the campaign(s).


----------



## Jena H

I know a lot of people run long-term ads:  weeks at a time, if not indefinitely.  Is there a point at which the cost outweighs the benefit?  I usually run my ads (with a $ per day cap) to 4 or 5 days, usually over a weekend, when I  assume a lot of people browse for books, or some other period that I think is optimal.  Am I crazy to limit myself that way?


----------



## Harald

Jena H said:


> I know a lot of people run long-term ads: weeks at a time, if not indefinitely. Is there a point at which the cost outweighs the benefit? I usually run my ads (with a $ per day cap) to 4 or 5 days, usually over a weekend, when I assume a lot of people browse for books, or some other period that I think is optimal. Am I crazy to limit myself that way?


Yes. You're crazy  [kidding] If the ads are working, why stop them? On the other hand, if they're not working after AT LEAST 7-10 days, then things may need changing: bids, pausing, copy... Look at my chart above and see the 3rd campaign down from the top: it was just not working and costing too much after 30 days of running. So I hit the pause button on that one.


----------



## Accord64

I just launched a campaign and *WOW*. Within the first hour I had tens of thousands of impressions spread over all my keywords. My ads consistently showed on page one of every keyword (1000). Then it got better. Dozens of clicks appeared with an aCPC of two cents!

Two hours later, sales started showing up on the report. Yeah, you read correctly, sales in under two days. The best part? One sale per click! Incredible! Then I looked at my ACoS and it simply read TILT.

Then I looked to the lower right-hand corner of my screen and noticed the date.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

The moment you said sales "showed" immediately, I remembered what day it was.


----------



## Philip Gibson

I asked KDP why my recent campaigns had no impressions despite running for 4 days. Turned out the hashtag (#) in my campaign title had fouled up the system.

Anyway, they also sent me the following, potentially informative, reply which could help us understand the system a little better:



> CPC bid Ad Frequency capping:
> 
> We cap the amount of times that a user will see an ad, also we take into account whether this user has seen the ad but not clicked on it.
> 
> For example, if the same users searches 3 times on a day for 'pedi' and never clicks on the scroll ad, we determine that this ad is not very useful to this user and therefore next time we will serve another brand ad
> 
> Campaign budget pacing:
> 
> If the brand has selected the option of 'Allow Amazon to spread budget smoothly' or if our system predicts that we will reach out budget by the end of the campaign (based on the predicted amount of clicks and CPC), we will spread the budget, which means that if there are 1000 available impressions on 1 day, we will serve the ad maybe on only 500 occasions (and in the rest, if we have another ad for that keyword, we will show that one) to make sure we are spreading the budget until the last day that it was specified.
> 
> Irrelevant ads:
> 
> Highly irrelevant ads will perform poorly and once the auction market has some level of competition the natural preference for Higher CTR ads in the Auction market has the effect of pushing out irrelevant ads (irrelevant ads have low CTR and when two ads compete the Bid values are scaled according to their CTRs so for a Low CTR add to beat a high CTR add it must bid more by a larger and larger margin in order to the placement).
> 
> If an irrelevant ad does get a lot of clicks then it is in fact demonstrating relevance (people are clicking on it).


If anyone here could break down and paraphrase the above to make it understandable, I would be so appreciative.

Thanks,

Philip


----------



## 39416

Here's my take on it (for what, if anything, it's worth).

*Capping*
You get three tries on a reader to get him/her to click your ad. After that, forget it.

*Pacing*
Even if you win the ad auction, you may not get the slot you won if Amazon decides to hold you back, for later.

*Irrelevant ads*
Amazon will only run really bonehead ads if they don't have anything else.


----------



## CassieL

Philip Gibson said:


> If anyone here could break down and paraphrase the above to make it understandable, I would be so appreciative.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Philip


My take on it:

Capping: They try not to show the same ad to people over and over again. But that three tries is an example and I know I've seen ads on my own books more times than that, so there is a cap, but they didn't tell you what it is.

Budget Pacing: That's relevant to the type of ad most folks on here aren't using. You can choose to spend it all right away or pace it out over the time period for the ad. If you space it out, they spread the spend.

Irrelevant Ads: They take your bid and multiply it by some sort of factor based on your click to impressions ratio. Lots of clicks means you get a higher multiplier. So if you bid 10 cents and someone else bids 50 cents but they have a low click rate on that particular word then your 10 cent bid could beat their 50 cent bid due to that weighting. As the market gets more competitive and folks with better targeting and ads enter the market the odds of a low conversion keyword working diminish unless you want to pay a fortune to overcome that multiplier.


----------



## Harald

LilyBLily said:


> I think the blurb for A is better. Could that make all the difference?


It certainly could. Thanks for this input. I've just gone live with a new "C" version that is a slight tweak on the "A" blurb. We'll see!


----------



## TAClark

I’ve been lurking on this forum for a while now, and I’ve learned a ton from the many excellent discussions. But this thread has been outstanding, and I felt like I had to comment.

I found this thread a few days ago, and have been studying it with great interest.  I have had a Product Display Ad for one of my books for almost a year, and it had become kind of a running joke in my house.  In all that time, I have had 49 clicks and a total of 3 sales.  At least it didn’t cost me much.

I was not aware of the difference between the Product Display and the Sponsored Product ads. After reading through this entire thread, I took what I thought were the best suggestions and put together an ad for one of my books that had really slipped into the doldrums.  It has sold only 17 copies in the past 90 days, and was down in the 400k zone.  I was getting some KU downloads and reads, but nothing consistent.

My ad was approved and went live yesterday morning, and by noon, I had my first click (on the keyword ‘book,’ an Amazon suggestion.  Could that be any more generic?).  Not long after that, a sale popped up on my KDP dashboard.  Coincidence?  Maybe, but by the end of the day, I had 6 clicks and 3 sales.

Whatever happened, I hope it keeps on happening.  This morning the book was around 89k rank, a number it had not seen for a while.
I want to thank everybody who has taken the time to share this information.  I would have given up in frustration a long time ago if not for the valuable information and advice on this forum.


----------



## Harald

TAClark said:


> ... Whatever happened, I hope it keeps on happening. This morning the book was around 89k rank, a number it had not seen for a while. I want to thank everybody who has taken the time to share this information. I would have given up in frustration a long time ago if not for the valuable information and advice on this forum.


Congrats, TAClark. Let us know how things are going, especially after 7-10 days. And see if your KU reads are higher from the start of the ad.


----------



## Kay7979

I ran a sponsored product ad from 11/02 till 3/20, and terminated that ad after 3,666,633 impressions and 2,483 clicks. It seemed I was getting less activity, so I thought it was time to get a fresh start. To be honest, I've never done much better than +/- breaking even, but the ad got me KU reads in addition to sales, and kept my book from sinking into obscurity. 

Right before terminating the original ad, I created two new ads. AD #1 I basically cloned the original, minus some of the keywords. AD #2 has different ad copy, so they aren't identical, and most keywords are different. Currently, I'm underwater, worse than before, but hopefully that will change. 

After analyzing my data, it appears I was getting about 24,000 impressions per day with my original ad, (although I think it was slowing around the time I decided to create the new ads) and now, with both ads combined, I'm only getting about 12,500. I have no idea why the disparity, unless there are a lot more users these days and Amazon needs to spread the love around. A few days ago I upped my daily budget from $3.00 and $5.00 to $5.00 and $10.00, but I have a feeling it's not going to make much difference.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Kay7979 said:


> I ran a sponsored product ad from 11/02 till 3/20, and terminated that ad after 3,666,633 impressions and 2,483 clicks. It seemed I was getting less activity, so I thought it was time to get a fresh start. To be honest, I've never done much better than +/- breaking even, but the ad got me KU reads in addition to sales, and kept my book from sinking into obscurity.
> 
> Right before terminating the original ad, I created two new ads. AD #1 I basically cloned the original, minus some of the keywords. AD #2 has different ad copy, so they aren't identical, and most keywords are different. Currently, I'm underwater, worse than before, but hopefully that will change.
> 
> After analyzing my data, it appears I was getting about 24,000 impressions per day with my original ad, (although I think it was slowing around the time I decided to create the new ads) and now, with both ads combined, I'm only getting about 12,500. I have no idea why the disparity, unless there are a lot more users these days and Amazon needs to spread the love around. A few days ago I upped my daily budget from $3.00 and $5.00 to $5.00 and $10.00, but I have a feeling it's not going to make much difference.


Running two ads concurrently on the same books has proven to be counterproductive. I think you'll find some info on that in the last couple of pages. If you're looking to do A/B testing, you need to run the ads sequentially. Pause one, then activate the other to see if there's any difference in performance.


----------



## Wired

Kay7979 said:


> I ran a sponsored product ad from 11/02 till 3/20, and terminated that ad after 3,666,633 impressions and 2,483 clicks.


How much were you bidding?


----------



## CassieL

TAClark said:


> Whatever happened, I hope it keeps on happening. This morning the book was around 89k rank, a number it had not seen for a while.
> I want to thank everybody who has taken the time to share this information. I would have given up in frustration a long time ago if not for the valuable information and advice on this forum.


Congrats! Hope it keeps going.

Also, Kay...I saw a complete slowdown in my ads for my fantasy titles the last three days. Running just one didn't help, pausing and restarting didn't help, adjusting bids didn't help. I finally stopped all of the ads and put through a new one. We'll see if that works. If not, well that really sucks. AMS seem to be the only way I can sell books on Amazon these days.


----------



## Kay7979

Wired said:


> How much were you bidding?


With few exceptions, 0.25 across the board, and most of the time I didn't hit the max bids and generally paid .15-.18 at the most. I've also noticed recently that most of my impressions are being generated during hours I wouldn't consider prime time. Perhaps because I'm not a big name author. Yet.


----------



## JaclynDolamore

My ad spend has really slowed the past week or so. One day AMS only spent $3 of my budget. It was up to $20 a day for a while there. I started a new ad, upped some bids and added about 200 fresh new keywords and it has made no difference. I wonder if it is due to increased competition or if they simply decide to rotate out a book after it's been advertised a lot for months?


----------



## Decon

JaclynDolamore said:


> My ad spend has really slowed the past week or so. One day AMS only spent $3 of my budget. It was up to $20 a day for a while there. I started a new ad, upped some bids and added about 200 fresh new keywords and it has made no difference. I wonder if it is due to increased competition or if they simply decide to rotate out a book after it's been advertised a lot for months?


Yeah, and as others are saying, I'm experiencing a dramatic slowdown in impressions across all 6 books. I'm letting it ride for now to see if it picks up, but it's holding your nerve when that translates into low page reads and sales. In 10 days, I've had no AMS eBook sales, just 3 paper book sales and page reads have fallen off a cliff when I look at my graph.


----------



## Kay7979

LilyBLily said:


> Glad it's not just me. Same story: slowdown in page reads and sales. I tweaked my most expensive ad a week ago and last night tweaked it again, thinking my original tweaks were the cause of the dip.
> 
> All those keywords are a lot to keep track of, which is why I lean toward pausing the irrelevant, low-sales-producing ones, and upping the bids as necessary on the ones that seem to actually sell books. Of course I never know which ads might be selling page reads instead, so I still might be shooting myself in the foot by pausing some apparently nonproducing keywords. This stuff can drive you crazy.


I can think of three instances when I paused a non-productive keyword, only to have a sale appear a day or two later that was generated by that keyword. Weird! If only it worked all the time. I'd pause another fifty!


----------



## mythsnake

My really good epic fantasy omnibus ad suddenly died over the last couple of days; I was turning a profit of about $30 on it when suddenly Amazon stopped showing and while I'm still getting page reads, it had turned into a trickle and my sales rank wasn't showing any new borrows. I was sitting at about 123K impressions and almost 100 clicks and two sales. Decided to copy and resubmit last night, so we'll see if that gets it going again.

On the other hand, I started up a SF romance one yesterday and it did gangbusters on the clicks and impressions yesterday, hitting its ten dollar spend limit and netting over 100k impressions, 70 odd clicks, three full-price sales, and about three full reads worth of page reads.


----------



## Arches

I've been following this thread with great interest from the beginning, and I've learned an amazing amount about sponsored ads. Thank you to everyone who's contributed so far.
I've also learned an amazing amount about how little we know about how these ads work. I've see many frustrated posts because the ads seem to stop working, particularly recently, but there have to be thousands of these ads active at one time. A few anecdotal reports of trouble may not be representative of the program.
I have two ads running that could no doubt be improved if I knew what would work, but I'm extremely reluctant to just make changes and hope for the best. It seems like the safest thing to do is to try and find more relevant keywords rather than change bids or pause keywords. Does anyone have a better idea?


----------



## CassieL

I can't speak for anyone else but after a while it starts to get incredibly challenging to find more keywords that are relevant.  I do try adding new ones, but the core authors that are the best match were the ones I identified early on.  Of course, maybe I don't cast that net wide enough.  I decided this month to do a trial subscription in KU and read some of the books in my also-boughts for my fantasy novel and...those books are not a lot like mine.  I write coming of age fantasy set in an alternate world and I have tough-as-nails paranormal romance in my also-boughts or high-heat paranormal.  So maybe I limit myself by not casting the net wider or maybe that's a sign that I really haven't found my audience yet and am just picking up people who are willing to venture out of their norm a bit.

I think the reason for the slowdown for some of us old-timers (relative, I've had ads on most of my books running since July) is because we aren't marketing gurus and there've been a flood of new users coming into AMS.  Between a few new courses I'm seeing hit (Mark Dawson's and the ebookbestsellersecrets one someone posted) and Amazon offering $100 in free clicks to new users, there have to be a lot of new books being advertised.  And, Amazon being savvy about these things is likely giving precedence to those newer titles.  Some of the really successful folks who have this dialed in probably aren't seeing the slow down even if they've been at this a while, but some of us that were doing well because people were ignoring AMS for a long while there are going to take a hit.

If/when your ads slow down then see what works for you to get them going again.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

That $100 of free clicks is for Amazon Advantage members only. That's what "ebookbestsellers" said when I listened to it last night.


----------



## JaclynDolamore

Yeah, good point about all the courses, Cassie. It's possible the system is just flooded. Or also possible that since my book has been out since July and advertised since August, Amazon doesn't want to give it as much love anymore even though all my ads are successful. It will be interesting to see how ads for The Vampire's Doll do, since that will be my first new Book 1 since July. I'm honestly not sure what else I can do right now to make the ads work better. I've already tried quite a lot of things. I probably just have to accept that the AMS money train of last year has slowed to more of a money cart, like every advertising method eventually does!


----------



## CassieL

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> That $100 of free clicks is for Amazon Advantage members only. That's what "ebookbestsellers" said when I listened to it last night.


If I go to ams.amazon.com they advertise $100 in free clicks. Right below that it says "Amazon Marketing Services is currently available to Amazon vendors and KDP authors."

That's a different site than Amazon Advantage that for me was advertising $50 in free clicks when I looked at it the other day. https://www.amazon.com/gp/seller-account/mm-product-page.html/ref=azus_soa_seeall_aa_minC?topic=200329780

The $100 in free clicks is only for new users, though.


----------



## KelliWolfe

"Sponsored products related to this item... Page 1 of 30"

That looks pretty flooded. My first question is whether they're calling it an impression when your ad is put on that list, or whether someone actually has to scroll to the page in there that your ad is on for it to count as an impression. My second question is whether readers are bothering to scroll through that list of ads at all, when from what I can see the majority of books appearing there aren't remotely relevant to the book the product page belongs to.

I'll scroll through Also Boughts because they're relevant. When I look down and the Sponsored products are a mishmash in completely different genres than the book I'm looking at it doesn't really make me want to investigate further. Unless your book is in that first page of ads, I'll never see it.


----------



## 88149

Just got off Mark Dawson's webinar on AMS ads. He pointed out the lag between reported results and sales being measured in weeks, and recommended letting ads run at least a month before measuring keywords vs sales. YMMV.


----------



## Harald

Dan Phalen said:


> Just got off Mark Dawson's webinar on AMS ads. He pointed out the lag between reported results and sales being measured in weeks, and recommended letting ads run at least a month before measuring keywords vs sales. YMMV.


For me it's days not weeks. I've tested this with what happens when I start and then stop a campaign. But like you say, "YMMV"!

*EDIT:* just checked my new campaign, and I got my first sale today on Day 3 (or it was recorded as a sale on Day 3 . That seems to be my average on my campaigns. Same on the back end when I pause campaigns.


----------



## Decon

I've finally paused 4 of my ads and I'm reverting to KU free promos while I reconsider what to do next with AMS, if anything.

Two of them had reached 40% which I always said would be my cut off as I am stuck with 30% withholding tax on royalties, so that's my break even. the other two I'm stopping while I'm ahead. The page reads have not been worth taking into account this last 10 days that I think could boost just as well with free promos.


----------



## Jena H

Harald said:


> For me it's days not weeks. I've tested this with what happens when I start and then stop a campaign. But like you say, "YMMV"!
> 
> *EDIT:* just checked my new campaign, and I got my first sale today on Day 3 (or it was recorded as a sale on Day 3 . That seems to be my average on my campaigns. Same on the back end when I pause campaigns.


You (generic 'you') should be able to tell from your KDP dashboard--or even sales rank-- that the book has an increase in activity, no? That should give an indication in a matter of hours, not days. It's not ad-specific data, obviously, but it should indicate sales.


----------



## Harald

Jena H said:


> You (generic 'you') should be able to tell from your KDP dashboard--or even sales rank-- that the book has an increase in activity, no? That should give an indication in a matter of hours, not days. It's not ad-specific data, obviously, but it should indicate sales.


To clarify, I/we are talking about the lag in reporting by AMS. That is in days (or some are saying weeks). KDP dashboard can be pretty fast, but it does not indicate if sales are from AMS or organic or promos or whatever. And Sales Rank (for me) is a lagging indicator, usually at least a day behind. But AMS is AMS only. There are other benefits to AMS beyond pure Sales, but at least you can be sure that an AMS sale is due to your AMS ad without any other noise. Keeping in mind that there can (are) reporting delays for the different AMS metrics.


----------



## CassieL

I woke up this morning to three paperback sales on two books I'd paused ads on for a couple weeks and then just recently restarted a few days ago.  My new fantasy  novel ad has 4,000 impressions and 5 clicks after one day and I did see page reads and a rank boost indicating at least one of those borrowed the book.  I have a new release coming up and will be interested to see how that one performs comparatively.  I suspect it'll do better than the ones I've been advertising long-term.

Jena H - I track rank changes, because sometimes you get a borrow but not immediate page reads, as well as sales.  I also do watch my page reads, but that can be a lagging indicator as anyone who has taken a book out of KU knows.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Harald said:


> To clarify, I/we are talking about the lag in reporting by AMS. That is in days (or some are saying weeks). KDP dashboard can be pretty fast, but it does not indicate if sales are from AMS or organic or promos or whatever. And Sales Rank (for me) is a lagging indicator, usually at least a day behind. But AMS is AMS only. There are other benefits to AMS beyond pure Sales, but at least you can be sure that an AMS sale is due to your AMS ad without any other noise. Keeping in mind that there can (are) reporting delays for the different AMS metrics.


That is true, but I still go by KDP sales dashboard. That's because organic sales absolutely dried up in January except for those I started on AMS. I did a few other ads, but they were mostly for freebies and were either not advertised on AMS or I paused the ads for a week. KDP is still the best indicator for me. (YMMV)


----------



## Christopher Bunn

KelliWolfe said:


> My first question is whether they're calling it an impression when your ad is put on that list, or whether someone actually has to scroll to the page in there that your ad is on for it to count as an impression.


I have yet to see anyone answer this question definitively. I've seen people answer one way or the other, but never with an authoritative source.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Christopher Bunn said:


> I have yet to see anyone answer this question definitively. I've seen people answer one way or the other, but never with an authoritative source.


I listened to Mark Dawson's webinar yesterday. That question was asked and he said that he didn't know. My understanding is that Mark has been working with Amazon on AMS and if anyone should know, it's him.


----------



## Christopher Bunn

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I listened to Mark Dawson's webinar yesterday. That question was asked and he said that he didn't know. My understanding is that Mark has been working with Amazon on AMS and if anyone should know, it's him.


Yeah, I heard him say that too. Like you said, if anyone should know... I'm puzzled, though, why Amazon hasn't been clear on that question. I bet a lot of people have been bugging them about it.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Christopher Bunn said:


> Yeah, I heard him say that too. Like you said, if anyone should know... I'm puzzled, though, why Amazon hasn't been clear on that question. I bet a lot of people have been bugging them about it.


Could it be that even Amazon can't figure out their own strategies? 

The only reason I can think is that the answer is not clear cut. Under certain circumstances where an ad is performing up to their standard, impressions are eyes on. Good clicks, good sell-thru. For underperforming ads, they don't care whether it actually gets seen at all. Us prawns just think we're getting lots of eyes on and blame it on bad cover, bad blurb, etc.


----------



## amdonehere

I don't know why but my Paperback sales have absolutely flatlined since beginning of last week. AMS ads had done well to prompt my PB sales until now.  Not sure what's going on.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Could it be that even Amazon can't figure out their own strategies?
> 
> The only reason I can think is that the answer is not clear cut. Under certain circumstances where an ad is performing up to their standard, impressions are eyes on. Good clicks, good sell-thru. For underperforming ads, they don't care whether it actually gets seen at all. Us prawns just think we're getting lots of eyes on and blame it on bad cover, bad blurb, etc.


Or they know that if the people paying for impressions were to find out the truth - that Amazon is counting an ad simply being somewhere in that 30 page scrolling list as an impression - that it would cause angst. Possibly even discontent.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

KelliWolfe said:


> Or they know that if the people paying for impressions were to find out the truth - that Amazon is counting an ad simply being somewhere in that 30 page scrolling list as an impression - that it would cause angst. Possibly even discontent.


Who would be paying for impressions?


----------



## KelliWolfe

Sorry, I misspoke. We pay directly for clicks. But part of the value of the ad is in getting the cover of your book in front of more eyeballs - whether they click on the ad or not. If they see the ad a few times it may encourage them to buy your book down the road if they see it in someone else's also-bought list or something. It's an intangible that needs to be factored into the value of the ad spend. Kind of like how we have to do with KU page reads, which we currently have no hard metrics for. 

So if I am getting a lot of impressions, paying for clicks might be worth it to me even if I'm not seeing sales directly attributed to those clicks because it's extra visibility. But if those impressions aren't actually people looking at the ad, then the value to me of those impressions falls off a cliff. And of course their usefulness as a metric of determining how effective your ad is at getting people to click on it becomes worthless.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

KelliWolfe said:


> Sorry, I misspoke. We pay directly for clicks. But part of the value of the ad is in getting the cover of your book in front of more eyeballs - whether they click on the ad or not. If they see the ad a few times it may encourage them to buy your book down the road if they see it in someone else's also-bought list or something. It's an intangible that needs to be factored into the value of the ad spend. Kind of like how we have to do with KU page reads, which we currently have no hard metrics for.
> 
> So if I am getting a lot of impressions, paying for clicks might be worth it to me even if I'm not seeing sales directly attributed to those clicks because it's extra visibility. But if those impressions aren't actually people looking at the ad, then the value to me of those impressions falls off a cliff. And of course their usefulness as a metric of determining how effective your ad is at getting people to click on it becomes worthless.


Absolutely true.


----------



## MH Johnson

That market visibility, the idea that a potential customer is more likely to buy/borrow after multiple exposures is true in my personal experience. I've picked up more than one book from my fellow K-Board authors just because I liked their insights and wanted to get a sense of the writer behind the mind  - I'm a KU member though (tight budget like so many of us) so though I may not buy my fellow writer's books after looking at the covers in their footnote, I certainly KU borrow the books, so advertising may be helping a lot on the KU end, but less in the cash purchase end. (Which could well be because the people most likely to be avid readers, or try new books on a whim, are those to whom cost is less of a prohibitive factor, such as with KU readers).


----------



## novelist11

I don't know why but I always have to bid higher now than I used to. Maybe because alot of authors are getting that $100 in free clicks? I wish I could have gotten the promotion but they keep telling me they aren't adding any new authors at this time. I think that is a lie but whatever.


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

I've only recently gotten into AMS and am tinkering (without astounding results but also without losing a fortune) with my first ads. And I've recently begun slowly working my way through this thread, with many thanks to all who have shared their experiences.

I have some questions, though. The basic concept of the things was easy to grasp, but I'm a notorious "but how does it work?" type, and I haven't been able to find an explanation for what I'll call the "structure" of the thing. Not the computational algorithms that run it, but more the "sequence" of what happens.

It appears to work this way:

Once author A has set up an ad on AMS, it goes into a sort of "pool" of ads.

When "A Reader" enters a book search term or terms on Google or Amazon, those respective platforms churn through their records of past searches with those or similar terms (keywords) and produce a list of entries for "A Reader's" consideration. Google will produce a page or more of entries, only some of which may lead directly to an Amazon book page.

For searches on its platform, Amazon will produce its own list of authors and books that match--or at least come close to matching--the search terms. Each entry will lead to a specific book or, possibly, an author page. SOME of the entries on that list will have landed there because the author is paying Amazon to show it there. Plus, the individual links to books will lead to a product page that will (probably) have the "Sponsored" carousel halfway down the page. So two opportunities for a sponsored book to be seen.

For those sponsored books to show up on the initial Amazon list, or, next step, on the specific product page, they must have won an "auction" for that screen real estate. Before the "auction" actually happens, though, Amazon must have sorted through its pool of ads and fished out those that include search terms (keywords) that match or are at least close to the search terms "A Reader" entered when she started her search. Then, once it has, say, 100 [or 1000 or 10000] ads with keywords that match or come close to matching "A Reader's" search terms, Amazon conducts an "auction" among those 100 ads and selects those that offer to pay Amazon the most for that "sponsored product" real estate. If Amazon's algorithms have decided that the product page will have a carousel with 100 sponsored ads, then, yay, all 100 ads are shown, with those that pay the most and/or are the most relevant being shown first. If Amazon says there's room for only 20 sponsored products, then the "auction" will still weigh the ad's bid per click (Amazon's cut) and relevance, but will chose only 20 of the 100 ads to show. [With the caveat that sometimes none of that applies because, you know, magic. Or gremlins. Or something.]

So here's my question....I'm assuming those auctions, both for the list display and the carousel display on the product page, are conducted EVERY SINGLE TIME someone clicks on a link or enters a search term. IOW, there is no, "this is fixed for the next ten minutes" guidance so those ads are just sitting there, authorized to appear the next time someone clicks on that link. The selection of potentially relevant ads and the auction conducted among them happens in the nano seconds while Amazon is preparing the display. Is that correct?

It also implies that the Google search doesn't really do anything to get an ad up....but the author still wants to know their search terms because that's how Google gets A Reader to Amazon, and that's what Amazon looks at when it's preparing the disply..

I confess, I can't see that this makes any difference to how you actually run (or fumble with) an ad, but I really did want to be sure I understood the process. [My approach to life has always been, never settle for simple when you can make it a whole lot more complex and confusing!]

Thanks!


----------



## nikkykaye

I'm trying to read and re-read all these AMS threads, as I've just started experimenting with it.

What I'm still trying to figure out is what's considered a good CPC. Is it under your bid for that keyword? Or is it less than your potential royalty on that book? Or is it something else altogether (I've heard < $0.20 is best)?

For example, I began a sponsored ad for a book yesterday, and within about 24hrs I had about 45k impressions and 90-odd clicks. And no sales, but as I understand sales can take a few days to show up?

How long do people usually wait to see how a campaign is working, or to finesse keywords and bids? I'm already analyzing which keywords are getting the most impressions/CPC and stuff like that, but as far as I can tell, I'm definitely not making any money on this so far.


----------



## Jena H

nikkykaye said:


> I'm trying to read and re-read all these AMS threads, as I've just started experimenting with it.
> 
> What I'm still trying to figure out is what's considered a good CPC. Is it under your bid for that keyword? Or is it less than your potential royalty on that book? Or is it something else altogether (I've heard < $0.20 is best)?
> 
> For example, I began a sponsored ad for a book yesterday, and within about 24hrs I had about 45k impressions and 90-odd clicks. And no sales, but as I understand sales can take a few days to show up?
> 
> How long do people usually wait to see how a campaign is working, or to finesse keywords and bids? I'm already analyzing which keywords are getting the most impressions/CPC and stuff like that, but as far as I can tell, I'm definitely not making any money on this so far.


These are good questions and sometimes it seems as if the answers keep morphing on us. I'm not one who's (probably) ever going to run an ad for more than 7-10 days, but it seems that you have to run it at least that long to see what kind of impact your ad is having. So basically you're running an ad "blindly" for at least four days until results come in. And for the record, I find that time lag to be a bunch of hooey. (Unless the info is tallied on adding machines in a smoky room by nearsighted men wearing green eyeshades.)


----------



## Gertie Kindle

nikkykaye said:


> I'm trying to read and re-read all these AMS threads, as I've just started experimenting with it.
> 
> What I'm still trying to figure out is what's considered a good CPC. Is it under your bid for that keyword? Or is it less than your potential royalty on that book? Or is it something else altogether (I've heard < $0.20 is best)?
> 
> For example, I began a sponsored ad for a book yesterday, and within about 24hrs I had about 45k impressions and 90-odd clicks. And no sales, but as I understand sales can take a few days to show up?
> 
> How long do people usually wait to see how a campaign is working, or to finesse keywords and bids? I'm already analyzing which keywords are getting the most impressions/CPC and stuff like that, but as far as I can tell, I'm definitely not making any money on this so far.


I watch my kdp dashboard to get an idea of sales.

How much you bid depends on how much competition there is in your genre. I'm in romance so I bid pretty high. I've bid as high as 50c, but even so, I might win the auction with only 20c so that's all I'll pay. Sort of like ebay. You can adjust your bids up and down as needed.


----------



## WriterSongwriter

Are AMS ads losing their shine or is it just me?


----------



## CassieL

Mine definitely are. Trying to decide what to do right now since that was driving a lot of my sales over the last few months. I'm still getting good impression-to-click ratios but sales just aren't happening and borrows are far less than they were on the two titles I have in KU.  Of course, I've also been unable to access Createspace since yesterday morning so I'm missing part of the picture right now.


----------



## Jena H

WriterSongwriter said:


> Are AMS ads losing their shine or is it just me?


Could it just be a temporary thing, like maybe a pre-Easter / Spring Break lull? People travelling or gearing up for a holiday or time away might not be buying as much. ((... she said hopefully...))


----------



## CassieL

I wish, but I suspect in my case it's something else because I'm seeing rank decay as well.

I finally managed to log into Createspace (anyone else getting a time out error, search for the site and go in that way). I had two books I'd paused ads on for a while and had restarted recently.  Both of those have a couple of paperback sales since I restarted them this week. So I'm pausing some other ads that had slowed to a crawl and will restart those after a couple weeks and see if they start to perform again.

I suspect it's AMS maturing and Amazon focusing on new and shiny like they love to do, which means as a long-term, low effort ad strategy the ads won't work for the large majority except those who do really really well and somehow get sticky with their ads. Otherwise it'll be ads for books that are new to the program that will perform best.


----------



## IreneP

KelliWolfe said:


> Or they know that if the people paying for impressions were to find out the truth - that Amazon is counting an ad simply being somewhere in that 30 page scrolling list as an impression - that it would cause angst. Possibly even discontent.


I don't know definitively either (want to make that clear up front) - but for most platforms the impression is only counted when the image loads. That's how it is tracked, by the image loading. Now, the image could load and be under the fold on a page where the customer never scrolls down, but it is visible on the page. I'm assuming (perhaps wrongly) that if you are not on the viewable portion of the carousel, you are not getting an impression.


----------



## JaclynDolamore

My ads have been really tanking this month too. It's been a downward slide ever since they opened to everyone, but they still kept my rank propped above 10k. In the past week or so I slid from hitting 10k here and there to being in the 20s. Well, at least I'll have a new shiny release in less than a week and will get a new round of ads going, maybe that will help.

On impressions, though...I've had multiple ads, some running since September when Amazon ads were way less competitive. My impressions to click ratio has remained INCREDIBLY consistent since day 1. If an impression was counted even if it's on page 20 and never appears, then this shouldn't be the case, right? Because back in September, fewer ad pages had 20 pages of ads. So I think impressions are true impressions.


----------



## novelist11

I just had a keyword that only cost me one cent. How can that be I thought that the lowest you could bid was two cents? The max bid I had for that was seven cents.


----------



## Harald

novelist11 said:


> I just had a keyword that only cost me one cent. How can that be I thought that the lowest you could bid was two cents? The max bid I had for that was seven cents.


It happens. I've also had Sales with 0 Clicks; figure that one out.


----------



## 67499

Side question:  Can't seem to make my AMS campaign page "preview ads" work consistently.   Do I need to sacrifice a goat or is there a magic button on the page I can't see?


----------



## Abderian

Steven Hardesty said:


> Side question: Can't seem to make my AMS campaign page "preview ads" work consistently.  Do I need to sacrifice a goat or is there a magic button on the page I can't see?


Mine hasn't been working for a couple of weeks.


----------



## Jena H

Steven Hardesty said:


> Side question: Can't seem to make my AMS campaign page "preview ads" work consistently.  Do I need to sacrifice a goat or is there a magic button on the page I can't see?





Abderian said:


> Mine hasn't been working for a couple of weeks.


Yeah I've never been able to preview an ad. Might have to do with ad blocker or the browser we use??


----------



## Harald

PREVIEW YOUR AD - I've never seen a way to do it beyond screen grabbing the "Preview your ad" right under the Custom Text box when creating the campaign. It's a live preview, filling in as you add the text into the box. The trick is to grab that screen BEFORE moving to the next step and publishing the ad. After that, it's gone AFAIK. Unless you can find one of your ads on someone else's page. Then grab that one.


----------



## K.B. Rose

Harald said:


> It happens. I've also had Sales with 0 Clicks; figure that one out.


I have, too. Not really sure how that works...

My ad's been doing okay since I put it up on 2/25, I'm moderately pleased, but it seems I've gotten to that point where it's stalled. The impressions have barely gone up the past few days, and my sales and page reads have gone way down. For anyone who has experienced this, do you recommend waiting it out or starting a new ad?


----------



## Nicholas Erik

Steven Hardesty said:


> Side question: Can't seem to make my AMS campaign page "preview ads" work consistently.  Do I need to sacrifice a goat or is there a magic button on the page I can't see?


It's AdBlock. If you disable it for AMS and refresh, the preview function should begin working properly again.

Nick


----------



## CassieL

So I think my "new and shiny" theory is holding up. New book launch. Started an AMS ad yesterday. 34,000 impression on it as of this morning and rank changes that show borrows.  Interestingly, though, no sales after 25 clicks even though it's at 99 cents for launch.  It is a romance and they do tend to skew towards KU borrows and this is a relatively unknown name and book with no reviews, so that could explain it.  Or...Amazon has tweaked things to push KU books in front of KU subscribers which explains the lack of sales across the small number of books I have in KU and running these ads.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

K.B. Rose said:


> I have, too. Not really sure how that works...
> 
> My ad's been doing okay since I put it up on 2/25, I'm moderately pleased, but it seems I've gotten to that point where it's stalled. The impressions have barely gone up the past few days, and my sales and page reads have gone way down. For anyone who has experienced this, do you recommend waiting it out or starting a new ad?


When that happened to me, I paused the ad, added a couple of dozen new keywords and started it up again after five days. It's back up to speed now.

I'm trying something different for another one that's stalled. I started a new ad with completely different ad copy and all new keywords. I did re-use the old keywords that had produced sales and I'm running both simultaneously. So far, the new one is doing fine and the old one has picked up a few more clicks. I think I'll pause the old one for a few days and add keywords like I did for the other ad.


----------



## Jena H

This might be apropos of nothing but....  I don't usually look at sponsored ads (regular ad-block user) but since I'm running an ad and using certain author names, I have ad-block turned off for now.  I just looked up a book from one of the authors whose name I use as keyword, and rather than there being "1 of 4" page of sponsored ads, or even "1 of 8 (or 10" pages, it says there are 112 pages of sponsored ads.  112!!!              Isn't that a lot?  My ad was on page four, but wouldn't it stink to be on page 100?  Why does Amazon even bother with that many ads linked to a page?  I thought that's what the auction was for, to limit it.  (Or wait, $$ maybe I $$ can gue$$ what the an$wer to that que$tion i$.)


----------



## KelliWolfe

Jena, this is why I've been wondering how Amazon is actually counting their impressions. If they're counting it when your ad is on page 112 of that list, it's kind of meaningless.


----------



## K.B. Rose

KelliWolfe said:


> Jena, this is why I've been wondering how Amazon is actually counting their impressions. If they're counting it when your ad is on page 112 of that list, it's kind of meaningless.


It was my understanding that impressions are only counted when your ad is actually loaded on someone's screen. So unless a person looks through all 112 pages it wouldn't count as an impression. I don't know why they would have so many pages of ads, though. Seems kind of meaningless either way.


----------



## KelliWolfe

That would make sense, but it isn't documented that way anywhere that I can find and Amazon is apparently not giving clear responses to the people who have asked them directly.


----------



## Anarchist

KelliWolfe said:


> That would make sense, but it isn't documented that way anywhere that I can find and Amazon is apparently not giving clear responses to the people who have asked them directly.


Amazon KDP defines impressions as follows:

"_The number of times your ad was displayed_."

I interpret that in the literal sense. If an ad is on page 15, and the viewer never makes it to page 15, the ad is not displayed. It is thus not counted as an impression.


----------



## josielitton

Anarchist said:


> Amazon KDP defines impressions as follows:
> 
> "_The number of times your ad was displayed_."
> 
> I interpret that in the literal sense. If an ad is on page 15, and the viewer never makes it to page 15, the ad is not displayed. It is thus not counted as an impression.


Currently, a digital ad can be counted as displayed when it is served in response to a request from a user's browser. Any reasonable person might very well think that means the viewer can see the ad but in fact it doesn't necessarily. Any number of factors can block it from view--especially in this context if the viewer has to scroll in order to make it visible--which is why for the past few years there's been a growing movement to switch to "viewable" rather than displayed ads as an industry standard when counting impressions. I have no idea if AMS is complying with this and I can't find anywhere that spells it out but the use of "displayed" in Amazon's definition rather than "viewed" isn't reassuring.

BTW, "viewable" is far from perfect--it just means at least 50% of an ads pixels are viewable for at least one second. A low bar but still better than merely "displayed".


----------



## Anarchist

josielitton said:


> Currently, a digital ad can be counted as displayed when it is served in response to a request from a user's browser. Any reasonable person might very well think that means the viewer can see the ad but in fact it doesn't necessarily. Any number of factors can block it from view--especially in this context if the viewer has to scroll in order to make it visible--which is why for the past few years there's been a growing movement to switch to "viewable" rather than displayed ads as an industry standard when counting impressions. I have no idea if AMS is complying with this and I can't find anywhere that spells it out but the use of "displayed" in Amazon's definition rather than "viewed" isn't reassuring.
> 
> BTW, "viewable" is far from perfect--it just means at least 50% of an ads pixels are viewable for at least one second. A low bar but still better than merely "displayed".


You're absolutely right.

I know both Google and Facebook have moved to viewable over the last few years. I was assuming Amazon had done so, as well. But that may not be the case at all.


----------



## josielitton

Anarchist said:


> You're absolutely right.
> 
> I know both Google and Facebook have moved to viewable over the last few years. I was assuming Amazon had done so, as well. But that may not be the case at all.


Do you know if the viewable standard on Facebook is the default or just an option? I've always gone CPC so I'm not up on that. As for Amazon, I love the Zon but if there's one thing I've learned it's to never assume anything. I just did Mark Dawson's webinar on AMS and was struck by how often he referred to it as essentially being in beta. Sounds like there are still a lot of details to work out, the kind that can make or break the success of a campaign.


----------



## Anarchist

josielitton said:


> Do you know if the viewable standard on Facebook is the default or just an option? I've always gone CPC so I'm not up on that. As for Amazon, I love the Zon but if there's one thing I've learned it's to never assume anything. I just did Mark Dawson's webinar on AMS and was struck by how often he referred to it as essentially being in beta. Sounds like there are still a lot of details to work out, the kind that can make or break the success of a campaign.


From what I understand, it's currently the default. I infer that from the following, found on this page:



> How Facebook counts viewed impressions
> 
> We measure an ad impression the moment an ad enters the screen of a desktop browser or mobile app. If an ad doesn't enter the screen, we don't count it as an ad impression.


----------



## Abderian

Nicholas Erik said:


> It's AdBlock. If you disable it for AMS and refresh, the preview function should begin working properly again.
> 
> Nick


Thanks, Nick. That did the trick.


----------



## TromboneAl

My current strategy is to have campaigns with low bids, resulting in good ACoS, but low sales. I'll worry about scaling up later (or not at all).










I'll eventually do this for all eight of my books, and make a few dollars extra per week, for the fun of it.


----------



## josielitton

Anarchist said:


> From what I understand, it's currently the default. I infer that from the following, found on this page:


Good to know, thanks. Now if we could just find something similar for Amazon.


----------



## Harald

Here's a new test report: 7+-day *sequential* test comparing THREE ad copy blurbs for my short, $0.99, Kindle KU series opener ("1609"). The first two campaigns (v1 & v2) ran for 7 days (one after the other) before being paused; then I waited another 7 days (on each) for any lagging metrics to show up. Both v1 and v2 are exactly the same (same keywords, same budgets, same cover, same title) BUT with different ad copy texts. THEN I started a new v3 with a slightly tweaked ad copy blurb and a few more keywords added (none of those have resulted in Sales yet). Rather then pausing this latest one, I screen-grabbed the Campaigns chart (below) at the end of Day 10, which allowed the week's lagging Sales metrics to catch up (I've determined that my Sales lag is about 2 days). This version is still running.

Here's the summary of all three tests:










*Test Observations: *
* The tests are not exactly the same as I didn't pause the latest one, but I have hopes for it and want to keep it running. I feel it's close enough in elapsed time.

* As before with the two prior tests, the Impressions are close, but the Clicks are way down on v3 (with the Spend also down); something in the AMS world? The ACoS of v1 and v3 are close, with both beating v2. So I won't be restarting v2.

* As before, I copied v2 to make v3, and my bids are similarly LOW (that's why you see an cCPC of $0.02).

* KU Reads are roughly the same (maybe down a little), so both v1 and v3 are clearly in the black, with v2 marginally so (with the KU reads). Keep in mind that this is a $0.99 series-opener novella (100 pages).

* *EDIT:* *572 Impressions per Click; 9.8 Clicks per Sale* (about average for me)

I plan to continue running v3 to see what happens over a longer term. I'll be adjusting bids and keywords with the hope of keeping the ACoS low and trying to beat the longer-running campaign (52.20%) I ran for the same book back in January (row #5 on chart).

Comments welcome.


----------



## Kay7979

I have two campaigns running, and I'm only getting one click per 1600 impressions. I didn't realize that was substandard until I read a few other people's stats. I'll be running an ad for book book soon, and I hope that one gets a better response.


----------



## Harald

Kay7979 said:


> I have two campaigns running, and I'm only getting one click per 1600 impressions. I didn't realize that was substandard until I read a few other people's stats. I'll be running an ad for book book soon, and I hope that one gets a better response.


I tend to run well under 1,000 Imprs per Click (see my added line in post just above) but I don't worry much about that. Lots of factors there, especially keywords and bids and daily budget. More important to me is Clicks per Sale, which tells me if my ad is connecting to my book detail page and closing the sale.


----------



## mythsnake

So did AMS change something in their review process? Duplicated a couple ads to restart them today and noticed that when I submitted the first, I got a notice claiming it could take up to 15 minutes for my ad to go live and start to accumulate impressions. I kind a laughed about that, because in my experience, it takes about 24hrs for an ad to be approved--even duplicated ones--but wouldn't you know, the approval came through within 15 minutes on both ads.


----------



## novelist11

Sounds good now if we could only get real-time reporting.


----------



## CassieL

I got that notice on a couple of new ads, but it took about twelve hours for them to be approved.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Cassie Leigh said:


> I got that notice on a couple of new ads, but it took about twelve hours for them to be approved.


Same here.


----------



## CassieL

Huh. I just had an ad approved in six minutes on a book I wasn't even sure they would let through because of its title.  (You Have A Date, Don't F It Up in my signature line.)  Maybe they've moved to automated checks of titles and if they pass that they're approved immediately?  Whatever happened, glad it did.


----------



## WriterSongwriter

AMS must have become quite popular, as I'm now paying 4x the cost per click I was paying only 4 weeks ago.


----------



## kenbritz

Very likely due to Mark Dawson's webinars on Amazon Ads as a forerunner to his more detailed Ads for Authors course.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

kenbritz said:


> Very likely due to Mark Dawson's webinars on Amazon Ads as a forerunner to his more detailed Ads for Authors course.


Only about 500 of us attended the webinar and a lot of the attendees like me already had ads up and running. I don't think that's enough to make a difference among the tens and maybe even hundreds of thousands of authors using AMS.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

LilyBLily said:


> Five hundred before people dropped out, as they noted. People find these ads utterly confusing. Actually, I'm baffled, too, but as long as they work, I'm in.
> 
> There has been a definite dip this month, but then again I got random bursts of sales of a particular title, and I can't account for those at all.


Definite dip or even drop off. Page reads are circling the bowl.


----------



## KelliWolfe

They're utterly confusing because Amazon, as usual, doesn't let their right hand know what their left hand is doing, much less the poor authors. The system is poorly documented and the reports are inadequate to explain what's actually going on, especially when you throw KU into the mix. We've all seen ads that were performing well tank overnight and stop getting impressions. Why? There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, and I have better things to do that constantly monitor a bunch of ad campaigns every day to make sure they haven't dropped off a cliff for no apparent reason. It's ridiculous, as is the 114 pages of sponsored ads below the also-boughts, as is the lack of relevance of most of the ads. There's absolutely no difference in what's going on there than in the blatant miscategorization going on - people are throwing in keywords that don't have anything to do with their book in hopes of getting extra views.


----------



## Jena H

LilyBLily said:


> Five hundred before people dropped out, as they noted.* People find these ads utterly confusing.* Actually, I'm baffled, too, but as long as they work, I'm in.
> 
> There has been a definite dip this month, but then again I got random bursts of sales of a particular title, and I can't account for those at all.


It's been a long day for me, and I'm a little fuzzy in the noggin. Are we saying that while everybody and his Aunt Tilly seem to be running AMS ads, people find these ads confusing? Confusing in what way, exactly? I find the setup of AMS ads to be MUCH simpler than the atrocity that is a Facebook ad; basically all one has to do for AMS is pick some keywords and write a brief, brief ad text. If something else is what's confusing, what is it? I hate to miss out on a good confusion. (Hey, I'm halfway there already....)


----------



## 39416

Posting the ads is not the problem.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Jena H said:


> It's been a long day for me, and I'm a little fuzzy in the noggin. Are we saying that while everybody and his Aunt Tilly seem to be running AMS ads, people find these ads confusing? Confusing in what way, exactly? I find the setup of AMS ads to be MUCH simpler than the atrocity that is a Facebook ad; basically all one has to do for AMS is pick some keywords and write a brief, brief ad text. If something else is what's confusing, what is it? I hate to miss out on a good confusion. (Hey, I'm halfway there already....)





loraininflorida said:


> Posting the ads is not the problem.


It's not the setup as Lorain says. It's the monitoring and the tweaking. We need more info and up-to-date info.

E.G. Don't let your ACOS go above 70% because that's the royalty rate, but (from MD) you can go to 80% or 85% if you're getting sell thru and/or page reads that are not counted on the dashboard. Print book sales are counted, but only the one being advertised, not the other books in the series. Then add in sales from audio books. So, what is a true, viable ACOS? I might have an ACOS as high as 300%, but when I check my KDP dashboard for sell-thru and page reads, then go to ACX to check audio sales, I'm actually making money.

Frustrating and time consuming for the confused section of AMS authors.


----------



## Jena H

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> It's not the setup as Lorain says. It's the monitoring and the tweaking. We need more info and up-to-date info.
> 
> E.G. Don't let your ACOS go above 70% because that's the royalty rate, but (from MD) you can go to 80% or 85% if you're getting sell thru and/or page reads that are not counted on the dashboard. Print book sales are counted, but only the one being advertised, not the other books in the series. Then add in sales from audio books. So, what is a true, viable ACOS? I might have an ACOS as high as 300%, but when I check my KDP dashboard for sell-thru and page reads, then go to ACX to check audio sales, I'm actually making money.
> 
> Frustrating and time consuming for the confused section of AMS authors.


Thanks for clarifying; that's what I figured the issue was. I don't have a problem with this because A) I don't run ads for longer than a week at a time, and B) I basically just "set it and forget it." No tweaking or constant checking/obsessing over a keyword here or a bid there. As you mention, that can be very time consuming if you allow it to be, and for me it's just easier not to 'stress and obsess' over it.


----------



## kenbritz

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Only about 500 of us attended the webinar and a lot of the attendees like me already had ads up and running. I don't think that's enough to make a difference among the tens and maybe even hundreds of thousands of authors using AMS.


1. Unquoted by me, but the previous post was a comment about 4x cost per ad click. I should've been clearer in that regard.
2. 500 or so people adding 1000 keyword adds would certainly drive the cost of an ad up by a few pennies. There were two webinars and a reasonable number of people who viewed the webinars after the live stream.
3. Knowing how many attendees to the webinar and not the number of AMS users does not invalidate the logic. If any number of users compete for the same keyword(s) in a genre, it will drive the CPC up some amount. While 4x increase is doubtful, it is dependent on the starting point. Driving from .01 to .04 CPC? Yes. from .20 to .80 CPC? Not as likely. 
4. It seems like the most accurate way to measure ROI is on the monthly basis; (total royalties - ad spend)/ad spend. On the one hand, it's barbaric to use 30 day numbers for accuracy from a company that can send you something at the click of a button; on the other hand it feels like a frontier, where the rules are a bit looser. Saddle up!


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

In case anyone's stupid enough to wonder....

About two weeks ago I thought I'd test Amazon's suggested keywords. Since it can be a lot of work to identify 1000 (or even a few hundred) kw that might work, I figured...why not?

Well, here's why not:  After a little less than two weeks, that particular ad, driven only by Amazon-suggested kw, has had all of 1065 impressions, 4 clicks (my best CTR, I admit--the other ads are more around 1000 per), for a total spend of $0.33 on a $4/day ad....and zero sales.

Ah, well. Back to the magic kw machine.


----------



## Harald

My Dog's Servant said:


> ...About two weeks ago I thought I'd test Amazon's suggested keywords. Since it can be a lot of work to identify 1000 (or even a few hundred) kw that might work, I figured...why not?
> Well, here's why not: After a little less than two weeks, that particular ad, driven only by Amazon-suggested kw, has had all of 1065 impressions, 4 clicks (my best CTR, I admit--the other ads are more around 1000 per), for a total spend of $0.33 on a $4/day ad....and zero sales....


On the other hand, in my new two-week ad test, a full third of my sales are from the Amazon-suggested keywords. Different strokes.


----------



## amdonehere

So this past 3 weeks I've been so busy with my Kindle Scout campaign, I had absolutely no time to play deal with the AMS ad at all. It just sits there and runs. Normally I'd try to tweak the KWs once a week, see which ones need attention, which ones need to be stopped etc. These 3 weeks, all I've done was to make sure I get a few KWs in when book of a relevant genre hits the top 10 in paid store. I didn't even have time to see if my bid price is getting my book to the page I want it to be.

Well, truth be told, not much has changed. My sales are steady with occasional dips, but nothing truly alarming. Makes me wonder if all the tweakings are just placebo effects.

On another note, I'm now only running one ad for my first in series. I used to have a second ad where I used different KWs for books that are not specifically my genre, but are in subgenres that I think may have cross over. I'd stopped that ad because it seemed that when I ran 2 ads on the same book, my sales were lower. I really kills me to not be able to run that other ad and potentially capture a wide audience. With the 100KW limitation, I don't want to add KWs from cross over genres because I want to reserve those KW spaces. I'm worried that maxing out the 1000 KW spaces, and having to start a new ad, might hurt sales since this current ad had accumulated good historical data for the Amazon algo to know where to show the book.

Anyway, all this is to say, I still can't figure out what really works and what doesn't. But AMS ads are still for me the best promo option to give me sustained, continuous sales at regular retail price.


----------



## novelist11

Back in 2/17 my book got plenty of clicks with 17 orders which became 17 sales. I was happy.

Now in 4/17 I still am getting alot of clicks but no orders and no sales. I am now not happy.

No changes were made to the book at all so I don't know what happened. Has this happened to anyone else? The only one now making any money is amazon.


----------



## Jena H

AlexaKang said:


> So this past 3 weeks I've been so busy with my Kindle Scout campaign, I had absolutely no time to play deal with the AMS ad at all. It just sits there and runs. Normally I'd try to tweak the KWs once a week, see which ones need attention, which ones need to be stopped etc. These 3 weeks, all I've done was to make sure I get a few KWs in when book of a relevant genre hits the top 10 in paid store. I didn't even have time to see if my bid price is getting my book to the page I want it to be.
> 
> Well, truth be told, not much has changed. My sales are steady with occasional dips, but nothing truly alarming. *Makes me wonder if all the tweakings are just placebo effects.
> *


I've wondered the same thing-- too much obsession and analysis could be costing more time/effort than it's worth.



novelist11 said:


> Back in 2/17 my book got plenty of clicks with 17 orders which became 17 sales. I was happy.
> 
> Now in 4/17 I still am getting alot of clicks but no orders and no sales. I am now not happy.
> 
> No changes were made to the book at all so I don't know what happened. *Has this happened to anyone else?* The only one now making any money is amazon.


Yes, this happened to me-- same ad, ran about 2 weeks after the first, with much less response. Since the time period was December, I attributed the change to readers' habits during the holidays, but I ran the same ad again in Feb or March and got _some _response, but not nearly as good as the first time.


----------



## PearlEarringLady

novelist11 said:


> Back in 2/17 my book got plenty of clicks with 17 orders which became 17 sales. I was happy.
> 
> Now in 4/17 I still am getting alot of clicks but no orders and no sales. I am now not happy.
> 
> No changes were made to the book at all so I don't know what happened. Has this happened to anyone else? The only one now making any money is amazon.


Yep, the sales from my Amazon ads just about vanished at the beginning of April, both on ads running continuously and happily since last summer, and on more recent ads. Don't know what happened, but I suspect a change in the algos (because I didn't change anything).

Incidentally, I paused everything and had an immediate drop in ranking, so they were obviously doing something (just not selling books!). I've now restarted the paused ads, and the rankings are up again.


----------



## Harald

Jena H said:


> I've wondered the same thing-- too much obsession and analysis could be costing more time/effort than it's worth.


For me, it's no trouble at all. I check at the end of each night and tweak keywords/bids if/when needed (e.g., Sales with super-low bids and single digit ACoS). Takes less time than brushing my teeth. And on one campaign I was able to cut my ACoS in half by doing this over time. I find it to be an enjoyable--and profitable--habit. I certainly have worse ones!


----------



## CassieL

novelist11 said:


> Back in 2/17 my book got plenty of clicks with 17 orders which became 17 sales. I was happy.
> 
> Now in 4/17 I still am getting alot of clicks but no orders and no sales. I am now not happy.
> 
> No changes were made to the book at all so I don't know what happened. Has this happened to anyone else? The only one now making any money is amazon.


I've seen increased click to impression ratios but decreased sales and borrows on most of my ads in the last few weeks.


----------



## PearlEarringLady

Cassie Leigh said:


> I've seen increased click to impression ratios but decreased sales and borrows on most of my ads in the last few weeks.


That's exactly what I've seen, too.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Cassie Leigh said:


> I've seen increased click to impression ratios but decreased sales and borrows on most of my ads in the last few weeks.


That's what I'm seeing as well.


----------



## C. Gockel

Is there a way to do DELETE keywords, not just PAUSE them? I reached the 1,000 keyword limit.


----------



## Philip Gibson

C. Gockel said:


> Is there a way to do DELETE keywords, not just PAUSE them? I reached the 1,000 keyword limit.


No. You'd need to download the keywords to Excel, delete some from the CSV file and start a new campaign using your amended list of keywords.

Philip


----------



## KelliWolfe

Cassie Leigh said:


> I've seen increased click to impression ratios but decreased sales and borrows on most of my ads in the last few weeks.


I've stopped half of my ad campaigns in the last 2 weeks because of this.


----------



## novelist11

Anyone know how to close a AMS account?


----------



## Kay7979

Cassie Leigh said:


> I've seen increased click to impression ratios but decreased sales and borrows on most of my ads in the last few weeks.


So what does this trend indicate? More people are just window shopping and not actually buying or borrowing? If so, why?


----------



## kenbritz

Philip Gibson said:


> No. You'd need to download the keywords to Excel, delete some from the CSV file and start a new campaign using your amended list of keywords.
> 
> Philip


I agree with Phillip, but I'll expound a bit: 
AMS=>Excel: download the keywords into an Excel spreadsheet
Excel: delete the underperforms in the spreadsheet
AMS: copy your existing campaign, remove all current keywords
Excel=>AMS: copy the smaller list from your Excel spreadsheet into your new campaign
AMS: check your CPC bid and ad copy to make sure you don't need any tweaks and launch campaign. Once your campaign is approved and running, you can pause/terminate your old campaign.


----------



## PearlEarringLady

KelliWolfe said:


> I've stopped half of my ad campaigns in the last 2 weeks because of this.


I terminated or paused all of them while I tried to work out what was going on. Ranks dropped. I've restarted everything and ranks are going back up. So something's working, even if there are no sales showing up.


----------



## CassieL

I wasn't seeing ranks that indicated borrows.  Or if it was, it was one every other day or so.

If it were one genre, I'd think it was someone running a bot or something like that to drive off competition.  Could be curiosity clicks from new users of AMS seeing what their competition is advertising and it's just enough to notice?  But then I'd still expect to see my old level of sales and borrows showing up.  But I guess if you combined reduced impressions with that trend you could have what I'm seeing...

Or it could just be time of year.  Less money to spend so readers are more particular.

All I know is that I successfully ran the ads on books priced at $4.99-$6.99 from May of last year until April and now it's like pulling teeth to get movement.

Having said that, I just had four sales hit on a pen name non-fiction title I restarted an ad for on April 11th that had only ever had 30 sales since its release, so I expect all four of those sales are AMS driven.


----------



## Decon

Kay7979 said:


> So what does this trend indicate? More people are just window shopping and not actually buying or borrowing? If so, why?


Don't know the answer, but I've had no sales across 6 books in AMS for 5 days. The only sales I've had this month that's rescued me is following free promos without putting them on promo sites. The free promos are the only thing that's caused a short jump in page reads for the odd day which are now scraping along the bottom of my graph, down from 30,000 per month. I haven't even had a paper book sale this month that I could attribute to AMS which are standing at zero against 6 at this time last month.

Nothing has changed like garnering bad reviews, only that my royalties are in double figures now instead of three figures per month from when I first joined AMS last year and my cost per click is up from 2/3c to 6/9c as I've tried to increase bids to make up the slack. Despite increasing some bids to 26c, my impressions have fallen off a cliff since the beginning of March.


----------



## novelist11

Me too!

Back in 2/17 my book got plenty of clicks with 17 orders which became 17 sales. I was happy. Now in 4/17 I still am getting alot of clicks but no orders and no sales. I am now not happy. No changes were made to the book at all so I don't know what happened. The only one now making any money is amazon.

Also how do you close a AMS account?


----------



## A past poster

Something I saw today might help explain what's going on with the ads. This morning I checked the carousel for one of my books and it was on the first page. Two hours later I checked the same keyword again, and my book was on the fourth page. That's a significant drop in just a few hours. I upped the bid because it's a keyword that delivers. I haven't checked it since. 

The bidding for the ads has become much more intense. Some of my most effective keywords have gone up considerably per click over the past month. I find that if I don't tweak the bids every few days, my books lose visibility. It's a big time drain. If a keyword is getting too expensive per click, I pause it, but this can be a mistake because of the delay in reporting. I have paused keywords only to find, three or four days later, that there were sales. It would be so much easier if Amazon had current reporting. Amazon would make more money and so would authors.


----------



## Emma Jameson

Amazing post. Thank you.


----------



## huggie

When you all use series titles as keywords do you put the "The" in them if applicable or not? Like with broad keywords will just putting "Mortal Instruments" as a keyword also target people who type "The Mortal Instruments" or vice versa?


----------



## Guy Riessen

Sorry newb question incoming....
How are you checking where your book shows up in the "carousel?" 
Are you searching a keyword in the main Amazon search bar say, "weird western," then clicking a book that shows up in the search, the looking at the "Sponsored products related to this item" carousel on the book page?


----------



## CassieL

huggie said:


> When you all use series titles as keywords do you put the "The" in them if applicable or not? Like with broad keywords will just putting "Mortal Instruments" as a keyword also target people who type "The Mortal Instruments" or vice versa?


I saw when you asked this question in its own thread, but didn't respond because I've gotten almost no clicks on any keywords that weren't author names or generic words like "young adult." I would put something like "Mortal Instruments Clare" so maybe that's an example of what not to do.


----------



## Jena H

Cassie Leigh said:


> I saw when you asked this question in its own thread, but didn't respond because I've gotten almost no clicks on any keywords that weren't author names or generic words like "young adult." I would put something like "Mortal Instruments Clare" so maybe that's an example of what not to do.


Interesting. Has anyone else had success in using keywords of series names? As a reader I might not remember an author name (especially the correct spelling if the name is tricky) but most everyone knows a series name.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Guy Riessen said:


> Sorry newb question incoming....
> How are you checking where your book shows up in the "carousel?"
> Are you searching a keyword in the main Amazon search bar say, "weird western," then clicking a book that shows up in the search, the looking at the "Sponsored products related to this item" carousel on the book page?


Look at the bottom of the list. You'll see anywhere from 0 to 3 sponsored ads.


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## Cactus Lady

So I've started playing around with AMS ads, and I'm wondering one thing. If a reader clicks on your ad, downloads the sample, then buys the book later, does that ever show up as a sale on the AMS charts? That's what I usually do when I find a book I'm interested in (unless I'm ready to buy RIGHT THEN, which I usually don't), and I'm probably not the only one. So I wonder if that would affect the AMS sales results.

I'm showing a good proportion of clicks to impressions, but no sales yet. But this book is showing a slow but steady stream of sales on my KDP dashboard over the last several days, more than I normally would have expected. It's also been in a group promo, but action on that was sporadic.

So I think I'm getting sales, even if there aren't any showing up on my AMS charts. Delayed/sporadic reporting, reader samples then buys later on, the other promo I'm doing, or coincidence?

Another mystery of the universe to ponder on.


----------



## PearlEarringLady

Kyra Halland said:


> So I think I'm getting sales, even if there aren't any showing up on my AMS charts. Delayed/sporadic reporting, reader samples then buys later on, the other promo I'm doing, or coincidence? Another mystery of the universe to ponder on.


Welcome to the wonderful (and random) world of AMS ads! They do seem to work, it's just hard to tell, sometimes.


----------



## Cactus Lady

PaulineMRoss said:


> Welcome to the wonderful (and random) world of AMS ads! They do seem to work, it's just hard to tell, sometimes.


lol, yes, another page to obsessively hit refresh on all day long


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## huggie

Cassie Leigh said:


> I saw when you asked this question in its own thread, but didn't respond because I've gotten almost no clicks on any keywords that weren't author names or generic words like "young adult." *I would put something like "Mortal Instruments Clare" so maybe that's an example of what not to do.*


Yeah that sounds like an overly complex keyword to me, I was thinking/hoping simpler keywords like just "Mortal Instruments" would work better if setting keywords to Broad would also send people who typed something like "Mortal Instruments Clare" or "The Mortal Instruments" towards the ad since both those searches include the term "Mortal Instruments".


----------



## Harald

LilyBLily said:


> Reporting that it took Amazon 12 hours to approve my new campaign and it hasn't served up even one impression 6 hours later. Or is that the three-day lag already in action?


For me, it's always been 14 hours for an ad to go live. 14 hours on the dot. Each time. And first sale _reported_ on Day 3. Each time. But that was then, and this is now, so who knows. With AMS, each day is a new day, eh?


----------



## JaclynDolamore

Kyra Halland said:


> So I think I'm getting sales, even if there aren't any showing up on my AMS charts. Delayed/sporadic reporting, reader samples then buys later on, the other promo I'm doing, or coincidence?
> 
> Another mystery of the universe to ponder on.


I can definitely affirm that Amazon ads contribute a lot of unreported sales. Back in October, it was easy to see because Amazon ads weren't very competitive. I seemed to have twice as many sales as were reported, maybe three times, and I'm not including page reads. I know that I am not likely to click on ads, but when I want something to read, I tend to THINK of books I've seen around a lot, and books that are advertised stay fresh in my mind, so that might also be a factor.


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## Amyshojai

I just started with AMS this past weekend. Set up about 3 ads for each of 3 different books. And today, got my first sale reported--a $9.99 sale after 6871 impressions and 8 clicks at 19-cents each. Now, I'm feeling encouraged! just started as an experiment but will delve deeper going forward. Incidentally this is for nonfiction so I know fiction would be very different.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Amyshojai said:


> I just started with AMS this past weekend. Set up about 3 ads for each of 3 different books. And today, got my first sale reported--a $9.99 sale after 6871 impressions and 8 clicks at 19-cents each. Now, I'm feeling encouraged! just started as an experiment but will delve deeper going forward. Incidentally this is for nonfiction so I know fiction would be very different.


You can charge more on non-fiction so your ROI will be greater.

Congrats on the great start!!

I spent last night adding about 80 more keywords to one ad that is doing fine, but certainly could do better.


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## Amyshojai

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> You can charge more on non-fiction so your ROI will be greater.
> 
> Congrats on the great start!!


Thanks! Yes, I have 3 nonfiction titles I've priced pretty high, but the rest are $5.99 range. I've noticed them climbing the rankings, too, so it's worth it to me just for the visibility improvement. Tracking what keywords get the clicks/sales, too, and will adjust going forward.


----------



## Bob Stewart

I have a question for those running ads over weeks or longer: how can you determine what your recent results were?

For instance, say my ads been running for eight weeks. Trying to get a fix on what's happened in the last week isn't really possible unless I record intermediate stats all the time.

There seems no way to get stats for a particular period within the ad run. Or am I missing something obvious?


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## CassieL

I periodically hit the download option on the main page to get a snapshot of the current status of all my campaigns and then just compare current numbers to the last set I downloaded.  You can also look under the Billing Information to see how much you spent for each month.  I use that to calculate profitability.


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## Harald

Bob Stewart said:


> I have a question for those running ads over weeks or longer: how can you determine what your recent results were?
> For instance, say my ads been running for eight weeks. Trying to get a fix on what's happened in the last week isn't really possible unless I record intermediate stats all the time.
> There seems no way to get stats for a particular period within the ad run. Or am I missing something obvious?


Good question. You can download the stats (per Cassie), but what I do is keep a daily log in a Google doc that takes me less than 5 mins each night. I record the 6 bits of information and add any notes from the campaign like this:

*April 16, 2017 (EASTER SUNDAY): *** DAY 10 ***
√ 11:34pm: 41,731 Imps | 79 Clcks +5 | $0.02 aCPC | $1.59 Spnd | 7 Sale ($6.92) | 22.98% aCoS
x0 NEW AMS SALE; lowered "XXXX" frm 0.05 to 0.04.*

Using colors and bolds, I can quickly scan the doc and see what's trending or not. Works for me.


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## Bob Stewart

Cassie & Harald,

Yes, I guess that's obvious course. It might be fairly simple to make a spreadsheet where you can cut & past the current numbers and a calculation of the difference from the last reading.

Thanks.


----------



## IreneP

Bob Stewart said:


> I have a question for those running ads over weeks or longer: how can you determine what your recent results were?
> 
> For instance, say my ads been running for eight weeks. Trying to get a fix on what's happened in the last week isn't really possible unless I record intermediate stats all the time.
> 
> There seems no way to get stats for a particular period within the ad run. Or am I missing something obvious?


You are not missing anything obvious - WHICH IS INSANE. (Sorry, you totally hit my biggest AMS button - lol)

I download periodically like Cassie. Also sometimes just take a screen shot so I can compare at a quick glance later. It's insane. And of course I check the billing if I feel things are moving really slow/fast and am too lazy to look at anything else. _*Why can't they give us this reporting? *_


----------



## PearlEarringLady

Bob Stewart said:


> There seems no way to get stats for a particular period within the ad run. Or am I missing something obvious?


Oh, if only you were! What wouldn't I give to be able to look at the numbers for a week or a month, instead of just getting an overall number. I've got ads that have been running now for almost a year, and the data the on-screen report shows me is next to useless.

As others have said, you just have to keep your own records. I keep a sort of spreadsheet, taking a snapshot, as it were, every day for new ads and every few days for long-standing ones. Then at the end of the month, I work out the impressions, clicks, spend, sales value and books sold *for that month*. From that I calculate the CTR, CPC, ACOS, conversion rate and cost per sale for each ad for the month. I never have more than 5 or 6 running at a time, otherwise it would be an insane amount of work! From there, I work out what to keep running and what to shut down. It's also a good time to add new keywords, and tweak the bids. It takes me a couple of minutes to record, and about an hour for the monthly calculations.


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## Kay7979

I launched my second book today and immediately set up an AMS ad, using a higher per day spend than I used for the first book. It never comes close to spending my daily total anyway. I'm looking forward to seeing if an ad on a new release gets more impressions than an ad for a book published at the end of October.


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## CassieL

I've had as many as 22 separate ads running at once. By using the spreadsheets, I can calculate number of new impressions, clicks, spend, sales, and net profit/loss in less than five minutes across all of my ads.

The ad I ran on a new release had about 100K impressions in the first few days and did result in about six sales credited, but it stopped working after about a week.


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## Jena H

So as of right now (mid-April) is the general consensus that Amazon ads are less reliable and effective than they used to be?  I'm sure it could vary by genre (among other factors), so what genres are still effective?  Anything in action/adventure? (Specifically, not romance, not SF or F.)  I'm thinking of running an ad, but not sure if it would pay to wait a bit or if that category is worth bothering with.  I do have books in other categories but this particular series I have in mind could use some love.


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## Harald

Jena H said:


> So as of right now (mid-April) is the general consensus that Amazon ads are less reliable and effective than they used to be? I'm sure it could vary by genre (among other factors), so what genres are still effective? Anything in action/adventure? (Specifically, not romance, not SF or F.) I'm thinking of running an ad, but not sure if it would pay to wait a bit or if that category is worth bothering with. I do have books in other categories but this particular series I have in mind could use some love.


My suggestion: try it. Do it for your series opener using the Sponsored Products type. Make your daily budget only as much as you can handle; start with $1. Start with low bids. You pay only for clicks, so there's little to lose. If you're in KU, your reads will probably increase (mine did a lot in Historical Fiction), and your sales rankings will drop (the good way). And you'll gradually learn how the system works. In other words... just do it.


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## 39416

I started running ads Feb 1 and was, for me, doing ok. I was selling many more books than I normally did, the ads were paying for themselves and I was left with about a $1.35 profit per book (my books are $3.9. And then on April 10, it just went off the cliff. My sales are down 85%, it was very dramatic. Doubling my bids had no effect. My KU reads, however, only decreased a little bit. So, here's my opinion.

I think that when your ads are new (i.e. you've never advertised those books in AMS before) Amazon gives you a helping hand at putting your books at the front of the carousel. But then, to make way for new book ads, the day comes when their helping hand puts you on the back of the carousel and there's just nothing you can do about it. You'll still get impressions, but the buying readers don't scout to page 15 looking for a book to read. KU readers on the other hand, often do; they go much further in the carousel looking for a KU book to read. So, the page reads aren't affected too much.

Many other people have posted about "falling off the cliff". They try everything to remedy the situation and mostly (from what I can see), nothing works. So then they pause or terminate their ads in the hope that when they re-do them things will go the way they did when the books were first advertised. I've never seen any posts on whether this strategy works.


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## 39416

Amazon has said this may not be completely true. Amazon considers many other things in deciding where to put you on the carousel. These things include what sales you've had and how many times you have appeared on the carousel to someone (I think they said the limit was three). There were other things as well, I can't remember them. Bottom line is that having the highest bid does not guarantee you a place at the front of the line.


----------



## Decon

loraininflorida said:


> Many other people have posted about "falling off the cliff". They try everything to remedy the situation and mostly (from what I can see), nothing works. So then they pause or terminate their ads in the hope that when they re-do them things will go the way they did when the books were first advertised. *I've never seen any posts on whether this strategy works.*


I have tried pausing them all for a few days and it has made no difference on all 6 books which are now lucky to get 500 impressions per day each. Obviously, low impressions = very few clicks and I'm now at no sales for 7 days. My lowest APC is 24% and my highers 42% with average cost of clicks from 6c to 11c

For it to work I'd need 100,000 impressions per book per day, that should produce 10 clicks which= 1 sale.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

loraininflorida said:


> Many other people have posted about "falling off the cliff". They try everything to remedy the situation and mostly (from what I can see), nothing works. So then they pause or terminate their ads in the hope that when they re-do them things will go the way they did when the books were first advertised. I've never seen any posts on whether this strategy works.


It worked for me, but I didn't just pause the ad. I added about 25 new keywords and paused it for five days. It picked up again a few days after I restarted. This ad has more clicks than any other ad.


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## Kay7979

I can confirm that an ad on a new release gets more exposure than an older title. Last night, at 1:30 AM, my sponsored product ad for Shadowglade, a book I launched yesterday, went live. I only have about 140 keywords, and at the moment, I have 12,371 impressions and 5 clicks. 

Lately, I've been lucky to get 12,000 impressions for Beyond the Forest, launched the end of October, and that's split between two ads with about 1600 keywords total. I saw a real drop off a few weeks ago. I had been getting around 24,000 impressions per day, and my impressions dropped to 12,000 per day.


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## novelist11

With 115 clicks and only one sale I feel like giving up. My same book back in 2/17 had 242 clicks with 17 sales. I only run a Product Display ad. I have run the keyword ads before but they didn't do as good and was alot more work to add all those keywords. Amazon is just too hard to figure out how this all works. I'm thinking of closing my ams account or maybe just let the ad run until it ends.


----------



## Jena H

LilyBLily said:


> Reporting that it took Amazon 12 hours to approve my new campaign and it hasn't served up even one impression 6 hours later. Or is that the three-day lag already in action?


I just set an ad this afternoon. The notice when I hit "submit" said it would be "15 minutes." But the confirmation e-mail says "usually completed within 24 hours but can take as long as three days." For me it's the 12-14 hours, so let's hope that's the case this time. I'd like the ad to be live for the weekend.


----------



## Kay7979

Kay7979 said:


> I can confirm that an ad on a new release gets more exposure than an older title. Last night, at 1:30 AM, my sponsored product ad for Shadowglade, a book I launched yesterday, went live. I only have about 140 keywords, and at the moment, I have 12,371 impressions and 5 clicks.
> 
> Lately, I've been lucky to get 12,000 impressions for Beyond the Forest, launched the end of October, and that's split between two ads with about 1600 keywords total. I saw a real drop off a few weeks ago. I had been getting around 24,000 impressions per day, and my impressions dropped to 12,000 per day.


Sorry to quote myself, but I want to keep today's data together. Over 47,000 impressions for the day so far and 33 clicks. My other ads are dead in the water but my new release is going gangbusters.


----------



## Kay7979

I'm up to 91,500 impressions so far in a little over a day. At this rate, I'll equal the impressions of the ads I started March 20th by tomorrow!


----------



## CassieL

Alright, this may be paranoia, but I've been doing these ads for about a year now and there has been a definite shift in the last month or so and I think it's due to people clicking on books they have no intent of buying. Whether someone wrote a bot to do this (which I almost think it has to be) or whether it's just so many people that are new to using the ads poking around and clicking on others' books, I'm definitely seeing a change in click rates and therefore profitability.

For example, I ran an ad on my fantasy first in series and had 11,000 impressions after a couple of days and 39 clicks on the ad. Normally that would've resulted in 3-4 sales or borrows at $6.99, maybe as low as 2. It resulted in one paperback sale. Under the old way things worked I would've expected to see 11 to 22 clicks on 11,000 impressions. So I almost doubled the number of clicks but I have half the sales. And I had at least one keyword that had one click on one impression and others with clicks at below 100 impressions.

Now, the reason I think this is not buyer-driven is because I'm not seeing this happening on my non-fiction titles. They're mostly right where I'd expect. I have six of those that are new and running and all have ratios that are in line with past numbers (impression:click): 4852:2, 3800:4, 6160:6, 5473:7, 110,763:136.

But both in romance and fantasy I'm seeing a huge increase in clicks to impressions with no increase in sales or borrows. My romance ad had 42,320 impressions and 229 clicks.

Amazon isn't going to care. Because if it's what I expect then it's people driving out the competition by making the ads too expensive for the competition to stay in. First, Amazon gets the ad money from the people being driven out as their ads get clicked on too much. And then they continue to get ad money from those who remain behind and take those top slots. (Because these ads are a good source of steady sales. At least they were for me before people started messing with them. Which means if there is someone doing this, it'll be profitable for them to stay in there and use them after they've driven everyone else out.)

And now it's time to go don my little tinfoil hat and curse people and their manipulative ways. Hope I'm wrong. Suspect I'm not. [Insert choice words about those people that the forum would block if I typed them here.]


----------



## PearlEarringLady

Cassie Leigh said:


> Alright, this may be paranoia, but I've been doing these ads for about a year now and there has been a definite shift in the last month or so and I think it's due to people clicking on books they have no intent of buying. Whether someone wrote a bot to do this (which I almost think it has to be) or whether it's just so many people that are new to using the ads poking around and clicking on others' books, I'm definitely seeing a change in click rates and therefore profitability.


Something's definitely changed in the last month. I hope you're wrong about the bots, though.


----------



## Amyshojai

I'm still very new to this, and only doing keyword targeting for nonfiction. So I have no way to really judge if what I'm doing is effective, a reasonable cost, or not. Books are selling. And page reads have drastically increased, along with improved ranking, so feeling good about that. 

A question, though. I'm being billed weekly. Is that how it's always been? For some reason, I thought it would be a monthly charge as accrued.


----------



## CassieL

How much are you spending?  I was spending about $200 a month and getting billed monthly, but I have had a few times where they billed me earlier than that, maybe based on project spend rate? Once was for $148 and once was for $200 in months where my spend was closer to three or four hundred.


----------



## Amyshojai

I was billed on April 16 for only a buck or so (just started) and April 22 for about $50. And another $42 has accrued since then. So looks like it'll be around $50/week at this rate. About $170 in book sales.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Amyshojai said:


> I was billed on April 16 for only a buck or so (just started) and April 22 for about $50. And another $42 has accrued since then. So looks like it'll be around $50/week at this rate. About $170 in book sales.


That seems to be the norm starting out.

1/11 $1.06
1/27 $50.23
2/3 $39.88

After that, it's been pretty much monthly.


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## Amyshojai

Aha...okay, that makes sense. Probably want to see if someone is going to use ads for more than a week at a time before setting up a monthly bill cycle. Thanks for the feedback.


----------



## Kay7979

Cassie Leigh said:


> Alright, this may be paranoia, but I've been doing these ads for about a year now and there has been a definite shift in the last month or so and I think it's due to people clicking on books they have no intent of buying. Whether someone wrote a bot to do this (which I almost think it has to be) or whether it's just so many people that are new to using the ads poking around and clicking on others' books, I'm definitely seeing a change in click rates and therefore profitability.
> 
> For example, I ran an ad on my fantasy first in series and had 11,000 impressions after a couple of days and 39 clicks on the ad. Normally that would've resulted in 3-4 sales or borrows at $6.99, maybe as low as 2. It resulted in one paperback sale. Under the old way things worked I would've expected to see 11 to 22 clicks on 11,000 impressions. So I almost doubled the number of clicks but I have half the sales. And I had at least one keyword that had one click on one impression and others with clicks at below 100 impressions.
> 
> Now, the reason I think this is not buyer-driven is because I'm not seeing this happening on my non-fiction titles. They're mostly right where I'd expect. I have six of those that are new and running and all have ratios that are in line with past numbers (impression:click): 4852:2, 3800:4, 6160:6, 5473:7, 110,763:136.
> 
> But both in romance and fantasy I'm seeing a huge increase in clicks to impressions with no increase in sales or borrows. My romance ad had 42,320 impressions and 229 clicks.
> 
> Amazon isn't going to care. Because if it's what I expect then it's people driving out the competition by making the ads too expensive for the competition to stay in. First, Amazon gets the ad money from the people being driven out as their ads get clicked on too much. And then they continue to get ad money from those who remain behind and take those top slots. (Because these ads are a good source of steady sales. At least they were for me before people started messing with them. Which means if there is someone doing this, it'll be profitable for them to stay in there and use them after they've driven everyone else out.)
> 
> And now it's time to go don my little tinfoil hat and curse people and their manipulative ways. Hope I'm wrong. Suspect I'm not. [Insert choice words about those people that the forum would block if I typed them here.]


You may be onto something, but that would be utterly depressing if true.

After day 3, I paused the keyword "book" which had generated about 25 clicks and no sales. I was also stunned to see that as of today I have 210,000 impressions, 155 clicks and only TWO sales! How is that even possible? In the past, I've limped along plus or minus underwater, but never THIS badly. This is the second book in my series. Could it be that? You'd think if readers didn't want to start with book two, they'd buy book one, which I purposely discounted to $0.99 for book two's launch. I don't think my blurbs are that bad, and I've spent a lot on covers produced by artists. Book one has a favorable Kirkus review, which I highlight. Yes, I'm a new author, without tons of reviews, but if people liked the cover and teaser ad enough to click through, I don't understand what could be turning them away.

Totally baffled and a little depressed. When I run promos, I do all right. Had 50 sales the other day from Robin Reads, so my book can't be a total dud.


----------



## Accord64

Cassie Leigh said:


> Alright, this may be paranoia, but...


*whew*

I thought I was the only one who was seeing the same trend in my latest campaign. Great impression/click performance, but hardly any sales. I had a couple of keywords that were doing a little too well with the number of clicks they generated, and I started to wonder if someone was trying to knock me off of those Ad carousels.

(Puts on his tinfoil hat and sheepishly walks away).


----------



## Abderian

Accord64 said:


> *whew*
> 
> I thought I was the only one who was seeing the same trend in my latest campaign. Great impression/click performance, but hardly any sales. I had a couple of keywords that were doing a little too well with the number of clicks they generated, and I started to wonder if someone was trying to knock me off of those Ad carousels.
> 
> (Puts on his tinfoil hat and sheepishly walks away).


There's a thread on Mark Dawson's Facebook page where lots of people are reporting a sharp downturn in sales over the last month or so.


----------



## JohnBanks

Facebook was caught scamming advertisers a few weeks back by fudging the amount of time people watched Facebook videos. More time means more engagement, means more ad money. A couple of years ago a youtube clone called Mevio was caught buying "views", which turned out to be scammers showing Mevio videos in small pop-unders when people were watching porn videos. In other words they never saw the Mevio videos or the ads from Nike and Coke, but Nike and Coke were still billed for the ads. It was a huge scandal. One of 2 things is happening with AMS ads, AMS is buying "traffic" and they are clicking on the ads and not buying. Or the famous bots downloading free books are also downloading our ads when they are shown on the product pages of these free books. I think it's obvious something is happening and it only started recently. Maybe it's one of the Amazon managers who was told by Bezos to show some results and this is his way to do so over our backs. Maybe it's time to bring in some publicity again. That's the only thing these scammers are scared of. Another point is the worthless metrics they show us. All I need to know in a timely manner is how much did I pay and how many books did I sell or get a borrow for. But they tell us it takes 3 days to calculate, while I have all borrow and sales in my KDP dashboard within 5 minutes! And instead of saying how many books were sold and borrowed they try to show us nonsense inflated paperback revenue. Fudging numbers is the sign of a scammer.


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## amdonehere

Abderian said:


> There's a thread on Mark Dawson's Facebook page where lots of people are reporting a sharp downturn in sales over the last month or so.


I'm experiencing this too but I thought that was because I've been too busy with my Kindle Scout campaign and haven't paid attention to tweaking ads, etc, for 3 weeks now. But maybe it's not me, it's the Zon.


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## Harald

Well, for me, I'm at Day 24 on the latest series-opener historical fiction campaign, and things don't look that far out of whack:
-- 587 Imprs / Click
-- 11.5 Clicks / Sale
-- ACoS in low 20s (%)

Maybe it's a genre thing?


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## GrandFenwick

Just chiming in to add that I too have seen a shut-down of effectiveness.

I tried raising my bid on a successful keyword to $0.75. I looked away for three days then came back to see that I'd accidentally bid $75.00 per click! :O #troublewithdecimals

I actually sold quite a few books during that period, but my average CPC was $1.47.

Needless to say, I hastily dropped my bid and my sales plummeted haha.


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## Rick Gualtieri

Cassie Leigh said:


> Alright, this may be paranoia, but I've been doing these ads for about a year now and there has been a definite shift in the last month or so and I think it's due to people clicking on books they have no intent of buying. Whether someone wrote a bot to do this (which I almost think it has to be) or whether it's just so many people that are new to using the ads poking around and clicking on others' books, I'm definitely seeing a change in click rates and therefore profitability.


Last year when Sponsored Ads was in beta I wrote to Amazon and asked them what click fraud prevention they had in place. Their answer was a vague "we're looking into it" type thing, that basically told me none. It's a worrisome concept.

However, I ultimately believe it will be a self-correcting one. Amazon, much like Google did, will eventually have to deal with click fraud because otherwise someone somewhere will probably file a lawsuit regarding it. I would call that a matter of when, not if.


----------



## Rick Gualtieri

Rick Gualtieri said:


> However, I ultimately believe it will be a self-correcting one. Amazon, much like Google did, will eventually have to deal with click fraud because otherwise someone somewhere will probably file a lawsuit regarding it. I would call that a matter of when, not if.


Oh, and just to add, any scammers reading this and laughing had best be real careful because don't think for a second that a jury won't find someone liable or that a big corporation won't turn it's guns your way.


----------



## novelist11

Same here. Plenty of clicks but no sales. I was doing great back in 2-17 but April sucks. I have changed nothing with my ads so I'm totally lost here. The only one now making any money is amazon. I wish I could get that $100 in free clicks but they only pick certain people for that. I don't know how they pick them but anyone that signed up within the time frame should have received the bonus. Their offer was very misleading.


----------



## Christopher Bunn

novelist11 said:


> Same here. Plenty of clicks but no sales. I was doing great back in 2-17 but April sucks.


Ditto with me. And I've been trying all different sorts of permutations, including Dawson's idea of scads of ads for the same book (miserable failure for me), forty ads of about 25 keywords each for the same book (still a failure, but not as bad), to two massive ads of 1,000 keywords each for the same book (and... a failure).

Oh, well. There's always chocolate.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

I thought I would take a look at March/April for last year to see if there was a dip in sales/reads. Nope. April sales/reads were nearly double March.


----------



## JB Rowley

Christopher Bunn said:


> Oh, well. There's always chocolate.


  (And gin!)


----------



## Stewart Matthews

I also saw a downturn in AMS effectiveness over past month.

I wouldn't rule out bots, but from my end, it appears my ads are simply generating fewer clicks and impressions overall. Then again, I'm just one data point, so my experience may not be significant of anything.


----------



## A past poster

GrandFenwick said:


> Just chiming in to add that I too have seen a shut-down of effectiveness.
> 
> I tried raising my bid on a successful keyword to $0.75. I looked away for three days then came back to see that I'd accidentally bid $75.00 per click! :O #troublewithdecimals
> 
> I actually sold quite a few books during that period, but my average CPC was $1.47.
> 
> Needless to say, I hastily dropped my bid and my sales plummeted haha.


I did the same thing: I was in a hurry and accidentally changed a bid to $12.00 instead of 0.12 cents (it's for a $1.99 book). Amazon blew through my $1.00 a day limit in a flash.

I sent AMS emails explaining what happened, that it was my mistake, but I wanted to know why they went through my advertising budget. After several emails back and forth, I received the following response:

*In this case we won't charge more than the daily budget you set, just in case if we reach the daily budget before the day ends, we will pause your ad and reactivate it the next day in order to avoid to spend more money than the one you set as your daily budget.
*
The emails were on April 20. They did go through the budget and haven't adjusted the charge. On the day I made the mistake, I ended up paying over $9 with an advertising budget of $1. Apparently the safeguards they have in their software don't always work.


----------



## 39416

I did the same thing and the same thing happened to me. However, _when they actually took the money_, they didn't take the overage.


----------



## JaclynDolamore

AMS is definitely...weird lately. I had The Sorcerer's Concubine consistently in the top 10k since release but it started dropping FAST within a week or two at the beginning of April. I started running a $5 Facebook ad on April 12th and it bumped back up. So I tried turning off AMS ads and just leaving Facebook.  Still hanging out around 10k. Then I turned AMS back on. Still around 10k, despite a $12 ad spend on AMS yesterday...the rank should have gone up if both ads are working. Is AMS selling anything for me right now...?? It's hard to tell when the updates are sluggish and there's no way to check like, daily or weekly summary.


----------



## amdonehere

Marian said:


> I did the same thing: I was in a hurry and accidentally changed a bid to $12.00 instead of 0.12 cents (it's for a $1.99 book). Amazon blew through my $1.00 a day limit in a flash.
> 
> I sent AMS emails explaining what happened, that it was my mistake, but I wanted to know why they went through my advertising budget. After several emails back and forth, I received the following response:
> 
> *In this case we won't charge more than the daily budget you set, just in case if we reach the daily budget before the day ends, we will pause your ad and reactivate it the next day in order to avoid to spend more money than the one you set as your daily budget.
> *
> The emails were on April 20. They did go through the budget and haven't adjusted the charge. On the day I made the mistake, I ended up paying over $9 with an advertising budget of $1. Apparently the safeguards they have in their software don't always work.


I've done the same thing a few times. I thanked the Lord the cost was the next highest bid or else I'd been screwed.

And get this, I even stupidly clicked on my own ad a few times. I meant to one-click back to my own book to check one thing or another while I'm on one of my KW's pages. Every time I did that, I wanted to kick myself in the head.


----------



## CassieL

JaclynDolamore said:


> Is AMS selling anything for me right now...?? It's hard to tell when the updates are sluggish and there's no way to check like, daily or weekly summary.


I can tell you that in poking around I've seen your ad a few times in about the third position of the carousel on my books or on the books in my also boughts for my fantasy novel. So I know they are displaying the ads.

I just think a combination of slowdown in number of impressions on older titles and random extra clicks when those books are actually displayed are colliding to make it horrid right now.



Marian said:


> I did the same thing: I was in a hurry and accidentally changed a bid to $12.00 instead of 0.12 cents (it's for a $1.99 book). Amazon blew through my $1.00 a day limit in a flash.


I've had this happen a few times and you usually see an adjustment on your bill but the dashboard will continue to show the charge.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Rick Gualtieri said:


> Oh, and just to add, any scammers reading this and laughing had best be real careful because don't think for a second that a jury won't find someone liable or that a big corporation won't turn it's guns your way.


You have to catch them, first. I worked for a company that did click fraud detection and watched math PhDs rip their hair out in frustration over it. Simple click fraud like hitting your own ads on AdSense to generate paid clicks is bad enough. It gets really hairy when you've got bot farms with computers scattered all over the world and run out of East Europe hitting _competitor_ links to burn up their ad spend so you get better placement and cheaper CPC. Separating that from noise is a non-trivial problem, and if you set your detection threshold too low it makes the ads almost useless.


----------



## JaclynDolamore

Cassie Leigh said:


> I can tell you that in poking around I've seen your ad a few times in about the third position of the carousel on my books or on the books in my also boughts for my fantasy novel. So I know they are displaying the ads.
> 
> I just think a combination of slowdown in number of impressions on older titles and random extra clicks when those books are actually displayed are colliding to make it horrid right now.


That's good to know, at least. But yeah...a $12 spend for yesterday does NOT seem to be reflected in my sales.

Then again, maybe sales are just awful this week? My rank keeps going up. I'm not seeing it reflected in my numbers as much as it should. I have to assume there is a lot of borrowing and not reading OR everything is just down, or maybe a combo of both.


----------



## A past poster

Marian said:


> I did the same thing: I was in a hurry and accidentally changed a bid to $12.00 instead of 0.12 cents (it's for a $1.99 book). Amazon blew through my $1.00 a day limit in a flash.
> 
> I sent AMS emails explaining what happened, that it was my mistake, but I wanted to know why they went through my advertising budget. After several emails back and forth, I received the following response:
> 
> *In this case we won't charge more than the daily budget you set, just in case if we reach the daily budget before the day ends, we will pause your ad and reactivate it the next day in order to avoid to spend more money than the one you set as your daily budget.
> *
> The emails were on April 20. They did go through the budget and haven't adjusted the charge. On the day I made the mistake, I ended up paying over $9 with an advertising budget of $1. Apparently the safeguards they have in their software don't always work.


I received the following email from AMS today:

*"Please note that ad spend on any given day may exceed your average daily budget but, at the end of the month, the average daily spend will not exceed your average daily budget. The average daily budget is the amount you are willing to spend per day over a calendar month. For example, if you set your average daily budget to $100, you may receive up to $3,100 worth of clicks in that calendar month (assuming a full 31-day month).
This is why you may have seen spend in 1 day exceed the budget you set."
*
The email said the above was general information and they would reach out to me again. Meanwhile, I still don't know why the spend limit per day didn't work unless they are spreading the spend limit over an entire month, which doesn't make sense.


----------



## Mike Stop Continues

Marian said:


> The email said the above was general information and they would reach out to me again. Meanwhile, I still don't know why the spend limit per day didn't work unless they are spreading the spend limit over an entire month, which doesn't make sense.


Speaking as a big data engineer, dealing with high-transaction systems like ads takes a LOT of computer power. Amazon can't possibly update your profile in real time, so they do batch updates every couple of hours. If you're under-budget at the beginning of a period, you're considered under-budget for the entire period. Then at the end of the period, it batch updates. You're either under-budget at that point (even by $0.01) or over-budget.

Within each hours-long period, you can get lots of clicks or just a few. So sometimes, you go over.


----------



## A past poster

Marian said:


> I received the following email from AMS today:
> 
> *"Please note that ad spend on any given day may exceed your average daily budget but, at the end of the month, the average daily spend will not exceed your average daily budget. The average daily budget is the amount you are willing to spend per day over a calendar month. For example, if you set your average daily budget to $100, you may receive up to $3,100 worth of clicks in that calendar month (assuming a full 31-day month).
> This is why you may have seen spend in 1 day exceed the budget you set."
> *
> The email said the above was general information and they would reach out to me again. Meanwhile, I still don't know why the spend limit per day didn't work unless they are spreading the spend limit over an entire month, which doesn't make sense.


Below is the final email I received today:

*"Budget and click spend are different.
If you set a CPC bid for higher than your daily budget, it is possible to go over your daily budget as it averages out over the duration of the campaign. Please note my previous message. If you set your CPC bid at $12 with our auction you may pay up to $12 per click. The highest you can set a CPC bid for is $49."

From this, we can tell that those charges were due to it being the highest bid competition between other ads. They have confirmed that these charges are in fact correct and therefore cannot be 'corrected'.
*

In the first email I received from them, they said:

*In this case we won't charge more than the daily budget you set, just in case if we reach the daily budget before the day ends, we will pause your ad and reactivate it the next day in order to avoid to spend more money than the one you set as your daily budget.
*
Apparently they changed their minds. I'm being very careful now when I change bids!


----------



## AndrewBarliman

How is it that people are getting tens of thousands of impressions?

I've had my ads (two) running for about 5 days now, and have a total impressions number of around 5,000 and a grand total of 5 clicks. 

It doesn't seem to be the pricing, as my price per click is less than my bid numbers, and the keywords I've bid more on don't seem to pull any additional impressions.

I have "only" about 50 keywords for each. Is that the key - just pumping in hundreds of keywords? Having a higher daily spend? Sacrificing a sheep to the Amazon overlords? I've tried most of the advice I've seen online to no avail.

Apparently, I literally cannot buy clicks from amazon.

Does anyone know what it takes to get impressions at all?


----------



## CassieL

Your per click price will be less than your bid because you'll only be in competition for those spots that cost less than your bid.

If it were me, I'd try raising my bids on the keywords and see if that does anything.  Especially on your keywords that show a flat line instead of a zero.  (I have a theory that the ones that show a zero are on the carousel but so far down they aren't seen whereas the ones with a flat line aren't even getting shown.)


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## JaclynDolamore

Andrew, I would definitely try more keywords. It also just depends on how competitive the ones you chose are. I usually kick off an ad with about 400 keywords.


----------



## huggie

AMS is pretty impressive results wise, 69 sales at 2.99 or 3.99 a book and 17000 page reads this month (first time using it) when normally I struggle to make $60 in a month without advertising. Granted I've spent over $100 but it's getting the books into readers' hands a lot better than Facebook ads did at least, maybe time to bump up the bids another step to 0.25 or 0.30? Might need to work on my ad copy though, my less successful ads are getting roughly 1 click per 3,000 to 4,000 impressions while the ones that sell best are getting a little less than 1 per 1,000.

Could also be my covers too though since the 3 of the 4 that get good clicks to impressions ratio are the only ones I put on AMS that are illustrations as opposed to a live model...


----------



## Amyshojai

I've only used keyword targeting thus far, but only for the nonfiction. I wonder if it's different for fiction?

What has been the experience comparing the two types of ads.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Amyshojai said:


> I've only used keyword targeting thus far, but only for the nonfiction. I wonder if it's different for fiction?
> 
> What has been the experience comparing the two types of ads.


You mean sponsored ads v. product display ads? The latter don't work for most of us, but, I think for your non-fiction books it would be worth a try. You can choose any dog and cat products such as food or toys or bedding, etc, to display the ads for your books.

I buy dental stix and treats for my dog all the time and I will most likely see your ads displayed on those pages.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

AndrewBarliman said:


> How is it that people are getting tens of thousands of impressions?
> 
> I've had my ads (two) running for about 5 days now, and have a total impressions number of around 5,000 and a grand total of 5 clicks.
> 
> It doesn't seem to be the pricing, as my price per click is less than my bid numbers, and the keywords I've bid more on don't seem to pull any additional impressions.
> 
> I have "only" about 50 keywords for each. Is that the key - just pumping in hundreds of keywords? Having a higher daily spend? Sacrificing a sheep to the Amazon overlords? I've tried most of the advice I've seen online to no avail.
> 
> Apparently, I literally cannot buy clicks from amazon.
> 
> Does anyone know what it takes to get impressions at all?


I suggest you add lots of keywords. You can pull from your alsobots as well as the sponsored products carousel on your pages. Also, go to yasiv.com and put in the name of your book. I usually get from 100 to 400 suggestions from there.


----------



## Decon

Well, well. After a disasterous April with very few impressions and therefore no AMS sales, they've actually started to pound out the impressions again and sales are coming through...'bout time.

Pleased that I held my nerve and didn't increase bids this time.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Decon said:


> Well, well. After a disasterous April with very few impressions and therefore no AMS sales, they've actually started to pound out the impressions again and sales are coming through...'bout time.
> 
> Pleased that I held my nerve and didn't increase bids this time.


I'm still waiting. Sales are okay (barely) but page reads are a disaster. Four pages one day, nothing the next and four pages the day after that with a spike (hah!) up to 12 pages on the fourth day. Clicks and impressions are showing up regularly so it's not that.

I'm running a Freebooksy right now and I can't believe the dearth of page reads. That's never happened before with a Freebooksy ad. At this rate, I'm never going to make my spend on the ad. I'm going to put the book in AMS tonight and hope I get a bit of a KU/audio boost.


----------



## Decon

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I'm still waiting. Sales are okay (barely) but page reads are a disaster. Four pages one day, nothing the next and four pages the day after that with a spike (hah!) up to 12 pages on the fourth day. Clicks and impressions are showing up regularly so it's not that.
> 
> I'm running a Freebooksy right now and I can't believe the dearth of page reads. That's never happened before with a Freebooksy ad. At this rate, I'm never going to make my spend on the ad. I'm going to put the book in AMS tonight and hope I get a bit of a KU/audio boost.


My freebooksy didn't return a profit last month.... first time ever, but it did get page reads going. It's different for everyone. There are so many factors.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Decon said:


> My freebooksy didn't return a profit last month.... first time ever, but it did get page reads going. It's different for everyone. There are so many factors.


Yes, Freebooksy is usually pretty reliable. I have clocked 13 audio sales overnight, so that helps. But it looks like they are all whispersync at 80c royalty. Ah, well. You win some, you lose some.


----------



## Philip Gibson

I've now run hundreds of AMS campaigns.  So far, they are the only advertising source I've found that that can provide me with a sustained positive return on full-priced books.

But it has taken me constant tweaking of my campaigns.  It's a bit like gardening - constant planting, pruning, trimming and weeding.  I feel like 'The Constant Gardener'.  That is, raising and lowering bids on selected keywords, adding and pausing various keywords, tweaking blurbs, etc.

My books fall into 3 genres: 1. Historical (war)  2. Historical (the Apollo missions), 3. Graded readers for children.

All 3 series have box sets and have produced much better return on investment (ROI) than campaigns for individual books.  These days, I pretty much limit my campaigns to the higher-priced collections for that reason.  I've never managed to get a sustained positive ROI for a $2.99 book.  The higher priced collections make it much easier to achieve a positive ROI.

I'm currently spending most time tending my collection of graded readers.  That book started out with a $5.00 daily spend limit. At that point it was making good sales, so when it blew past the daily limit, I increased it to $10.  It then blew past that limit and I increased it to $12.  It then consistently blew past that and the campaign was automatically paused each day with 6 hours to spare having gone past the daily limit.

At that point I started losing money.  I had also increased my bids on the best selling keywords which turned out to be a mistake at that point.

I had noticed earlier that most of my sales appeared on my dashboard late in the day.  Assuming that the KDP dashboard reports sales in near real time, I could see that that loss in visibility in those crucial final hours of the day was costing me.  So I gradually cut back on my bids on selected keywords until the campaign would display for the full 24 hours.

At that point, and up to now, I am getting a consistent positive return on investment on that campaign.  It's not a lot (just a handful of sales a day), but it is consistent and I now have at least one campaign that I can rely on to produce results.

Took a lot of gardening though.

Philip


----------



## Harald

Philip Gibson said:


> I've now run hundreds of AMS campaigns. So far, they are the only advertising source I've found that that can provide me with a sustained positive return on full-priced books.
> 
> But it has taken me constant tweaking of my campaigns. It's a bit like gardening - constant planting, pruning, trimming and weeding. I feel like 'the constant gardener'. That is, raising and lowering bids on selected keywords, adding and pausing various keywords, tweaking blurbs, etc. [...]


This is a fascinating report, Philip. I'm a Constant Gardner, too.


----------



## Philip Gibson

Worst part is that tracking keyword metrics has now gotten so involved I've had to get Number One Son to show me how to do some things on Excel spreadsheets.

And he doesn't suffer fools gladly.

Philip


----------



## Amyshojai

I'll be pruning probably next week. My first ads as experiments I set to run 3 weeks, and so far, haven't messed with them. All but a couple seem to be earning nicely, a wonderful surprise, but I'm sure that I can do better. Really appreciating the feedback in this thread.


----------



## Jena H

Philip Gibson said:


> Worst part is that tracking keyword metrics has now gotten so involved I've had to get Number One Son to show me how to do some things on Excel spreadsheets.
> 
> And he doesn't suffer fools gladly.
> 
> Philip


My son is the same way. He can't understand how people don't know what he knows, or can't figure stuff out the way he does. (And yet, he had to ask me the best way to fold a sheet of paper to fit into a mailing envelope.  )


----------



## Decon

Short stories and AMS

I started an AMS ad on the 17th March for my short story compilation. To be honest, I wasn't expecting any sales or impressions because as everyone knows, shorts are a hard sell, especially even in an anthology priced @ $2.99,($12.99 for the paper book) but I was prepared to spend $5 as a trial and to give it some visibility. Sure enough I've only had 9,000 impressions sticking only to niche keywords for shorts compilations, and not many at that to keep it targeted, but it has produced 13 clicks at 10c= $1.30. Patience has paid off when I noticed I had a paper book sale today on my AMS dashboard. Most unexpected.

I also sold another paperback in the UK on the same day and wonder if they had seen the ad on .com and bought through uk so it won't show on AMS? It just seems strange that I haven't sold any of that as a print book for ages.

The only other thing is that from impressions bombing in April to next to nothing, this past few days they have all started to soldier on again.


----------



## Harald

One month in on my revised ad copy test for my $0.99 series opener (historical fiction). Was looking slow in April then picked up right at end. KU reads for series also picking up a bit last few days.
* still keeping my bids low: aCPC is $0.02. "Trickle Effect"
* 584 Impressions per Click; 12.8 Clicks per Sale (a little high for me but not bad)
* aCOS is 26% so campaign is definitely in the black 
* will keep this one running and continue to do constant gardening with my trowel in hand.


----------



## Philip Gibson

Harald said:


> One month in on my revised ad copy test for my $0.99 series opener (historical fiction). Was looking slow in April then picked up right at end. KU reads for series also picking up a bit last few days.
> * still keeping my bids low: cCPC is $0.02. "Trickle Effect"
> * 584 Impressions per Click; 12.8 Clicks per Sale (a little high for me but not bad)
> * aCOS is 26% so campaign is definitely in the black
> * will keep this one running and continue to do constant gardening with my trowel in hand.


I'm amazed that you can generate any clicks at all with a bid of only $0.02. Does it amount to a substantial number of clicks per day?

I'd never considered bidding that low. Maybe I should try it.

Philip


----------



## PearlEarringLady

Philip Gibson said:


> I'm amazed that you can generate any clicks at all with a bid of only $0.02. Does it amount to a substantial number of clicks per day?
> 
> I'd never considered bidding that low. Maybe I should try it.


You can get impressions and clicks, even with really low bids, but in much lower numbers. That means that sales will be lower as well. If the ad is intended to prop up ranking, it won't do that with just the odd sale here and there. You need to get sales pretty much every day, and that means bidding higher. How high you need to bid depends on your genre. So it rather depends on what the objective of the ads is.


----------



## Harald

PaulineMRoss said:


> You can get impressions and clicks, even with really low bids, but in much lower numbers. That means that sales will be lower as well. If the ad is intended to prop up ranking, it won't do that with just the odd sale here and there. You need to get sales pretty much every day, and that means bidding higher. How high you need to bid depends on your genre. So it rather depends on what the objective of the ads is.


Mostly agree. First, it's very genre-dependent. No way I could do this in Romance! But HF seems to work. I get clicks every day, although not sales from those clicks every day. With this book (and these low bids), I'm usually bouncing in and out of the Top 100 in at least one of my subcategories. For my current strategy of testing AMS while I'm working to finish the final book of the series, that's good enough for now. Once the series is finished, I'll try stepping on the bidding gas. It's all a work in progress.

P.S. My bid range is actually 0.02 to 0.06 (currently), but average CPC is 0.02.


----------



## APeter

I've been running an AMS campaign for a book of mine that's coming out of KU this Saturday (going wide with it). As of tomorrow, the campaign will have been running for two weeks. Normally, I run my campaigns for a longer period of time. But this campaign was a last moment decision based on the book coming out of KU. NOTE: I have no intention of doing any more AMS ads until this September at the earliest.

Anyway, I thought everyone might find this information on my latest campaign of interest.

Bottom line: The campaign hasn't gone well. Each day I've examined the results and raised my bid on what I felt were key words. It hasn't helped. So two days ago, I raised the bidding VERY high to see if it made a difference. It did, but look at my ACPC on some of these words. It's too rich for my blood. I can't complain, though, because in the past these AMS ads have worked for me. But now that everyone is jumping on the band wagon . . .

Keyword                  Bid    Imp    Clicks  ACPC

michael crichton      0.89  938 1	  $0.62	
  –
greig beck	            0.89  950 2	  $0.61	
  –
walter jon williams  0.89  692 2	  $0.61
  –
rr haywood	    0.89  598 1	  $0.61	
  –
the atlantis plague  0.89  845 1	  $0.61
  –
brandt legg	      0.89  520 1	  $0.60
  –
the winter over	      0.89  434 1	  $0.60	
  –
james rollins	      0.89	4,713 4	  $0.59
  –
nicholas sansbury smith	0.89  1,308	1	$0.59
  –
douglas richards	      0.89  1,580  3	  $0.58
  –
william gibson	      0.89  2,620  1	  $0.57
  –
douglas preston	      0.89  1,432  2	  $0.56
  –
michael grumley	      0.89	1,499  3	  $0.53
  –
stephenie meyer	      0.89	1,067 1	  $0.53
  –


----------



## Jena H

My most recent ad (through the end of April) was pretty much a bust.  I knew I'd spend more than I earned because I was advertising a free book   but obviously I'm looking for sell-through to later books.  However, the keywords getting most action (and therefore costing the most $$$) were very general:  crime and suspense, to name two.  All the more specific, targeted keywords didn't bring any relevant results.


----------



## Seneca42

APeter said:


> Bottom line: The campaign hasn't gone well. Each day I've examined the results and raised my bid on what I felt were key words. It hasn't helped. So two days ago, I raised the bidding VERY high to see if it made a difference. It did, but look at my ACPC on some of these words. It's too rich for my blood. I can't complain, though, because in the past these AMS ads have worked for me. But now that everyone is jumping on the band wagon . . .


wowzer. 50-60c acos is nuts. Unless you're getting sales on every 4 clicks or less. But most people report sales every 10-20 clicks.

and I agree, AMS is getting out of control. It's not performing like it used to... not sure if it's over saturation or the system is just buggy. But something is definitely up.


----------



## PearlEarringLady

APeter said:


> Bottom line: The campaign hasn't gone well. Each day I've examined the results and raised my bid on what I felt were key words. It hasn't helped. So two days ago, I raised the bidding VERY high to see if it made a difference. It did, but look at my ACPC on some of these words. It's too rich for my blood. I can't complain, though, because in the past these AMS ads have worked for me. But now that everyone is jumping on the band wagon . . .


Yeah, there's definitely a lot of crowding going on. I've come to the conclusion that there are only two ways to run these:

1) Low bid, very cheap, with a good ACOS but very few sales.

2) High bid, very expensive, as a short-term push for a launch or intensive promo.

Sadly the days of 2c bids and 19% ACOS are over.


----------



## APeter

LilyBLily said:


> To get a decent position on a big bestseller's page, you do have to bid high. But I am wondering how your book can appeal both to fans of Twilight and Michael Crichton AND William Gibson. That's a real range. You got the most clicks on James Rollins; is your book like his? I'd be inclined to keep his name active if he's a tight match and actually produced sales. These days, you can keep the ad going when the book is not in KU.


My book doesn't fit nicely into one category. It's one of those types of book that touch upon several genres.

The campaign was an attempt to get some last minute "reads" before dropping out of KU. I don't run constant campaigns.


----------



## Amyshojai

Hmnn. Well, I'm doing nonfiction so that's very different. But I'm having good, steady sales and staying higher in ranking since I started. Haven't tried with fiction yet.


----------



## amdonehere

My sales are rolling down the hill fast and it seems the AMS ads are no longer working as well as they did before. Granted, I'd been ignoring them for 4 weeks now as I was consumed by my Kindle Scout campaign. But now that is over and I've returned my attention to actual sales of my books, I can't seem to make anything work. I've tried tweaking, altering bids, adding new KWs. Nothing changes. Meanwhile, I'm noticing that bidding has become fierce on the good KWs. I bid pretty high on some of my KWs and I'm shocked that my ad appears on p.3. I don't bid higher than $.60 (isn't that really high? I only use that for less than 10 KWs that I think really are important.). So that means these other books ahead of mine in the carousel are bidding at even higher to get to p.1  

I'm really hesitant to up my bid. At that rate, I'll soon be losing $$ on my loss leader.

I'm ok with making no ROI on my Book 1 loss leader, which is priced at $2.99. But at what point does the insanity stops?

Any advice?


----------



## JaclynDolamore

AMS ads are working well on a brand spanking new release for me, but I ended ALL of them on my older books and have shifted the money to Facebook ads for the moment...


----------



## Hasbeen

New to AMS ads been dabbling in Facebook ads with some success and have been wanting to try AMS this thread has been hugely helpful. 

Question for the group I going to start a campaign and was wondering if anyone has used bundles in their adds? With their higher prices it would seem they might be more profitable with fewer clicks.

Does this make any sense? Or should you use them to push the first in a series to try and get follow on purchases. 

Thanks again for all of the info advertising is my worst skill in this complicated world of indie publishing.


----------



## Joe Mynhardt

Took me a few hours to read through all this, but what an informative thread. I'm representing 49 eBook titles (mostly dark and scary stuff), so I'll definitely start putting them all on $1 a day budgets. Dabbled in a few ads with new releases, but nothing long term. Hopefully I'll have good news to report. 

Thank you,
Joe


----------



## PearlEarringLady

Hasbeen said:


> Question for the group I going to start a campaign and was wondering if anyone has used bundles in their adds? With their higher prices it would seem they might be more profitable with fewer clicks.
> Does this make any sense? Or should you use them to push the first in a series to try and get follow on purchases.


Running ads on a bundle/box set makes sense if it's full price with a healthy royalty. That means you can afford to bid higher and still make a positive ROI.

Ads on first in series make sense too, but if it's at 99c, say, it's very, very hard to make a positive ROI on that. So you have to make the decision whether you want to pour money into it and get your return by way of sell-through, or just run a low-cost campaign that will generate a sale here and there but won't be much help with rank. Only you can decide how much you can afford to risk.

Having said all that, it does depend on genre. The most saturated genres are also the most difficult to run ads in, at the moment, but a less saturated genre might produce a good return with low bids.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Hasbeen said:


> New to AMS ads been dabbling in Facebook ads with some success and have been wanting to try AMS this thread has been hugely helpful.
> 
> Question for the group I going to start a campaign and was wondering if anyone has used bundles in their adds? With their higher prices it would seem they might be more profitable with fewer clicks.
> 
> Does this make any sense? Or should you use them to push the first in a series to try and get follow on purchases.
> 
> Thanks again for all of the info advertising is my worst skill in this complicated world of indie publishing.


I'm doing both on the same series. I just upped the price on my bundle by $1 and I'm still getting sales plus page reads. Nothing spectacular, but I'm definitely in profit. The series loss leader is 99c which by itself puts me in the red, but page reads and sell-thru keep me in profit on that ad as well. This is a four book historical romantic suspense series.

I have another series (trilogy) that I'm going to be doing the same thing.


----------



## novelist11

Is mystery a saturated genre?


----------



## Jena H

I wonder what the most saturated genres are at any given time.  In any case, I encourage everyone to run lots and lots of FB ads for the next few weeks!!.  *she said, hoping that AMS ads will thin out a little bit....*


----------



## Gertie Kindle

novelist11 said:


> Is mystery a saturated genre?


AMS ACPC for the historical/mystery/romance bundle is 28c and for the first in series, 19c which I'm guessing is about average for mystery.


----------



## huggie

I think I overdid it making a new set of ads with a CPC bid of $0.30, not really getting more sales despite more impressions/clicks per day so maybe I should scale back to $0.25 or even $0.20 like my last set. On the plus side I seem to have found better ad copy for most of my worse performing ones as they are getting a better ratio of clicks!


----------



## Seneca42

AlexaKang said:


> I bid pretty high on some of my KWs and I'm shocked that my ad appears on p.3. I don't bid higher than $.60 (isn't that really high? I only use that for less than 10 KWs that I think really are important.). So that means these other books ahead of mine in the carousel are bidding at even higher to get to p.1


Yep. I've heard of people bidding $1 even $2 for a keyword. Some people have money to burn. And if you're an author with a huge back catalog that you know is going to sell you can perhaps justify the spend.

This is the problem with AMS right now, is it is getting flooded with ads which means the cost of appearing near the front of the carousel gets more expensive all the time.

I wouldn't go above 60c if I were you, that's already high. It's not feasible to bid $1-2 on keywords unless you have a huge back catalog that you know will sell then.


----------



## CassieL

Holy cow.  Chris Fox just said that for his newest release he was bidding $50 on keywords and paying as much as $4 per click!

I'm still in with AMS, but I'm only making a profit on it because the books I'm in on are either non-fiction with less competition or books that earn me $4+ per sale either in ebook or paperback.  My numbers are small, but I have 9 PB sales for the month thanks to AMS ads.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Cassie Leigh said:


> Holy cow. Chris Fox just said that for his newest release he was bidding $50 on keywords and paying as much as $4 per click!
> 
> I'm still in with AMS, but I'm only making a profit on it because the books I'm in on are either non-fiction with less competition or books that earn me $4+ per sale either in ebook or paperback. My numbers are small, but I have 9 PB sales for the month thanks to AMS ads.


I've been in since January and I've only had one paperback sale. It was on a 16c click on Nora Roberts as the KW. Now, that's the way to make money. Too bad it has not been repeated ... multiple times.


----------



## novelist11

What's up with billing? I always get billed around the 2nd of each month but my april invoice is still accumulating. Anyone else have this problem?


----------



## amdonehere

Cassie Leigh said:


> Holy cow. Chris Fox just said that for his newest release he was bidding $50 on keywords and paying as much as $4 per click!
> 
> I'm still in with AMS, but I'm only making a profit on it because the books I'm in on are either non-fiction with less competition or books that earn me $4+ per sale either in ebook or paperback. My numbers are small, but I have 9 PB sales for the month thanks to AMS ads.


I've accidentally bid $50 when I made typos, intending to bid 50c. Althought thank God the actually CPC was lower than 50c or I'd have been screwed.

But bidding $50 and paying $4 is just beyond anything that'd worth my $$. Chris has a huge backlog and can afford it. I can't.

Theoretically, it shouldn't matter to me if an author of a different, competitive genre bid like that. I'm in historical fiction, right, so most of the authors bidding in my category are indies and they don't bid this outrageous amount.

Here's the problem, the AMS ads don't really match genres. Half the times, they refuse to show my ad which is 100% genre matching to the KW, but instead, they show a bunch of contemporary thrillers, or Sheik Romance, or what have you. So if Chris Fox et al bid that high, and for some reason the Amazon algo decided that his book should go on the AMS carousel for a book in my genre no matter how unrelated, it still ends up bumping me to the back.

So so messed up.


----------



## CassieL

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I've been in since January and I've only had one paperback sale. It was on a 16c click on Nora Roberts as the KW. Now, that's the way to make money. Too bad it has not been repeated ... multiple times.


I have never(?) had paperback sales on any of my romances from AMS. And only my clean sweet romances sell in paperback at all. Most of the paperback sales I get are for non-fiction but my one fantasy series seems to sell in paperback, too. I think all of those sales have come from trade-published fantasy authors. For example, the latest was off of Juliet Marillier. And I know I had one off of Tad Williams, too.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Cassie Leigh said:


> I have never(?) had paperback sales on any of my romances from AMS. And only my clean sweet romances sell in paperback at all. Most of the paperback sales I get are for non-fiction but my one fantasy series seems to sell in paperback, too. I think all of those sales have come from trade-published fantasy authors. For example, the latest was off of Juliet Marillier. And I know I had one off of Tad Williams, too.


Which is why we need to throw the big guys in with our keywords.


----------



## IreneP

novelist11 said:


> What's up with billing? I always get billed around the 2nd of each month but my april invoice is still accumulating. Anyone else have this problem?


Yes. I thought maybe it was because the totals were so low last month, but I'm pretty sure they billed me tiny amounts when I first started at the end of a month and not much had accumulated.


----------



## IreneP

Cassie Leigh said:


> Holy cow. Chris Fox just said that for his newest release he was bidding $50 on keywords and paying as much as $4 per click!
> 
> I'm still in with AMS, but I'm only making a profit on it because the books I'm in on are either non-fiction with less competition or books that earn me $4+ per sale either in ebook or paperback. My numbers are small, but I have 9 PB sales for the month thanks to AMS ads.


 

I've never seen an industry where people are willing to pay so much per click for such inexpensive items. I guess y'all are right - they are counting on series sell-thru or something. So counter-intuitive, though.


----------



## CassieL

IreneP said:


> I've never seen an industry where people are willing to pay so much per click for such inexpensive items. I guess y'all are right - they are counting on series sell-thru or something. So counter-intuitive, though.


Sounds like in his case it was for the release week visibility he could get and then he was going to drop it back to more reasonable levels. He was talking about spending $400/day on a combination of FB, AMS, and Bookbub CPC ads for release week.


----------



## huggie

Cassie Leigh said:


> Sounds like in his case it was for the release week visibility he could get and then he was going to drop it back to more reasonable levels. He was talking about spending $400/day on a combination of FB, AMS, and Bookbub CPC ads for release week.


I feel better about my $10 a day spend on my new release which is priced at $0.99 (only 22 sales so far after 3 days so operating on a big loss, but hopefully it will remain visible when I raise the price to make up for it).

I wonder if such a massive spend would make it pretty likely to make it near the top?


----------



## Silly Writer

I've been reading this thread since the beginning, and I finally have something to give back! (thanks everyone for all the info you've been sharing).

I had a call with an AMS Account Manager today. She's in a brand new department, so she's still learning, and most of this may be old news to everyone who is already doing ads, but helpful to others.  To prepare for the call, I asked for questions in FB groups and I did get those answers (somewhat) so I'm going to list every question & answer. (open for opinion and discussion!)

*Also, these answers may NOT be exactly correct, or your mileage may vary. Again, she's new. She's learning the in's and out's of AMS ads herself*, and most of the questions were about the reporting interface versus what she normally specializes in (individual keyword research). I've given her some of my own keywords for her to 'investigate' and determine why they produce (or don't produce) and react the way they do. Also, I was scribbling answers as fast as I could, so hopefully I'm repeating exactly what she said. 

Regardless, it is some good news (We now KNOW we have a Wish List with someone who is IN this department) and these answers can also prompt discussions of our own experiences and how they are or aren't in line with this.

While most of the questions were outside of why she actually called, she answered the other questions to the best of her ability. Some of my own experiences seem to conflict with her answers, so until she's been there a bit longer and worked out the kinks in her theories, I'll be putting much more stock into Mark Dawson's new module of AMS Ads when that's released. And HAS that been released yet? 

Question 1: I noticed on my own book page (sweet romance genre) there are some ads for steamy romance. Should I be targeting books outside my own genre?

Answer: Yes, you should be targeting outside your own genres but try to stay within the overall category. For example, if you're advertising Sweet Romance, do advertise on different sub-genres. The Ad Moderation Team will evaluate if they feel the content is appropriate for that page before approving it to land there (that said, a steamy book shouldn't be showing on a sweet page, she's not sure how that is getting by the Ad Mod Team)

*Also note* she suggests going backward from wherever you see YOUR book being advertised, and target that author/title for better ad performance if it fits your genre. (Example: if you land on Gillian Flynn's page, and you write within her genre somewhere--even if it's not an exact match on genre--then you should add her name/books to your keywords too because something is a match there).

Question 2: I've seen my book pop up on a page that I didn't use a keyword for (author or book). How is that happening? Does Amazon place our book on pages that we didn't use an author/book title keyword for?

Answer: Amazon does not place your book somewhere you did not indicate. BUT it does look at all keywords within the metadata and categories of the advertised book. For instance, if your book is here: Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction > Women's Fiction, then you might pop up on someone's book page that is also in Lit&Fic, or in Contemporary, or in Women's Fiction. Your ad placement is dependent upon more than just the keywords you are choosing to use in your campaign.

Question 3: Is it better to have one big ad targeting a huge amount of keywords, or is it better to have lots of campaigns with smaller amounts of keywords?
Answer: IF IT'S THE SAME BOOK being advertised, it's better to have only ONE ad with a large amount of keywords.
*(NOTE: MANY people have experiences that conflict with this answer)*

Question 4: Is it better to break up the budget and have lots of campaigns for smaller dollar amounts, or to have one campaign with the full amount of budget you're willing to spend per day?

Answer: Again, if it's ONE book, it's better to have one campaign running with the whole budget. Having multiple campaigns for the same book and smaller budgets do not change the ad(s) results. It only makes more work for the author in analyzing the ad(s) results. 
*(NOTE: MANY people have experiences that conflict with this answer, too)*

Question 5: Will we ever be able to see daily (or even weekly or monthly) numbers instead of a cumulative total?

Answer: Hopefully so. This is the most-requested change to AMS and it's on the Wish List.

Question 6: Will AMS results ever show us KindleUnlimited numbers that result from ad clicks?

Answer: She was unfamiliar with KindleUnlimited and AMS's effect on it. After explaining the AcoS isn't really correct (IF you're in KU) because it doesn't add in those numbers) she is excited to take this up with the KindleUnlimited Team to see if those clicks/numbers can in some way be included in order to show a more realistic AcoS.

Question 7: Is there a way to get rid of old campaigns (sort them, put into folders, archive) so we don't see a wall of campaigns when we log in?

Answer: Yes! You can sort them so Running and/or Paused show first and lumped together (but cannot delete or archive campaigns). On that first page where your campaigns are listed, you can sort by first column (Status) to sort it by 'Paused,' 'Terminated,' or 'Running.' You can also sort by any column on that page, including Campaign Name, Start Date and/or AcoS.

Question 8: Is there a way to pick Custom Dates?

Answer: No. Not at this time. (She put it on the wish list)

Question 9: Will we ever be able to Pre-Schedule ads?

Answer: Possibly we will be able to pre-schedule ads on current published books (going on Wish List!), but not ever on a book that is only listed as a Pre-order. This is because each ad has to run through the Ad Moderation Team, and they must have access to the inside of the book to check content for compatibility.

Question 10: Can we target by time zone?

Answer: No. Numbers are defined and calculated midnight to midnight in your own time zone.

Question 11: How do we get Amazon to shut up and take our money?

Answer: This has been discovered to be a technical issue. It's currently being worked on, and hopefully when resolved, Amazon will start to spend all MORE of the budget we define for that day/campaign.

Question 12: Sometimes it appears that Amazon is spending MORE than my daily budget in one day. Why?

Answer: Sometimes an ad is doing well and on a roll and Amazon might use some of the budget from the following day(s) to keep it rolling. Example: If you budget $10/day, and Amazon spends $12 for that day, they will only spend $8 the following day, thus it all evens out to where they will never spend more than the monthly budget (daily budget x days per month).

Question 13: How can we get them to spend more money now (before the fix comes in for above)?

Answer: Raise your bid to win more auctions. That doesn't mean you'll be spending what you bid, just that you'll win the bid and get on the page of your target. The CPC will vary depending on competition, but will most likely not be close to what you actually raised bid to. (In most cases)

Question 14: If we have more than one campaign running for the same book, are we bidding against ourselves?

Answer: No, you cannot bid against yourself. It doesn't work that way, however, she suggests one campaign for the same book, instead of multiple. She doesn't see evidence that more than one campaign moves the needle any faster if they're all on the same book.

So that's what I got, peeps. Anyone have experiences that conflict with this? 
The good news is we now have someone dedicated to working out the kinks of AMS. She's very nice, and very eager to help us so we spend more moolah!

ETC: Weird Symbols. Thanks, Cassie! (and man, was that a pita)


----------



## Silly Writer

Sorry about the weird symbols--not sure how to make those go away


----------



## 39416

I did AMS ads in February and March; sold books and made money. Then it fell off the cliff the last week of April. I terminated everything but started it up a few days ago. I'm selling books, but I'm in the hole $1.88. If that doesn't change I will re-do at a cheaper bid. I really think Amazon gives you a boost when you are new to AMS ads, but after that... whammo.


----------



## GrandFenwick

Thanks, Silly Writer! Very useful intel!!!


----------



## CassieL

Silly Writer, thanks for the great info.  Those weird characters are probably because of smart quotes in a Word document that you copied and pasted from.  You have to manually replace all the ' and " in Kboards to get rid of it or turn off smart quotes.

My personal experience has been that one ad or maybe two on a book are far better than trying to run lots of ads.  When Mark Dawson did his promo for his new course I tried to run about ten ads on one book with a smaller subset of words based on what he said, and it failed miserably. I went back to a single ad with lots more keywords.


----------



## Amyshojai

Great info, Silly Writer. I'm currently running about 5 ads per book, more as a test to see which works best. But...when all result in mostly print book purchases (nonfiction) and some Ebooks, AND a goodly boost in page reads, I keep all the ads that work. And for mine, I've got 500-700 keywords in each ad, not all the same. For instance, one might have to do with cat care, and another with cat behavior, and a third target other authors, or even dog training (with a cat book! but it works). 

Obviously, that's not going to work with fiction. Still waiting to try that out.


----------



## Silly Writer

LilyBLily said:


> Thanks for the information, especially about using keywords to get into sub-categories where our books don't really belong. That's undoubtedly the origin of the people whose books I keep seeing in the wrong categories. Billionaire sexy books in sweet westerns, for instance.
> 
> AMS has been consistently profitable for me, but we're talking relatively small amounts of money. I don't think I have the nerve to sign on for a $50-a-day budget. Actually, I know I don't. But it might be worth trying after experimenting with the wrong-category keyword ploy. *If Amazon thinks it's okay to advertise super sexy books in mild categories, it should be fine with advertising mild books in sexier categories, for instance. *And if that sells more books or results in my pages read, then I'd up my daily budget to push that strategy.


Hmmm. That's not exactly what she said (above bold mine). I copied this from my post to clarify: "*Answer:* Yes, you should be targeting outside your own genres but try to stay within the overall category. For example, if you're advertising Sweet Romance, do advertise on different sub-genres. The Ad Moderation Team will evaluate if they feel the content is appropriate for that page before approving it to land there (that said, a steamy book shouldn't be showing on a sweet page, she's not sure how that is getting by the Ad Mod Team)"

That said, the way you're planning: Mild romance advertised on steamy book pages is something like she recommended. Just not the other way around.


----------



## Jena H

Silly Writer said:


> Hmmm. That's not exactly what she said (above bold mine). I copied this from my post to clarify: "*Answer:* Yes, you should be targeting outside your own genres but try to *stay within the overall category.* For example, if you're advertising Sweet Romance, do advertise on different sub-genres. The Ad Moderation Team will evaluate if they feel the content is appropriate for that page before approving it to land there (that said, a steamy book shouldn't be showing on a sweet page, she's not sure how that is getting by the Ad Mod Team)"
> 
> That said, the way you're planning: Mild romance advertised on steamy book pages is something like she recommended. Just not the other way around.


But if _billionaire romance_ and _sweet western_ are both under the romance umbrella, then they are in the same "overall category." And of course, people expand things further, with the justification that "my military sci-fi has a romantic subplot, so that falls under romance too," so they use ANY and ALL romance-related keywords.


----------



## IreneP

Jena H said:


> But if _billionaire romance_ and _sweet western_ are both under the romance umbrella, then they are in the same "overall category." And of course, people expand things further, with the justification that "my military sci-fi has a romantic subplot, so that falls under romance too," so they use ANY and ALL romance-related keywords.


And not to forget that AMS does "broad" matching - which means it is always going to be expanded out from our strict keywords. There is no option right now for exact matching. (I may have heard someone say larger publishers/advertisers have this, but I certainly don't.)


----------



## Silly Writer

Jena H said:


> But if _billionaire romance_ and _sweet western_ are both under the romance umbrella, then they are in the same "overall category." And of course, people expand things further, with the justification that "my military sci-fi has a romantic subplot, so that falls under romance too," so they use ANY and ALL romance-related keywords.


Exactly. I agree. I think this is where she explained the Ad Moderation Team comes in.

But I don't think it's doing what she thinks it's doing... lol


----------



## CassieL

Looks like they FINALLY billed me for April.


----------



## Lu Kudzoza

Silly Writer said:


> Question 11: How do we get Amazon to shut up and take our money?
> 
> Answer: This has been discovered to be a technical issue. It's currently being worked on, and hopefully when resolved, Amazon will start to spend all MORE of the budget we define for that day/campaign.


This is interesting. Be careful if you have 100 ads with a $10 daily budget and currently only spending $40 per day across all ads. You may wake up one morning to see $1000 spent yesterday because Amazon fixed the "technical issue".


----------



## Silly Writer

Not Lu said:


> This is interesting. Be careful if you have 100 ads with a $10 daily budget and currently only spending $40 per day across all ads. You may wake up one morning to see $1000 spent yesterday because Amazon fixed the "technical issue".


Oh. Man. REALLY good point!

Thanks for the warning, I didn't even thank about that.


----------



## Jean Paul Zogby

Hi,
Quick question.
When you make a copy of a sponsored Ad that has some paused keywords in it, would the new copy contain those keywords? Are the enabled keywords only copied to the new Ad?

I had one Ad with a few hundred keywords, that was not doing too well. So I paused all the bad keywords, and it started doing great. Now I want to copy it, without having to go and pause each of those.


----------



## RD

My ad is about five days old with 26k impressions and 25 clicks with no sales estimated. 321 keywords. 

This has cost me 1.21 total so I've had my bid rate low. Not sure if I should keep it running, but my standalone is getting alot of page reads per day, but it seemed was before the ad.

Should I try more keywords or increase the bid on other keywords?


----------



## Harald

RD said:


> My ad is about five days old with 26k impressions and 25 clicks with no sales estimated. 321 keywords.
> This has cost me 1.21 total so I've had my bid rate low. Not sure if I should keep it running, but my standalone is getting alot of page reads per day, but it seemed was before the ad.
> Should I try more keywords or increase the bid on other keywords?


1. Give it another five days.

2. Clicks and no sales? Besides waiting a bit, might mean you're not closing the sale (or they haven't been reported yet). Take a close look at your product page.


----------



## alexabooks

Did anyone ever see their ad without the text? I just searched one of my keywords to test something, and I saw my ad, but there was no ad copy. I've contacted Amazon about it (I'm not going to pay for clicks that come from a blank ad), but I wonder if you guys know anything about it


----------



## Hasbeen

Ok, I just started three campaigns two with .15 bids and one with 10. I had about 30 keywords for each campaign authors mixed with genre specific keywords.  

Now granted I started them yesterday but none of them have a 100 impressions yet much less clicks. I've read in the thread that people have experienced thousands of impressions in the first day or two.

Is it Amazon's reporting or should I look at my keywords?

Completely confused after reading this thread. I didn't expect the campaigns to go gang busters but this is a little spooky. I'm wondering if I did something wrong.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Hasbeen said:


> Ok, I just started three campaigns two with .15 bids and one with 10. I had about 30 keywords for each campaign authors mixed with genre specific keywords.
> 
> Now granted I started them yesterday but none of them have a 100 impressions yet much less clicks. I've read in the thread that people have experienced thousands of impressions in the first day or two.
> 
> Is it Amazon's reporting or should I look at my keywords?
> 
> Completely confused after reading this thread. I didn't expect the campaigns to go gang busters but this is a little spooky. I'm wondering if I did something wrong.


I think you're going to need more than 30 KW per ad. Try for at least 75 per ad.


----------



## Harald

Hasbeen said:


> ...
> Now granted I started them yesterday but none of them have a 100 impressions yet much less clicks. I've read in the thread that people have experienced thousands of impressions in the first day or two.
> ...


Definitely try increasing the total number of keywords per campaign. Amazon itself suggests 25, as I recall, so you should easily be able to triple that and more. My current campaign has ~350 kwds, and I got ~2k Imprs on Day 1 (at extremely low bids) in my historical fiction genre.


----------



## Hasbeen

Thanks I just finished upping the keyword count with authors. I continue to add but after a while I begin to run dry. 

Is the objective to show up in the proper genre or is it more important just to show up and hope to catch someone's eye? Because coming up with 300 keywords it would seem to me you are really reaching out there into none genre specific areas.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Hasbeen said:


> Thanks I just finished upping the keyword count with authors. I continue to add but after a while I begin to run dry.
> 
> Is the objective to show up in the proper genre or is it more important just to show up and hope to catch someone's eye? Because coming up with 300 keywords it would seem to me you are really reaching out there into none genre specific areas.


You can branch out into sub-genre's. Also, check out yasiv.com. Search for your book and they'll come up with anywhere from one to 100's of also boughts. I usually get from 300-400 out of it. It's a pain to sort them all out. Some you'll see are no good. It just so happens some one bought your book and a cookbook so that will show up. But it's worth the time and effort.


----------



## RD

Harald said:


> 1. Give it another five days.
> 
> 2. Clicks and no sales? Besides waiting a bit, might mean you're not closing the sale (or they haven't been reported yet). Take a close look at your product page.


I'll give it another few days, woke up to another 8 clicks with no sales, 33k total impressions.


----------



## Hasbeen

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> You can branch out into sub-genre's. Also, check out yasiv.com. Search for your book and they'll come up with anywhere from one to 100's of also boughts. I usually get from 300-400 out of it. It's a pain to sort them all out. Some you'll see are no good. It just so happens some one bought your book and a cookbook so that will show up. But it's worth the time and effort.


Thanks for the tip. I've never heard of it. Will try it now.


----------



## Abderian

RD said:


> I'll give it another few days, woke up to another 8 clicks with no sales, 33k total impressions.


Is that no sales on your Amazon ads dashboard or your KDP dashboard. AMS doesn't always report the sales it generates. I know this because I recently began advertising a book that never sells. It's selling now but AMS isn't reporting all the sales.


----------



## RD

Abderian said:


> Is that no sales on your Amazon ads dashboard or your KDP dashboard. AMS doesn't always report the sales it generates. I know this because I recently began advertising a book that never sells. It's selling now but AMS isn't reporting all the sales.


Yes, zero sales on the AMS dashboard.

its selling well KENP, but I have no idea what is what. It seemed to be doing well before the AMS ads so I don't know. I guess I'll just let it ride for awhile, its pretty cheap per day anyway, maybe I'll add another 100 keywords for the heck of it too.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

RD said:


> Yes, zero sales on the AMS dashboard.
> 
> its selling well KENP, but I have no idea what is what. It seemed to be doing well before the AMS ads so I don't know. I guess I'll just let it ride for awhile, its pretty cheap per day anyway, maybe I'll add another 100 keywords for the heck of it too.


One of the things we've all asked for is faster reporting and tracking page reads through AMS. Hopefully it will happen.


----------



## alexabooks

Amazon replied that they'll look into the problem with no ad copy and get back to me in 2 days.

I've noticed that my ads slow down if I don't add more keywords. Even the ones that were going crazy the first few days, slowly die down once I just let them be. Did anyone else notice it? Or am I imagining things?


----------



## Hasbeen

Update on my keyword problems. Thanks to the suggestions here I upped the keyword count (still working on it though) and have begun to see impressions over a thousand from under a hundred. So I'm on the right track but I still need to add more keywords. Finding the right keywords that will get you impressions has proven harder than I anticipated. 

No sales have been recorded from the increased impressions and I don't have many clicks but I've seen an uptick in both my sales and pages read. So something is going on. It's having an affect. 

I believe with more study of which keywords work and the addition of more of the right ones is still needed. I beginning to believe that keyword selection is more of an art than a science.


----------



## alexabooks

Hasbeen said:


> I believe with more study of which keywords work and the addition of more of the right ones is still needed. I beginning to believe that keyword selection is more of an art than a science.


I honestly doubt there's a way to predict what will or won't work. It looks really, _really _random. I wouldn't waste time on picking the perfect keywords, seeing how half of them end up with 0 impressions.
For example, I decided to test how my keywords would do if I separated the top ones from the bottom ones. I made a new ad with 25 top keywords from my 5 old ads, and it died a slow, painful death. 
Then I copied an old ad that had over 10K imps after 5 days and upped the bids on the top 25 keywords + new ad copy. Again, it never picked up.
So my opinion so far is a) I should test different ad copies if I want more clicks; b) I should add more bestsellers/HNR keywords every 2 days to keep the ad alive; c) I should stop trying to predict it and just let it run its course. 
My most successful ad so far is also the one with the lowest bids. And yes, my page reads and sales aren't crazy, but they're definitely better.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Hasbeen said:


> Update on my keyword problems. Thanks to the suggestions here I upped the keyword count (still working on it though) and have begun to see impressions over a thousand from under a hundred. So I'm on the right track but I still need to add more keywords. Finding the right keywords that will get you impressions has proven harder than I anticipated.
> 
> No sales have been recorded from the increased impressions and I don't have many clicks but I've seen an uptick in both my sales and pages read. So something is going on. It's having an affect.
> 
> I believe with more study of which keywords work and the addition of more of the right ones is still needed. I beginning to believe that keyword selection is more of an art than a science.


Mostly the broad keywords that Amazon suggested work well for me. Box set is a good one as is mystery romance. WW II romance is my best keyword.

Don't forget that within genres, there is crossover. As a person who loves mysteries, I'll read cozy, historical, hard-boiled, police procedural, etc. Nothing gory or psychological thrillers, though.

Don't worry about if a keyword is right. Go ahead and add it. If it ends up costing you money with no sales, then you can pause it. There's no way of knowing which keywords are going to work. I will spend up to $2 without a sale (suggested by Rick Gualtieri) and found that pretty well works for me.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

LilyBLily said:


> The thing I love most about AMS ads is that they sell my books.
> 
> Do I understand them? Not possible considering their inconsistent and often blatantly inaccurate reporting. But I do understand positive ROI.


That's what I love, too. My books are being bought and/or read and even audio sales have picked up a bit. I even got a bounty on one of my audios. First one ever. Technically second one, but I don't think I can count my Dad.


----------



## Jena H

alexabooks said:


> I honestly doubt there's a way to predict what will or won't work. It looks really, _really _random. I wouldn't waste time on picking the perfect keywords, seeing how half of them end up with 0 impressions.
> For example, I decided to test how my keywords would do if I separated the top ones from the bottom ones. I made a new ad with 25 top keywords from my 5 old ads, and it died a slow, painful death.
> Then I copied an old ad that had over 10K imps after 5 days and upped the bids on the top 25 keywords + new ad copy. Again, it never picked up.
> So my opinion so far is a) I should test different ad copies if I want more clicks; b) I should add more bestsellers/HNR keywords every 2 days to keep the ad alive; c) I should stop trying to predict it and just let it run its course.
> My most successful ad so far is also the one with the lowest bids. And yes, my page reads and sales aren't crazy, but they're definitely better.


Yeah, there is no such thing as logic when it comes to keywords. I did some of the same stuff you did (copied & ran an ad using keywords that had lots of impressions, etc.) and the result the second time around was... well, unimpressive. So what worked on one campaign won't necessarily work a second time. For no apparent reason. 

For my most recent ad, the KW with most impressions were the very general ones (mystery, action, etc.). Lots of impressions, but not enough clicks.


----------



## alexabooks

Jena H said:


> For my most recent ad, the KW with most impressions were the very general ones (mystery, action, etc.). Lots of impressions, but not enough clicks.


That's what I have with movie keywords (I write UF that might appeal to fans of Batman, X-Men, etc.). So yeah, I got 13K imps from Batman alone, but what's the point if it's only a couple of clicks that didn't end with a sale. 
And then I have a romance title that gets both imps and clicks from HNR titles, sales, page reads, too. What works for Romance doesn't necessarily work for Fantasy. Tweak until you sell 

Edit: I just checked and saw that one of those HNR titles is ranked #47. No surprise the Romance ad is doing so much better than all the Fantasy ads combined. Fantasy titles that I'm interested in just don't have the same positions.
God, I love kboards!  Why didn't I realize it before?


----------



## Hasbeen

Update on my keyword education. I reached pretty far and wide and went for authors of classic fiction and non-fiction anywhere close to the theme of the book. 

Authors are my biggest draw for impressions and clicks. The general subject keywords that AM suggest don't work at least at this point. 

While my clicks are low compared to others in this thread and no sales I'm showing an up tick in both sales and pages read. So so far the couple of bucks I've invested in paying off in visibility and even the bottom line. Too early to call this a success but it's nice to see movement.

Couldn't have done it without everyone sharing their experiences. Thanks. On with the experiment.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Hasbeen said:


> Update on my keyword education. I reached pretty far and wide and went for authors of classic fiction and non-fiction anywhere close to the theme of the book.
> 
> Authors are my biggest draw for impressions and clicks. The general subject keywords that AM suggest don't work at least at this point.
> 
> While my clicks are low compared to others in this thread and no sales I'm showing an up tick in both sales and pages read. So so far the couple of bucks I've invested in paying off in visibility and even the bottom line. Too early to call this a success but it's nice to see movement.
> 
> Couldn't have done it without everyone sharing their experiences. Thanks. On with the experiment.


Don't forget, your AMS dashboard won't show sales for up to three days and doesn't show page reads at all.


----------



## RD

I added 80 more keywords. Totals now: 48k impressions, 51 clicks, no sales. It's barely cost me over $2 though total and I see no reason to stop it. Page reads are through the roof, but it would make me feel better to see a number beside the sales column instead of a --


----------



## Arches

RD said:


> I added 80 more keywords. Totals now: 48k impressions, 51 clicks, no sales. It's barely cost me over $2 though total and I see no reason to stop it. *Page reads are through the roof*, but it would make me feel better to see a number beside the sales column instead of a --


There's the bottom line, page reads are through the roof, and for me, so are sales according to the KDP dashboard. I'd be crazy to stop an ad campaign that seems unproductive but costs virtually nothing while page reads and sales keep going up. I'm doing no other advertising.


----------



## GrandFenwick

Been having slow but low consistent sales. Decided to take the advice to consolidate all keywords into my most successful ad and turn off the other ads (I had a total of 5 ads running).

The results have been terrible, and by that I mean...flat-lining. So I'm not sure this "advice" from the AMS spokesperson is coming from a person who understands the algorithms or is just a person trying to get us to spend more money on ads.


----------



## Abderian

GrandFenwick said:


> Been having slow but low consistent sales. Decided to take the advice to consolidate all keywords into my most successful ad and turn off the other ads (I had a total of 5 ads running).
> 
> The results have been terrible, and by that I mean...flat-lining. So I'm not sure this "advice" from the AMS spokesperson is coming from a person who understands the algorithms or is just a person trying to get us to spend more money on ads.


How long has it been since you made the change? I had too many ads running and I turned off all those except the ones that had performed best in the past, but had since stopped working. It took a day or two for them to begin to gather impressions again.


----------



## alexabooks

GrandFenwick said:


> Been having slow but low consistent sales. Decided to take the advice to consolidate all keywords into my most successful ad and turn off the other ads (I had a total of 5 ads running).
> 
> The results have been terrible, and by that I mean...flat-lining. So I'm not sure this "advice" from the AMS spokesperson is coming from a person who understands the algorithms or is just a person trying to get us to spend more money on ads.


Same here. I've waited 4 days, and yes, I got a sale or two, but it's totally different from the thousands imps a day I got before. Barely getting a couple hundred a day now. The thing is, my old ads didn't get many clicks anyway, and I really want to test this new ad copy I have, but I just can't get it out there. It seems to be totally random, which ads skyrocket and which sink.


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## Philip Gibson

I'm reluctantly coming to the conclusion that nurturing successful AMS ads campaigns is much more an art than a science.

However, coming to conclusions is something I am striving to do.  I keep a list of conclusions, only to find I have to later discount them due to latest results.

Two recent 'conclusions' I have made (yet to be disproved):

1.  Product Display ads get much better (5x) as many clicks to impressions as Sponsored Product ads, but get fewer impressions and more expensive clicks

2.  Running Sponsored Product ads with AUTO selected keywords usually results (in 66% of cases) in far cheaper clicks than manually selected keywords with similar bids, while maintaining a good number of daily impressions.

(I reserve the right to withdraw those two conclusions next week.)


Philip


----------



## Harald

Philip Gibson said:


> I'm reluctantly coming to the conclusion that nurturing successful AMS ads campaigns is much more an art than a science.
> However, coming to conclusions is something I am striving to do. I keep a list of conclusions, only to find I have to later discount them due to latest results.
> [...] 2. Running Sponsored Product ads with AUTO selected keywords usually results (in 66% of cases) in far cheaper clicks than manually selected keywords with similar bids, while maintaining a good number of daily impressions.


Thanks for your updated conclusions, Philip. But I'm wondering...

A. What about the combination of Amazon's Suggested Keywords *and* manually added keywords? I do this, and I assume most others do too. Do you?

B. With my first AMS ad, I didn't know any better so I accepted Zon's 25 suggested keywords and at their suggested bid price ($0.25 for me). That was a mistake as it quickly wiped out my Spend budget, and I had to ratchet down my bids quickly. Now, I still accept their suggestions, but at LOW bids that roughly equal my manual keywords.

C. On the whole, I don't find the Amazon Suggested Keywords that much better than my best Manual Keywords (although both work in terms of Clicks).

Thoughts?


----------



## Jena H

Harald said:


> Thanks for your updated conclusions, Philip. But I'm wondering...
> 
> A. What about the combination of Amazon's Suggested Keywords *and* manually added keywords? I do this, and I assume most others do too. Do you?
> 
> B. With my first AMS ad, I didn't know any better so I accepted Zon's 25 suggested keywords and at their suggested bid price ($0.25 for me). That was a mistake as it quickly wiped out my Spend budget, and I had to ratchet down my bids quickly. Now, I still accept their suggestions, but at LOW bids that roughly equal my manual keywords.
> 
> C. On the whole, I don't find the Amazon Suggested Keywords that much better than my best Manual Keywords (although both work in terms of Clicks).
> 
> Thoughts?


I too use the Amazon suggested words, but then add my own. (After all, why not??) And I also agree that the suggested keywords aren't terribly effective-- they're very generic and general, vs. targeted and specific. I'll probably run another ad later this month, around Memorial Day, and plan to lower the default bid of $0.25.


----------



## Philip Gibson

Harald said:


> Thanks for your updated conclusions, Philip. But I'm wondering...
> 
> A. What about the combination of Amazon's Suggested Keywords *and* manually added keywords? I do this, and I assume most others do too. Do you?
> 
> B. With my first AMS ad, I didn't know any better so I accepted Zon's 25 suggested keywords and at their suggested bid price ($0.25 for me). That was a mistake as it quickly wiped out my Spend budget, and I had to ratchet down my bids quickly. Now, I still accept their suggestions, but at LOW bids that roughly equal my manual keywords.
> 
> C. On the whole, I don't find the Amazon Suggested Keywords that much better than my best Manual Keywords (although both work in terms of Clicks).
> 
> Thoughts?


Unlike ads with Manual Targeting, when I run ads with Automatic Targeting, I don't get a list of suggested keywords, don't get to see what keywords Amazon is using, and don't have an option to add my own keywords.

I also don't know how many keywords are being used, but I suspect there are more than the 25 to 50 keywords suggested with Manual Targeting.

My current Automatic Targeting ads are outperforming my Manual Targeting ads.

Philip


----------



## Hasbeen

I still new not quite a week but my experience has been. My test period is a month for each at $2 a day and .15 bid. I have yet to reach $2 spent on any day. 

1. I started with Amazons broad keywords and they did little for me almost no impressions and no clicks.

2. I added to the amazon suggested key words authors from the genre the book was in and their titles and everything changed lots of impressions and I began to get clicks and even my first sales (first seen this morning). I have yet to reach by bid the clicks always come in lower but again remember this is still early. 

3. My sales on my report have increased and my page reads at least stayed steady and in some cases gone up.

Did I read somewhere in this thread that borrows under Kindle Select count as sales? Because that is the only possible explanation for my sales to have gone up without it showing up on my AMS page.


----------



## Philip Gibson

Hasbeen said:


> Did I read somewhere in this thread that borrows under Kindle Select count as sales? Because that is the only possible explanation for my sales to have gone up without it showing up on my AMS page.


Borrows don't count as sales as far as your earnings are concerned - you only make money per page read. So each borrow does not show up as a sale on your KDP dashboard.

However, each borrow counts as a sale as far as your rankings are concerned. If your book is borrowed 5 times, your ranking will look like you have had 5 sales.

Philip


----------



## alexabooks

Philip Gibson said:


> Unlike ads with Manual Targeting, when I run ads with Automatic Targeting, I don't get a list of suggested keywords, don't get to see what keywords Amazon is using, and don't have an option to add my own keywords.
> I also don't know how many keywords are being used, but I suspect there are more than the 25 to 50 keywords suggested with Manual Targeting.
> My current Automatic Targeting ads are outperforming my Manual Targeting ads.
> Philip


Interesting. I made a new, mega-ad yesterday with all my keywords (big authors, indies, movies, genre keywords), and noticed that only movie keywords got impressions. It's like Amazon groups the ads somehow, and it just cut off a long tail of approx. 500 keywords I spent so much time adding 
I made a copy where I deleted all those keywords, leaving only books and authors. But seeing your post, I also quickly made another copy and chose automatic targeting. Let's see if Amazon can sell my books for me better than I do  (My ad copy is also targeted anyway.)


----------



## Philip Gibson

Reedsy Learning have recently had a series of articles on AMS ads featuring AMS users such as Mark Dawson. Here's part of the article from successful AMS user Joseph Alexander regarding Automatic Targeting:



> The next thing to note: my targeting is automatic.
> 
> Here's my logic: Amazon knows!
> 
> It's creepy, but Amazon knows what you're shopping for, what you've been looking at, what your interests are and how best to deliver the right advert at the right time. They've got years of experience here and I know absolutely nothing! Are my keyword choices going to be better than Amazon's? Probably not.


You can see all the articles here: https://blog.reedsy.com/courses/amazon-ads-authors

Philip


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Sounds like I should try automatic targeting. Nothing to lose but money.


----------



## Harald

Philip Gibson said:


> Unlike ads with Manual Targeting, when I run ads with Automatic Targeting, I don't get a list of suggested keywords, don't get to see what keywords Amazon is using, and don't have an option to add my own keywords.
> 
> I also don't know how many keywords are being used, but I suspect there are more than the 25 to 50 keywords suggested with Manual Targeting.
> 
> My current Automatic Targeting ads are outperforming my Manual Targeting ads.
> 
> Philip


Ah... I misunderstood what you were saying about "Automatic Targeting." I see now that that's one of two options when setting up a Sponsored Products ad. I've just never used it. Based on your experience, might be worth a try. Thanks.


----------



## Jena H

Harald said:


> Ah... I misunderstood what you were saying about "Automatic Targeting." I see now that that's one of two options when setting up a Sponsored Products ad. I've just never used it. Based on your experience, might be worth a try. Thanks.


Yes, BUT... you can add keywords to the suggested (automatic) targeting, correct? Or am I confusing the two types of ads? All I know is, I usually go with the suggested keywords, and add my own to them. (But again, I might be confusing the two types of ads.... I don't remember off the top of my head.)


----------



## Philip Gibson

You ARE confusing the two types of ads.  If you choose Automatic Targeting, you are not able to add your own keywords.  Nor are you able to see the wondrous targeting and secret sauce Amazon is using in its behind the curtain targeting.

All you can do is see if it works with different bids, blurbs, etc.

Philip


----------



## CassieL

If when you set up your ad you choose Automated Targeting, you have no ability to change or add keywords.  You just set a bid price.

Manual Targeting lets you use a list of suggested keywords as well as add your own.


----------



## Jena H

Philip Gibson said:


> You ARE confusing the two types of ads. If you choose Automatic Targeting, you are not able to add your own keywords. Nor are you able to see the wondrous targeting and secret sauce Amazon is using in its behind the curtain targeting.
> 
> All you can do is see if it works with different bids, blurbs, etc.
> 
> Philip


Thanks. I was in a rush and not able to look at the two types on my KDP account.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Well, I set one up with automatic targeting for a book that I had paused. I planned to add more keywords and restart it up over the weekend. That will give me a good test for auto v. manual.

Not approved yet. Never once have I been approved in the 15 minutes they say.


----------



## alexabooks

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Not approved yet. Never once have I been approved in the 15 minutes they say.


  I was. Twice today.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

alexabooks said:


> I was. Twice today.


  Uncle Zon doesn't love me.


----------



## GrandFenwick

OK, I'm jumping in and giving automatic targeting a try. As Gertie says, nothing to lose but money 

Love this thread. Thanks to everyone for sharing your stories and advice.

BTW, I have never been approved in 15 minutes, and I've launched more than a dozen ads.


----------



## Jena H

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Not approved yet. Never once have I been approved in the 15 minutes they say.


But, more importantly, did you get car insurance quotes


----------



## Harald

GrandFenwick said:


> ... BTW, I have never been approved in 15 minutes, and I've launched more than a dozen ads.


I'm a 14-hour guy. Always 14 hours. Like always. Weird. And no geckos in sight.


----------



## alexabooks

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Uncle Zon doesn't love me.


Some of my ads take 10 hrs 

I love it how a whole bunch of people jumped on the automatic ads right away - we'll be able to compare results. I can't help feeling dumb for not trying it earlier, as if I didn't know that Amazon is better at selling than all of us combined. But we'll see how it goes! I've made one more, this time for my Romance title, and I'm also gonna test a review quote as an ad copy.


----------



## CassieL

I had an Automated Targeting ad I ran a while back on my fantasy novel.  This was after maybe getting 3 million impressions on it across all ads so they had a lot to work with at that point.  It got me 14,000 impressions, 42 clicks, 1 sale at $6.99 and an unknown number of borrows. Cost me $12.06 so I shut it down.  But this was also mid-March when I was seeing really high clicks per thousand impressions so hard to judge whether it was the type of ad or that that made it a bad result for me.


----------



## weigle1234

Hi Fellow Writers/Entrepreneurs,

I only recently discovered KBoards “Writer’s Café” and, more specifically, all its interesting comments.

I’m a newbie with the Amazon “game” (since early January). But, to my surprise, I’ve sold a few hundred copies of my wide selection of DIY manuals there, both eBooks and paperbacks.  The most important thing I’ve discovered is that the marketing “rules” with Amazon correspond very closely to those of the mail order business; which comes as no surprise.  I’ve spent most of my life in the mail order business as a sole proprietor, and made a fortune there.  But, there’s a huge difference between Amazon vs. mail order marketing.  In mail order I’m able to closely control my marketing audience via mailing list selection, demographics (state/city selection), seasonal affects, weather tracking, holiday impact, etc. - it’s a science.  Amazon on the other hand offers none of those benefits since, basically,  everyone’s totally anonymous (“Categories” selection being an exception).

However, Amazon does offer one very important benefit - almost immediate feedback. (By the way, from what I gather from the Café, most folks seem to be impatient in that regard.)  It seems to me any Kindle ad has to run at least a few weeks to garner any meaningful feedback. (Unless it’s an obvious bummer almost from day one.)  With mail order, advertising is a very expensive, lengthy process.  Very few mailing lists are ever productive for me (only about 1/3 of those even from legitimate sources).  I emphasize “Legitimate Sources” - the vast majority of advertised lists (probably at least 99%) are bogus - outdated, misrepresented, phone book names and addresses, useless names (garbage) in general.

On the other hand, AMS advertising is dirt cheap (we pay only for cost/click).  Whether it will be profitable for me in the long run remains to be seen.  So far most of my ads have at least broken even (but earning only “Chump Change”) - so, hopefully, there’s vast potential for improvement.

Strictly as a test, I recently submitted a Kindle ad for my “VapoKarb” manual.  I’m not trying to sell it to anyone on this forum, or anyone else for that matter.  It’s an old (really old) manual - going back to my early days in mail order (mid to late 1980’s).  But, I sold tons of them over the years (at least 50,000 copies at $10 each).  So, aside from being old technology, I feel it may be a decent test-bed for a new Kindle ad.  I’m pricing it at 99-cents (at least for now) - so it’s a sure looser from a profit standpoint. Perhaps it will gain me some publicity - but likely nothing long-term.

So, the VapoKarb ad’s my latest test point - which (finally) leads to my first inquiry:

- Will Kindle delete duplicate names from my Keyword listing?  My ad lists Kindle’s suggested Keywords, to which I’ve added about 100 category-related author names (per advice I’ve gathered from this forum). This may become a problem for me if my author list eventually becomes very large.

P.S. The “mystery” surrounding Kindle’s “Algorithm” seems to be a popular subject on most Amazon forums.  But, in my opinion, it’s impossible to even begin to analyze.  Kindle obviously has vast and powerful computer resources, along with savvy technicians. As with any business, their primary goal is to maximize profits - meaning their algorithm will always “follow-the-money” - updating continually, perhaps even on an hourly basis.


----------



## Silly Writer

weigle1234 said:


> Hi Fellow Writers/Entrepreneurs,
> 
> I only recently discovered KBoards "Writer's Café" and, more specifically, all its interesting comments.
> 
> I'm a newbie with the Amazon "game" (since early January). <snip>
> 
> So, the VapoKarb ad's my latest test point - which (finally) leads to my first inquiry:
> 
> - Will Kindle delete duplicate names from my Keyword listing? My ad lists Kindle's suggested Keywords, to which I've added about 100 category-related author names (per advice I've gathered from this forum). This may become a problem for me if my author list eventually becomes very large.


You cannot enter a keyword twice. The system will alert you that it is a duplicate. 

Welcome to Kboards.


----------



## Philip Gibson

Oh, why can't they all look like this?










Philip


----------



## GrandFenwick

You photo isn't appearing for me. :/


----------



## 39416

I recommend people using the Automatic Targeting keep a sharp eye on what it is costing them. Most of the people (myself included) I know who used it, lost money on it.


----------



## GrandFenwick

I started two new ads this morning, both similar, and my "automatic targeting" ad got approved first. Still awaiting approval on my manual targeting ad (which was already rejected once for text I've used before in other approved ads).


----------



## Amy Maroney

Hi Everyone,
I had a sponsored product ad running for about 5 months. It did really well at first and then slowed down quite a bit in the past few weeks. I terminated it and copied the keywords into a new sponsored product ad yesterday. The weird thing is how much more expensive the clicks are for the very same keywords. A keyword that cost me .19/click in the old ad is now twice as much. With the old ad, I was fine setting the bids fairly high because I was never charged nearly as much as I bid. Now I'm frantically combing through my 400 keywords lowering bids. Has anyone else experienced this?


----------



## Jena H

Amy Maroney said:


> Hi Everyone,
> I had a sponsored product ad running for about 5 months. It did really well at first and then slowed down quite a bit in the past few weeks. I terminated it and copied the keywords into a new sponsored product ad yesterday. The weird thing is how much more expensive the clicks are for the very same keywords. A keyword that cost me .19/click in the old ad is now twice as much. With the old ad, I was fine setting the bids fairly high because I was never charged nearly as much as I bid. Now I'm frantically combing through my 400 keywords lowering bids. Has anyone else experienced this?


I had a similar experience. After copying an ad that did well in December, I too had to lower bids on (or even pause) some keywords as I was 'racking up' more expenses than I'd expected... with very little to show for it.

I'd like to run another ad for this book over the Memorial Day holiday, but not sure now whether or how to do it.


----------



## Hasbeen

I'm back with some numbers on my AMS experiment. Been running for 6 days I've only gotten two sales but I think a lot of impressions. Would like opinions on how it's going I have no reference points to evaluate what I'm looking at. These numbers are from a bundle and one of books in the bundle as a stand alone. My keywords area mixture of those suggested by Amazon and my own chosen from author in the same genre and other genres with similar themes. 

Bundle  14,533 impressions, 11 clicks at .10 a click or 1.06 spent. 15.5 ACoS. one sale

Stand alone 6743 impressions 8 clicks at .11 a click  for a AcOS of 21.30

My sales and pages reads continue to be above what they were before my campaign. I use the graphs on my Self Publishing page I don't break it down into percentage. I have four running in the test with similar numbers but no sales. Any thoughts?


----------



## weigle1234

My 4-month venture of running Kindle ads has been mostly positive, nothing to brag about, but with generally better results than I expected.  My ads (a dozen or so) have been Sponsored Products, with Automatic Targeting.  I tested only one Product Display ad, with poor results (high cost/click - no orders) - and now paused.

So far, my experiences and observations are that Kindle ads have a short life-span; that is, their effectiveness quickly diminishes after about two months.  The only way I can see for possibly overcoming that is by constantly varying just about everything - product description, sub-titles, ad body (highly censored by Kindle, so probably plays a minor role), covers, etc. - each factor being very time consuming.

It’s a given that the only way to perfect any form of advertising is through split-run testing (I think it’s referred to as A/B testing on most forums).  However, since our audience is basically anonymous, A/B testing may yield little meaningful information.  Each ad variation would have to be run concurrently and, with ad overlapping, lots of luck in trying to make sense of the results.  Any ideas in that regard will be appreciated.

Per input from our Cafe, I decided to submit my very first Sponsored Products, Manual Targeting ad (for my VapoKarb manual) a couple days ago.  So far, the goofy thing seems to have caught fire - like 15,000 impressions so far.  Only 8 clicks, no orders - far too early to draw any conclusions.  Problem us, I think I made a major boo-boo.  I decided to add a few of my own keywords in addition to those recommended by Kindle - one of those being the keyword BOOK - which now accounts for about 8,000 of those impressions, and 6 of the 8 clicks.  (BOOK is probably much too broad - but who knows? - life can be full of surprises.)

I also entered about 75 author names (related to my categories) - only 1 or 2 impressions (no clicks) on each of only two names.  That’s my sad story - have a fun weekend!


----------



## Gertie Kindle

From 10:19 a.m. (ad creation) to 3:51 a.m. (ad approval). 18 impressions so far, no clicks. That's okay. I'm patient.


----------



## weigle1234

Problems (complaints) relating to diminishing AMS ad effectiveness crops up quite often here. But, I believe that is the nature of the beast with all forms of advertising. New ads attract the most attention, curiosity being the primary factor.  Over time, ad effectiveness will gradually decline, but should eventually stabilize.  After that, ads have to carry their own weight to survive.  Unfortunately, the stabilizing level for most ad effectiveness will eventually end up being close to ZERO!

Supposedly (from what I can gather from Amazon forums) an impression has to be viewed an average of 8 times before a click results - which may well be true.

I started out in the mail order business many years ago running classified ads, which were very productive.  Now they are a total bust, probably not even 20% as effective as they once were.  Over a period of at least 10 years I would occasionally run test ads, always with the same results - a steady year-to-year decline in effectiveness.  From what I can gather from some Kindle Old-Timers, the same may be happening here - I certainly hope not.

All ad agencies (whether newspapers, tv, radio, whatever) try desperately to sell ad space (time) in blocks of multiple appearances - at steeply discounted rates.  They go all out trying to convince folks that ads yield their best results only after several appearances - which is TOTAL B.S.!  With rare exception, the very first ad produces the best results.  After that, ad results steadily decline for the first 4 to 5 appearances, usually stabilizing after that.  

I have no reason to think that we within the eBook realm should expect anything different.  The question being, what best to do about it? There are hundreds of hucksters out there only too happy to charge us for the privilege of learning how to get rich in this, or any other, business.  My advice, for what it may be worth, is to keep a tight grip on your money. Seeking help from forums such as this is the best way to go - these are the folks with the inside knowledge.


----------



## Eugene Kirk

AMS noob here.

I've only got 2 books out so I doing have a lot of recovery when it comes to Ads. I can only maybe come up with 40 or so keywords that target authors and books I think might have readers who will like my book. How do you guys end up with hundred and even thousands of keywords? Are you just targeting everything and anything and seeing what sticks? Also, how do you even enter that many? 

I would think you would want less more targeted keywords no? Or am I missing something?


----------



## 39416

Eugene Kirk said:


> Also, how do you even enter that many?


Make a list in Word, then copy/paste it in the keyword box.


----------



## Harald

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> From 10:19 a.m. (ad creation) to 3:51 a.m. (ad approval). 18 impressions so far, no clicks. That's okay. I'm patient.


17+ hours? If so, close to my 14 hrs.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Harald said:


> 17+ hours? If so, close to my 14 hrs.


Don't look back. I'm right behind you, Harald!!


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Eugene Kirk said:


> AMS noob here.
> 
> I've only got 2 books out so I doing have a lot of recovery when it comes to Ads. I can only maybe come up with 40 or so keywords that target authors and books I think might have readers who will like my book. How do you guys end up with hundred and even thousands of keywords? Are you just targeting everything and anything and seeing what sticks? Also, how do you even enter that many?
> 
> I would think you would want less more targeted keywords no? Or am I missing something?


I assume you've gone through your also bots and used all those names. If there are any sponsored ads on your product pages, use those, too. Then, don't forget all the sub genres those books are under. You did use Amazon's suggested words, right? You can even go to the pages of those also-bought books and use their also-boughts. Takes a little time at first, but you have to have a lot of keywords at first. You never know what's going to hit.


----------



## Philip Gibson

Eugene Kirk said:


> How do you guys end up with hundred and even thousands of keywords?


Best way is to use the method above.

But if you want to quickly and easily get hundreds of keywords, you can use this free tool. You can just copy and paste in all the suggested keywords. It usually provides several hundred for me.

Amazon Keyword Research Tool: http://keywordtool.io/amazon

Philip


----------



## GrandFenwick

My CTR on my automatic targeting ad is less than half that of my manual targeting ad but I'll give it a few 1000 more impressions before stopping.

On the upside, the Zon approved the ad super fast. #suspicious


----------



## Eugene Kirk

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I assume you've gone through your also bots and used all those names. If there are any sponsored ads on your product pages, use those, too. Then, don't forget all the sub genres those books are under. You did use Amazon's suggested words, right? You can even go to the pages of those also-bought books and use their also-boughts. Takes a little time at first, but you have to have a lot of keywords at first. You never know what's going to hit.


No I had not! This makes sense. Thanks ^^


----------



## alexabooks

Well, the automated ads are a disappointment so far, but I'll let them be, since they're not costing me anything. Just a couple hundred imps.
Another disappointment is how the new ads I made (same kwds, new ad copy) are trailing behind the old ones, not nearly as fast. With the old ones slowing down and not generating enough clicks, I honestly don't know what to do. I had better results when I just started two weeks ago. There's no logic. I might just terminate the old ads (don't like the old ad copy anymore), make a bunch of copies, remove some kwds at random so they're all a bit different, and let them be so I don't have to look at them every day and get frustrated


----------



## Eugene Kirk

Ok, last noob question. Price per clicks. Do you guys leave them at the default? Jack them up for more impressions on hot titles?(I'm assuming this is how they work... i.e. the more you bid the closer you ad will come to being on the first page). Or do you set them all low ball like $0.10 and then just wait for something to bite?


----------



## Jena H

A few weeks ago I ran an ad for one of my first-in-series freebies.  It ended up costing me more than I'd have liked, but in the past few days I've seen an uptick in sales of the rest of the series.  I choose to think of it as sell-through from the freebies.  *knocks wood that I haven't just jinxed it*


----------



## C.A. Huggins

Can you change the ad copy for an ad that's already running or do you have to start an entirely new ad?


----------



## Jacob Stanley

Eugene Kirk said:


> Ok, last noob question. Price per clicks. Do you guys leave them at the default? Jack them up for more impressions on hot titles?(I'm assuming this is how they work... i.e. the more you bid the closer you ad will come to being on the first page). Or do you set them all low ball like $0.10 and then just wait for something to bite?


At this point I treat each keyword differently depending on my past history with it. I sometimes raise the price on the ones that I feel are the most likely to generate sales/reads, but only to an extent. You can get in a situation where raising bids gives you diminishing returns (I'm planning to lower some bids today for that very reason) so you just have to watch everything pretty close.

With new, untested keywords, I usually start them at a price that is close to the default, but sometimes I'll make a judgement call up-front and raise or lower... Like, if its an author name, and I know the author is massively popular, I might bid higher right out of the gate, or if I know the author has a book with a really high rank because of a promotion.



C.A. Huggins said:


> Can you change the ad copy for an ad that's already running or do you have to start an entirely new ad?


You have to start a new ad, unfortunately.


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

I recently restarted one ad (cozy mystery) with a few new kws and the same low $2/day, $0.21 max per click bid as previously.  For some reason, it's now getting more impressions and clicks, though not many sales. But this is the first time I've seen "sales" for kw where I have no clicks.  

Since the ad is ticking steadily at an APC of $0.13 and (probably) with borrows breaking even, I'm letting it run and looking at how to redo a couple of ads for my romances that I stopped because APC was just too high. I live in hope. (or is that self-delusion?) It may be that romance is just too expensive and too crowded now (I recently saw one book where sponsored ads were five to a page and 128 pages!).


----------



## Decon

weigle1234 said:


> Problems (complaints) relating to diminishing AMS ad effectiveness crops up quite often here. But, I believe that is the nature of the beast with all forms of advertising. New ads attract the most attention, curiosity being the primary factor. Over time, ad effectiveness will gradually decline, but should eventually stabilize. After that, ads have to carry their own weight to survive. Unfortunately, the stabilizing level for most ad effectiveness will eventually end up being close to ZERO!
> 
> Supposedly (from what I can gather from Amazon forums) an impression has to be viewed an average of 8 times before a click results - which may well be true.
> 
> I started out in the mail order business many years ago running classified ads, which were very productive. Now they are a total bust, probably not even 20% as effective as they once were. Over a period of at least 10 years I would occasionally run test ads, always with the same results - a steady year-to-year decline in effectiveness. From what I can gather from some Kindle Old-Timers, the same may be happening here - I certainly hope not.
> 
> All ad agencies (whether newspapers, tv, radio, whatever) try desperately to sell ad space (time) in blocks of multiple appearances - at steeply discounted rates. They go all out trying to convince folks that ads yield their best results only after several appearances - which is TOTAL B.S.! With rare exception, the very first ad produces the best results. After that, ad results steadily decline for the first 4 to 5 appearances, usually stabilizing after that.
> 
> I have no reason to think that we within the eBook realm should expect anything different. The question being, what best to do about it? There are hundreds of hucksters out there only too happy to charge us for the privilege of learning how to get rich in this, or any other, business. My advice, for what it may be worth, is to keep a tight grip on your money. Seeking help from forums such as this is the best way to go - these are the folks with the inside knowledge.


Just my two pennyworth. Advertising effectiveness is a complex subject and one that has been disrupted with the introduction of the internet and apps for seeking out products, news articles, and services, which has caused newspaper circulations to decline and to lessen the effectiveness of that type of ad when it comes to making a return.

We have to work with what we have. The nearest to the old form of classified ads that I can place it with is say, car sales magazines. Like AMS, what you do is to try and place your ad with the same makes and models so that the customer when flicking the pages are displayed something for which they have a particular interest. The larger the display, the more and the prominent it's placement is, it will draw your eye, and the more effective it is. That's why putting an ad on the front page, or an early right hand page of a newspaper or magazine costs more, because everyone starts from the front page.

Then next thing is how you display your content. It's no good displaying a car with a dent whatever the price reduction as few will be looking for a car with a dent in the wing. You could liken that to a bad eBook cover. The next is copy. You are looking to bring out the attributes that the readers expect. Immaculate inside and out, mileage, year, etc, and where to get it, usually a phone call and then usually the effort of a journey. With books, the blurb has to cover expectations for the genre and where to get it is covered by them clicking, and it's attributes of stars and reviews are like the mileage or service history. No journey involved, only with your fingers on the keyboard.

The biggest difference is that someone reading a car magazine is prepared to go through every page to find what they want as they are looking for something within a range of criteria, be it year, color, price, or whatever.

With AMS, I would ask why they are landing on that book's page in the first place where your ad is displayed and why they should go the extra miles to get to your book. I would assume they are landing on the page because it is their primary interest to discover more about the book and that they are more likely than not going there to purchase that book, hence it takes many impressions, maybe a 1,000 or so, to get to a click as the readers turn to browsing mode if they decide it's not for them.

If they choose not to buy that book, then they have the also boughts to look through, displayed with larger icons than AMS to grab attention. They are more than likely of the same type of read relating to genre in the customer's mind. There aren't just the 5 books displayed, they can scroll through many on the also bought carousel.

Then we have the AMS ads with small icons, which are third tier in the interest stakes if they don't find what they want. Obviously the ones seen first will be the first ones the readers explore for them to discover if the book could be of interest, hence the importance of bidding to get on the first page.

That's not to say you won't get clicks and sales further down the pecking order, but just think about the diminishing odds.

The biggest problem is the royalty margin in relation to ad costs, and as you say it takes 8 clicks to the sale on average, but that can vary wildly. My own vary from 10-20 clicks per sale. Unfortunately, indie eBooks are usually priced between $2.99 and say $4.99, so we only have $2 to $3.49 to play with when set against costs. 10 clicks at 20c on a book at $2.99 would not make a profit. 20 clicks at 20c and I'd make a $2 loss per sale.(Not counting page reads)

The next thing we have to contend with is that not every author is looking to make profit per sale, but are merely looking to gain rank, or to promote a new release, or say the first in a series. That's pretty much like a Brand ad for awareness in magazines, or say a lossleader that they don't expect to make a profit on, as it's set against a budget, usually out of healthy gross profits, or deep pockets, or to create sales from other product in their catalogue that will produce a profit, and so those out of the tens of thousands in AMS will set their bids high on a budget they are prepared to show losses on. You only need seven out of those to bid on the same keyword as you and they will wipe you off of the page.

As for the lessening of effectiveness over time, that is to be expected, hence the need to tweak things and to develop new product, which is fundimental to any business, even if it's ony advertising the brand product as a newer, bigger, brighter version of the old soap powder. I guess that's akin to redesigning your cover and changing your blurb. Some publishers even change the title to reflect trends as they did when Dan Brown had his hit and publishers changed tired out of print books to having titles with "Code" included and republished them. The main reason I think for the slowdown anyone experiences in AMS is that there are more participants now.

What makes it worse is that we don't know the page reads attributed to AMS, when considering effectiveness. We all play up the additional reads, and no doubt AMS does assist, but they can have their own impetus with other factors. Unfortunately that can suck us in to thinking that they are more effective than they are.

Not sure if any of this helps those new to AMS for what is a tough ad media to get a handle on.


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

LilyBLily said:


> I've been thinking the same, but because I'm getting these amazing page read results, I want to keep riding the train. You spend a lot on ads regularly. The AMS ads are different from the one shot ads people buy for launches. *Do you find it is profitable to keep running these ads day in and day out?* Launch ads are done under the assumption that once a book gets noticed, its audience will keep it afloat and move it upward without any substantial further effort by the author. I'm not confident that if I pause all my ads, my sales and reads will continue at their present rate.


Don't know about long-term run profitability. I admit, I only started with ads this year so don't have much experience or data to draw on. I'd already moved several books up in sales and borrows with some juggling between free days and a little bit of ad promo and they were holding pretty steady (for me, anyway--at least I wasn't getting whiplash looking at a sales graph  ).

My next step was the ams ads, and I thought (hoped) I saw a tiny bit of uptick and a bit of profitability with my first ads, but I couldn't prove it since sales alone weren't paying for the ads but the borrows were still hanging in there or bumping up a bit. But then I got caught in the trap of trying to "improve" results by madly adding kws and raising bids when impressions/clicks slowed on new or older but previously effective kws...and that definitely sent the ads into the loss category, sometimes badly. So I backed out for a while and did some more thinking about all this (I am NOT a marketer and have no smarts in that direction at all, so thinking about it brings beads of blood to my forehead  ), and decided I'd decrease the bids a bit and run it a little longer and and NOT tinker unless everything's going south fast. I've set a small budget and a 30-day run and I'm going to stick it out to see what happens.


----------



## GrandFenwick

The second ad I started with automatic targeting has gotten zero impressions in a couple days. That's the first time that's ever happened to me, and I've run over a dozen ads.


----------



## A past poster

Decon said:


> The biggest problem is the royalty margin in relation to ad costs, and as you say it takes 8 clicks to the sale on average, but that can vary wildly. My own vary from 10-20 clicks per sale. Unfortunately, indie eBooks are usually priced between $2.99 and say $4.99, so we only have $2 to $3.49 to play with when set against costs. 10 clicks at 20c on a book at $2.99 would not make a profit. 20 clicks at 20c and I'd make a $2 loss per sale.(Not counting page reads)
> 
> The next thing we have to contend with is that not every author is looking to make profit per sale, but are merely looking to gain rank, or to promote a new release, or say the first in a series. That's pretty much like a Brand ad for awareness in magazines, or say a lossleader that they don't expect to make a profit on, as it's set against a budget, usually out of healthy gross profits, or deep pockets, or to create sales from other product in their catalogue that will produce a profit, and so those out of the tens of thousands in AMS will set their bids high on a budget they are prepared to show losses on. You only need seven out of those to bid on the same keyword as you and they will wipe you off of the page.


The bidding over effective keywords for one of my books has become fierce, and it's becoming fierce for another. I'm watching the average bid--20 cents--continue to rise. One of the bids for a keyword for that book was 34 cents--ouch! If the ACoS for a keyword goes above 50%, I pause it. It has become increasingly important to watch the cost of bids.

What puzzles me is that some of the books that are on the first pages of the carousels aren't remotely related to the genre of my book or the books that I'm using as keywords. Eventually these deep pockets will make it necessary for me to pause my ad. It doesn't make sense to me to continue an ad that has an ACoS above 50%. I don't see a solution to this unless Amazon starts distinguishing women's fiction from thrillers from billionaire romances, and I don't see any sign of that happening.


----------



## Christopher Bunn

I just tried an experiment that seemed logical. But, no...

I ran a dozen sponsored keyword ads where each ad focused on one writer in my sub-genre (epic fantasy) ranked at least 15,000 and below, with most concentrated in the 1,000-10,000 range. Each ad just had the writer's name, plus his or her book titles. I tinkered with the bids until I got my book on the 1st or 2nd page of the sponsored ads for all of them. Problem is, I had to go up around 75 cents for most of them. Pretty difficult to make a profit at that rate.

Over 8 days, I averaged 1 click per 545 impressions (12,000 impressions and 22 clicks). Zero sales and zero page reads.

Maybe the time period isn't long enough? I dunno.

Or, of course, the cover blows, the copy blows, the book blows. Those are always possibilities.


----------



## weigle1234

Any business must advertise to survive. An ad may be simple, even indirect; such as a coffee shop maintaining an attractive store front.  Or, massive; such as multi-million-dollar TV sports channel ad campaigns by beer brewers.

I am a big proponent of using the split-run (A/B) technique for both advertising and sales literature - simply because I know how effective it.  It is the ONLY way to perfect written copy. I have used A/B almost from Day-One in my mail order businesses.  I have seen hundreds of instances where changing just a single word (especially in a headline) can easily bring in an additional $50 - $100 each month.  If you are lucky enough to have a long-running book, you can be looking at serious money.  My best-selling manual via mail order had a strong 15 - 16 year run until the mail order industry started going bust about 5 or 6 years ago (at least for us little guys).  Work out the math - based on even $25 extra/month for 15 years, we are talking an extra $4,500 to take to the bank - nothing to sneeze at for changing just a single word!  That same manual is also my best seller via Kindle, but after only 4 months all I am looking at is Chump Change.

That’s why I am searching for ideas on how to maximize A/B testing via Kindle.  It will be impossible to perfect A/B testing (or even come close to perfecting it) since our hands are tied.  Our audience is anonymous (other than being able to choose Categories) and we have no effective way of differentiating between A/B ad responses (or do we?).  I feel the best starting point is to test changes in the Description - especially the first few lines.  The effectiveness of the ad Body itself will always be restricted because it is highly censored by Kindle (150 character limit, no exclamation points, no bolding, italics only, etc.).

Making the actual ad changes is relatively simple - the difficult part is coming up with the mechanics involved in making the A/B ad technique work (work at least to some extent).  There is always a solution to any problem - if we look hard enough.  I hope to come up with a few ideas.  In the meantime, enjoy the weekend!


----------



## weigle1234

Here is something that may be worth considering.  It saved me lots of ad money in the mail order business - and I see no reason why it will not work for Kindle ads.

My monthly mail order ads always pulled strongest during the winter months (folks are indoors - bored, with lots of time to read).  As one would expect, the opposite was true (weaker response) during summer months.  These factors basically applied to all ads, in all magazines.  Also, to my mailings to mailing lists.

So, during summer months, I simply placed ads only every-other-month.  Obviously that cut my summertime ad costs in half.  However, my overall response level still averaged close to 80% as high as when the ads ran full-time.  There were occasional exceptions.  A few magazine ads pulled so strongly at all times that even during the weakest summer months they still performed at high levels.

For starters, I am going to run one of my Kindle ads for 2 weeks (for example) and then Pause it for 2 weeks.  Then, Enable the ad - and keep repeating the Pause/Enable cycles until I, hopefully, learn something meaningful.  It would not surprise me if this same technique might work during all seasons of the year - something to think about?


----------



## weigle1234

One Kindle ad factor that really puzzles me is the Cost-per-Click.  I expected it to continually swing up and down, through fairly wide ranges, but just the opposite has happened with my ads.  It (my average 10-cents per click) has basically nailed itself at varying either up or down by only 1-cent, week after week.  Such long-term consistency seems a bit weird.  This is with all ads, not just one.  Is this typical?


----------



## weigle1234

Dang! - The complexity of all the factors involved in trying to analyze (that is, make any sense whatsoever) of this Kindle ads thing could drive a person batty, even lead to paranoia.  Is somebody messing with us?  Does Kindle have an in-house psychiatrist at our disposal?

A few days ago I temporarily Paused about half my Kindle ads, just to see what happens (if Anything).  Well, now the Anything may be happening - my paperback sales have suddenly picked up again - and that’s where the money is compared to Kindle sales.  So what should I do next (if Anything?).


----------



## 39416

I've been experimenting with AMS ads for a few months and I understand why people have concluded "it's all random." I don't think it's random, I think it's mostly governed by Amazon's own algorithm and that algorithm does what's best for Amazon, trumping any machinations we authors might attempt. So I think in the long run we authors can only try different things and see what, if anything, works, even though it may not make sense to _us._ And knowing it can change at any time.


----------



## Accord64

loraininflorida said:


> I've been experimenting with AMS ads for a few months and I understand why people have concluded "it's all random." I don't think it's random, I think it's mostly governed by Amazon's own algorithm and that algorithm does what's best for Amazon, trumping any machinations we authors might attempt. So I think in the long run we authors can only try different things and see what, if anything, works, even though it may not make sense to _us._ And knowing it can change at any time.


THIS.

I came to the same conclusion. We try all sorts of strategies, and variations, and while some might work (for a while), it's all about the algorithm. There's a nebulous performance benchmark that the algorithm is measuring against, and Amazon has stated that they won't ever tell us how it works. It's like _the one ring that rules them all_.

I think this fosters an adversarial marketing climate, as sharing information on what AMS strategy is working only hastens the demise of that strategy (as more and more try to exploit it). I know this is very much against what this topic (and forum) is about, but I have to reluctantly conclude that if something is working for you, it's probably best to keep it to yourself. Ride the wave as far as you can before the algorithm again shifts the playing field.


----------



## 39416

That's what happened to me often, and I was surprised by how closely Amazon hit it right on the nose. Amazon would take all the royalty money, but leave me making enough from the page reads that I would continue the ads. It made me wonder about how authors NOT in KU did.


----------



## weigle1234

When it comes to Kindle ads - at the end of the day the only thing that really matters is Ad Efficiency.  All we have to do is check our “Advertising Campaigns” chart.  If the “ACoS” entry is above 70% we are loosing money.  My suggestion of Pausing, then Enabling ads during summer months will bear fruit only if it causes the “ACoS” factor to start falling below its previous levels.  Running lots of ads full-time, producing lots of Clicks, may feel good; but means nothing unless actual sales result.

As I see it, a big problem may be relying on the “Est. Total Sales” factor of the chart.  That entry is showing zilch for some of my ads which have definitely produced sales (at least according to my “Month-to-Date Unit Sales” chart).  Of course “Est.” does mean “Estimated.”  If the “Est.” factor is totally out-of-whack, so also will be the “ACoS” factor.  I am aware that some Kindle data is slow to update, but our “Month-to-Date Unit Sales” charts can go back at least 2 months  - those should be pretty accurate.

The idea that the Kindle Algorithm may be random is ridiculous.  At the end of each month (or year) any successful business, especially a multi-billion-dollar business such as Amazon, knows exactly where each and every penny has been spent.  Obviously, Kindle themselves developed each and every factor involved in their Algorithm (probably dozens of factors) - and knows exactly how to keep manipulating (updating) them to maximize profits at any given point in time.

I find these forums to be fascinating - lots of great thoughts and ideas being bantered about.  But, at the same time, I sense the frustration lots of folks are feeling - it is a tough way to turn a buck.  Some folks out there are making the really BIG BUCKS, and are not likely to reveal their SECRETS on this, or any other forum.  While it may not be too smart for anyone to reveal specific dollar figures here, trading general ideas and techniques should not be a hindrance.

Forum participants are probably only a very small percentage of the entire Kindle family.  The few BIG MONEY Kindle guys and gals are off doing their own thing, and could care less whether we even exist.  The remaining vast majority, even if they did care, would never take the time, effort, or risk the money required to put any forum ideas into practice.  True entrepreneurs are a rare breed - that is why so many of them are fabulously wealthy.


----------



## Lu Kudzoza

Christopher Bunn said:


> I just tried an experiment that seemed logical. But, no...
> 
> I ran a dozen sponsored keyword ads where each ad focused on one writer in my sub-genre (epic fantasy) ranked at least 15,000 and below, with most concentrated in the 1,000-10,000 range. Each ad just had the writer's name, plus his or her book titles. I tinkered with the bids until I got my book on the 1st or 2nd page of the sponsored ads for all of them. Problem is, I had to go up around 75 cents for most of them. Pretty difficult to make a profit at that rate.
> 
> Over 8 days, I averaged 1 click per 545 impressions (12,000 impressions and 22 clicks). Zero sales and zero page reads.
> 
> Maybe the time period isn't long enough? I dunno.
> 
> Or, of course, the cover blows, the copy blows, the book blows. Those are always possibilities.


Great info. Thanks


----------



## novelist11

One reason maybe there are such high bids is because of all these authors that are getting these $100 in free clicks.


----------



## Decon

I guess there is seasonality, but to go from over $600 in December, $300 in January which I expected it to slow down, but then to gradually reduce to currently $16 in May with page reads rolling along the bottom of the graph and no paper book sales, when I have all six books (excluding Survival Instinct) in AMS, is a big stretch. I'm just not getting the impressions needed and it's not over what I would consider low bids, or lack of keywords. At a guess, the average per click paid is around 8c to date.

I've run my ads since around August last year, so I have plenty of Data.

Time to go back to paid promos me thinks, or to jack up my prices and bid considerably higher. One thing is for sure, I have a completed book I've just finished and uploaded on Wattpad and I might as well leave it there until I can get a handle on how to market it. It's not worth paying for editing with the way things are just now.


----------



## weigle1234

For what it may be worth, here is my Thought-for-the-Day.  (My son and I will soon be running out for a beer or two, or three, or ………….)  That may inspire another random thought.

A lot of effort seems to go into getting sponsored ads placed on the first page of the carousel.  Since most folks are just browsing, they seldom even glance at the carousel.  But, if they are a SERIOUS buyer, they may decide to check it out.  If they are a REALLY SERIOUS buyer they may even decide to start scrolling into the carousel.  Now, if your ad eventually catches their eye and they Click on it - you REALLY have a live one!  To my way of thinking, the further they scroll into the carousel before Clicking on YOUR ad, the more likely they are to buy from YOU.

It is what I like to think of as Ad Efficiency - less Clicks, less money spent, but more buyers.


----------



## Jena H

Jena H said:


> A few weeks ago I ran an ad for one of my first-in-series freebies. It ended up costing me more than I'd have liked, but in the past few days I've seen an uptick in sales of the rest of the series. I choose to think of it as sell-through from the freebies. **knocks wood that I haven't just jinxed it**


  Crap.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

I can't believe what just happened. I restarted an ad that I'd paused maybe 10 days ago. It had stalled with few impressions, no clicks or sales. I started it up again this morning and got two sales this afternoon. But here's the odd part. My $10 daily budget has been spent. Even odder, I have 30 keywords getting clicks. Has Amazon finally decided to take our money?


----------



## Gertie Kindle

BVLawson said:


> Amazon has most definitely decided to take our money! I remember when Mark Dawson said he was having a hard problem scaling up his ads because it seemed like Amazon just wouldn't spend his daily budget. Well ... things have certainly changed for me in that regard. I had four or five ads that maxed out their daily budgets very early in the day over the past week. I'm not sure how I feel about that, especially since once the ad has spent its budget for the day, you can't go in and add any more keywords or otherwise adjust it. So, I have to try and rush in there the next morning first thing to do this before it maxes out again. Also, it means the total ad spend is skyrocketing. Be careful what you wish for ...


I'll be tweaking my bids early tomorrow, too. My ACPC is ranging from 15c to 41c. Otherise, I'll leave the daily spend as-is for a few days and see how sales/page reads shake out.


----------



## Philip Gibson

In trying to establish some facts and best practices for using AMS ads, it seems that whenever I think I have established a fact, it later becomes only partly true or we could say "sometimes happens that way - sometimes doesn't." (Maybe Amazon enters a % true for each fact?)

I wonder what experiences others have had with the following and other potential facts/best practices:

1. AMS ads always start off better than they end up - after time, they fade and die.

2. When using identical keywords in different campaigns, the keywords do not bid against each other as long as the campaigns are from the same AMS account.

3. Increasing overall daily bid spends has no effect on an ad's performance.

4. Increasing bids on performing keywords sometimes increases impressions/clicks and sometimes doesn't.

5. It's a good idea to reduce/pause bids on keywords with more than 20 clicks and no sales.

6. Product Display ads are not effective.

7. Automatic Targeting ads sometimes perform better than Manual Targeting ads. Sometimes don't.

8. Automatic Targeting works better for non-fiction than fiction.

9. Running many cheap (say $1) identical ads produces more total impressions/clicks than a single (say $10) expensive ad.

10. A/B split testing for ad copy, etc. needs to be done sequentially.  It can not be done concurrently.

11. Raising bids in small increments is more effective than making large increases.


Evaluations of most of those (and many more) statements would seem to be along the lines of:

a) True
b) May be true
c) May not be true
d) Not true
e) No idea

How would you rate them?


Philip


----------



## Trina Lee

My daily budget has been reached early on in the day the past two days as well. I'll also be doing some tweaking.


----------



## RD

I'm at 140 clicks now but showing zero sales lol. Page reads are still making the bacon though.


----------



## Jacob Stanley

Philip Gibson said:


> In trying to establish some facts and best practices for using AMS ads, it seems that whenever I think I have established a fact, it later becomes only partly true or we could say "sometimes happens that way - sometimes doesn't." (Maybe Amazon enters a % true for each fact?)
> 
> I wonder what experiences others have had with the following and other potential facts/best practices:
> 
> 1. AMS ads always start off better than they end up - after time, they fade and die. = A
> 
> 2. When using identical keywords in different campaigns, the keywords do not bid against each other as long as the campaigns are from the same AMS account. = E
> 
> 3. Increasing overall daily bid spends has no effect on an ad's performance. = A
> 
> 4. Increasing bids on performing keywords sometimes increases impressions/clicks and sometimes doesn't. = B
> 
> 5. It's a good idea to reduce/pause bids on keywords with more than 20 clicks and no sales. = C
> 
> 6. Product Display ads are not effective. = E
> 
> 7. Automatic Targeting ads sometimes perform better than Manual Targeting ads. Sometimes don't. = E
> 
> 8. Automatic Targeting works better for non-fiction than fiction. = E
> 
> 9. Running many cheap (say $1) identical ads produces more total impressions/clicks than a single (say $10) expensive ad. = C
> 
> 10. A/B split testing for ad copy, etc. needs to be done sequentially. It can not be done concurrently. = A
> 
> 11. Raising bids in small increments is more effective than making large increases. = B
> 
> Evaluations of most of those (and many more) statements would seem to be along the lines of:
> 
> a) True
> b) May be true
> c) May not be true
> d) Not true
> e) No idea
> 
> How would you rate them?
> 
> Philip


Answers above... Mostly agree, and where I disagree, it's mostly things I'm very unsure about.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Mostly agree, Phillip. At least for today and maybe even tomorrow.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

BVLawson said:


> An update on the whole Amazon not wanting/wanting to take our money theme - 6 of my 8 current ads maxed out their budgets today, a first. Do monitor those carefully, as total spends can add up fast that way.


Yes especially if you have a lot of ads.

I'm not going to be running more than 2-3 ads at a time. I just restarted one and it's doing very well. I'm going to stop another one that hasn't had any clicks in two days. I'll give it one more day and then pause it for 7-10 days.


----------



## Trina Lee

Sorry if this is a dumb question but I'm still somewhat new to AMS. I just logged into my account and everything in my ads is back to 0. My impressions, clicks, amount spent. All 0. I was just at 40,000 impressions a few hours ago. My keywords and bid amounts are still there but that's all. Kind of concerned here. Is this normal? It doesn't feel normal.


----------



## A past poster

BVLawson said:


> An update on the whole Amazon not wanting/wanting to take our money theme - 6 of my 8 current ads maxed out their budgets today, a first. Do monitor those carefully, as total spends can add up fast that way.


After reading your post, I just went to check on my ads. Aside from the bids on my keywords, there is NO DATA AT ALL. I have no idea of how many clicks there were, the actual price of the clicks, etc. According to my KDP Dashboard, there have been sales. And the ads are still running.


----------



## Jacob Stanley

Marian said:


> After reading your post, I just went to check on my ads. Aside from the bids on my keywords, there is NO DATA AT ALL. I have no idea of how many clicks there were, the actual price of the clicks, etc. According to my KDP Dashboard, there have been sales. And the ads are still running.





Trina M. Lee said:


> Sorry if this is a dumb question but I'm still somewhat new to AMS. I just logged into my account and everything in my ads is back to 0. My impressions, clicks, amount spent. All 0. I was just at 40,000 impressions a few hours ago. My keywords and bid amounts are still there but that's all. Kind of concerned here. Is this normal? It doesn't feel normal.


Same for me. All zeros. Probably a temporary technical issue and nothing serious to worry about.


----------



## Philip Gibson

Trina M. Lee said:


> Sorry if this is a dumb question but I'm still somewhat new to AMS. I just logged into my account and everything in my ads is back to 0. My impressions, clicks, amount spent. All 0. I was just at 40,000 impressions a few hours ago. My keywords and bid amounts are still there but that's all. Kind of concerned here. Is this normal? It doesn't feel normal.


It's not normal. Nor is what is going on in my AMS dashboard right now. It's currently displaying total numbers of impressions on my last two ads as exactly 10X what the impressions on the individual keywords add up to.

Philip


----------



## Trina Lee

Good to know it's not just me. Hopefully they sort it out soon.


----------



## 39416

well here's a new one, for me anyway. I started a campaign, it's been running several days, finally got one click for which I was charged $.14. Not unusual except I only bid $.06 and my keyword graph says it cost me $.05.


----------



## Jena H

I had planned on running an ad over the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. With this thread being over 30 pages, is there ANY particular sense of wisdom gleaned from all this as far as "best guesses" go? Sponsored Product vs. Product Display ads? For keywords, are 'general' genre-themed words most effective, more so than 'other-author name'?

I know this has all been crazy, with a lot of experiments and a lot of theories of what works best, not to mention what Amazon may or may not be doing, algorithm-wise.

How's an author supposed to know what to do? Fully realizing, of course, that what worked _last_ week might not work _this_ week. Gah!!


----------



## BillyDeCarlo

Question on how the ads work. The 'bid' is how much you are willing to pay to get the ad placed, versus other bidders, right? So that placement after you are the winning bidder could theoretically result in several sales. But then do you pay if someone clicks on the ad (cost per click?) also?

So for example, if you're launching at 99 cents, and getting a 35 cent profit, you have to be careful about not 'paying' more than what you are making, unless that's what you want to do out of desperation to get traction for a new book in the rankings and hopefully garner reviews.


----------



## Yup

LilyBLily said:


> You don't pay for the bid, only for the click. Which is actually weird, when you think about it. Amazon sorts us out by how much cash we flash, but it doesn't take the cash unless someone wins by getting a click.
> 
> Are we desperate when we launch, or are we merely following the standard advertising strategy customary in our society? Big hype before and for the first week, and then, well...


Hi. Been lurking in this thread for a while. From what I can gleam, the bid system is like buying stocks (not sure who here has experience in that). Your bid is what you are willing to pay, but you need to only beat all other competing bids in that particular moment to get the position. So if you bid ten cents, and the next highest bid is five cents, then you will get that position probably for 6 cents, which is why, if you get a click out of that one, Amazon will report the cost at 6c. Make sense?


----------



## Yup

I have been having a really confusing experience, for a change, with the ad system. It seems to me that sometimes an ad needs to start with a high bid in order to start getting impressions, and only then can I lower the bid methodically and eventually still get impressions and clicks at a lower cost. 

Presently, I have one ad running as an interest ad, the in the Parenting/Relationships category. I started it around 15c, got no impressions or clicks. I had to raise it and raise it until it was closer to 40c or so before it started to get action. Since then, I have been able to lower it all the way back to 9c and it still gets around two thousand impressions per day. 

Now, here's where it gets confusing. I started a new ad for another book, in the Nonfiction AND Parenting/Relationships categories. I started it at 15c. Nothing. Have made my way up to 31c. Still no impressions. But the other ad, which is also in the Parenting/Relationships category, is still getting consistent impressions and clicks. At 9c/click. How is that possible? Anybody want to venture a guess?


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Jena H said:


> I had planned on running an ad over the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. With this thread being over 30 pages, is there ANY particular sense of wisdom gleaned from all this as far as "best guesses" go? Sponsored Product vs. Product Display ads? For keywords, are 'general' genre-themed words most effective, more so than 'other-author name'?
> 
> I know this has all been crazy, with a lot of experiments and a lot of theories of what works best, not to mention what Amazon may or may not be doing, algorithm-wise.
> 
> How's an author supposed to know what to do? Fully realizing, of course, that what worked _last_ week might not work _this_ week. Gah!!


Sponsored Product, definitely.

If you're planning on running the ad for the holiday weekend, make sure you set it up at least a day before you want it to start. It takes several hours (and on rare occasion days) for Amazon to review and approve. They say 15 minutes but it has certainly never happened for me that fast.

Think about the holiday. What do you want to be doing on a three day weekend off from work? Are you going to be browsing for books or are you going to the beach, or maybe having a cookout or some other holiday related activity that gets you out of the house and away from the computer?

Use Manual Targeting and throw in every keyword you can think of including Amazon recommended, genre, authors and book titles. Then think up even more genre related keywords, e.g., second chances, beach read, spine-tingling, sweet romance, hot and steamy, cozy mystery, bone chilling, etc.

Amazon will also tell you that it may take a few days to start getting impressions and clicks.

Good luck.


----------



## Jena H

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Sponsored Product, definitely.
> 
> If you're planning on running the ad for the holiday weekend, make sure you set it up at least a day before you want it to start. It takes several hours (and on rare occasion days) for Amazon to review and approve. They say 15 minutes but it has certainly never happened for me that fast.
> 
> Think about the holiday. What do you want to be doing on a three day weekend off from work? Are you going to be browsing for books or are you going to the beach, or maybe having a cookout or some other holiday related activity that gets you out of the house and away from the computer?
> 
> Use Manual Targeting and throw in every keyword you can think of including Amazon recommended, genre, authors and book titles. Then think up even more genre related keywords, e.g., second chances, beach read, spine-tingling, sweet romance, hot and steamy, cozy mystery, bone chilling, etc.
> 
> Amazon will also tell you that it may take a few days to start getting impressions and clicks.
> 
> Good luck.


Funny, in my past two ads, the most effective keywords were quite generic: adventure, history, historical, tween, American revolution, etc. Author names and other series titles didn't get much action, if any. I'll still include them in my new ad, and I'm going to add new words targeting other big audiences as well. Casting a wider net, so to speak. Fingers crossed!


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Jena H said:


> Funny, in my past two ads, the most effective keywords were quite generic: adventure, history, historical, tween, American revolution, etc. Author names and other series titles didn't get much action, if any. I'll still include them in my new ad, and I'm going to add new words targeting other big audiences as well. Casting a wider net, so to speak. Fingers crossed!


Yes, the generic keywords used to do better for me, but now authors and book titles are doing as well. That's why you want to have a wide variety of keywords. You never know what's going to hit when.


----------



## weigle1234

Having a lazy streak, and having spent the past hour searching these postings for an answer to the following question, I will take the easy way out and just ask it anyway:

Since we are limited to 1,000 keyword entries, and long-tail-keywords count as a single entry, why not string two single word keywords together to form a single long-tail entry (thus allowing 2,000 keywords)?

Several months ago I spent quite a bit of time coming up with keywords and search terms for my paperback offerings.  Perhaps my reasoning is askew, but it seems those same keywords should also be relevant for my AMS ads.  At any rate, by copying and pasting I can up with 440 keywords in short order.  In reference to my first question, would it make sense to form 220 long-tail-keywords from those to double the allowable single-line entries?

How all this gibberish makes sense.


----------



## Silly Writer

weigle1234 said:


> Having a lazy streak, and having spent the past hour searching these postings for an answer to the following question, I will take the easy way out and just ask it anyway:
> 
> Since we are limited to 1,000 keyword entries, and long-tail-keywords count as a single entry, why not string two single word keywords together to form a single long-tail entry (thus allowing 2,000 keywords)?
> 
> Several months ago I spent quite a bit of time coming up with keywords and search terms for my paperback offerings. Perhaps my reasoning is askew, but it seems those same keywords should also be relevant for my AMS ads. At any rate, by copying and pasting I can up with 440 keywords in short order. In reference to my first question, would it make sense to form 220 long-tail-keywords from those to double the allowable single-line entries?
> 
> How all this gibberish makes sense.


Give one a whirl...

Go to Amazon and type in one of your long-tail-keywords and see what pops up. That's the best test you can do.


----------



## alexabooks

Michael Eli Vineberg said:


> I have been having a really confusing experience, for a change, with the ad system. It seems to me that sometimes an ad needs to start with a high bid in order to start getting impressions, and only then can I lower the bid methodically and eventually still get impressions and clicks at a lower cost.
> 
> Presently, I have one ad running as an interest ad, the in the Parenting/Relationships category. I started it around 15c, got no impressions or clicks. I had to raise it and raise it until it was closer to 40c or so before it started to get action. Since then, I have been able to lower it all the way back to 9c and it still gets around two thousand impressions per day.
> 
> Now, here's where it gets confusing. I started a new ad for another book, in the Nonfiction AND Parenting/Relationships categories. I started it at 15c. Nothing. Have made my way up to 31c. Still no impressions. But the other ad, which is also in the Parenting/Relationships category, is still getting consistent impressions and clicks. At 9c/click. How is that possible? Anybody want to venture a guess?


YES
Someone else noticed it! Thanks for sharing this 
I just upped my bids on a few of my ads for the same reason - had two similar ads, except one had 0.25 for all keywords, and the other only for 25 of them, and the former got 4 times more impressions after 24 hrs. Also, yeah, the first ads I made (at 0.25) picked up really fast, but the more I experimented (and lowered the bid, trying to be smart), the worse it was.

As for your question, no idea! Except for the ad's history somehow affecting it, and also, is the book price the same? I noticed that cheaper books get way more impressions.


----------



## Jena H

Jena H said:


> Funny, in my past two ads, the most effective keywords were quite generic: adventure, history, historical, tween, American revolution, etc. Author names and other series titles didn't get much action, if any. I'll still include them in my new ad, and I'm going to add new words targeting other big audiences as well. Casting a wider net, so to speak. Fingers crossed!


Well, it took 14 hours, but Amazon reviewed my ad. And rejected it.  Luckily I happened to be online when the email came in, so I immediately copied the ad and 'fixed' the things they objected to. Hopefully it won't take another 14 hours for review.

Lesson learned: ad rejected for these reasons:

- The ad contains inappropriate capitalization.
- The ad copy contains repetitive punctuation marks (for example, "!!!")

My text included the phrase "how did THAT happen?" Apparently the all-caps word is a no-no.
Also, I used two dashes: "ages 11-14--also available in paperback." I changed it to a comma... even though it's grammatically flawed.


----------



## Jena H

Jena H said:


> Well, it took 14 hours, but Amazon reviewed my ad. And rejected it.  Luckily I happened to be online when the email came in, so I immediately copied the ad and 'fixed' the things they objected to. Hopefully it won't take another 14 hours for review.
> 
> Lesson learned: ad rejected for these reasons:
> 
> - The ad contains inappropriate capitalization.
> - The ad copy contains repetitive punctuation marks (for example, "!!!")
> 
> My text included the phrase "how did THAT happen?" Apparently the all-caps word is a no-no.
> Also, I used two dashes: "ages 11-14--also available in paperback." I changed it to a comma... even though it's grammatically flawed.


WOW!! Fastest approval in history?? In only about 20 minutes I got my approval.


----------



## amdonehere

I've been running these ads since last summer. The longer I run them, the less I know what makes them work. I'm at the point where I've thrown all theories out the window, and am now just throwing in whatever just to see what sticks.

Seriously, there's no method to the madness. There's no logical theory to be deducted. What works, suddenly stops working. What works for one person, doesn't work for another. What works for one ad by the same person, create another ad with the same KWs and those KWs stop working. Books in directly related genre get no impression, but books in completely unrelated genres fill up the carousel.

I'm sure Amazon has an algorithm in there somewhere. A big data company like Zon doesn't just let things run without reason. But whatever it is, it simply isn't deductible by mortal minds.

So, after months of trying to work with the system, I'm really now just throwing things in to see what sticks.

My biggest worry is when I reach 1000 KWs. What then? Do I pause the non-working KWs in that campaign, keep running it with the KWs that work, and start a new campaign with brand new KWs? I'd have 2 ads for the same book running concurrently then. In the past it had been reported that having 2 campaign for the same book gives you lower impressions because the ads are competing with each other. But what's one to do when they limite KW count, and won't let you delete?

I don't know. I just don't know.


----------



## gljones

Yes I agree, AMS clearly has a mind of its own.  Stuff stops working that was working. Things that make no sense and shouldn't work, actually have success.
I've come to the conclusion that I have to keep shuffling things around, adding/pausing keywords, moving bids up and down, starting/stopping campaigns etc.. etc..

My ads do well then start to fade so I have to stay on top of it.  
My guess is the code that controls AMS is constantly adjusting itself based on the data, which of course is constantly changing. So it appears to us that AMS behavior is constantly changing.


----------



## Seneca42

Michael Eli Vineberg said:


> Hi. Been lurking in this thread for a while. From what I can gleam, the bid system is like buying stocks (not sure who here has experience in that). Your bid is what you are willing to pay, but you need to only beat all other competing bids in that particular moment to get the position. So if you bid ten cents, and the next highest bid is five cents, then you will get that position probably for 6 cents, which is why, if you get a click out of that one, Amazon will report the cost at 6c. Make sense?


In theory that's how AMS is supposed to work.

The problem is the carousel. Different spots on teh carousel, I believe, have different bid prices. So a page with a carousel with say 50 pages of ads, will cost different to be on page 1 of the carousel than on page 50.

Which then makes it nearly impossible to really assess what you should bid. 5c might get you on page 50, but $1 or more might be required to get on page 1.


----------



## AlexaGrave

I decided to try running an AMS ad earlier this month.

Right now the cruddy reporting has me pulling my hair out. I mean, if they can charge me for how many clicks I got, why can't they report it properly on my dashboard?

May 20 I was charged, but my dashboard didn't show that many clicks until today, but the total cost for those clicks is less than what they charged for me (and there's also been more pending charges in the payment history since Monday... so there's more clicks that aren't showing up at all, clearly past the 3 days it may take to show).

I feel like I'm being overcharged.   But hoping it's just the horrible reporting. But again, if they know how many clicks I've really gotten and know how much to charge me, how hard is it to actually keep the reporting dashboard updated

Ugh.

In other words, don't trust your dashboard... AT ALL.


----------



## alexabooks

AlexaKang said:


> I've been running these ads since last summer. The longer I run them, the less I know what makes them work. I'm at the point where I've thrown all theories out the window, and am now just throwing in whatever just to see what sticks.
> 
> Seriously, there's no method to the madness. There's no logical theory to be deducted. What works, suddenly stops working. What works for one person, doesn't work for another. What works for one ad by the same person, create another ad with the same KWs and those KWs stop working. Books in directly related genre get no impression, but books in completely unrelated genres fill up the carousel.
> 
> I'm sure Amazon has an algorithm in there somewhere. A big data company like Zon doesn't just let things run without reason. But whatever it is, it simply isn't deductible by mortal minds.


IKR it drives me mad! 

Also, the system is buggy as hell. I just found another bug (they still haven't fixed the one where ads showed without text, I even sent them a few authors whose books ALL showed without the ad copy, and they said they're working on it)
I noticed that my book 1 shows 1 less review and just 4 stars instead of 4.5 in an ad, while in Also bought it's accurate. What the hell, I personally don't even look at books with just 4 stars, but 4.5 is a different story!
So annoyed with this thing right now, honestly. How can I test different ad copies if I make a copy of an ad, and it suddenly doesn't get imps at all? I'm going to just set up two mega ads for my 2 books and let them be and remove the ams ads bookmark from my browser, because it's a waste of time to try to understand them.


----------



## Lorna_Reid

Just started my first campaign and have had no sales yet, just a lot of impressions on about three of my twenty or so keywords  Half the time the dashboard won't display anything for me to even see. I had to ditch Firefox and use Chrome to be able to see my dash to see just how poorly I was doing!


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

For the ad I restarted on May 16 with the intention of letting it run for a month without fiddling to see how it did....

At this point (end of day, May 25...or 9 days in), it's making money IF I add in borrows and other sales (this is for a $0.99 first in series, so just about impossible to pay for on sales alone).  It took three or four days to get going, then had been doing very well....until it slowed abruptly today.

The odd thing was, when I was poking on Amazon, I wasn't seeing ANY sponsored books on ANY page for ANY author I looked at. None. Don't know if it's me, a temporary glitch in the system that might explain the abrupt slowdown, or what.  Anybody see the same?


----------



## Gertie Kindle

My Dog's Servant said:


> For the ad I restarted on May 16 with the intention of letting it run for a month without fiddling to see how it did....
> 
> At this point (end of day, May 25...or 9 days in), it's making money IF I add in borrows and other sales (this is for a $0.99 first in series, so just about impossible to pay for on sales alone). It took three or four days to get going, then had been doing very well....until it slowed abruptly today.
> 
> The odd thing was, when I was poking on Amazon, I wasn't seeing ANY sponsored books on ANY page for ANY author I looked at. None. Don't know if it's me, a temporary glitch in the system that might explain the abrupt slowdown, or what. Anybody see the same?


I had two ads suddenly pick up, but that was clicks only. Nothing showing on my KDP dashboard yet.

The third ad has been going gangbusters since I re-enabled it on the 21st. Mostly clicks but seven sales and four full page reads. With 224 clicks, I'm bound to see a lot more page reads ... or at least I'm hoping so.


----------



## Yup

Seneca42 said:


> In theory that's how AMS is supposed to work.
> 
> The problem is the carousel. Different spots on teh carousel, I believe, have different bid prices. So a page with a carousel with say 50 pages of ads, will cost different to be on page 1 of the carousel than on page 50.
> 
> Which then makes it nearly impossible to really assess what you should bid. 5c might get you on page 50, but $1 or more might be required to get on page 1.


Yes, you are right. Has anybody figured out how the carousel and non-visible pages tie into impressions? Is it possible to get false impressions?


----------



## Jena H

BVLawson said:


> Just wondering what the consensus might be (if any) on the amount of time to run an ad - most of mine I've had running with no deadline until they seem to stop working and then I pause them or create new ads. This is usually about a few weeks to a month or so. But have you found shorter runs are more effective? Or longer? This has taken on a bit more urgency since Amazon has decided to max out my daily budgets all of a sudden - without any corresponding jump in sales. Pulling my hair out.


I'm quite sure I'm in the minority, but the ads I've run have all been for a maximum of 10 days, usually more like 6-7. For example my current ad went live yesterday (Thursday) and will run until the end of the month (Wednesday). I always run them to include a weekend, when most people likely have time to browse and shop for books.

But again, I'm probably the outlier; a lot of people here seem to run ads for weeks, if not months.


----------



## Eugene Kirk

What's considered a typical/good impression to click ratio for a given keyword?


----------



## Hasbeen

Ok I've been running my ads since the 13th of this month. I've got impressions for each champaign well into the five figures. Clicks are in the double digits for all of them. I'm averaging .10 a click.

But I only have 3 sales across all the campaigns. My sales and page reads went up the first week now they are slowly sliding downward.  

Are impressions (keeping your books in front of potential readers) a good enough reason to continue a campaign? Or should the measure of success be the sales you've gotten from the campaign be the real measure?


----------



## Harald

So I got click-bombed yesterday. I do an end-of-day check and saw that one keyword (an old title from famous same-genre author) had suddenly jumped from what should have been (based on earlier campaigns) ~600 Impressions to 15,000! And from probably ~3 clicks to 31! And no sales. And all overnight. So I immediately paused that keyword. All other keywords looked normal (and look normal today). Luckily, I have a $1 daily spend limit on this campaign and a minimum Bid on this specific keyword, so the damage was controlled. But it jumped up my aCoS. 

Anybody else notice something similar recently?


----------



## IreneP

Harald said:


> So I got click-bombed yesterday. I do an end-of-day check and saw that one keyword (a title from famous same-genre author) had suddenly jumped from what should have been (based on earlier campaigns) ~600 Impressions to 15,000! And from probably ~3 clicks to 31! And no sales. And all overnight. So I immediately paused that keyword. All other keywords looked normal (and look normal today). Luckily, I have a $1 daily spend limit on this campaign and a minimum Bid on this specific keyword, so the damage was controlled. But it jumped up my aCoS.
> 
> Anybody else notice something similar recently?


Just out of curiosity - did you check to see if they had a release or promo or something that could have resulted in more exposure? And your sales wouldn't show up for three days due to the normal lag...


----------



## Harald

IreneP said:


> SNIP... Just out of curiosity - did you check to see if they had a release or promo or something that could have resulted in more exposure? And your sales wouldn't show up for three days due to the normal lag...


Hmmm... to your first question, I can't see anything. That book was published in 1987, and googling around doesn't show any promo activity. BUT... I had forgotten to check my KDP dashboard (distracted with another issue), and sure enough, there's a sales jump on the same day (and resulting drop in Sales Rank). So yeah, I might see that reflected in the AMS sales in next day or two; we'll see.

But here's another curious thing: on that keyworded book, I'm NOT in the Sponsored carousel NOR in the Also Boughts. What would explain that? (other than that I'm looking now, 12 hours after I paused that keyword last night, but that wouldn't affect Also Boughts, unless they're also delayed; ADDED: and my book's Also Boughts do NOT show this 1987 book)


----------



## Harald

Hasbeen said:


> ... Are impressions (keeping your books in front of potential readers) a good enough reason to continue a campaign? Or should the measure of success be the sales you've gotten from the campaign be the real measure?


Well, AMS sales (with an ACoS at or under your royalty %) is the "pure" measure of campaign success, but there are the "soft" measures that only you can attach value to. Like sales bumps from KU borrows, increased reads (if in KU), and the general visibility you talk about. But I look at Clicks way more than Impressions. If you're getting clicks, you're at least connecting.


----------



## IreneP

Harald said:


> But here's another curious thing: on that keyworded book, I'm NOT in the Sponsored carousel NOR in the Also Boughts. What would explain that? (other than that I'm looking now, 12 hours after I paused that keyword last night, but that wouldn't affect Also Boughts, unless they're also delayed; ADDED: and my book's Also Boughts do NOT show this 1987 book)


Okay - so different people see different things in the carousel based on how they got there (for example through a search etc) - and don't forget that AMS keywords are "broad" - so just looking at that exact book probably doesn't give you the whole picture on who sees the ad based on that keyword. I think it's kinda cool when I see my book underneath other books, too - but I always remember that other people on that same page might see something different while people on completely different pages I know nothing about might also be seeing it and also that I might show higher or lower in the carousel throughout the day.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

I'm in the exact opposite corner. No clicks at all for three days over three ads. One book is showing a decent amount of page reads, at least.

No sales anywhere for any book over the last three days.


----------



## weigle1234

Harald said:


> Well, AMS sales (with an ACoS at or under your royalty %) is the "pure" measure of campaign success, but there are the "soft" measures that only you can attach value to. Like sales bumps from KU borrows, increased reads (if in KU), and the general visibility you talk about. But I look at Clicks way more than Impressions. If you're getting clicks, you're at least connecting.


Does AMS Kindle allow running two ads for the same book at the same time; if one ad is presented in Automatic mode and the other in Manual?

If that is allowed, them split-run (A/B) testing may be possible simply be pricing each book differently - by an insignificant amount, but enough to be detectable by monitoring the Sales Dashboard's eBook Royalty on the day of sale.


----------



## Harald

IreneP said:


> Okay - so different people see different things in the carousel based on how they got there (for example through a search etc) - and don't forget that AMS keywords are "broad" - so just looking at that exact book probably doesn't give you the whole picture on who sees the ad based on that keyword. I think it's kinda cool when I see my book underneath other books, too - but I always remember that other people on that same page might see something different while people on completely different pages I know nothing about might also be seeing it and also that I might show higher or lower in the carousel throughout the day.


Good points. At first, I thought for sure this was a scam since I have this author's name and his more recent and closer-to-home titles also in keywords, and those keywords are acting normally (and not great). But digging into this, I now see that this particular title in Kindle is an official "Amazon Best Seller" (orange banner) while the others are not. And this one has a REALLY low price currently: $1.99 vs. his other similar ebooks at ~$13.99 -- these are 1,000+ page books. AND, this book title (OK, it's "Sarum" by Edward Rutherfurd) is ranked #22 OVERALL in the Kindle store, and it's #1 in all the listed subcats. So it's undeniably really popular right now. And I'm linked to it, apparently, by AMS keyword. So I guess it's possible that my AMS ad is showing on this really popular book. And maybe I should not have paused it! But because my AMS dashboard is still showing 0 sales in last 24 hours, I just don't know. But if the sales suddenly appear, then this could be the reason. And when/if that happens, I'll be unpausing that keyword! (if I don't just do it now)


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Serum is one of my faves.


----------



## Harald

LilyBLily said:


> Sarum has been advertised on BookBub and possibly also on ENT this week. Can't remember if I saw it twice but I think so. Could be on other ad newsletters as well. That's the source of the traffic for that title, and for your clicks.


That's it! Thanks. Am re-enabling keyword now and hoping the sales lag on AMS will prove it a wise decision. On va voir, mes amis!


----------



## alexabooks

Dropping by to say that ad copy *matters*. I finally came up with what I think is a very good ad copy (compared to the previous ones), and now I'm getting more clicks with just 1 ad vs 10.
Don't be afraid to find that special thing about your book and shove it in customers' faces.
Now I'm content with just letting it be for a whie


----------



## BillyDeCarlo

Is there a place to get the current positioning/stats for a book in the Kindle and paperback for Amazon? On the book page you can see the positioning in a few categories, but not the overall position in the Kindle store and for the paperback.


----------



## alexabooks

BillyDeCarlo said:


> Is there a place to get the current positioning/stats for a book in the Kindle and paperback for Amazon? On the book page you can see the positioning in a few categories, but not the overall position in the Kindle store and for the paperback.


What do you mean you can't see it?
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #56,376 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)


----------



## BillyDeCarlo

alexabooks said:


> What do you mean you can't see it?
> Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #56,376 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)


Thanks, I guess I was meaning more like all versions - paperback, audio, kindle all in one page. Seems like Amazon is moving that way by consolidating paperback sales into the KDP dashboard, but that's just sales, I don't think it shows overall rank and other metrics.


----------



## alexabooks

BillyDeCarlo said:


> Thanks, I guess I was meaning more like all versions - paperback, audio, kindle all in one page. Seems like Amazon is moving that way by consolidating paperback sales into the KDP dashboard, but that's just sales, I don't think it shows overall rank and other metrics.


Oh. Well, I'm fine with checking Kindle and paperback separately. They've got enough issues to fix as it is.

By the way, they haven't replied to my last email, but the bug with different rating/reviews in also bots and ads has been fixed. (Which could explain me getting more clicks, but I don't think it would make a big difference.)


----------



## Jena H

My current ad has been running since Thursday.  Adding a bunch of new keywords ("widening the net") has been very successful, as the new keywords dominate the number of impressions.  These words also have most of the clicks, although that's not saying much, as the clicks column seems to be pretty anemic.  Based on the book's ranking, I know I've sold at least one paperback, which was my goal, but don't know if it's more than one.

So, time will tell if this ad is as successful this time as it has been in the past.  My fingers are crossed but I'm not expecting a whole lot.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Jena H said:


> My current ad has been running since Thursday. Adding a bunch of new keywords ("widening the net") has been very successful, as the new keywords dominate the number of impressions. These words also have most of the clicks, although that's not saying much, as the clicks column seems to be pretty anemic. Based on the book's ranking, I know I've sold at least one paperback, which was my goal, but don't know if it's more than one.
> 
> So, time will tell if this ad is as successful this time as it has been in the past. My fingers are crossed but I'm not expecting a whole lot.


I've added two clicks for three ads over the last three day. Anemic isn't the word for it.


----------



## GrandFenwick

My sister's ad for her health book has been running with strong numbers ever since August. She doesn't fuss with it much because why broke what's working? Anyhow here's a screenshot:


----------



## Harald

My last post on this: _"That's it! Thanks. Am re-enabling keyword now and hoping the sales lag on AMS will prove it a wise decision. On va voir, mes amis!"_

RE: my Click-Bomb update: AHA! Sure enough. There was no change in my AMS Sales this AM, but right after Noon EST (for U.S. store), 7 new sales suddenly appeared on the Campaign line. And with no change in the Spend and no more Clicks, I was pretty sure those sales were delayed reports from AMS (and they matched well the KDP Sales of two days ago). But, adding to the mystery, the actual "Sarum" keyword was still showing 0 Sales, and with no additional Sales showing beyond what I already had, that told me that the Keywords list metrics were also lagging (the Campaign metrics). And whaddya know: when I checked at the end of the night just a while ago, there were 6 new Sarum-keyword Sales and a new one from another keyword. And my CoS nicely dropped. So what I originally thought was a scam was really an unexpected benefit to a keyword I only added as a long shot. So you never can tell with these keywords -- when in doubt, add them!


----------



## novelist11

I noticed alot of my clicks occur after midnight. That seems odd to me. Has anyone else seen this happen to them?


----------



## Decon

GrandFenwick said:


> My sister's ad for her health book has been running with strong numbers ever since August. She doesn't fuss with it much because why broke what's working? Anyhow here's a screenshot:


Impressive.


----------



## Eugene Kirk

Looks like my question got lost in the shuffle so I'll ask it again. 

What sort or impression to click ratio is considered good?


----------



## GrandFenwick

I've had keywords that had a CTR of 14% but sold zero books and one keyword with a CTR of 0.02% that did sell books, so I'm not sure what the answer to that would be.


----------



## Harald

Eugene Kirk said:


> Looks like my question got lost in the shuffle so I'll ask it again.
> What sort or impression to click ratio is considered good?


For me, Clicks per Sale is more important than Imprs per Click, but "good" to me is:
-- 500-700 Imprs per Click
-- 10-15 Clicks per Sale
And that's in Historical Fiction genre. YMMV.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Eugene Kirk said:


> Looks like my question got lost in the shuffle so I'll ask it again.
> 
> What sort or impression to click ratio is considered good?


There's really no hard and fast rule. As Harald said, click to sales ratio is more important.

I have a rule of thumb that I use (suggested by Rick Gualtieri) that works for me. If my spend on a particular keyword hits $2 without a sale, I pause it. I stick to that whether I'm spending 15c per click or 50c per click. When I'm getting up around $1.50 spend on a keyword, I'll scale back my bid on that word to maybe squeeze out a few more clicks.


----------



## CassieL

Things seems to be shifting right now, too, and I'm seeing more clicks per thousands impressions than before, but the rule of thumb I've historically used has been that I shut down any keyword where I don't have at least one click per 2,000 impressions and that my really good keywords usually have about 1 click per 500 impressions.  And I look for keywords where I have about 1 sale per 10 clicks, but my good ones usually get a sale for every 5 clicks or so.  I also shut down any keyword where I've spent more than I would make from one sale of the book and I haven't seen a sale on my KDP dashboard.  (Unless the book is in KU and the book/author that's the keyword is in my also-boughts indicating borrows.)

I've actually seen huge surge in ad spend on ads in the last week or so.  I started a couple new ads a few days ago and one (a sponsored product ad for a romance) has maxed out its budget each day even when I raise the budget.  The other (a product display ad for non-fiction) blew through about $35 in a day because I chose to spend as quickly as possible.  Another ad that I started in November has been maxing its budget as well.  But I was bidding pretty high to get those results...


----------



## alexabooks

Anyone else got a bump in clicks/sales today? I upped my daily budget a dollar, 'cause why not, if I already got 4 times more sales than yesterday.


----------



## Decon

Eugene Kirk said:


> Looks like my question got lost in the shuffle so I'll ask it again.
> 
> What sort or impression to click ratio is considered good?


Mine varies between 1000 and 2000 impressions per click and more importantly 10-20 clicks per sale. I varies from book to book of the five I have in AMS.


----------



## GrandFenwick

I'm having a 4x bump in sales as well.


----------



## Philip Gibson

Eugene Kirk said:


> Looks like my question got lost in the shuffle so I'll ask it again.
> 
> What sort or impression to click ratio is considered good?


My view of a "good" impression to click ratio varies wildly and is mainly driven by the resulting sales, or lack of.

However, I do have a "bad" impression to click evaluation. That is: 2,000 impressions to 1 click. If a keyword's performance gets that 'bad', I pause it on the assumption it is targeting the wrong audience.

Not sure it matters though since we only pay for clicks, not impressions.

Philip


----------



## CassieL

So anyone heard about AMS possibly rolling out in the UK?

I published a book on AMS ads today and when I did I noticed that there was one that was free that looked like it was published by Mark Dawson, so I downloaded it and read it (mostly geared towards getting people to his website and actually written by one of his people), but it mentioned that AMS were going to soon be rolling out in the UK.  I know Mark said elsewhere that he'd been talking directly to Amazon about AMS and was wondering if anyone else had heard this and when it might be happening.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Cassie Leigh said:


> So anyone heard about AMS possibly rolling out in the UK?
> 
> I published a book on AMS ads today and when I did I noticed that there was one that was free that looked like it was published by Mark Dawson, so I downloaded it and read it (mostly geared towards getting people to his website and actually written by one of his people), but it mentioned that AMS were going to soon be rolling out in the UK. I know Mark said elsewhere that he'd been talking directly to Amazon about AMS and was wondering if anyone else had heard this and when it might be happening.


I only heard it from Mark. It will definitely be a good thing if it does happen.


----------



## Reaper

Extremely enlightening thread, thanks Harald and everyone else who's contributed.

Happy to hear that AMS will be rolled out to .co.uk, definitely the biggest market for my book (and the authors it's similar to).


----------



## Jean Paul Zogby

HI,
Quick question.
Would it make sense to have* two (2) Sponsored Ads* both running with *automatic targeting* but with slightly different ad copy? Or would they compete against each other?

I did that last week, and noticed that they both get good impressions (around 20,000 per day), but the sales alternate. On Sunday Ad1 gets 5 sales, Ad2 zero, then Monday Ad2 get 4 sales, Ad 1 zero, and so on!
Has anyone experience that? or can explain what is happening?
thanks


----------



## CassieL

I've never tried two ads with automatic targeting at the same time.  Lots of folks on this thread have talked about how it seems that multiple ads don't seem to increase impressions over what you'd get from just the one ad and that sometimes a second ad will get no impressions.  I've run two ads on the same book with impressions and sales going to both on a regular basis, so sometimes it just varies.

Not sure in your case why you're seeing sales all on one ad and then all on the other if you're getting impressions and clicks on both ads every single day.  (Are you getting clicks as well on both ads each day?)

I will say that I've seen sales appear on an ad that was paused rather than the active ad that generated the sales.  So, in my case, I had an ad for a book that had run for months.  I did a 99 cent promo and paused it and ran a separate ad for the promo.  At least two of my 99 cent sales of that book showed on the original ad.  I believe this is because Amazon tracks when someone clicks your ad and then they credit that sale to the ad if the customer ends up buying the book within x number of days.


----------



## Philip Gibson

Cassie Leigh said:


> I had an ad for a book that had run for months. I did a 99 cent promo and paused it and ran a separate ad for the promo. At least two of my 99 cent sales of that book showed on the original ad. I believe this is because *Amazon tracks when someone clicks your ad and then they credit that sale to the ad if the customer ends up buying the book within x number of days.*


Interesting. That would account for my ACoS improving (therefore indicating sales) during times when I know sales came from another source.

If your theory is true, it would be instructive to know how many days lag there could be between original click and crediting the sale to that click.

Someone might know this.

Philip


----------



## CassieL

Turns out they state it in the Seeing How Your Ads Perform discussion at https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/A29SDHM2KNHV0N.

In case that link doesn't work, they define total sales as "Sum of sales attributed to your campaign; each time a customer clicks on your ad and purchases your book within 14 days. It takes three days after your first click for this data to begin showing in your report. This data includes sales of co-authored books."

(I had thought it was seven days only not fourteen.)


----------



## victorine.vien

Thank you for sharing! I'm about to release my first book soon, and have been looking into AMS as well  Question: Is there a way to set this up before you start running the ads? Or it just goes live immediately?


----------



## GrandFenwick

The ad goes live as soon as it's approved (which can take 1-3 days). But after it's approved, you can always pause it.

However, to set up an ad, your book has to be released (someone correct me if I'm wrong).


----------



## Jim Johnson

Just saw this pop up in an Amazon email. Looks like standard info, but might be useful to someone, esp as an easy one-pager to print off and post in your workspace:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/ams/Keyword_Strategy_Guide._V510659875_.pdf/ref=kdpnlmay


----------



## amdonehere

Jim Johnson said:


> Just saw this pop up in an Amazon email. Looks like standard info, but might be useful to someone, esp as an easy one-pager to print off and post in your workspace:
> 
> https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/ams/Keyword_Strategy_Guide._V510659875_.pdf/ref=kdpnlmay


Wow, Jim. This is super helpful! Thanks!

I never had much luck having an author & book as the same KW. Always had to do them as 2 separate KWs but I hate that because sometimes the author's other books don't match mine. But Amazon's recommending to do it like "author's book" (ie Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice)? Will this really work?


----------



## Jim Johnson

AlexaKang said:


> Wow, Jim. This is super helpful! Thanks!
> 
> I never had much luck having an author & book as the same KW. Always had to do them as 2 separate KWs but I hate that because sometimes the author's other books don't match mine. But Amazon's recommending to do it like "author's book" (ie Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice)? Will this really work?


I wouldn't make them one keyword. I separate the title from the author as two separate keywords. I think the one-pager that Amazon put together is a little unclear in that respect--I think they're suggesting using the author name and title as keyword, but not as one keyword. Also, despite what they say near the top of the page, I don't think we're supposed to use "Kindle" as a keyword." (Though "unlimited" is okay.)


----------



## Jena H

AlexaKang said:


> Wow, Jim. This is super helpful! Thanks!
> 
> I never had much luck having an author & book as the same KW. Always had to do them as 2 separate KWs but I hate that because sometimes the author's other books don't match mine. But Amazon's recommending to do it like "author's book" (ie Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice)? Will this really work?


The one page 'guide' _is_ a little vague, but I guess if they wanted to keep it to one page, it had to be. One thing I'd note is that it's not extremely explicit that this info is for _ads_, and not keywords for the book itself. I know we all know that, because this thread is about AMS ads, but someone seeing that chart without a lot of context might not pick up on that fact.

As far as keywords and author names, I see what you mean about an author's books maybe not matching yours. In your example, Pride and Prejudice wouldn't be a great fit if your book refers to the Royal Navy in 1811.... but Persuasion would be. In that case it would still be a good idea to use both Jane Austen and Persuasion as separate keywords in an ad. If Pride & Prejudice fans happen to run across your ad, there's no harm in that.

In my current ad, I added another very successful author name and one of his series titles (although he has a number of series), and his name is by far getting the most impressions. Not too sure yet if the impressions are leading to clicks, but.... you can't get sales if you don't get clicks, and you can't get clicks if you don't get impressions. So toss those author names in there. I even added popular TV shows and books/movies that have a similar target audience.


----------



## CassieL

Thanks for that Jim, that is interesting.  I've never tried it before but I'm going to try the "ASIN 123456789" approach and see if that works because I was never able to make titles work on my fiction ads and putting something like "Firebrand" is problematic since there's a recent fantasy release I would want to target but also a sci-fic release I wouldn't.

And, yes, Kindle is a prohibited word but I think what that first category was saying was to pull in best sellers or really popular authors into your keywords.

The best luck I've had is with generic words like "fantasy" or "contemporary romance" and then author names.  I've tried worlds like "pern" that are related to series I wanted to target and it just didn't work for me.

As for the question on the last page, I think you can advertise pre-orders as well.  But you need a book listed and available through your KDP dashboard to use AMS as an author.


----------



## PearlEarringLady

GrandFenwick said:


> However, to set up an ad, your book has to be released (someone correct me if I'm wrong).


Actually, you can set up an ad on a pre-order book, too, which is kind of useful.


----------



## khotisarque

Harald, are you reading this?  Strange thing today.  I started two new campaigns, for similar books, day before yesterday.  They have largely overlapping sets of keywords.  Views today are : book A, about 45000, book B about 1200.  Yep, 40:1 ratio.  So I compared the keywords.  The default on one set was 0.20, on the other 0.25.  so it is reasonable to expect the lower bids to get fewer views, which was generally true.  But that much lower?  Then I looked at a subset where I had set the bids on book B much higher, for a variety of reasons.  There were thirteen shared keywords.  On all 13, the views were dramatically lower for the higher bid!  I'm talking up to 0.85 vs 0.25 bids, and up to 100 times LOWER views for HIGHER bid.  13 times out of 13.  Now, would somebody please tell me the Zon's algos are not screwed up?


----------



## 39416

I don't think the Zon's algos are screwed up. I think first and foremost the Zon's algos do what is good for the Zon.

I also think that the longer you have advertised a book on AMS, the more the algorithm tends to push you to the back of the carousel no matter what your bid is _unless_ you are getting the number of sales that the algorithm deems acceptable.


----------



## Jena H

I know I got sales over the weekend, but AMS still isn't registering them.    Honestly, I don't understand what's so hard about that.

Anyway, today's the last day of my ad, so the click/impression data is almost complete.


----------



## CassieL

LilyBLily said:


> I've only occasionally spent my daily limit. When I have, usually I've upped my limit to re-start the ad. Yet I don't see an immediate response on the dashboard, not even that the ad status is now changed to Running. A lag on that? No way of knowing.


Yeah, there's a bit of a lag. I have an ad that's been maxing out its budget for most of the last week. I change the budget and it still shows as daily budget spent but when I go back in five minutes later it usually shows as running again. There was a day I moved that ad from $5 to $10 to $25 to $35 to $50 as it blew through its budget.

I had another max out its budget but wanted to pause it so it would stop running and couldn't so just ended up terminating it. It was spending $10/day but only resulting in two sales per day.

Both for romance titles. First one is in KU, second isn't.


----------



## khotisarque

Certainly the Zon looks out for itself.  And views are free, so who can complain about getting them, regardless of quantity.  And the data is delayed, so it's not easy to interpret.
Having said all that, I don't see how it can be in Zon's interest to turn down a high bid in favor of a low one.  Nor to push the low sellers to the bottom of the pile - that game ends up with only enough bidders to populate the top of the page, and they'll only have to bid low, so Zon loses ad income.  Nor to favor the 'best' ACoS, which from Zon's point of view means the lowest-income-producing.
I do not think, or want to imply, that the Zon has some malignant secret plan.  But I do observe that their algos are screwed up.  Probably full of little bugs, trying to manage a very complex universe of ads.  And certainly far from transparent.  Problem is, if the bids are really lottery tickets, with a high random ccontent, then it pays to bid the minimum.  If the odds are the same and the prizes the same, the cheapest ticket is the best strategy.  Which is bad for the Zon.  Surely they're smarter than that, and will eventually fix their algos?


----------



## Anarchist

khotisarque said:


> But I do observe that their algos are screwed up.


Not in my experience. And I have a lot of data.


----------



## Christopher Bunn

Has anyone tried using ASINs as keywords? I have one ad running with them but have seen no response yet (two days).


----------



## CassieL

Christopher Bunn said:


> Has anyone tried using ASINs as keywords? I have one ad running with them but have seen no response yet (two days).


I tried it on about six different ads after that Amazon flyer came out using "ASIN XXXXX" and nothing. Not even one impression yet even though those ads are running fine. Might try it with "ASIN" removed and see if that changes things.


----------



## Jacob Stanley

Christopher Bunn said:


> Has anyone tried using ASINs as keywords? I have one ad running with them but have seen no response yet (two days).


Same. I tried it based on that strategy sheet they released the other day. So far, zero impressions. I think the information is just wrong. Maybe it's something they plan to implement later.



Cassie Leigh said:


> I tried it on about six different ads after that Amazon flyer came out using "ASIN XXXXX" and nothing. Not even one impression yet even though those ads are running fine. Might try it with "ASIN" removed and see if that changes things.


I don't have ASIN in mine, and didn't make a difference.


----------



## CassieL

khotisarque said:


> I don't see how it can be in Zon's interest to turn down a high bid in favor of a low one.


On our side it's all guesswork about how Amazon makes these decisions, but if I were Amazon I would be trying to make the profit-maximizing decision. So I wouldn't care so much what someone's bid was, I'd care about how likely that book is to be bought when someone does click through and what I earn when that happens in addition to what I earn from clicks. Also, if there was a way to factor it in, I'd include how satisfied customers are with their purchases and how frequently they come back to buy more products. They have the data to see customer buy-through of a series as well as how fast customers read a particular book.

So if I were building this algo it would be part bid, part book price, part click-to-buy/borrow ratio with potential weighting for borrows if I'm trying to push KU, whether the book leads to organic sales of another product on a routine basis, how many customers finish the entire book, and how quickly they do so. Then I'd randomize that a bit so that new books with no history are given a chance to prove themselves or maybe I'd hold off on applying anything more than pure bid and price logic for x number of days.


----------



## IreneP

khotisarque said:


> Having said all that, I don't see how it can be in Zon's interest to turn down a high bid in favor of a low one.


I'm not saying their algos are NOT messed up, but... this is EXACTLY what Google and other major CPC platforms do. Google literally has a "quality score." They want the best experience for the customer so they will keep coming back to Google as their search, so they absolutely factor things like how often clicks convert. As your quality score improves, you show higher in search for the same bids. And keep in mind, they aren't even getting a cut of the sale like the 'zon is. And we all know the 'zon is laser-focused on the customer experience. We've all noticed Amazon also seems to like new and shiny best, too. Which also makes sense - don't show the customer the same ad over and over and over.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

My auto targeting ad is a complete flop. I was doing pretty well with this book. Lots of page reads and going on to the next book. Then it nearly stalled and I decided to try auto targeting.

I started the ad on 5/18 and so far I've had 4,250 impressions, 6 clicks and no sales or page reads. It only cost me $2.38 but my ACPC is 40c. I've given it two weeks so I'm pausing it and restarting the original ad.

I also paused a bundle ad. Again, did well for a while and then stalled. So, I opened up a first in series ad (manual targeting) for that bundle on 5/22. By contrast, I had 39,267 impressions but only 7 clicks and no sales or page reads. ACPC was 17c for a total spend of $1.19. Hitting the brakes and I'll be restarting the bundle on that one as well.

My original ads did much better and I think they've been dormant long enough that they'll do well again.


----------



## CassieL

Yeah, I tried some auto-targeted ads just this week for three non-fiction titles and have already shut down two of the three.  The CPC is too high and I'm getting not enough clicks per impressions compared to my manually targeted ads.  That book by Mark Dawson's guy mentioned that they're really good for SEO-optimized non-fiction titles but it seems my non-fiction titles do not fall into that category.


----------



## khotisarque

"On our side it's all guesswork about how Amazon makes these decisions, but if I were Amazon I would be trying to make the profit-maximizing decision." [Quote from Cassie]
Long-term or short-term? Short-term, Amazon makes maximum profit from someone who pays top-dollar for a lot of clicks and sells a lot of books. That would put high bids firmly on top of the list all the time, which is not what I saw. Longer-term, it's better not to kill the golden-goose-layer, and it pays to encourage new authors. I believe Amazon take the longer-term view; but intent is one thing, implementation another. God may work infallibly in mysterious ways, Amazon does make mistakes. I believe some of those mistakes are embedded in their current algos; some will be corrected when their effects are remarked upon. Max profits for Amazon will follow max marketing efforts by individual authors, which requires the ability to make informed decisions on tailoring ad campaigns. Transparency pays off.


----------



## 39416

I don't think Amazon's algorithm's goal is focused on us, the authors. I think it's focused on Amazon's customers, i.e. the book buying public. I think the algorithm is made to create the best experience for _that_ demographic (not us) and one of its key goals is to keep the carousel fresh, imbibed with new books and books that are selling. I think if we (understandably) assume that Amazon's AMS decisions are based upon what's fair or good for _us_, we are making a mistake.

Look at the Page Flip thing. Amazon has to know we are not being paid for our Pages Read when a reader closes out in Page Flip. Amazon doesn't care. Why? Because Page Flip enhances the reader's experience --i.e. the customer's. Amazon has said it often enough: everything it does is focused on the customer and while we may like to think that's us (we buy the ads) no, it's not. So when we see the algorithm acting in a way we think is screwy, I don't think it is. It's doing something that is better for the customer's perusal experience, irregardless of the effect on us.


----------



## Seneca42

The level of complexity in the amazon system could be well beyond our ability to ever understand. 

For instance. Let's say there is a spike in customers buying scifi this week. The algo's may integrate that data, then give preference to scifi books in the bidding process. 

Or let's say there's an abnormal amount of virus stories in the news. That's data totally external to Amazon's site, yet they could still be integrating it into their system. Giving more visibility to "pandemic" books. 

So hundreds of variables could be factoring in to how they display ads, only one of which is bid price. And while it may be weighted heavier than other factors, it may still be just a small part of the factors they consider. 

Welcome to Skynet folks.


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

My first ads I tried mucking about, tweaking, adding, deleting....and eventually wasn't happy with any of them, neither in mystery nor romance (which was getting really expensive for little return).

On the 16th of May, I decided to run just one ad (cozy mystery) for one month, $2 a day max, $0.21 bid max. On the premise that Amazon's algos were beyond my comprehension, I promised myself no tweaking or changes, just let it run to see what happened (unless there were no results for the spend).

So far, at the midway point in my 30 days, this approach has worked MUCH better.  It took several days for the ad to show results, but now it's paying for itself and making a little money with reads and, since I'm running no other promotions during these 30 days, reads and sales on other titles (I'm counting anything above the average for each title...which is as close as I can get to figuring whether this is working or not).

Surprisingly, once the ad settled in, I'm showing remarkably consistent impressions, click rates, costs, and sales, day to day, which certainly never happened when I was trying to "improve" things.

The ad is $2 a day max, $0.21 max bid. So far, the Zon has never spent the max.  I'm getting about 2000 impressions/day (yesterday was over 5000 after slowing slightly over the long weekend), 540 impressions/click, 8 clicks/sale, and $0.13 spend per click (which hasn't changed at all in well over a week).  I have no idea where the ads are showing on the carousels because I still haven't spotted one, even when I go looking to see where they might be showing.  Oh, and I have 230 KWs, mostly titles, some generic that Amazon suggested (of those, "mystery" gets the most impressions, "cozy mysteries" gets the most sales at my highest average cost of $0.16/click).

Not worth much, but for those, like me, who were finding the whole thing very daunting, it might  be a better way to get into this.


----------



## BillyDeCarlo

My Dog's Servant said:


> So far, at the midway point in my 30 days, this approach has worked MUCH better.
> The ad is $2 a day max, $0.21 max bid. So far, the Zon has never spent the max. I'm getting about 2000 impressions/day (yesterday was over 5000 after slowing slightly over the long weekend), 540 impressions/click, 8 clicks/sale, and $0.13 spend per click (which hasn't changed at all in well over a week). I have no idea where the ads are showing on the carousels because I still haven't spotted one, even when I go looking to see where they might be showing. Oh, and I have 230 KWs, mostly titles, some generic that Amazon suggested (of those, "mystery" gets the most impressions, "cozy mysteries" gets the most sales at my highest average cost of $0.16/click).


Are you using keywords (manual) or auto?


----------



## Jena H

My ad ended yesterday, May 31.  The ad is for a book that's free in kindle version, but my goal is to sell the paperback version.  I know for a fact that I did actually get paperback sales during the run of the ad; so far AMS is attributing one sale to the ad, although of course that may increase when AMS info 'catches up' and is complete.  Meanwhile, on May 31, the last day of the ad, I show a 400% increase in downloads of the free kindle version.  (There are occasional huge spikes in downloads of the book, unrelated to ads, so that doesn't necessarily mean anything.)

Anyway, by far the most active keywords in this ad were 'new' ones I added this time.  One author's name was very successful, with tons of impressions and a fair number of clicks.  The one sale that's currently on record is attributed to this author's name.


----------



## amdonehere

Just to chime in about algo:

I used to think that books that are best sellers (like those in the top 100 lists in the overall store, #1 HNR, etct) are the ones where the carousel are filled to100+ pages.

To show you how ridiculous it is, my nothing little new release right now has 112 pages of sponsored products. Seriously? Never mind that NONE of them are related to my genre. You want to tell me that over 112 pages of books bid to be on MY little book's page? Uh huh.

Whatever. This is why I'm now just throwing whatever up and see what sticks.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

AlexaKang said:


> Just to chime in about algo:
> 
> I used to think that books that are best sellers (like those in the top 100 lists in the overall store, #1 HNR, etct) are the ones where the carousel are filled to100+ pages.
> 
> To show you how ridiculous it is, my nothing little new release right now has 112 pages of sponsored products. Seriously? Never mind that NONE of them are related to my genre. You want to tell me that over 112 pages of books bid to be on MY little book's page? Uh huh.
> 
> Whatever. This is why I'm now just throwing whatever up and see what sticks.


Alexa, I think that's the best way to go.

Jena, I sold two ad related paperbacks in May, but since they are expanded distribution, I don't think they came from the ad.


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

BillyDeCarlo said:


> Are you using keywords (manual) or auto?


I started manual auto with what Amazon suggested (only the ones I'd already thought of myself are doing anything--about 10 or so--the rest are silly and do nothing). The balance of KWs...maybe 210 or so, are all manual inputs by me. I used yaniv.com to help build that list, and some of the suggestions/links have been fairly productive.

Mind you, I'm not blowing anyone out of the water--I'm paying for an ad that doesn't cost more than $2 a day, and maybe making another $2. Possibly more, but it's all guess work and optimism (perhaps irrational) beyond that point.


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

AlexaKang said:


> To show you how ridiculous it is, my nothing little new release right now has 112 pages of sponsored products. Seriously? Never mind that NONE of them are related to my genre. You want to tell me that over 112 pages of books bid to be on MY little book's page? Uh huh.
> 
> Whatever. This is why I'm now just throwing whatever up and see what sticks.


One afternoon when I was trying to spot where my ad was appearing I found a number of pages that had no sponsored ads at all....even though they'd been there earlier. Go figure.


----------



## Jena H

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Alexa, I think that's the best way to go.
> 
> Jena, I sold two ad related paperbacks in May, but since they are expanded distribution, I don't think they came from the ad.


As long as I sell paperbacks, it doesn't really matter to me whether they originated with (or attributed to) the ad or not. At least it allows me to believe I made a profit on the ad. 

Sadly, I haven't had as good of luck (?? that seems wrong) with ads for actual kindle books. Maybe in a few weeks I'll run one for one of my other series.


----------



## CassieL

My Dog's Servant said:


> I started manual auto with what Amazon suggested (only the ones I'd already thought of myself are doing anything--about 10 or so--the rest are silly and do nothing). The balance of KWs...maybe 210 or so, are all manual inputs by me. I used yaniv.com to help build that list, and some of the suggestions/links have been fairly productive.
> 
> Mind you, I'm not blowing anyone out of the water--I'm paying for an ad that doesn't cost more than $2 a day, and maybe making another $2. Possibly more, but it's all guess work and optimism (perhaps irrational) beyond that point.


I think you must be doing a manual ad. Automated ads don't let you see any of the keywords or add your own, you can only set the bid. Manual give you a list of suggested words from Amazon that you can use and then you can add more of your own.


----------



## A past poster

This is really weird: my Dashboard for one of my books shows one less click now than it did early this morning. There have been times when "Daily Budget Spent" has shown for this book when, in fact, the budget wasn't spent.  How can we trust the AMS software?


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Marian said:


> This is really weird: my Dashboard for one of my books shows one less click now than it did early this morning. There have been times when "Daily Budget Spent" has shown for this book when, in fact, the budget wasn't spent. How can we trust the AMS software?


I lost two clicks the other day.


----------



## GrandFenwick

I have also lost clicks. I have also gotten a sale on zero clicks. So the reporting is not exact.


----------



## Seneca42

AlexaKang said:


> To show you how ridiculous it is, my nothing little new release right now has 112 pages of sponsored products. Seriously? Never mind that NONE of them are related to my genre. You want to tell me that over 112 pages of books bid to be on MY little book's page? Uh huh.


What I think is happening here (because I have the same thing) is that this is the result of AMS auto ads. So they know of the millions of books buried on the store. It costs them nothing to toss the auto ads to those books. And here's the important thing...Amazon doesn't care about the "customer experience" on those pages per se.

On the higher ranked books, I think they want to present a cleaner customer experience. Or put differently, for the ads to seem more like also boughts.

But there are plenty of exceptions to this (with high ranked books with 100 pages of ads). But generally speaking, high ranks don't get 100 pages of ads.


----------



## GrandFenwick

My automatic targeting ad is doing OK. Started off great then petered off. 

Weirdly, I lazily boosted a couple posts (with no links) on FB for $5 and sold a bunch of books. Go figure.


----------



## alexabooks

AlexaKang said:


> Just to chime in about algo:
> 
> I used to think that books that are best sellers (like those in the top 100 lists in the overall store, #1 HNR, etct) are the ones where the carousel are filled to100+ pages.
> 
> To show you how ridiculous it is, my nothing little new release right now has 112 pages of sponsored products. Seriously? Never mind that NONE of them are related to my genre. You want to tell me that over 112 pages of books bid to be on MY little book's page? Uh huh.
> 
> Whatever. This is why I'm now just throwing whatever up and see what sticks.


I noticed the same about my book recently, but I think that's because of the keywords. Unlike some people who still actually use SEVEN keywords, I've got every character of the 350 working for me.

Also, I haven't got a single paperback sale in almost a month :/ dunno why, I usually got a few even without the ads.


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

Cassie Leigh said:


> I think you must be doing a manual ad. Automated ads don't let you see any of the keywords or add your own, you can only set the bid. Manual give you a list of suggested words from Amazon that you can use and then you can add more of your own.


Ah. Thanks for clarifying. My $2/day continues to be a good investment in education, even though the only way I can justify it on ROI is faith, hope, and self-delusion (since anything above the sales reported is guesswork and buried in normal sales and borrows). I'm definitely not committing to any more than that until I've got it figured out!


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

Marian said:


> This is really weird: my Dashboard for one of my books shows one less click now than it did early this morning. There have been times when "Daily Budget Spent" has shown for this book when, in fact, the budget wasn't spent. How can we trust the AMS software?


And I now show two sales on a KW that's only had one click. (scratches head)


----------



## Jena H

My ad ended Wednesday (May 31). I checked the AMS dashboard Thursday and again just now (Friday)... in other words, both times _after_ the ad finished. My spend went up during that time. I knew that some data was fashionably late in arriving on my dashboard info, but I didn't think that spending was one of them.  And the rest of my paperback sales during the month haven't shown up in the dashboard, so either those are going to be even later than the spending info, or they were unrelated. (In which case, why am I spending money on ads??  )


----------



## CassieL

Jena H said:


> My ad ended Wednesday (May 31). I checked the AMS dashboard Thursday and again just now (Friday)... in other words, both times _after_ the ad finished. My spend went up during that time. I knew that some data was fashionably late in arriving on my dashboard info, but I didn't think that spending was one of them.  And the rest of my paperback sales during the month haven't shown up in the dashboard, so either those are going to be even later than the spending info, or they were unrelated. (In which case, why am I spending money on ads??  )


Yeah. I forget where I saw it at this point, but they say somewhere that the ad can keep running for up to 24 hours after you stop it. I had a Sponsored Product one that I tried out recently that cost me $27 within a day so I stopped it and it continued to go up until it was at $38. (This isn't how it used to work, by the way. You used to be able to stop those ads and your spend would stop but you'd keep getting clicks which would drive your average cost down.)


----------



## novelist11

AMS software has some bugs. I have cpc bid set to 7 cents but am getting charged 10 cents cpc. I wrote to support about it but haven't heard back yet. I hope they correct it for me. 

Also I got another review for my book but it doesn't show up in my carousel ad. I got it on 6-1-17 so does it take awhile to show or is that another bug with the software?


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Went back to my old ads yesterday. So far, one click, one sale. Restarts seem to work for me.


----------



## weigle1234

About 50% of the time when I make changes to an eBook manuscript, about a day later I receive the following email:

Error Category: Navigation; Kindle Location: 1; Comments: Your book is missing a logical Table of Contents (NCX), which helps customers to navigate through the book. Please create an NCX and resubmit your book file.

All my eBooks are formatted in HTML, and everything always looks great with Kindle’s Previewer.  The TOC for each book is always identical - so why do I get the above message about 50% of the time?

Kindle then refers me to two of their so-called HELP sites - which only adds to the confusion - they might just as well have been written in Chinese.

Same thing when I do Google searches in hope of finding a solution.  There’s dozens of differing responses; with most referring to other so-called HELPFUL documents - with most of those also infected by the Chinese syndrome.

Their Logical Table of Contents (NCX) thing seems totally illogical to me.  Is it really that complex, or am I missing something here?


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

New Question:

The latest AMS invoice credits me $0.79 for "over delivery".  What's that?

So far as I can see, they haven't exceeded the daily limit or the click max. In fact, the total before the credit is several dollars below what it would have been if they'd regularly hit that $2 daily spend limit.


----------



## CassieL

My Dog's Servant said:


> New Question:
> 
> The latest AMS invoice credits me $0.79 for "over delivery". What's that?
> 
> So far as I can see, they haven't exceeded the daily limit or the click max. In fact, the total before the credit is several dollars below what it would have been if they'd regularly hit that $2 daily spend limit.


I've had those credits a few times. They seem to tie to ads that did better than expected on a given day. I know they have that disclaimer that your average budget will be what you select, but I think there's also a threshold they set and if they exceed it then they credit you any amount the ad went over that threshold for that particular day even if for the month you were below the total of budget x days in the month.


----------



## ed_marrow

Annnnnd bookmarked. I understand the writing part, it's the advertising that I'm lost on. Thanks!


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

Cassie Leigh said:


> I've had those credits a few times. They seem to tie to ads that did better than expected on a given day. I know they have that disclaimer that your average budget will be what you select, but I think there's also a threshold they set and if they exceed it then they credit you any amount the ad went over that threshold for that particular day even if for the month you were below the total of budget x days in the month.


Interesting. And a small overage one day is impossible to spot if it's among several days that are clearly under.



LilyBLily said:


> I saw the same thing. Yesterday's running total invoice was 90 cents more than today's. I think they moved that 90 cents to the next billing cycle.


Will be interesting to see. The ad had been accruing for two weeks. I posted a new credit card for AMS payments, so Amazon immediately billed me--I assume to verify the new credit card was valid--and that's when the credit appeared.

Yet one more thing to keep us entertained and confused.


----------



## CassieL

Yeah, the credits I was referring to are the ones you see at the top of the billing screen after they've billed you.  You don't know they exist until then.  Last two months I've had a credit of approx. $5 on two separate ads that were billed about $150 or so per ad for each period.  But I have had smaller credits on other ads in previous periods.


----------



## Seneca42

What a strange strange day. One of my keywords, which has had basically 0 impressions for a month... suddenly today racked up 19,000 impressions and 16 clicks. My next highest keyword has 3,000 impressions and 9 clicks (and that accrued over a month). So this was bonkers for one keyword to go from 0 to 19,000 in one day.  

I'm beginning to think that it's important to just let an ad run. At some point the AMS algo will "experiment" with it... boost it to see how it performs as certain variables are modified.


----------



## Jena H

Boo on me.      A few weeks ago my ad was initially rejected due to some grammatical things in the ad text, so I copied the ad and fixed the text.  Unfortunately either I neglected to notice, or AMS neglected to notice, the ad's info was changed to "no end date."  So instead of ending May 31, as I thought, it's been running the past few days.  And costing more, consequently.      I don't believe any of the numbers (impressions, clicks, etc.) changed significantly over that time period, though.

Oh well.  Lesson learned.


----------



## CassieL

That may not be a bad thing...My best ads are ones that have been running for months or that I at least set up months ago and revived recently.


----------



## Yup

OK, here's a really good one that really shows how strange AMS truly is.

I am running two ads. One for one book, and the second for another.
Each ad is a product display ad. An interest targeted ad as AMS calls it.
Each ad is uniquely in ONE category, which is Parenting & Relationships. 
Each ad has the exact same bid, which is very high and further shows how crazy this situation is. Each is running a CPC bid of 71c. 
Both ads have the same budget, and same pacing.

One of these ads is getting around 1000 impressions per day, and gets clicks.
The other ad has ZERO impressions and ZERO clicks. Like....actually zero, not near zero. Yes, it is running and I already asked support for an answer and thus far they have none. 

Anybody want to take a crack at explaining this?


----------



## Accord64

Michael Eli Vineberg said:


> Anybody want to take a crack at explaining this?


The almighty AMS performance algorithm strikes again?

I had a campaign that stalled out of the gate. Not all zeros like yours, but it might as well have been. I tried tweaking it (adjusting keywords and click rates) but nothing had any effect. I terminated it after a few days, waited a couple of weeks, and copied it into a new campaign. It racked up thousands of impressions and plenty of clicks for every day it ran.

My theory is that sometimes the algorithm, for reasons unknown to us mortals, just doesn't like a campaign. It's likely due to something that's happening at that point in time. There's really nothing you can do. Best to shut it down and try again later.


----------



## novelist11

I'm getting charged more than what my cpc bid is set to. Anyone else ever have this happen to them?

Also I got another review for my book but it doesn't show up in my carousel ad. I got it on 6-1-17 so does it take awhile to show or is that another bug with the software?


----------



## weigle1234

Can ads for the same book be run simultaneously, but under different categories for each ad?

For example, suppose I publish a book with the title “How to Breathe“ under the two Categories A & B, and run an ad for that book.  Suppose I then go back to my Bookshelf and, using the “Edit eBook Details” function, change its Categories to Y & Z.  After the edit has been reviewed and approved, I then run an identical ad for that same book.  Will each ad then appear under its own unique pair of Categories?


----------



## weigle1234

In my opinion, Kindle constantly modifies their algorithm to suit their own needs (maximizing profits, as with any successful business).  But, I believe such changes are minimal over the short term (week-to-week, even month-to-month).

We each carefully test ad variations in hopes of maximizing sales.  I have no doubt that Kindle likewise tests changes to their algorithm.  However, they would be foolish to continually make massive changes - doing so would make it virtually impossible to accurately analyze the results.

I am impressed with the consistency of my ad results.  Not that they are especially profitable, but the results are very consistent.  Over the long term, my ratio of “Impressions-to-Clicks” is extremely consistent.  Likewise, my “aCPC” is both stable and extremely consistent.

What all this tells me is this: If Kindle is indeed continually making massive algorithm changes, my ad results would be wildly inconsistent.

In my opinion (again), if we make massive changes to ads, we should expect massively differing results.  I believe the most influential factor is the actual wording of the ad “Blurb”.  From my many years of experience with running thousands of ads in the mail order business, I found that changing even a single ad word would often change the ad results dramatically.

A truism in the advertising industry is “test, test, test”, and keep repeating - however, changing only a single element each time an ad is tested.  Patience and meaningful analysis is the name of the game.


----------



## weigle1234

Hi Joseph,

I’ve picked up a few new ideas from the Kboards forum, and have done some initial testing with generally good results. One of the best ideas is that of submitting very low bids to start testing (on the order of 2 - 3 cents). I’m testing with one of my small books that was never profitable - so I see it as a good “ad test bed.“ For whatever reasons it always drew lots of impressions, very few clicks, and rarely a sale. So, I surmise, what do I have to loose by testing that ad with low bids?

I’ve set both identical ad bids at 2-cents. To my surprise I’m getting lots of impressions, but only with the ad presented in the Keywords mode. In the Automatic mode it’s doing very poorly. In fact, so poorly that it’s mind-boggling. The ads are only into their second day. The Automatic mode ad has produced 17 impressions (no clicks) - but the Keywords mode ad has almost 8,000 impressions (only 7 clicks - costing me the princely total of 9-cents so far). Why the vast difference, I suppose, is anyone’s guess - it’s CRAZY.

But, my only objective here is gathering impressions for testing purposes. I will allow my Keywords ad (A & B Categories) to run long enough (at least a few days) to establish an approximate idea of average daily impressions. I will then submit the same Keywords ad at the same 2-cents bid - but with two different Categories (Y & Z).

Then I wait. If my previous ad suddenly takes a nosedive, then one of my conclusions may be that both ads have reverted to the new Categories (Y & Z), and are now equally sharing ad impressions.  Or, if each ad is in different categories, they’re somehow competing with one another.

Is there any way in which we can verify the Categories of each ad in the “Advertising Campaigns” chart while the ads are actually running?

But, longer-term testing should reveal what’s actually happening. If the daily average of each ad impressions is nearly identical, then my conclusion will be that both ads have reverted to the same Categories (Y & Z). If impressions are quite different, the ads may well be competing to an extent due to Category crossover, or (much more difficult to analyze) the way in which Kindle has established their algorithm.

Hopefully the average daily impressions of each ad will be quite different. If so, then I will know I’m on the right track - and life will be good. If not, I will be searching for the next brilliant revelation. Any thoughts/conclusions on this subject will be appreciated.


----------



## Jean Paul Zogby

Has anyone experienced this weird thing on AMS in the last few days?

I've had this automatic targeting Sponsored AD that generates around 30,000 impressions each day, spends around $5 to $10 daily, with around 30 to 40 clicks, and about 5 to 10 sales per day. it has been doing that for at least a week now, and then all of a sudden no sales for the last 3 days.

I am still getting the impressions and clicks but zero sales. And this is not just for the Automatic targeting but all the other manual Ads running for the same book. None of them are generating any sales for 3 days. Does anyone know why this might be happening?


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

Just had a thought.....could it be the reason for the three or four day delay in reporting sales on an ad is them giving the buyer time to return the book for a refund, just in case?  It makes more sense to me than that the databases can't cope with such advanced info reporting.


----------



## CassieL

My Dog's Servant said:


> Just had a thought.....could it be the reason for the three or four day delay in reporting sales on an ad is them giving the buyer time to return the book for a refund, just in case? It makes more sense to me than that the databases can't cope with such advanced info reporting.


No, that can't be it. As part of the definition of Estimated Total Sales they say, "This raw number has not been adjusted for declined payments or returns"


----------



## amdonehere

I'm so annoyed.  A week ago I paused an ad because I thought it might be better to re-target my audience by separating them into 3 ads in 3 different categories, rather than having them all mixed. The ad I paused has keywords mixing the 3 different categories, all of which were too different, and I worried the Algo might get confused. So I paused it and started 3 new ads.  The main ad campaign is for Time Travel (mainly of the love story type.)

Thing is, 2 of the main keywords I used in the first ad was just catching on. I really want to get on that author/book's page. But in my new ad, the algo won't show my book there at all. The author keyword gets a "-". The book title got 7 impressions after a whole week!

So last night I paused the new ad on time travel, and went back to the original ad. To avoid 2 ads competing with each other, I had to pause each and every keyword that I'd transferred to the other 2 ads with categories that is not time travel. All this just to see if my ad will run on this author's book again. (And yes! I really, really need to get on HER book. It turns out, time travel Romance and love stories are now a Highlander wasteland, or at least Scottish. Seems like people can only time travel back to Scotland now. Only an odd story here and there goes somewhere else. And this one author's book is a top seller NOT of the Scottish type.)

I don't know what's wrong with the algo. It really sucks when you start a new campaign, and for some reason a keyword that worked before just dies. It just dies.


----------



## CassieL

Yeah, I've found that the more targeted I try to be the more of a disaster it is.  I tried ads for specific authors and nothing.  I tried ads with just my best-selling keywords and nothing.  Each time I end up going back to the same big try a lot of things ads I started months and months ago.

If you're really interested in getting onto that one author's page, you might want to try a Product Display ad instead. They can be pricier but it might get you what you want.


----------



## Jean Paul Zogby

My Dog's Servant said:


> Just had a thought.....could it be the reason for the three or four day delay in reporting sales on an ad is them giving the buyer time to return the book for a refund, just in case? It makes more sense to me than that the databases can't cope with such advanced info reporting.


I will wait a few more days and see if sales start showing up. it might be due to the 3 day delay in reporting. but it never happened before


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Jean Paul Zogby said:


> I will wait a few more days and see if sales start showing up. it might be due to the 3 day delay in reporting. but it never happened before


What does your KDP dashboard show?


----------



## khotisarque

Michael Eli Vineberg said:


> OK, here's a really good one that really shows how strange AMS truly is.
> 
> Anybody want to take a crack at explaining this?


Yes, it is obvious. We have now entered the Algozone, in which things which normally would be described as "screwed up" are now referrred to as "sophisticated". IMHO, the algos are now run by AI entities, entirely to their own satisfaction. There is no human capable of understanding their complexity or unravelling their inner workings. Grin and bear it. At some point, Mamazon will notice that its earnings from royalties on a book, around 90 cents on $2.99 list price, are dwarfed by the advertizing income at 71 cents/click and 5 clicks per sale; until the advertizers get discouraged by the chaos and go away to lick their wounds.


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

Cassie Leigh said:


> No, that can't be it. As part of the definition of Estimated Total Sales they say, "This raw number has not been adjusted for declined payments or returns"


Clearly, I need to read the fine print a little more closely....and remember it when I do. So we're back to no good reason for the multi-day delay in reporting...that we can see.


----------



## Jena H

My Dog's Servant said:


> Clearly, I need to read the fine print a little more closely....and remember it when I do. So we're back to no good reason for the multi-day delay in reporting...that we can see.


Yeah, I don't understand the delay either. Impressions? Current, and instantaneous. Clicks? The same: recorded up-to-the-minute. 
('Live,' as it were.)

But sales? *crickets* No reason for it.

*My same frustration for why all books clearly listed on the KDP form as part of a series don't always show up as part of a series.  Okay, I'll shut up now about that particular pet peeve.


----------



## weigle1234

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> What does your KDP dashboard show?


I have never seen delays of more than a day - but, I am not selling books by the truck load.


----------



## weigle1234

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> What does your KDP dashboard show?


Comments keep popping up here about adding, deleting, and/or modifying certain Keywords. Since we are allowed up to 1,000 Keywords, I am puzzled as to why the impact of a single, or even many, Keywords is so critical. Why not just plug in a bunch of Keyword, and see what sticks?

Just for kicks, I have been running test ads with 2-cent bids, accompanied with about 950 Keywords. To my amazement, they have been producing incredibly high numbers of impressions. The ratio of clicks-to-impressions is only about half of that produced by my 25-cent bids. But, my average cost per click is only about 1.4-cents with the 2-cent bids. The average cost per click is about 12-cents with my 25-cent bids.

I assume a 1.4-cent click is just as likely as a 12-cent click to result in a sale. Or, am I overlooking something here?


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> I started with 2-cent bids, but when I went a lot higher, sales of my romances did far better. Sales of my nonfiction book are still at 7 cents per click because it has very little competition.
> 
> When a bunch of us got into AMS ads, people who had been doing them for a while said that if we didn't tweak them constantly, Amazon would stop showing the ads. Empirical evidence has seemed to support this. So we tweak, and we change, and we fuss with the keywords, and we try out different origins for keywords. We also look for our ads to see where they're showing up, because even though your concept that the person looking on page twelve of the carousel is motivated to buy, we know that most people lose interest after the first page or three. Then there's the problem that if I have 800 keywords that get me clicks but no sales, I'll burn through my ad budget without achieving positive ROI. So constantly monitoring to see which keywords that get clicks produce sales is important. The big problem with that, though, is we have zero way of knowing if a click that appears not to result in a sale actually produces a KU read--or many reads.


Thanks for your reply - it certainly gives me much food for thought.

About 30 minutes ago I submitted another Manual test ad, with a 5-cents bid and about 9,500 Keywords.

Prior to that I Paused a 5-cents test ad which is identical, but has the original posting with Categories A & B. For this latest identical test ad I edited the original posting to incorporate Categories Y & Z.

It remains to be seen if I gather any useful information from this test. I had a lengthy conversation with one of my sons (who is a computer guru, but not very familiar with Kindle). He is of the opinion that the Category selections of the original postings bear no influence at all with their corresponding ads.

I have had no luck in any forum with obtaining firsthand information (or even meaningful opinions) regarding Category influence within ads. My next step is to contact Kindle via their "Contact us" link in hopes they can shed some light on the subject.

Thanks again - I will keep this forum updated on my quest.


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> I started with 2-cent bids, but when I went a lot higher, sales of my romances did far better. Sales of my nonfiction book are still at 7 cents per click because it has very little competition.
> 
> When a bunch of us got into AMS ads, people who had been doing them for a while said that if we didn't tweak them constantly, Amazon would stop showing the ads. Empirical evidence has seemed to support this. So we tweak, and we change, and we fuss with the keywords, and we try out different origins for keywords. We also look for our ads to see where they're showing up, because even though your concept that the person looking on page twelve of the carousel is motivated to buy, we know that most people lose interest after the first page or three. Then there's the problem that if I have 800 keywords that get me clicks but no sales, I'll burn through my ad budget without achieving positive ROI. So constantly monitoring to see which keywords that get clicks produce sales is important. The big problem with that, though, is we have zero way of knowing if a click that appears not to result in a sale actually produces a KU read--or many reads.


After a bit more thought, I am back again.

Regarding your comment that many experienced Kindle authors claim they have to continually tweak their ads in order for them to keep gathering impressions:

I am a newbie. But, I see no evidence of that with any of my ads. My most productive ad has been running for over 4 months (since the third week of January), and I have done no tweaking whatsoever. Yet the average impressions per week, average clicks per week, and average cost/per click have been very stable week after week. Hopefully that trend continues.

Actual sales fluctuate however - but that I expect. Most of my ads produce an initial surge of orders, which then drops off after a few weeks which, again, is to be expected. A certain percentage of any audience will order just about anything new from a new kid on the block - after that, ads have to carry their own weight.


----------



## Jean Paul Zogby

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> What does your KDP dashboard show?


My dashboard shows normal daily sales like usual. 
I just checked the AMS dashboard and sales started to appear today (higher than usual). For some reason, they stopped showing up for 3 days and all of sudden I have a lot more today than usual. 
It's like the sales were happening every day but not being reported on the AMS dashboard for 3 days, and then all of a sudden they all showed up today.


----------



## CassieL

weigle1234 said:


> My most productive ad has been running for over 4 months (since the third week of January), and I have done no tweaking whatsoever. Yet the average impressions per week, average clicks per week, and average cost/per click have been very stable week after week. Hopefully that trend continues.
> 
> Actual sales fluctuate however - but that I expect. Most of my ads produce an initial surge of orders, which then drops off after a few weeks which, again, is to be expected.


I believe there was another author a few pages back who said her sister was seeing the same thing. But for me at least, I've noticed a drop off in ad performance over time and that I can get ads moving again by fiddling with them. Also, it's not okay to me to be paying the same amount for an ad and not getting the same level of sales as I was previously so I tweak my ads to try to maintain the same level of performance.

Also, because these things aren't transparent, we can maybe develop a bit of magical thinking. For example, I have an ad that's doing really well for me right now. Yesterday it spent $50 and had sales/borrows to match. But I reset it every morning to a bid of $10 and only bump it when the ad budget runs out. Do I need to? Maybe not. But I had an ad that was hot like this in December that I left at, I think, $25 a day and it stalled out on me and took a few days to reset, so I do what I think I need to do to keep it going.


----------



## weigle1234

Cassie Leigh said:


> I believe there was another author a few pages back who said her sister was seeing the same thing. But for me at least, I've noticed a drop off in ad performance over time and that I can get ads moving again by fiddling with them.


I just sent the following message to the "Contact Us" folks, and will post their reply:

I am running several AMS eBook ads, having chosen the option of "Sponsored Products / Manual Keywords" selection. Therefore, this question is general in nature, not applying to any specific eBook.

For each eBook I have chosen the permitted two "Categories" on the "Product Page." When an ad for an eBook is active, does Kindle target only its two chosen categories - or is targeting general in nature?


----------



## weigle1234

weigle1234 said:


> I just sent the following message to the "Contact Us" folks, and will post their reply:
> 
> I am running several AMS eBook ads, having chosen the option of "Sponsored Products / Manual Keywords" selection. Therefore, this question is general in nature, not applying to any specific eBook.
> 
> For each eBook I have chosen the permitted two "Categories" on the "Product Page." When an ad for an eBook is active, does Kindle target only its two chosen categories - or is targeting general in nature?


All my ads, with only one exception, have been running under "Sponsored Products."

Relative to my recent postings here about ad Category targeting, I just took a quick look at the "Product Display Ads" presentation. They now offer the option of "Target Related Categories." Perhaps they will eventually offer that same option to those of us running "Sponsored Products" ads.


----------



## Allyson J.

I have two ads (one for each permafree). The budget is at $5/day, and they continue to max out around noon every day, with an acpc of $0.17. I want to bump the spend up to $10 a day, but honestly, I rarely see any return from these ads (they eat up all the profit from my sales each month!), but if I'm not running AMS ads constantly, I lose all visibility. I do not have $600/month to spend on AMS ads.

What should I do??


----------



## CassieL

Allyson J. said:


> I have two ads (one for each permafree). The budget is at $5/day, and they continue to max out around noon every day, with an acpc of $0.17. I want to bump the spend up to $10 a day, but honestly, I rarely see any return from these ads (they eat up all the profit from my sales each month!), but if I'm not running AMS ads constantly, I lose all visibility. I do not have $600/month to spend on AMS ads.
> 
> What should I do??


So I have a theory that I'm working with right now that AMS can't get you into really good ranks on their own (which for me I define as sub 25K), but you can use them to maintain a rank once you get it. So, I'd run a Freebooksy or Robin Reads or some other bigger free promo on one of the books to try to jump up in ranking and then use your AMS ads to keep you there and hope that the sellthrough to your series is enough to make it profitable instead of breakeven.

I don't know if you can do that with a budget of $5/day. Might be better to throw $10/day at one of the two books instead.

If that doesn't work...

What about dropping your budget on each ad and then upping it for the second half of the day so you're getting steady exposure across the entire day? I notice with my romance novel that I see a drop in rank within an hour or two of the budget maxing out. If that were 20 hours of each day it would be really hard to regain rank the next day.


----------



## weigle1234

In my opinion, one of the most important elements of AMS advertising is the ad “Blurb.”

For what it may be worth, here is my take on ad Blubs.

We are allowed a maximum of 150 characters in our Blurbs.  Most of us (myself included) try to squeeze in all 150, or close to that.  I am beginning to wonder if that is the smartest thing to be doing.

Newbies to the mail order industry tended to run rather lengthy classified ads, reasoning, I assume, they would attract more attention.  I always found the opposite to be true.  Use pertinent words only - the fewer, the better.  Folks scan any particular classified ad for only a few seconds, at most.  If the ad appears lengthy, it will usually be ignored.  I feel confident that the same reasoning may apply to our AMS ads, and will be testing my theory.

My most effective mail order classified ads always used the fewest words.  Through using the Split-Run technique (A/B testing) here was, by far, my most productive ad (honed by dozens of A/B trials) - this particular ad earned me a small fortune:

FANTASTIC GAS MILEAGE! - It’s Easy! - FREE Details - (my business address)

That ad contained only 50 characters (including spaces and hyphens - excluding the necessary address for requesting Details).

I only ran about 3  or 4 variations of that ad (each honed via A/B), alternating them from month-to-month in less than a half-dozen productive publications.  The same technique may well be effective with AMS ads.  That is; run an ad for a couple weeks, pause it, then run the next variation for a couple weeks - and keep repeating.

I will soon be testing this technique myself - hopefully with decent results.


----------



## Allyson J.

Cassie Leigh said:


> So I have a theory that I'm working with right now that AMS can't get you into really good ranks on their own (which for me I define as sub 25K), but you can use them to maintain a rank once you get it. So, I'd run a Freebooksy or Robin Reads or some other bigger free promo on one of the books to try to jump up in ranking and then use your AMS ads to keep you there and hope that the sellthrough to your series is enough to make it profitable instead of breakeven.


I just had a Bookbub for one book 5/19, and am running 5 days of smaller promos for the other freebie this week. I used to get great sell-through during/after running a promo, but my books just will not stay sticky. I was hoping to buoy them with the AMS ads, but it doesn't look like that is working either.

My books are wide (I had no luck in KU), priced permafree for book one, and then $3.99 for the other books in each series.


----------



## CassieL

Allyson J. said:


> I just had a Bookbub for one book 5/19, and am running 5 days of smaller promos for the other freebie this week. I used to get great sell-through during/after running a promo, but my books just will not stay sticky. I was hoping to buoy them with the AMS ads, but it doesn't look like that is working either.
> 
> My books are wide (I had no luck in KU), priced permafree for book one, and then $3.99 for the other books in each series.


Yeah, I'm keeping my romance novel around 10K after a free promo but it's not staying there without AMS and wouldn't be breaking even if it weren't for KU reads. I think I get three sales on average per day at $4.99 and the rest is borrows. But I'm spending about what I make to keep it up there. Sales/borrows of book 2 are all that's making it a profitable venture.

What about switching the book you're about to run free from free to full-price after your free run and seeing if that makes the difference in terms of profitability? You can always put it back to free later if it doesn't work.


----------



## CassieL

weigle1234 said:


> We are allowed a maximum of 150 characters in our Blurbs. Most of us (myself included) try to squeeze in all 150, or close to that.


The beauty of AMS is that it works for many different approaches. I tend to bump up against their minimum character count with my blurbs because I want short and sweet. My most succesful ad has an eleven-word blurb.

I was reading a book called Cashvertising recently that talks about how more ad content is better, but only if you can get people to read it. I figure I have about a second to get them to click through and my book cover is going to do most of the heavy lifting to make that happen.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

weigle1234 said:


> I just sent the following message to the "Contact Us" folks, and will post their reply:
> 
> I am running several AMS eBook ads, having chosen the option of "Sponsored Products / Manual Keywords" selection. Therefore, this question is general in nature, not applying to any specific eBook.
> 
> For each eBook I have chosen the permitted two "Categories" on the "Product Page." When an ad for an eBook is active, does Kindle target only its two chosen categories - or is targeting general in nature?


I'm not sure what you're asking. You can certainly add more categories as keywords in your ads. You don't have to stick to the categories you chose when you uploaded your book.


----------



## Jena H

weigle1234 said:


> We are allowed a maximum of 150 characters in our Blurbs. Most of us (myself included) try to squeeze in all 150, or close to that. I am beginning to wonder if that is the smartest thing to be doing.
> 
> Newbies to the mail order industry tended to run rather lengthy classified ads, reasoning, I assume, they would attract more attention. I always found the opposite to be true. Use pertinent words only - the fewer, the better. Folks scan any particular classified ad for only a few seconds, at most. If the ad appears lengthy, it will usually be ignored. I feel confident that the same reasoning may apply to our AMS ads, and will be testing my theory.


I wondered about this too. I was somewhere away from my desk and thinking about a catchy ad blurb for a book. Since I couldn't remember exactly what the character limit was, and wasn't sure how many characters my catchy pitch had, I kept it brief. When I got home I discovered I pared my 'quick pitch' down to about 75-80 words. I've been debating whether to add to it (and dilute the message) or keep it brief. I think I'd like to keep it short. (Although I'm still tweaking the wording.)


----------



## weigle1234

Cassie Leigh said:


> The beauty of AMS is that it works for many different approaches. I tend to bump up against their minimum character count with my blurbs because I want short and sweet. My most succesful ad has an eleven-word blurb.
> 
> I was reading a book called Cashvertising recently that talks about how more ad content is better, but only if you can get people to read it. I figure I have about a second to get them to click through and my book cover is going to do most of the heavy lifting to make that happen.


I haven't read "Cashvertising" but, from what you mention, it sounds like it may offer some good advice. I believe his mentioning that "&#8230;.more ad content is better" is in regard to the ad body itself.

The ad headline by itself is all-important, and our ad "Blubs" are our headlines. The headline draws reader attention. If they make it through the headline, there is a good chance they will click on the ad. Next, they will likely view the first few lines of the Description - which should be one or two brief paragraphs (each short, sweet, and to the point).

If you can get them past the end of the first paragraph(s) - meaning they have to expand the Description - you may have them hooked. If they expand, they will likely keep on reading whatever remains of the Description (the ad body), no matter how lengthy - I believe we are limited to something like 4,000 characters; which is a lot. If they read to the end of the Description, your chances of a sale probably go through the roof!

I not trying to come across as an expert here. I only meet two genuine Gurus in all my years in the mail order business, and grew to trust their advice (part of which I have repeated here) because it always worked. One Guru (Dave Dee) is still very active; the other guy (Jim Straw) went to writer's heaven a few years ago. He claimed to have made over $400,000,000; by selling everything from Clover Farms salve door-to-door as a 12-year old kid, to selling jet airplanes. He was famous in the marketing industry, so I believe he really did do all that. I had many contacts with him via email and snail mail, but never face-to-face.

One of Dave's publications "Your Advertising Department in a Box" is invaluable. I paid $99 for it several year ago, I think it now runs at least $300. Dave's rather interesting philosophy on the ad body is; Once you get them past the first few paragraphs, they will keep reading all the way to the bitter end, even if it turns into a mini-novel. That may be stretching things a bit, but I think you get the idea.

I hope you are having great success with your eBook. I agree that an attractive cover means a lot - visual attraction is a huge factor in all forms of advertising. In my opinion, the headline (Blurb) is next in line (at least for us).


----------



## Anarchist

weigle1234 said:


> the other guy (Jim Straw) went to writer's heaven a few years ago.


Straw was a marketing genius.


----------



## weigle1234

Something else I find very interesting in regard to Dave Dee’s advertising approach is; the intentional introduction of minor typos here and there, or the partial repeating of a previous sentence.

Dave feels most advertising is much too “slick” - an occasional minor “Mistake” makes you appear to be human, which is very appealing to lots of folks.  I never tried the “Mistake” thing myself, but it seems to make sense - as long as it is not overdone, or is done in an obvious manner.

I am not advocating using that approach within the headline, or within the novel itself, but in the ad body it may well work just fine.

This guy Dave is pretty savvy.  He made a living for many years as a magician - and is really big into the psychology of visualization and advertising.  He even conducts regular seminars along those lines.  If you have the means, you can book a one-day private consultation with Dave for a mere $25,000.  (I am saving up my pennies!)


----------



## weigle1234

Anarchist said:


> Straw was a marketing genius.


Glad to see someone is carrying on Jim's great tradition. I just Googled his name and discovered lots of good stuff on his Facebook page. I will be ordering his last publication "Mustard Seeds, Shovels, & Mountains."

A year or two after his death I found nothing in regard to a continuance of his publishing businesses. I am happy to now see something, if only on Facebook - hope there will be more to come.


----------



## weigle1234

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I'm not sure what you're asking. You can certainly add more categories as keywords in your ads. You don't have to stick to the categories you chose when you uploaded your book.


I get your point. I am a bit confused myself - I must have rewritten that "Contact Us" message a dozen times, and I am still not comfortable with it.

I am NOT referring to the Keywords themselves - we can select up to 1,000 for placement within our ad submittal.

My problem (or confusion) has to do with the two distinct Categories we choose on the eBook Product page - which we can edit at any time. Once the editing has passed the Review process, we can then go on to creating the ad itself; which then has to survive an Approval process.

After Approval has been granted, the ad then becomes active (is Running). My question is; will the Running ad be targeted to folks responding to the Keywords, but falling only within the two Categories? Or will be ad be targeted to everyone across-the-board who is responsive to the selected Keywords?

Is there is a way to edit either of the two Categories (or even both) after the initial editing has passed Review, or even after the ad has been Approved (and is Running)? If there is a way that can be done, I would love to how to do it.


----------



## Jena H

weigle1234 said:


> I get your point. I am a bit confused myself - I must have rewritten that "Contact Us" message a dozen times, and I am still not comfortable with it.
> 
> I am NOT referring to the Keywords themselves - we can select up to 1,000 for placement within our ad submittal.
> 
> My problem (or confusion) has to do with the two distinct Categories we choose on the eBook Product page - which we can edit at any time. Once the editing has passed the Review process, we can then go on to creating the ad itself; which then has to survive an Approval process.
> 
> After Approval has been granted, the ad then becomes active (is Running). *My question is; will the Running ad be targeted to folks responding to the Keywords, but falling only within the two Categories? Or will be ad be targeted to everyone across-the-board who is responsive to the selected Keywords?*
> 
> Is there is a way to edit either of the two Categories (or even both) after the initial editing has passed Review, or even after the ad has been Approved (and is Running)? If there is a way that can be done, I would love to how to do it.


My take is that the ad targets shoppers based on the ad keywords, regardless of your categories. Remember, ads can be run for products other than books, so book categories aren't really relevant with sponsored ads. I used a couple of Disney movie titles as keywords in my most recent ad (same audience), so theoretically people searching for those particular movies on Amazon will see my ad.


----------



## NatPane

I want to have faith in KDP ads, I really do. But too many weird things keep happening when I start a campaign to make me trust this system. The fact that I can never see my ad is something I've never been truly comfortable with. I keep getting a lot of clicks and impressions and no sales and I would be fine with that truly, if I saw my ad. Now, I have a new campaign which currently has 10,000 plus impressions and 38 clicks. And guess what, it has remained this way for 4 days now. Not one more impression and not one more click. Frozen. Really? So I'm to believe that I will not get at least one impression in four days with a bid of $1.00? And by the way, I've never seen this ad in action. I've looked, can't find it. Call me paranoid, but something's fishy there.


----------



## CassieL

NatPane said:


> I want to have faith in KDP ads, I really do. But too many weird things keep happing when I start a campaign to make me trust this system. The fact that I can never see my ad is something I've never been truly comfortable with. I keep getting a lot of clicks and impressions and no sales and I would be fine with that truly, if I saw my ad. Now, I have a new campaign which currently has 10,000 plus impressions and 38 clicks. And guess what, it has remained this way for 4 days now. Not one more impression and not one more click. Frozen. Really? So I'm to believe that I will not get at least one impression in four days with a bid of $1.00? And by the way, I've never seen this add in action. I've looked, can't find it. Call me paranoid, but something's fishy there.


I've actually had ads freeze on me because I upped my bids. I know Chris Fox was able to pull off extremely high bids but almost every time I've tried it, my ad stops working altogether. Maybe drop your bid to the 75 cent range and see if it kicks back into gear.

Once you get it moving again, try the search pages instead of individual book pages to see if you can find your ads that way. The bottom two listings on search results are generally ads. I definitely see my ads when I'm on Amazon. But if your ad isn't running, then you're not going to find it.


----------



## Jena H

NatPane said:


> I want to have faith in KDP ads, I really do. But too many weird things keep happing when I start a campaign to make me trust this system. The fact that I can never see my ad is something I've never been truly comfortable with. I keep getting a lot of clicks and impressions and no sales and I would be fine with that truly, if I saw my ad. Now, I have a new campaign which currently has 10,000 plus impressions and 38 clicks. And guess what, it has remained this way for 4 days now. Not one more impression and not one more click. Frozen. Really? So I'm to believe that I will not get at least one impression in four days with a bid of $1.00? And by the way, I've never seen this add in action. I've looked, can't find it. Call me paranoid, but something's fishy there.


What do you mean when you say you can't see your ad? Do you mean in the AMS "preview your ad" phase? Or when it's 'live,' in its natural environment (in some other book's carousel)? I used to not be able to preview my ad, but then I learned (on this very thread, way, way back) it was because I had ad-block on. I think I tested it out without ad-block and was able to preview just fine. (Unless it's glitchy and I just got lucky that time, lol.) Anyway, my first three ads were run without my having been able to preview it, but they turned out just fine.

As for the seeing the ad as it runs, I usually just look up one of the author/books I use as a keyword and check the carousel. It might not be on page 1 or page 2 (or page 4 or 10...) but it's usually there. I just spot-check one or two author names/titles from time to time and am happy when I see my ad.


----------



## NatPane

Jena H said:


> What do you mean when you say you can't see your ad? Do you mean in the AMS "preview your ad" phase? Or when it's 'live,' in its natural environment (in some other book's carousel)? I used to not be able to preview my ad, but then I learned (on this very thread, way, way back) it was because I had ad-block on. I think I tested it out without ad-block and was able to preview just fine. (Unless it's glitchy and I just got lucky that time, lol.) Anyway, my first three ads were run without my having been able to preview it, but they turned out just fine.
> 
> As for the seeing the ad as it runs, I usually just look up one of the author/books I use as a keyword and check the carousel. It might not be on page 1 or page 2 (or page 4 or 10...) but it's usually there. I just spot-check one or two author names/titles from time to time and am happy when I see my ad.


I see the ads in the preview model just fine. Is finding it live that's the problem. And I've decided to use the product targeting ads instead of the other ad with keywords you can choose. I didn't have a clue where to look before, now I'm totally confused so I don't even try looking any more, even though my gut tells me if I pay for an ad, especially one that starts at $100 I should be able to find it.



Cassie Leigh said:


> I've actually had ads freeze on me because I upped my bids. I know Chris Fox was able to pull off extremely high bids but almost every time I've tried it, my ad stops working altogether. Maybe drop your bid to the 75 cent range and see if it kicks back into gear.
> 
> Once you get it moving again, try the search pages instead of individual book pages to see if you can find your ads that way. The bottom two listings on search results are generally ads. I definitely see my ads when I'm on Amazon. But if your ad isn't running, then you're not going to find it.


I'll try what you suggest and reduce the bid. Thanks. Too weird for my blood though. When you're spending money things should not be so abstract. You bid, pay for your ad, see your ad in action, get impressions and clicks and maybe if you're lucky sales. Why is it so complicated? I'll continue to view this system with a healthy dose of skepticism.


----------



## CassieL

NatPane said:


> I see the ads in the preview model just fine. Is finding it live that's the problem. And I've decided to use the product targeting ads instead of the other ad with keywords you can choose. I didn't have a clue where to look before, now I'm totally confused so I don't even try looking any more, even though my gut tells me if I pay for an ad, especially one that starts at $100 I should be able to find it.


For that ad type your ad will either be on the right-hand side under the buy box or it's showing on people's Kindles as they finish their last book. I tend to need more clicks before a buy with that kind of ad, too.


----------



## NatPane

Cassie Leigh said:


> For that ad type your ad will either be on the right-hand side under the buy box or it's showing on people's Kindles as they finish their last book. I tend to need more clicks before a buy with that kind of ad, too.


Thanks. I'll keep looking. I didn't know it showed on the kindles. That's interesting.


----------



## KeraEmory

NatPane said:


> I want to have faith in KDP ads, I really do. But too many weird things keep happening when I start a campaign to make me trust this system. The fact that I can never see my ad is something I've never been truly comfortable with. I keep getting a lot of clicks and impressions and no sales and I would be fine with that truly, if I saw my ad. Now, I have a new campaign which currently has 10,000 plus impressions and 38 clicks. And guess what, it has remained this way for 4 days now. Not one more impression and not one more click. Frozen. Really? So I'm to believe that I will not get at least one impression in four days with a bid of $1.00? And by the way, I've never seen this ad in action. I've looked, can't find it. Call me paranoid, but something's fishy there.


Mine always do the same thing--a burst of early activity and sales, then nothing. It's a real black box. Going back and tinkering with keywords or bids does nothing once one is frozen.


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## BillyDeCarlo

KeraEmory said:


> Mine always do the same thing--a burst of early activity and sales, then nothing. It's a real black box. Going back and tinkering with keywords or bids does nothing once one is frozen.


So, what then? Copy it to a new one, and that kickstarts it again? Do you have to change anything else after you copy it?


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## Hasbeen

I have a campaign with with over 52,000 impressions and a 140 clicks but not a single sale by the way it's a series bundle of three books for 4.99. It's been running for about three weeks. Over six campaigns I have like four sales. I've increased the bid on the keywords that produced sales but no more sales. I've increased the bids on the keywords that have produced the most clicks. I've added keywords. I've done a lot of things suggested here but I not making any sales. My page reads which went up when I first started my AMS campaigns have gone up then down. I'm confused.

What's wrong? Any idea's. I'm fresh out.


----------



## KeraEmory

BillyDeCarlo said:


> So, what then? Copy it to a new one, and that kickstarts it again? Do you have to change anything else after you copy it?


That's usually what ends up happening when I get bored a few weeks later, yeah. I haven't spent enough time at it to say for sure, but I don't think changing anything in the new copy is necessary.

(I've basically been ignoring my book for about 5-6 months, and what I'm finding after that time is that advertising in general doesn't seem to work anymore, heh. Of course I'm at a disadvantage via not having a series of 6-7 genre novels, blah blah day job.)


----------



## CassieL

Hasbeen said:


> I have a campaign with with over 52,000 impressions and a 140 clicks but not a single sale
> 
> What's wrong? Any idea's. I'm fresh out.


I'd try a new ad with new ad copy. Sounds to me like there's some sort of disconnect between your ad and your book page that means people are getting there and then aren't buying. If it's a Sponsored Product ad they can see your ranking and your price, so it has to be in the ad copy vs the blurb. Also, watch your book's rank not your page reads. There's usually a few days of lag between borrow and pages read so to see if you're at least getting borrows from the ad you need to see if your rank is at a level that indicates borrows. You could be getting borrows off the ad but people just aren't reading, too.


----------



## CassieL

KeraEmory said:


> Mine always do the same thing--a burst of early activity and sales, then nothing. It's a real black box. Going back and tinkering with keywords or bids does nothing once one is frozen.


I've been able to revive some of them. Not all.

Try...
1. Pausing the ad for a few days or a week and then starting it up again
2. Adding keywords
3. Pausing non-performing keywords
4. Upping bids
5. Lowering bids
6. Lowering your budget

Usually if I try all of those things, something kicks in and it starts to move again.

Sometimes copying an ad works, but I've also had a new ad not perform at all.


----------



## weigle1234

Jena H said:


> My take is that the ad targets shoppers based on the ad keywords, regardless of your categories. Remember, ads can be run for products other than books, so book categories aren't really relevant with sponsored ads. I used a couple of Disney movie titles as keywords in my most recent ad (same audience), so theoretically people searching for those particular movies on Amazon will see my ad.


You are right - here is the reply I just received from AMS advertising.

Hello,

Thank you for writing into us today. It will be my pleasure to assist you with your inquiry.

AMS advertising is not based on the categorization of the books. The ads are displayed in general in all categories.


----------



## Jena H

Here's the Dumb Question of the Week:

Is there any difference between running an ad ongoing (no end date) and *pausing* it now and then, and copying a previously-run ad that has ended? I know there really isn't an difference as far as the look of the ad goes (can be same text, same keywords, etc.) but I'm kind of wondering if paused/restarted ads are given precedence over brand new ads that are coming out cold?

Follow-up question: ads can be paused indefinitely, correct? Abandoned forever as if they've been terminated?


----------



## CassieL

Yep, ads can be paused indefinitely.  That's what I prefer to do because you never know when you want to go back to an older one.

I think there is a difference, but couldn't quantify it for you.  Ads I've had for a long time and paused and started again seem to do better than creating brand new ones that are exact copies.  But I tend to pause ads so that could just be me.  There could be a difference too in whether the first ad was a successful one or not at some point before it was paused.


----------



## Hasbeen

Cassie Leigh said:


> I'd try a new ad with new ad copy. Sounds to me like there's some sort of disconnect between your ad and your book page that means people are getting there and then aren't buying. If it's a Sponsored Product ad they can see your ranking and your price, so it has to be in the ad copy vs the blurb. Also, watch your book's rank not your page reads. There's usually a few days of lag between borrow and pages read so to see if you're at least getting borrows from the ad you need to see if your rank is at a level that indicates borrows. You could be getting borrows off the ad but people just aren't reading, too.


Thanks I'm beginning to think the same thing. I may have written a book that is in-between genres (not good news but I get 5 stars when the few people that read them). I like the blurb I wrote but I may need to change the genre and use those authors and keywords. In addition to re-writing the copy on the AMS ad.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Cassie Leigh said:


> Yep, ads can be paused indefinitely. That's what I prefer to do because you never know when you want to go back to an older one.
> 
> I think there is a difference, but couldn't quantify it for you. Ads I've had for a long time and paused and started again seem to do better than creating brand new ones that are exact copies. But I tend to pause ads so that could just be me. There could be a difference too in whether the first ad was a successful one or not at some point before it was paused.


No, it's not just you. That's pretty much how it works for me. But of the three I restarted this week, one is not performing. I think I need to spice up the keywords.


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## KeraEmory

I forgot my favorite quirk: when you copy an existing ad verbatim and it gets rejected with a vague explanation, even though its previous identical version didn't.

(I also got approved for the BookBub Partner ads and have been playing with it a bit, but from what I've been able to find with a board search, it's just going to be another money pit, esp with only one book.)


----------



## Hasbeen

I just had an ad rejected. All I did was copy the current ad and added new keywords. 

How do I find out why they rejected the ad so I don't make the same mistake?


----------



## KeraEmory

Hasbeen said:


> I just had an ad rejected. All I did was copy the current ad and added new keywords.
> 
> How do I find out why they rejected the ad so I don't make the same mistake?


The email should contain a very vague description, and sometimes you can work out what it was. On my rejection above ^^ I believe it's because I used two dashes like this: "Protagonist does blah blah--but can he blah blah blah?"

That said, I've had success with contacting KDP support via email and pointing out that they've rejected a previously approved ad and that it's kind of silly (received approval after that). Probably won't work if you're blatantly doing something like using profanity that slipped through the first time.

(Continuing from my BookBub Partner Ad thing above--it seems to have the same arbitrary weirdness built in. I'm trying out two campaigns with the identical audience and budget, just diff art. One ad has received 1400 impressions, the other ... 19. I admittedly suck at this stuff, but why would these two ads (with same audience and budget) be served for impressions at wildly different volumes?)


----------



## Philip Gibson

KeraEmory said:


> (Continuing from my BookBub Partner Ad thing above--it seems to have the same arbitrary weirdness built in. I'm trying out two campaigns with the identical audience and budget, just diff art. One ad has received 1400 impressions, the other ... 19. I admittedly suck at this stuff, but why would these two ads (with same audience and budget) be served for impressions at wildly different volumes?)


Have both campaigns served out their allotted time? I ask because my Bookbub Partner ads always spend the allotted budget in the allotted time. And since we are paying for impressions (not clicks), both your ads, I would think, should have roughly the same number of impressions.

Philip


----------



## KeraEmory

Philip Gibson said:


> Have both campaigns served out their allotted time? I ask because my Bookbub Partner ads always spend the allotted budget in the allotted time. And since we are paying for impressions (not clicks), both your ads, I would think, should have roughly the same number of impressions.
> 
> Philip


No, but they also haven't been up long (24-ish hours).


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## Accord64

I copied and started a campaign that performed well in the past. Not so this time. A couple of days in and it's pretty clear that I'm getting absolutely no love from the AMS algos. Instead of 20k plus impressions and dozens of clicks (and sales), I have a few hundred impressions and no clicks. WOW.  

I checked some of my keywords and my book either doesn't appear, or is buried far deeper in the carousel that I've ever seen. It seems like it's pretty competitive out there right now. Click bids must be through the roof.


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## BillyDeCarlo

How do you know when you are getting out-bid? How do you know when you have hit your daily max?


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## CassieL

BillyDeCarlo said:


> How do you know when you are getting out-bid? How do you know when you have hit your daily max?


It will say "Daily Budget Spent" instead of "Running" on your dashboard when you hit your daily max.

In terms of getting outbid...Hard to know. If you have a keyword with 0 instead of a dash for number of impressions my theory is that it was showing on the carousel but so deep in no one actually saw it. That would mean you're being outbid. Otherwise, as others have done, you can go looking for your book and see where it's showing up. If you're a couple pages into the list of sponsored ads on a book chances are that the other books ahead of you are outbidding you.


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## Accord64

BillyDeCarlo said:


> How do you know when you are getting out-bid? How do you know when you have hit your daily max?


Your AMS report will tell you (under status) that your daily max has been reached.

As for knowing when you're outbid? That's complicated, and much of it is beyond us (and could make your head explode). The bid price you set per keyword is the maximum you're willing to pay per click, but often you end up paying less. It depends on several factors at the time the click is made, like who else is bidding nearest your bid price. The bottom line is that we have no way of seeing this in action.

However, I do periodic searches on keywords I use. I might have "Tom Clancy" as a keyword, so I'll do a search on his name (in Kindle books) and then click on one of his books. I then scroll down to the sponsored products carousel and look to see what page my book appears on. If it's buried on page 39 of 40, then I know I probably need to increase my bid price to get my book to appear sooner. But if I'm already bidding high to be on page 39, then that tells me that everyone else is likely bidding much higher.

The wildcard in all of this is the AMS performance algorithm. I might be on page 39 because the algo doesn't think I'm a strong match for that particular book (I have been on different pages on different Tom Clancy books). So that complicates things to the point that's beyond our ability to predict.


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## weigle1234

Hasbeen said:


> I just had an ad rejected. All I did was copy the current ad and added new keywords.
> 
> How do I find out why they rejected the ad so I don't make the same mistake?


From my experiences, AMS does a good job of confusing the rejection issue. They always refer me to one or two sites that only add to the confusion (especially their so-called Help sites - IMHO, most might just as well be written in Chinese). Also IMHO, the AMS Help sites may be purposely designed to help scare off the billions of Wanna-Be authors.

Plain old text is never a problem as long as you avoid single ALL CAP words. Certain "Standard Abbreviation" all-caps, such as MPG (for Miles per Gallon) works for me.

But, there are certain characters that almost always trigger a rejection. I say almost, because sometimes you can resubmit an identical ad without it being rejected. It often seems to depend on who is the reviewer, and how picky they are. If you go that route, I suggest waiting a day or two, or perhaps waiting about 12-hours in hope that Mr. Pickys' shift has ended.

You can get away with a single exclamation point, but not two. I once submitted this: $$$.$$ - it was rejected. I submitted this: ($$$.$$) - they were happy - Why?

One time I submitted $$$.$$, but for a different eBook - they were happy.

I guess the only sure way is via the time-tested and proven method of trial-and-error (with "educated" guesses thrown in).


----------



## Jena H

Hasbeen said:


> I just had an ad rejected. All I did was copy the current ad and added new keywords.
> 
> How do I find out why they rejected the ad so I don't make the same mistake?


You may already have your answer but I had the same issue: copied an ad, and it was rejected. The email mentioned improper punctuation and improper capitalization. As someone else already noted, my 'new' ad text included a double dash (--) and AMS didn't like that. Also it didn't like my capitalization ("How did THAT happen?"). I changed the dash to a comma, and uncapitalized the word, and it was good to go.


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## weigle1234

Hasbeen said:


> I have a campaign with with over 52,000 impressions and a 140 clicks but not a single sale by the way it's a series bundle of three books for 4.99. It's been running for about three weeks. Over six campaigns I have like four sales. I've increased the bid on the keywords that produced sales but no more sales. I've increased the bids on the keywords that have produced the most clicks. I've added keywords. I've done a lot of things suggested here but I not making any sales. My page reads which went up when I first started my AMS campaigns have gone up then down. I'm confused.
> 
> What's wrong? Any idea's. I'm fresh out.


I submitted my first AMS ad (for my best selling eBook) on December 26, 2016 - under Sponsored Products / Automatic - with a 25-cent Bid (as suggested by AMS). The average Cost/Click was around 10-cents. The ad produced an average of 5 Clicks/Day, and basically broke even (70% of royalties) - which is not good from a business standpoint. I am aware that better rankings, etc. may be a factor, but just breaking even still sucks.

Some of my other books actually did make a some money, but a few extra dollars each month does not excite me. Perhaps if I were to crank out a few thousand more books things would work out. Or, I could pick up cans along the highway and do better on an hour-per-hour basis.

I paused that ad about a week ago. I then submitted the identical ad under Sponsored Products / Automatic - with a 5-cent Bid (not 25-cents as suggested by AMS). Average Cost/Click is 3-cents. After 7 days that ad has produced almost 14,000 impressions and 8 Clicks (about 1 Click/Day). I am still running that ad, but will soon Pause it.

However, at the same time, I submitted the identical ad under Sponsored Products / Manual - with a 5-cent Bid (again, not 25-cents as suggested by AMS) - along with 956 Keywords. Average Cost/Click is 3-cents. After 7 days that ad has produced over 66,000 impressions and 29 Clicks (about 4 Clicks/Day). I paused that ad yesterday.

Seven days is a fairly short test period, but I have found that after about day 3 or 4, most stats tend to stabilize. My Manual ad with 956 Keywords produces almost as many Clicks/Day (4 vs. 5) as my Automatic ad that ran for about 150 days. The Manual ad cost me 3-cents/Click vs. 10-cents/Click for the Automatic Ad.

So, what do these numbers from my recent ads tell me? I get almost as many Clicks/Day with the Manual ad (4 vs. 5) at about 1/3 the cost (3-cents vs. 10-cents). Of course, as we well know, life has a bad habit of throwing a curve-ball just about the time we think we have things figured out. Only long-term running will tell the whole story.
My conclusion so far - for what it may be worth: If an ad is merely breaking even (or close to that) it may be worth testing with a lower bid (perhaps much lower), perhaps also dumping in a slew of Keywords.

Who knows? The position of the stars, or alignment of the planets, may be the biggest contributing factor.

Three days ago, I submitted the identical Manual ad to the one just paused (with the same 956 Keywords). So far, the stats are mimicking those of the paused Manual ad. I edited the first 5 lines of the Description, but that will have no impact on Click rate since nobody sees that until after they have clicked. Now all I have to do, as usual, is sit back and wait.


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## khotisarque

When all else fails, try the reverse-engineering approach. This may be completely worng, but it does seem to generate the same kind of puzzling behavior that many of us observe.

How Does AMS Work?

It works the same way for books as it does for any other product?

A viewer wants to see some product. So she enters a search term in Amazon. Or in another search engine, which in turn leads to an Amazon page where an Amazon search term can be entered.

Amazon responds to the Amazon search term with either a specific product page or a suggestions page. If it is a suggestions page, the search term is matched with a set of campaign product descriptions generated by Amazon and a product display auction is held. Forget about that for now; it appears to be ineffective for books. Sponsored products campaigns are what I want to focus on.

When a specific product page is opened by the viewer, both the original search term [if available?] and the metadata for that product are matched against a set of keywords and an auction is held to limit the number of ads for sponsored products that will be displayed. Some kind of relevance testing between product metadata and ad keywords may also be done. This auction does not set the actual price per click, at least not directly; it gives admission to the auction for potential high bidders. Too many bidders for the space available? Then the low bidders do not even get into that auction.

In the auction, the end result is a ranking of bids at $0.01 intervals from $0.02 [applied to the lowest bidder who survived the cut] to some top figure limited by the highest bid. Examples: A single bid of $0.05 will be accepted, but actual cost will be $0.02. Two bids, $0.05 and $0.25 will both be accepted, but actual costs will be $0.03 and $0.02. Bids of $0.75, $0.50, $0.50 again, $0.15 will be accepted at $0.04, $0.03 twice, $0.02. The $0.02 acceptance may be on page 2, the others on page 1. And so on. The limiting case would be, say, 100 separate bids between $0.02 and $1.01, none duplicated, would all be accepted at the bid amount, from $0.02 actual to $1.01 actual. Top few on page 1, bottom few on last page.

However, even where the relevance test is passed, the keyword and metadata match, and where the bid for each keyword is high enough to gain entry; even then, not all ads will be placed. At some earlier point there is a screening which limits the number of participants in the auction. This is the carousel set, and the carousels are rotated [at random?]. So a high bid, say $1.00, might get an expensive placement on page 1 for one viewer, a poor placement on a later page for the next viewer, no placement at all for a third, a good placement at a low price for a fourth and so on - it depends on the competing ads within each carousel and the carousel rotation sequence. This is opaque to the advertizer, and looks very much like a totally random process. There is a limited amount of control, by bidding high to increase overall probability of getting a view and to improve probability that the view will be on a desirable page; but only a limited amount, and over-bidding with a low-margin book could be uneconomic.

After the views are allocated, the conversions to clicks and sales does lie within the advertizer's control; good blurb, good cover image, good own-product page. Which is a completely different story.

Does any of that make sense? Is there some business reason that Amazon cannot explain its process to its advertizing customers?


----------



## danpadavona

I find it amazing Amazon still hasn't included pages read from KENP in their statistics as a result of Amazon Ads. If they are truly this lazy, why should I bother advertising with them when other proven platforms exist?


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## weigle1234

IMHO, nothing happens by chance with a company the size of Amazon.  They did not get to where they are by depending on fate. The idea that carousel placement is random makes no sense.  Carousel order has to be assigned by the order of bid wins.

I am often surprised to see some of my ads on Page 1 of the carousel, along with only 3 or 4 others - even though my bid went through at just 3-cents.  Rarely is my ad placement beyond Page 2 or 3.  But that is only because I appeal to a fairly same genre (DIYers).  For others, such as many that join in on this forum and are apparently doing well, the opposite appears to be true - that is they bid high, but may end up on page 6.

Again IMHO, a Click is a Click - if your ad on page 4 catches their eye and you are rewarded with the all-important Click, your chances of making a sale compared to earlier Clicks has increased to some extent.

As far as Amazon allowing us to remain clueless as to how all this happens - why shouldn’t they?  This is their business, and our job to make sense of it all to the best our abilities.  The guys and gals with the most smarts and ambition are those most likely to reap the most benefits and, in turn, create the bulk of profits for Amazon.

My wife loves the TV show “Monk.”  Part of the jingle at the lead-in is the phrase “It’s a jungle out there.”  How true!


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> Please tell me what other proven platforms--plural--there are.
> 
> I'll grant you Facebook, but the learning curve on that is even worse than AMS. Even if we don't understand AMS, we can get positive ROI. I've been led by the hand by more experienced authors with Facebook ads and still fallen flat on my face. And the cost per click for those failures was scary high. It's still a hill to conquer.
> 
> What else is there?
> 
> BookBub is the holy grail, but it's hardly a key weapon in anyone's arsenal; it's mostly reserved for authors whose books are already selling very well and are wide. It's a proven platform, yes, but it's lagniappe.
> 
> What else?


About a year or so ago, I decided to take a look at running ads on Facebook. I contacted a company with which I did business for many years in my mail order business - and made lots of money by following their advice and purchasing some of their programs.

They are offering a program that seems irresistible for making a bundle via Facebook ads, and their ad copy makes it sound like a sure-fire thing for newbies (like me). The program is expensive - something around $2,000 - with a money-back guarantee. Normally I would not trust mail order companies for even $100, but these guys I trust. I talked them into arranging monthly payments, the first being about $300.

Long story short, the whole thing was a fiasco - I could only comprehend about 10% of the program. I spent endless hours going over things repeatedly, and trying to work with the guys that got me into that mess.

In all honestly, they said up front that about 80% of the folks in the program eventually bail out. I thought that was an exaggeration, and why they stated that is beyond me - but I should have listened. After about a month of total frustration, I did bail out. I could have gotten my $300 back, but I wrote if off as an expensive lesson.

So, for anyone considering Facebook advertising, at least with hopes of eventually getting rich, it is probably not as easy as one might think.


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## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> Please tell me what other proven platforms--plural--there are.
> 
> I'll grant you Facebook, but the learning curve on that is even worse than AMS. Even if we don't understand AMS, we can get positive ROI. I've been led by the hand by more experienced authors with Facebook ads and still fallen flat on my face. And the cost per click for those failures was scary high. It's still a hill to conquer.
> 
> What else is there?
> 
> BookBub is the holy grail, but it's hardly a key weapon in anyone's arsenal; it's mostly reserved for authors whose books are already selling very well and are wide. It's a proven platform, yes, but it's lagniappe.
> 
> What else?


Who is Lagniappe? It seems I met the guy a few year ago, but have forgotten his last name.


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## danpadavona

LilyBLily said:


> Please tell me what other proven platforms--plural--there are.
> 
> I'll grant you Facebook, but the learning curve on that is even worse than AMS. Even if we don't understand AMS, we can get positive ROI. I've been led by the hand by more experienced authors with Facebook ads and still fallen flat on my face. And the cost per click for those failures was scary high. It's still a hill to conquer.
> 
> What else is there?
> 
> BookBub is the holy grail, but it's hardly a key weapon in anyone's arsenal; it's mostly reserved for authors whose books are already selling very well and are wide. It's a proven platform, yes, but it's lagniappe.
> 
> What else?


BookBub ads and Facebook ads are both proven methods. While I haven't experienced the success others have with Facebook, Bookbub ads are pretty straightforward if you have minor design skills. As for other options, winning a Bookbub promotion is very difficult but can be achieved once or twice per year if you have enough books to apply with and are persistent. Then there are several promotional sites which can be coupled with occasional sales (or every 3 months if utilizing Countdowns), from ENT and Robin Reads to Bargain Booksy and BKnights.

Amazon Ads is hardly the only option available.


----------



## BillyDeCarlo

weigle1234 said:


> Carousel order has to be assigned by the order of bid wins.


I doubt that's true. I would bet Carousel order is assigned by the books most likely to be purchased, however Amazon figures that in their algos. At some point, bidding probably factors in. In fact, I'll correct that - order is assigned by what is likely to be the most *profitable* for Amazon, factoring in potential for the viewer to purchase and revenue from the bids. That sounds much more plausible.


----------



## CassieL

LilyBLily said:


> Please tell me what other proven platforms--plural--there are.
> 
> I'll grant you Facebook, but the learning curve on that is even worse than AMS. Even if we don't understand AMS, we can get positive ROI. I've been led by the hand by more experienced authors with Facebook ads and still fallen flat on my face. And the cost per click for those failures was scary high. It's still a hill to conquer.
> 
> What else is there?
> 
> BookBub is the holy grail, but it's hardly a key weapon in anyone's arsenal; it's mostly reserved for authors whose books are already selling very well and are wide. It's a proven platform, yes, but it's lagniappe.
> 
> What else?


People don't want to use AMS? They think it's crap. Good. More for us. And at a lower cost-per-click.


----------



## khotisarque

LilyBLily said:


> I think you have to add that some bids, no matter whether they are high or low or their keywords are dead on target or not or have lots of competition or none, will not be accepted because the ads have been around for awhile.
> 
> 1. Mark Dawson experimented with throwing big money at these ads, which did not improve their performance.
> 2. Others have reported that an ad will get thousands of impressions for a while, and then suddenly get none.
> 3. Or an ad that was paused and then re-started will get no traction the second time around.
> 
> None of these have anything to do with being outbid or with being one of thirty or a hundred people bidding the same amount.


Yes, some things are hard to explain. I do believe there is a powerful random-selection element somewhere in the process, and all that I can come up with is associated with the carousel. Which carousel a particular ad or camapign is assigned to is outside the advertizer's control, and some carousels may simply be 'luckier' than others over some time period. Raising the bid on an 'unlucky carousel [I think of it as a roulette wheel] will not improve the number of times that carousel becomes active; a carousel may have a lucky streak that ends; restarting an ad may enter it into a different carousel [which could be good, or could be bad]. And so on?


----------



## khotisarque

weigle1234 said:


> IMHO, nothing happens by chance with a company the size of Amazon. They did not get to where they are by depending on fate. The idea that carousel placement is random makes no sense. Carousel order has to be assigned by the order of bid wins. .....
> 
> As far as Amazon allowing us to remain clueless as to how all this happens - why shouldn't they?


Really? Perhaps I misunderstand, or perhaps my own words are confusing. By 'carousel order' I intended to mean the order in which particular carousels are selected for the auction; not the order of accepted bids within a carousel, which should certainly be the ranking of bids. Why might this carousel order be randomized? Possibly to avoid patterns, such as particular carousels always being selected at 3 a.m. or in any identifiable sequence which might be manipulated. Or just to give a fair shot for every advertizer; or to ensure freshness for repetitive viewers; or lots of other reasons. A random element is perfectly reasonable; but the advertizers should be made aware of its existence and nature.

It is very much in Amazon's long-term interests that advertizers should understand exactly what is offered for their money. Otherwise they will lose interest and drift away, except for the inveterate gamblers. An educated and informed advertizer will seek to maximize the effectiveness of his/her ad, increase sales, make money from them - and that is exactly what is good for Amazon too. IMHO, of course.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Here's my latest weirdness. 

I was running an ad for the first in series and only had seven clicks in about a month. But I did get sales and page reads for the bundle of the same series. 

So, I paused the first in series ad and restarted the bundle ad. So far, I've had sales of the first in series and nothing for the bundle. Something is backa**wards.


----------



## BillyDeCarlo

khotisarque said:


> Why might this carousel order be randomized?


If I'm Amazon, and trying to maximize profits, nothing is going to be random. Everything would be with purpose. Displaying books in the carousel in exactly the order I would expect either the person looking at it to buy, or else to maximize the revenue from the bids, likely both are factored into the algorithm. Of course that might include things that Amazon knows specifically about that person, their past buying habits and likes/dislikes. For example, if zon has placed a high bidding or likely book at the beginning of the carousel for that user previously, they might not place it again, knowing the user has passed. Even with a high bid, they'd get nothing without a click, and the user has seen it before and not taken the bait, so a lure of fresh meat (different books) would be in order. That's why it's probably best to view the carousel and do this testing as an unlogged in, anonymous user. I guess you would do that by opening a private browsing window?


----------



## CassieL

Al Stevens said:


> I have just given AMS a shot. I started with this book (mainly because I got bogged down in this thread).
> 
> 
> 
> I chose the book shown above because it's free and because I am familiar with the work of the co-author, Joseph Alexander, who has published numerous books about the guitar. My first ad was to be about my book about playing jazz on the guitar.
> 
> The book is short and was helpful.
> 
> Cassie's book looks good too but I haven't read past the sample.
> 
> I set my first ads up yesterday, the guitar book along with several others. I used the suggestions in the book for the various programmed values and I'm not even sure what they mean. I have to read more.
> 
> My guitar book has had almost 9,000 impressions and 6 clicks. The works of fiction have much lower numbers, from 250 to 900 impressions and one click, and I don't know the significance of all that.
> 
> I don't know what all that means except that 9,000 readers have been exposed to my guitar book who would not have otherwise even known about it (although I don't know how many of them scrolled to its ad).Six of them have taken the time to look at the product page.
> 
> So far I've spent $.53. That isn't going to bust the bank.
> 
> I'll add all my books to AMS to see how it goes.
> 
> Thanks for this thread.


Good luck with it! That's a decent click to impressions ratio and I've had some good luck with non-fiction books and AMS. I did try a few things from that book and they didn't work for me (like automatic targeting for my non-fiction titles and lots of small budget ads), but those techniques have for others so you just kind of have to see what works for you and your books and go from there. Don't be afraid to experiment a bit.


----------



## CassieL

I'm doing a big promo this week and on one of my AMS ads decided to experiment with really high bids.  Up to $2.50.  It got clicks.  The book's free so no idea how it converted, but I had another ad on book 3 of the series that's getting more impressions at a lower cost so I only did it for half a day.  I just wanted to see what would happen and it happily spent $25 in a day on an add that wasn't spending $10 a day.


----------



## BillyDeCarlo

BVLawson said:


> I'm back down to normal range, and sales are picking back up again.


What's normal range (for you)?


----------



## weigle1234

BillyDeCarlo said:


> I doubt that's true. I would bet Carousel order is assigned by the books most likely to be purchased, however Amazon figures that in their algos. At some point, bidding probably factors in. In fact, I'll correct that - order is assigned by what is likely to be the most *profitable* for Amazon, factoring in potential for the viewer to purchase and revenue from the bids. That sounds much more plausible.


About a week ago I mentioned in this forum that I was going to try running some ads to test Automatic vs. Manual response at a very low Bid. With each ad pair being identical, and submitted at the same time.

I decided to use my VapoKarb manual as a test bed - something I designed about 30 years ago. This contraption is what got me off to a flying start in the mail order business. The technology is long outdated (carbureted engines are a thing of the past), but I eventually sold over 50,000 booklets at $10 a pop.

My VapoKarb eBook Price: 99-cents My ads Bid: 2-cents

After about a week of testing, here are the results:

Automatic Targeting:
945 Impressions - 1 Click (.11% click rate)
Spent: 1-cent

Manual Targeting (956 Keywords, including 23 recommended by Kindle)
122,593 Impressions - 62 Clicks (.05% click rate)
Spent: 81-cents

The strangest thing (at least to me) is that for every Auto impression, 130 Manual impressions occurred.

4 eBooks sold - $1.40 Royalties (but no pages read) - 82-cents spent.

Definitely profitable, but I intend to wait a few more days before booking my Caribbean cruise.

I also started testing larger eBooks (priced at $5.49), but with a 5-cent bid. The Auto vs. Manual impression ratio so far is not as spectacular as that of the VapoKarb - more in the neighborhood of 1:20 to 1:30, but also hard to explain.

My original intention was to only run the VapoKarb test ads short-term, until I get meaningful feedback. I do not see the feedback being especially meaningful so far. But, it seems to me that with all those Manual impressions, some will likely occur within the same carousels as my other ads - which I perceive as additional FREE advertising. Or, am I overlooking something here?

Only time will tell if these stats hold. To me, nothing about all this makes much sense. Any ideas, theories, and/or explanations out there?


----------



## Philip Gibson

BVLawson said:


> Someone mentioned earlier that Mark Dawson found throwing more money at his AMS ads in an effort to scale didn't have much effect. I just wanted to add my own experience to that observation. When I recently tried to increased the bid per keyword to $1.00 and up, it bombed. I left it too long, and my sales for May suffered because of it. I'm back down to normal range, and sales are picking back up again. Of course, everyone's experiences vary, and you may find increasing the bid works for you. Of so, yay!


Mark's "throwing money at AMS ads" isn't so much about increasing bids on keywords. It's mostly about increasing the number of ads for a single book in order to scale up the total ad spend.

If our book has a good click to sales ratio, and a good cost per click, then we want more clicks and therefore want to spend more of our budget to get those clicks.

Mark argues that, while it is almost never possible to spend the total budget on an ad (say $10), it is possible to spend the desired $10 by having dozens of ads for the same book, each with a budget of just $1.

I'm currently trying this and it does seem to be working.

Philip


----------



## Philip Gibson

LilyBLily said:


> Mark said he first tried upping the daily spend budget by very large sums, but that didn't do anything. Then he switched to the many little ads with smaller budgets and got a better response. I think I'd go nuts trying that, but if the sales copy is different, there's the A/B testing, right?
> 
> Did you change the ad copy? Are you using different keywords for each ad?


Yes, I now have nearly 20 ads for the same book with various permutations of ad copy, keywords and bids. It's too much work to keep track of all the internals of each individual ad, and I've given up trying to figure out why some ads work and some don't anyway. Now I'm just throwing stuff up randomly, seeing WHAT works, not trying to figure out WHY stuff works or doesn't.

During the first week of doing this I've sold 12 Kindle books and 10 paperbacks of the same book (a box set) as a result of these ads. I'm not bidding more than $0.16 on any of the keyword groups. Average cost per click has been about $0.08. Daily limit for each ad has been $5 with most ads spending much less than $1 daily. ACoS averages around 40-45% and return on investment has been 140% so far.

I haven't been able to do proper A/B testing since some of the ads that would be A/B don't get any comparative traction at all and there seem to be too many unknowable random factors involved anyway. That's another reason why I'm adopting a "random" approach myself to these ads.

Just gonna keep throwing lots of stuff up while keeping costs low, seeing what sticks/works and not thinking too much about internal causes and effects.

Philip


----------



## Author A.C. Salter

Hi guys, awesome thread - its taken a couple of days to read through since the beginning, so I thought I'd add my penny's worth.

I tried AMS for a month and the results were: impressions - 168,957, clicks -159, acpc - $0.18, spend - $28.48, total sales - $11.96 and acos - 238.13%

Not brilliant on the surface - however, May was my best month since I first published early last year. Eversong is the first in the series and I've had follow up sales. On top of that there's been pages read every day, sometimes going above the thousand mark. I've worked out the royalties earned for May and its $108.67 so that's around $80 profit. I admit some of my sales maybe organic but the pages read have boosted me up the charts so has only compounded the effect - bonus!

Another thing that I've noticed is that any books sold in the UK don't register as an AMS sale. This puts me at a disadvantage as most of my sales are from the UK but they don't add to my ranking in the US. Its the same with the reviews. I've 27 for Eversong in the UK but only 5 in the US. Does anyone else have this problem?

Anyway, AMS has been good for me so I've copied the campaign and added another 50 keywords. I'll keep you guys posted with anything of interest.

Cheers guys


----------



## amdonehere

So with my new book, I really need to do some A/B testing of the tag line. Problem is, AMS ads has a way of killing your momentum with Keywords that worked. If I tried one ad and there are some impressions, and I want to see if using a different tag line might yield better results, AMS won't necessarily cooperate because it might just decide to not show your ad to those keywords at all. 

It's really frustrating. I don't know how to test tag lines because the second (or third) ad might just stop accumulating impressions.


----------



## CassieL

AlexaKang said:


> So with my new book, I really need to do some A/B testing of the tag line. Problem is, AMS ads has a way of killing your momentum with Keywords that worked. If I tried one ad and there are some impressions, and I want to see if using a different tag line might yield better results, AMS won't necessarily cooperate because it might just decide to not show your ad to those keywords at all.
> 
> It's really frustrating. I don't know how to test tag lines because the second (or third) ad might just stop accumulating impressions.


What about using Facebook or Bookbub CPC ads to test the tag line and then transfer what you learn into AMS after you've spent $5 or $10 there?


----------



## CassieL

Al Stevens said:


> I added the permafree title (book #1 in the series) to AMS today. In less than three hours it had spent its $1 limit. I don't know how to interpret this. Is it considered advisable to put a permafree in this program?


I know others have been running ads on free books. I had a big promo this weekend and had my first in series free and ran ads on book 1 and book 3 which released today. You can't judge by sales obviously since there are none to report, so you just have to go with what you're willing to spend and make sure your click ratio stays healthy and it keeps delivering. Long-term you'll have to judge by increased sell-through to later books.

I had actually come on here to post that my ad on the book 3 has an ACoS of 2500% at the moment because I had a sale recorded against it after something like 225 clicks which I assume lead to potential borrows of book 1.


----------



## A past poster

I have an AMS ad that's done well for months until this past week when sales suddenly disappeared. The average click price is 20 cents, with some keywords at 30 cents and more.  I kept increasing bids on the most effective keywords to keep the book on the first page of the carousel, which I'm not sure was wise. The daily budget of $4 can get used up quickly with 30 cent bids. Also, the book might have become too visible for too long so that most of the prospective buyers have seen it. 

I'm wondering if I should pause this ad for a few weeks before starting it again, or if I should pause the ad, wait, and then start an entirely new ad. I have only one ad for the book. The ACoS this morning was 40.53.


----------



## CassieL

Marian said:


> I have an AMS ad that's done well for months until this past week when sales suddenly disappeared. The average click price is 20 cents, with some keywords at 30 cents and more. I kept increasing bids on the most effective keywords to keep the book on the first page of the carousel, which I'm not sure was wise. The daily budget of $4 can get used up quickly with 30 cent bids. Also, the book might have become too visible for too long so that most of the prospective buyers have seen it.
> 
> I'm wondering if I should pause this ad for a few weeks before starting it again, or if I should pause the ad, wait, and then start an entirely new ad. I have only one ad for the book. The ACoS this morning was 40.53.


You could also up your budget. My romance ad I start at $10 every morning and up as the budget maxes out as long as sales/borrows are there to justify it. Today I'm up to $50 on it.

I doubt all the potential readers have seen it unless you've sold at least tens of thousands of that title.

If you do pause it, I would stick with the same ad.

Or you can try something I was doing that seemed to be working. (I've paused those ads because of a promo I'm doing right now.) I had two ads on a book and would run them sequentially. So as soon as sales/borrows dried up, I'd pause the ad that was running and start the other one until that one dried up and then move back to the first ad.


----------



## Billie Winterholer

As Author A.C. Salter said, this is an awesome thread.

I've run a few sponsored ad campaigns and have not been able to assess how well they did, but I think my problem is my ad - trying to make one that is attractive with the minimal words allowed.

Keep it up, I'm making notes!


----------



## A past poster

Cassie Leigh said:


> You could also up your budget. My romance ad I start at $10 every morning and up as the budget maxes out as long as sales/borrows are there to justify it. Today I'm up to $50 on it.
> 
> I doubt all the potential readers have seen it unless you've sold at least tens of thousands of that title.
> 
> If you do pause it, I would stick with the same ad.
> 
> Or you can try something I was doing that seemed to be working. (I've paused those ads because of a promo I'm doing right now.) I had two ads on a book and would run them sequentially. So as soon as sales/borrows dried up, I'd pause the ad that was running and start the other one until that one dried up and then move back to the first ad.


I like your idea of running two ads sequentially. Do you up your bids to keep them on the first page of the carousel? Some of my most effective keywords have more than doubled in price this past month. I'm not in KU so I don't get borrows or page reads.


----------



## CassieL

Marian said:


> I like your idea of running two ads sequentially. Do you up your bids to keep them on the first page of the carousel? Some of my most effective keywords have more than doubled in price this past month. I'm not in KU so I don't get borrows or page reads.


I don't pay any attention to the carousel, but I think my ads do fall on the first page often. I look more at whether I'm getting impressions on an ad and how much it's costing me to get a sale with a specific keyword. If things slow and I have room to up my bids on words that are getting me sales, I do. If not, I try to find other words where I can up the bid to get the ad moving or add new ones.

My romance book is KU but almost all of my non-fiction is wide. In a sense it makes the calculations cleaner because you either have a sale or you don't and it happens that day so you can see exactly what's happening with your ad. Most of what I run ads on are priced $4.99 so it gives me some room to work with.


----------



## Author A.C. Salter

As a trial to see if it improves things, I've put Eversong on a countdown deal so the price has dropped to 99c. Has anyone else done a countdown deal on an AMS book? If so, does it make a difference?


----------



## CassieL

I did a free run on an AMS book and it definitely made a difference.


----------



## weigle1234

Author A.C. Salter said:


> As a trial to see if it improves things, I've put Eversong on a countdown deal so the price has dropped to 99c. Has anyone else done a countdown deal on an AMS book? If so, does it make a difference?


A month or so ago I did a short 6-day Countdown that went through 3 different price levels. I did not see any significant results, but for such a short duration I really did not expect any. Perhaps I will try it again someday for a longer duration.


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> weigle1234--
> 
> 1. Reduce the daily max spend on my main ad
> 2. Pause the main ad and start a new one at much lower keyword bids
> 3. Reduce the number of keywords in the main ad
> 4. Push harder with higher keyword bids
> 5. Pause the ads over the summer
> 6. Change nothing
> 
> Advice?


At the moment I am in about the same situation as yourself. Of my 13 eBooks only 1 makes decent earnings, and that's not much. I terminated its ad (Sponsored Products / Automatic / 25-cent bid) about 3 weeks ago. After running 5 months the ACoS was sitting at 66%.

Generally, the remaining 12 eBooks at least break, or earn chump change at best.

Just this morning I analyzed everything for that ad on a month-to-month basis. For the first month the daily Impressions averaged bout 8,000 - yielding about 8 clicks. By the fifth month daily Impressions had steadily declined to about 4,000 - yielding about 4 clicks. Surprisingly, that Click/Impression ratio was very consistent (about .10%) which I gather is about average. However, the Sales/Click steadily declined - meaning the ad was loosing impact. - so, I terminated it.

As is obvious, AMS was steadily decreasing the Impressions from month-to-month (8,000, down to 4,000 after 5 months) - likely due to declining Sales/Click (which I feel is a huge factor within their algorithm).

Perhaps I should have kept the ad running another month or so since it may have been resulting in increased paperback sales - but, I have no way of knowing that for certain.

My response has been to give the Manual / Keywords mode a shot (with lots of Keywords dumped in - like close to 1,000). That may well be a poor approach. Most folks on this forum appear to be going with much fewer Keywords, toying with those yielding the most Clicks - apparently with mixed results.

Offhand, I would advise sticking with any ad that still has an ACoS of much less than 70% - then Pause it for awhile (at least a month) - set it back to Running and see what happens. Also, do not depend on the ACoS displayed on your AMS table, I find it to be very inaccurate (huge lags or non-existent) - work out the math yourself (a real pain for must folks). I'm a physicist, so crunching numbers comes naturally.

In the meantime, don't just drop the ad - try experimenting with the same ad, but with lower Click Bids, and/or different Keywords. That way you will be reaching a different audience with each ad. Run a few of the same ads, but change only one element at a time for each ad - otherwise the results will be meaningless.

This is the approach I am now trying. As will be true for most of us - only time will reveal the results.

All my years in the mail order business taught me how to perfect ad wording and sales literature writing (via A/B testing). But little else seems to carry over to AMS advertising - it is a totally different audience. Mail order buyers are practically obsessed with buying via that medium.

Once I got a DIY buyer hooked, he (I only mailed to men) was basically a customer for life - and would buy any book I wrote. I never had a book lose money - it was just a matter of how much, or how little, it made. But, most of my mail order buyers were not very sophisticated - not exactly Mensa candidates. I soon gathered that from the countless letters they wrote back.

Also, they were a bunch of old guys (like I now am). I discovered that by being involved in a multi-level scheme a few decades ago. My mentor was traveling to a one-week convention in Dallas. Knowing I was a mail order guy, he asked me to provide him with the names of 30 or 40 customers within a 50-mail radius of Dallas. His intent was to coerce them into signing up with our get-rich (but perfectly legal) multi-level program during his free time.

Long story short, he soon returned to Phoenix pretty disgusted with me. Turned out that of the 10 or 12 guys he visited, nobody was the least bit interested, and their average age was around 80 years (at least according to my mentor).

I believe most Kindle folks are much more sophisticated. Generally young, well educated, and computer-savvy. Not at all like my mail order audience. So, I too am in a learning phase, much like most everyone else here.

Of the 6 topics you have address, #6 (Change nothing) would be my last choice - being ambitious and open to change is IMHO, the only hope for achieving success in this, or any other, game.

For #5 - Since our ads are basically FREE (unlike mail order ads), I would not pause that ad for the summer months, or for any other months for that matter. Just Pause it for a few weeks at a time. Substitute the same ad between Pauses, with changes to critical elements (but only change a single element with each test). That way, it keeps reaching a varying audience (I think - depends on the AMS gods!)

It is a long, drawn-out process, to be sure. But, I see no other way around it.

For anybody still reading this far, hope some of this makes sense.


----------



## amdonehere

So even though Amazon tells us to use ASIN as KWs, all the ASINs I tried got "-" impressions.

Has anyone else gotten ASINs to work?

On another note, sales from AMS ads really dipped from back when I was running the ads last fall/winter. Here's the kicker: I got several KWs that way outspend sales, according to the AMS sales report. They get a lot of clicks and the bid prices are high. But every time I paused them, my book ranking falls. I can only surmise they are leading to some KU downloads. This really sucks be cause on the one hand, I'd like to pause them if they're click baits. But as it is, I have no way to tell other than falling book ranking, and I can't clearly attribute that to pausing certain KWs.

I can't help but wonder if this whole thing is not just a money making scheme for Amazon. Maybe there's a psych/behaviorial experiment going on, and we're the lab rats.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Al Stevens said:


> I am indeed a lab rat. My guitar book's sales picked up after a day in AMS and is making a profit. So is my book on diabetes. The fiction is not doing much except for the freebie, which gets lots of clicks.


Are you doing any product display ads for your non-fiction?


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> weigle1234--
> 
> You said that in summer you advertised half as much but still got the same results--in print magazines.


Here's something that may help boost sales a bit during certain summer months:

Try running your best ad(s) while heat waves are sweeping the country. Folks are then more inclined to be indoors and perusing ads.

That was one of the more interesting sales factors I discovered in my mail order career. As a heat wave was progressing cross-country (they usually start on the west coast, and always sweep from west to east) I would get increased orders about 2 - 3 days after the wave hit those affected states.

So, I would anticipate which states were next in line to be hit, and would increase mailings 2 -3 days in advance to those states.

It worked for me - no spectacular results, but anything is worth testing. Even though we cannot test demographics, the heat wave thing may help sales.


----------



## weigle1234

Lately I have been running Sponsored Products ads with nearly 1,000 Keywords thrown in - which may not be the smartest way to go.  As always, the only way to know for sure is via tests using fewer (perhaps very few) Keywords.

Is anyone aware of a “Site for Keyword Dummies” (preferably a FREE one) where all I do is plug in a Keyword, and out pops a bunch of Keywords likely to appear within a genre related to that Keyword?

So far, my Google searches for such have been in vain.  Any site which looks somewhat promising, and offers a FREE trial, wants credit card info up front - something I refuse to get sucked into doing.


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> In May, I earned more from reads than from sales--and that's even if Amazon decides to lower the rate yet again (which I think it will).
> 
> I find that my AMS ads do sell my books. How they do it remains a mystery.


I also have a few eBooks that pay nearly as much for pages read as for outright sales. None of them are anything to write home about, which makes them good candidates for testing (with very low Bids - like 2-cents).

I think folks writing novels, such as yourself, are at somewhat of an advantage in that readers are more inclined to just keep on reading interesting pages. All my eBooks are for the DIY crowd (a fairly small genre). They take a quick look, and order right away, or go elsewhere - there is not much in the way of interesting reading to hold their attention.

An ad I am thinking of testing (with a low-selling book) is; provide a few pages of genre-related jokes (clean ones, of course) to entice them into reading further.

Let us say my DIY book is entitled "How to Train Elephants." The first Table of Contents entry might be: "Stupid Elephant Jokes."

Just another of my many Crazy Ideas. I often found the dumbest concepts were the ones which made me the most money. For whatever reason, lots of folks are drawn to things of a "Gimmicky" nature.

Anyone out there thought of trying something along those lines, or know of it being done?


----------



## Donna White Glaser

Weigle1234,  have you looked at KDP Rocket?


----------



## A past poster

AlexaKang said:


> So even though Amazon tells us to use ASIN as KWs, all the ASINs I tried got "-" impressions.
> 
> Has anyone else gotten ASINs to work?


They haven't worked for me.


----------



## CassieL

Marian said:


> They haven't worked for me.


Same. I tried them on about seven different ads and nothing.


----------



## Alvina

Due to dismal sales, I decided to try out AMS Ads - Sponsored Product yesterday!

However, I've submitted my ads for almost 24 hours but it still haven't got their approval...


----------



## Colin

Alvina said:


> Due to dismal sales, I decided to try out AMS Ads - Sponsored Product yesterday!
> 
> However, I've submitted my ads for almost 24 hours but it still haven't got their approval...


From my experience, the first ad takes longer to get approved than subsequent ads. So you should hear back from them soon.


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## BillyDeCarlo

I have my bid set at $1 for the 'crime fiction' keyword for the crime/noir novel that I published May 28. If I open an incognito/private browsing window (so I'm not logged into amazon and no cached cookies or other info can prejudice the results) and go to amazon.com and search on crime fiction in the books category, my book shows up on page 12 of the carousel. 

Is that about what you experienced folks would expect for what I assume is a highly competitive keyword? 

What do you estimate it would take in terms of a bid to get to page one? I'm currently just experimenting, I don't want to invest a lot until I have books two and three in the series available.


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## CassieL

Alvina said:


> Due to dismal sales, I decided to try out AMS Ads - Sponsored Product yesterday!
> 
> However, I've submitted my ads for almost 24 hours but it still haven't got their approval...


Usually my ads are approved in less than 12 hours, but I just had one that took about 30 hours to get approved. Submitted at 8 pm on Tuesday and was only approved early this morning so they were definitely slower than normal.


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## CassieL

BillyDeCarlo said:


> I have my bid set at $1 for the 'crime fiction' keyword for the crime/noir novel that I published May 28. If I open an incognito/private browsing window (so I'm not logged into amazon and no cached cookies or other info can prejudice the results) and go to amazon.com and search on crime fiction in the books category, my book shows up on page 12 of the carousel.
> 
> Is that about what you experienced folks would expect for what I assume is a highly competitive keyword?
> 
> What do you estimate it would take in terms of a bid to get to page one? I'm currently just experimenting, I don't want to invest a lot until I have books two and three in the series available.


I don't actually look for my books on the carousel but when I'm poking around in other's books I usually see my books in the 1, 2, or 3 slot on the first page of the carousel and I bid lower than that most of the time. Still higher than most here, but lower than that. This is for fantasy, though, so it's possible it's a less competitive category than crime fiction. But even in romance I don't normally bid that high and I'm getting clicks on that book, too, so it could be Amazon has decided your book isn't a good fit for that word and is prioritizing others over you since it's not all just pure bidding that determines placement.


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## BillyDeCarlo

Cassie Leigh said:


> I don't actually look for my books on the carousel but when I'm poking around in other's books I usually see my books in the 1, 2, or 3 slot on the first page of the carousel and I bid lower than that most of the time. Still higher than most here, but lower than that. This is for fantasy, though, so it's possible it's a less competitive category than crime fiction. But even in romance I don't normally bid that high and I'm getting clicks on that book, too, so it could be Amazon has decided your book isn't a good fit for that word and is prioritizing others over you since it's not all just pure bidding that determines placement.


Actually, I forgot to mention that I when I searched on crime fiction I also clicked 4 stars and above and releases within 30 days, so otherwise I'd be much farther down than page 12! I think you're right - there are definitely other factors at play then, I assume that being current sales, other titles by the author, how well the author sells (nada since it's a brand new pen name), etc. I think this provides some insight to those who are trying to crack the algorithm.


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## CassieL

LilyBLily said:


> Maybe I'm worrying over nothing. I just don't like the way June is shaping up.
> 
> My lead ad, the one that sells all the other fiction, averages 1 click per 389 impressions. In the last week alone, it has gained over 100k impressions. It has run out of daily budget maybe twice over seven months, and slowly over time I raised the budget to $15. It has never used that up. I believe raising my bids on the best-producing keywords accelerated impressions and clicks, but my data on the keyword bids over time are spotty. Also, my head hurts after spending an hour trying to make sense of them.
> 
> There is no way I can know which keyword produces more KU reads than outright sales. If that actually happens. Perhaps someone who sells at a much higher daily level might know if in most cases the sales match or exceed the page reads. Given that, I don't know whether to dump certain keywords, or raise my bids on them, or lower them.


I'm dealing with this with my romance ad because I'm probably 75% borrows on it which isn't my norm. What I've decided to do is not to pause any keywords other than the ones that aren't getting clicks. So, for example, I had one author keyword that had something like 19,000 impressions and no clicks, so I paused that one. I basically pause at about 1,800 impressions and no clicks because, as you've noticed, romance tends to click more than other genres.

For the other keywords, if I get past a certain number of clicks and don't see a buy or that author in my also-boughts then I lower the bid in favor of books where I am seeing buys. But I don't shut it down.

This is for an ad that I've been starting at $10 every morning and has maxed out as high as $60 on a given day for the last three weeks with sales/borrows to pay for it. I will add that yesterday my ranks didn't drop but it was an extremely slow day compared to the day before for both my fantasy and romance titles.


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## CassieL

BillyDeCarlo said:


> Actually, I forgot to mention that I when I searched on crime fiction I also clicked 4 stars and above and releases within 30 days, so otherwise I'd be much farther down than page 12! I think you're right - there are definitely other factors at play then, I assume that being current sales, other titles by the author, how well the author sells (nada since it's a brand new pen name), etc. I think this provides some insight to those who are trying to crack the algorithm.


Ah. That's not the carousel that I think most people are referring to. The carousel is on the book pages itself. So search for a crime fiction author and go to one of their book pages and see where your books fall in that list of sponsored products that has about eight books per page listed.

In terms of search results there are only two shown at the bottom of the first page so that would be harder to get onto and I don't always see myself on that first page, but sometimes do.


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## BillyDeCarlo

Cassie Leigh said:


> Ah. That's not the carousel that I think most people are referring to. The carousel is on the book pages itself. So search for a crime fiction author and go to one of their book pages and see where your books fall in that list of sponsored products that has about eight books per page listed.


Ah, okay. So, using that way, I'm on page 20 for David Baldacci and page 12 for Clive Cussler on a $1 max bid (without any further filtering as far as stars or new releases). What would it take to get up to the first few pages, anyone care to speculate based on their experience?


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## CassieL

BillyDeCarlo said:


> Ah, okay. So, using that way, I'm on page 20 for David Baldacci and page 12 for Clive Cussler on a $1 max bid (without any further filtering as far as stars or new releases). What would it take to get up to the first few pages, anyone care to speculate based on their experience?


You can try bumping your bids higher. When I did my recent launch I tried $1.25 and $2.50 at one point just to see what would happen and had a couple clicks that cost me over a dollar so there are definitely people bidding that high, but if I were you I would instead work on adding different keywords that can get you on those pages for less spend. I assume you are also using David Baldacci and Clive Cussler as keywords? And maybe some of their titles as well?

If Amazon decides you aren't a great fit I don't think any bid is going to be enough to get you up there.

Also, if you don't have at least 100 keywords on your ad, try to get up to that level. It's something I'm poking at right now because some of my non-fiction ads that had done okay and then stalled out only had 35-50 keywords and I'm thinking more keywords might help. My more successful fiction ads generally have between 150-250 keywords and I'm trying to see if that could be part of it. For me that's probably 80% author names, 15% generic words like "romance" or "fantasy" or "contemporary romance", and 5% titles of books because those don't work as well for me.

If you're stuck for words to use, add authors from your book's also-boughts and those author's also-boughts.


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## weigle1234

Cassie Leigh said:


> My more successful fiction ads generally have between 150-250 keywords and I'm trying to see if that could be part of it. For me that's probably 80% author names, 15% generic words like "romance" or "fantasy" or "contemporary romance", and 5% titles of books because those don't work as well for me.
> 
> If you're stuck for words to use, add authors from your book's also-boughts and those author's also-boughts.


I am trying to locate unbiased information on Dave Chesson. He promotes his eBook "KDP Rocket" quite heavily, and offers a FREE course on mastering AMS ads and choosing AMS Keywords.

Just for kicks, I am about 25% into his FREE course, and it appears to be legitimate. If, after finishing the course, it still appears to be legitimate I will consider ordering his book.

I have spent an hour or more on Google trying to get some meaningful information on both Dave and his "KDP Rocket" eBook. However, all I come up with is an endless barrage of hype about both he and his book. Every time I come across something which looks unbiased, it turns out to be an interview with Dave - i.e., more hype.

Has anyone here had dealings with either Dave or his eBook, or know anything at all about either?


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## Alvina

Cassie Leigh said:


> Usually my ads are approved in less than 12 hours, but I just had one that took about 30 hours to get approved. Submitted at 8 pm on Tuesday and was only approved early this morning so they were definitely slower than normal.





Colin said:


> From my experience, the first ad takes longer to get approved than subsequent ads. So you should hear back from them soon.


Thanks Cassie and Colin, my first ads was approved after 24 hours, but my second ads was running in less than 12 hours!

Anyway, my first ads has 3800 Impressions and got only 1 click. The second ads has 2000 Impressions and received 2 clicks. Nevertheless, none of them bought me any sales.


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## Shelley K

Alvina said:


> Thanks Cassie and Colin, my first ads was approved after 24 hours, but my second ads was running in less than 12 hours!
> 
> Anyway, my first ads has 3800 Impressions and got only 1 click. The second ads has 2000 Impression and received 2 clicks. Nevertheless, none of them bought me any sales.


Alvina, look at your also-boughts and their also-boughts. Use those author name and book names as keywords.


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## Accord64

BillyDeCarlo said:


> Ah, okay. So, using that way, I'm on page 20 for David Baldacci and page 12 for Clive Cussler on a $1 max bid (without any further filtering as far as stars or new releases). What would it take to get up to the first few pages, anyone care to speculate based on their experience?


I think it's a bit more complicated than just bid price, and much of it is out of our control. Amazon has algorithms at work that further determine where (or if) your book will appear on the carousel.

The following is pure speculation on my part, based on experience and reports from others.

For Amazon, it seems to be all about positive customer experience. They are most interested in providing relevant product suggestions, so much of what appears on those carousels (and the order) is tailored to each customer. I have to assume it's based on what they have purchased and/or searched on in the past.

So if you're trying to use "Stephen King" as a keyword for a romance novel campaign, and set a high bid, it's still a long-shot that your book will appear on page one of someone who loves horror books and is searching on Stephen King. However, if this person has previously purchased something that would suggest to the 'Zon that they would like romance novels, then maybe your romance novel will make an appearance somewhere on that carousel.

On the other hand, if the search was on a romance author (which was used as a keyword), then your book has a far better chance of appearing. On what page would depend on bid price and how many other AMS campaigns are vying for that same keyword at the time (and a lot of other things, like current sales rank, reviews, etc.).

Again, this is just my take on what's going on behind the AMS curtain.


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## amdonehere

Accord64 said:


> I think it's a bit more complicated than just bid price, and much of it is out of our control. Amazon has algorithms at work that further determine where (or if) your book will appear on the carousel.
> 
> The following is pure speculation on my part, based on experience and reports from others.
> 
> For Amazon, it seems to be all about positive customer experience. They are most interested in providing relevant product suggestions, so much of what appears on those carousels (and the order) is tailored to each customer. I have to assume it's based on what they have purchased and/or searched on in the past.
> 
> So if you're trying to use "Stephen King" as a keyword for a romance novel campaign, and set a high bid, it's still a long-shot that your book will appear on page one of someone who loves horror books and is searching on Stephen King. However, if this person has previously purchased something that would suggest to the 'Zon that they would like romance novels, then maybe your romance novel will make an appearance somewhere on that carousel.
> 
> On the other hand, if the search was on a romance author (which was used as a keyword), then your book has a far better chance of appearing. On what page would depend on bid price and how many other AMS campaigns are vying for that same keyword at the time (and a lot of other things, like current sales rank, reviews, etc.).
> 
> Again, this is just my take on what's going on behind the AMS curtain.


As much as I like to agree with you in theory, I'm going to have to disagree about the AMS ads catering to customers preferences. I've been running Sponsored Products ads since last July. I've come to the conclusion that there is some or little correlations as to which books show up on any book's page. The algo switches things around. Sometimes they are genre relevant. Other times, it's as if Amazon has a general list of books (anywhere from 15-100+) that they just throw up there.

Case in point, I write WWII historical fiction. Due to AMS ads, I'm very familiar now with all the latest releases and bestselling WWII fiction to some that languish in the high 6 figures. It never ceases to amaze me how often I see Romance novels with half-naked six-pack men on the cover, or worse Dark Romances about kidnapping and BDSM, listed as sponsored products on a page for a book about the Holocaust. You cannot convince me that someone looking to read about this horrific time in history is interested at that moment to get off on a shifter or billionnaire, or that the reader is concurrently fantasizing about being kidnapped and abused. Sorry, that's just sick. It doesn't happen all the time, but I've seen it enough to conclude that Amazon has a general list of ads that they throw up there sometimes regardless of the book.

Actually, I see 2 lists. One is a list that goes on for 100+ pages. The books on that list are predetermined somehow. They include a variety of generally popular genres like Romances of various kinds with men chests on covers, and thrillers (Atlantic Gene is always on this one, and for a while, Girl Jacked), mixed in with some garden variety of whatever. This list goes on books that are selling well, or books of more niche genres where there aren't a lot of sponsored products ads for that genre. Perhaps Amazon just figures, let's just throw the most popular stuff up there because those are what EVERYBODY wants to buy.

The second list is smaller, about 10-15 books, all from the same 3 authors (or I suspect, the same publisher with the same 3 pen names), bidding at about $0.05, usually of some sheik romance themes. These are the first t0 go up for all the new releases. It's like Amazon's go-to list to start. (Why these books are so favored? I don't know. I know we're not supposed to opine on whether books are good or bad but seriously, there are better books out there.) They'll eventually get pushed to the back when the list populats with other ads bidding higher, but they always get first dip, regardless of the fact that the genre is totally unrelated.

Anyway, this is what I see when I check for historical fiction.

As for product display ads, I have seen maybe once, when a book of same genre shows up on another book's page. They're typically completely off if they are supposed to target interested readers.


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## amdonehere

LilyBLily said:


> Also, my head hurts after spending an hour trying to make sense of them.


I feel your pain.

On another note, to Cassie, thanks for continuously answering our questions and trying to help.


----------



## khotisarque

Accord64 said:


> "The following is pure speculation on my part, based on experience and reports from others."
> 
> That seems very reasonable. I would like to make a couple of comments. First, such a strategy reinforces the already-successful authors and their books while placing invisible obstacles in the way of newcomers. Trying to cross-sell from Romance to Historical Fiction is impeded but buttressing your standing within your established niche is encouraged. Eventually this results in a sameness and the same short-list of established names writing variations of their same old thing - exactly like the less adventurous trad publishers. Pity. Second thing, Amazon does [gasp!] make mistakes like the rest of us and sometimes their outcomes are unintended. But they do get corrected after they are recognized.
> 
> That said, where else can you get free exposure? It's a good deal for us even if imperfect.


----------



## amdonehere

BillyDeCarlo said:


> I have my bid set at $1 for the 'crime fiction' keyword for the crime/noir novel that I published May 28. If I open an incognito/private browsing window (so I'm not logged into amazon and no cached cookies or other info can prejudice the results) and go to amazon.com and search on crime fiction in the books category, my book shows up on page 12 of the carousel.
> 
> Is that about what you experienced folks would expect for what I assume is a highly competitive keyword?
> 
> What do you estimate it would take in terms of a bid to get to page one? I'm currently just experimenting, I don't want to invest a lot until I have books two and three in the series available.


Billy, my 2 cents: stop trying to bid on the top ranking bestsellers like David Baldacci. These aren't FB ads. You'll burn through your wallet. And you don't need to get on their pages, it's not effective.

The carousel is a changing baby/beast. You have to keep watch and constantly tend to it and feed it, take care of it.

Start by going to your main genre and subgenre's HNR list. See who's on top. It probably is not David Baldacci, but some up and coming or other midlist authors who are also selling well.

Check the ads on their pages. If they have fewer than 20 pages of ads on the carousel, get yourself on those pages. You can probably bid under $0.40 and get on the first page. Even getting on p.3 will be good.

If the have 100+ pages of ads of irrelevant genres, then Amazon is doing its weird thing and throwing up everything. Wait till the hype for these books die down. Check back in 2-3 weeks. Those 100+ pages will/might revert back to 10-15 pages. I've even seen it revert down to 2 pages. But those books will still be selling well since your genre is not the fast and burn trending kind. Now you can try using those pages as KWs.


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## CassieL

AlexaKang said:


> On another note, to Cassie, thanks for continuously answering our questions and trying to help.


Thanks. And just to be clear, I know I don't have all the answers, I just have my own experience and what has/hasn't worked for me. I did really dig into the mechanics of the different ad types to write that book so those things I can point people to when they come up, but like I say in the book getting these things to work is more art than science. What works on one of my ads doesn't on another and what works for me doesn't for someone else and what's worked for others hasn't worked for me. That's why I appreciate this discussion so much because we all throw in what we're seeing and doing and can learn together as things change.


----------



## Accord64

AlexaKang said:


> Case in point, I write WWII historical fiction. Due to AMS ads, I'm very familiar now with all the latest releases and bestselling WWII fiction to some that languish in the high 6 figures. It never ceases to amaze me how often I see Romance novels with half-naked six-pack men on the cover, or worse Dark Romances about kidnapping and BDSM, listed as sponsored products on a page for a book about the Holocaust. You cannot convince me that someone looking to read about this horrific time in history is interested at that moment to get off on a shifter or billionnaire, or that the reader is concurrently fantasizing about being kidnapped and abused. Sorry, that's just sick. It doesn't happen all the time, but I've seen it enough to conclude that Amazon has a general list of ads that they throw up there sometimes regardless of the book.


I guess my point was that we can't be sure if all customers are seeing the same things, since the 'Zon seems to customize returns for each. Although I won't disagree that the algos get a little crazy at times...


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## amdonehere

LilyBLily said:


> I've checked on those three "authors" in the past and their books are not ranked high. All their positive reviews are obviously fake, and some of their negative reviews accuse them of not writing full-length books. I assume the publisher behind them bids fantastically high and uses all 1,000 keywords and makes it up in KU reads. Reads do affect ranking but not as much as sales do, I believe, which accounts for their poor ranking. Also, you can bid $5 per keyword and not spend over .05 cents if someone clicks. If no one clicks, the ad gets free impressions, so it's a win-win. I guess if we wanted to risk it, we could do the same, bid $5 per keyword. But not on a Stephen King book.


OMG!! Lily I'm ROTFL. It's totally true. They use TONS of fake reviews and obvious as hell too. I don't know why Amazon lets them do get away with this. This is why I say this publisher is Amazon's favored child. She gets first dip in AMS ads, and she gets away with fake reviews.

I checked out some of her reviewers. They clearly review books for pay. What cracked me up was some of these reviewers gave good reviews for paleo cook books AND vegan cook books. Now granted, a household could have people with different eating habits, but...nah, I don't buy it from the way the reviews were written. No one is a paleo eater AND a vegan.

And one minute these reviewers are endorsing a book on high power financial executive strategies, while next minute they're endorsing a book on how to make quilts. Yep. I Grandma is CEO on Wall Street by day, and a sweet little old lady making quilts at night. 

These "authors" don't bid high though. They bid at around 5c. I know because whenever I see them on a page I want to be on, I bid at $.10 and will leap over them on the carousel.


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## Seneca42

Accord64 said:


> I think it's a bit more complicated than just bid price, and much of it is out of our control. Amazon has algorithms at work that further determine where (or if) your book will appear on the carousel.


It's definitely a hodge podge of things. Last week I got incredibly lucky. An amazon imprint book was released and one of my keywords was in the blurb for that book. Because it was a new book and a new author, no one even knew it was released I guess. Long story short, only 5 books were in the carousel of a book that was ranked #5 in the paid store. My book was first in the carousel and clicks were costing me about 7c.

Fast forward a week, there's now 100 pages of ads or whatever and my book is gone from the ads carousel.

So it's really a crapshoot. bidding matters, but sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes it doesn't for a while and then it does as other authors rush in on a book and drive the bids through the roof.


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## Steven Kelliher

So ... "Estimated Orders" vs. "Estimated Total Sales" ... I don't get it.

Just noticed this distinction when clicking to edit my running AMS ads.

There were a few adds showing $4.99 in total sales = 1 sale, but showing 6-7 estimated orders.

SUPER delayed reporting? Or 5-6 order declines/cancellations.


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## Author A.C. Salter

May was my first month for AMS, and it was the best month I've had for sales and reads since publishing last year. So I copied the campaign, left the keywords the same but upped my daily budget to $2. 

It's flopped. I even put the book on a countdown deal to reduce it to 99cents but it has had little effect.

I'm going to try adding more keywords and see what happens.

Still loving the thread 😀


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## BillyDeCarlo

Seneca42 said:


> It's definitely a hodge podge of things. Last week I got incredibly lucky. An amazon imprint book was released and one of my keywords was in the blurb for that book. Because it was a new book and a new author, no one even knew it was released I guess. Long story short, only 5 books were in the carousel of a book that was ranked #5 in the paid store. My book was first in the carousel and clicks were costing me about 7c.


How did you find out that all that happened? When you get a spike, how do you reverse engineer to the source like that?


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## weigle1234

Steven Kelliher said:


> So ... "Estimated Orders" vs. "Estimated Total Sales" ... I don't get it.
> 
> Just noticed this distinction when clicking to edit my running AMS ads.
> 
> There were a few adds showing $4.99 in total sales = 1 sale, but showing 6-7 estimated orders.
> 
> SUPER delayed reporting? Or 5-6 order declines/cancellations.


My advice is to not rely on the "Estimated Orders" or ACoS entries. I am sure there are delays in updating that info, but checking the "Prior Months Royalties" charts should give you more reliable data.

But, I even question those charts. My very first AMS ad started running in mid January of this year. Yet the charts also show "Total Royalties" for the months of October, November, and December of last year. What is that all about?

Also, if you are (like myself) also selling paperbacks, the mystery deepens. Apparently the ACoS figures also include paperback sales. Are the included paperback sales only those that happen as the result of ad Clicks? If so, that is great - I make more money from paperback sales.

If the ACoS includes any organic paperback sales, the scenario changes. When my ACoS exceeds 70% I assume my ad is a loser, and I either Pause or Terminate it. However, if ACoS includes organic paperback sales, even 40% could be a loser.

Reverse engineering should give answers, but can quickly evolve into a complex and confusing fiasco.

To my way of thinking, Kindle should clarify the ACoS thing (along with a few other things). All this reminds me of our confusing tax laws (legal thievery) which IMHO are deliberately complex. That way, folks are in a perpetual state of confusion, and eventually decide it is much easier to simply trust the tax thieves. Do not make waves or, worse yet, fight the system and risk ending up in Federal prison.

I am not implying that either Kindle or Amazon is dishonest by any stretch - if I thought so, I would dump them in an instant. But, my gut feeling is that the confusion factor probably works to their advantage.


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## Seneca42

BillyDeCarlo said:


> How did you find out that all that happened? When you get a spike, how do you reverse engineer to the source like that?


was looking at my keywords and noticed "gandhi" had 4,000 impressions. Thought that was very strange, but ignored it. Came back about 8 hours later and looked... 16,000 impressions. Okay, VERY strange. So went and looked at gandhi books to see if my ad was there, nope, it wasn't.

Woke up the next morning, 24,000 impressions but had no idea from where.

Then I was just looking through the best seller scifi list to see who was there and was checking out the ads to how much competition was going on for the top books, and then saw my ad sitting there on one of them with only 4-5 others beside it.

Still didn't put 2 and 2 together. But read the author blurb and Gandhi was in it. Mystery solved.

I think that one keyword generated 100k impressions in just one week. Then I got bumped as the algos kicked in and swamped the carousel with a ton of ads.


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## Seneca42

LilyBLily said:


> Did all those clicks get you sales?


you mean impressions? I can't remember the clicks, they came in around the 80 or so. Roughly the 1 per 1,000, which is typical.

and yep. Not as many sales as I'd have hoped, but it was a good week 

I'm kind of kicking myself. I should have dropped my price to 99c just to take advantage of the visibility (but the past month I've been testing full price, $3.99, on first in series and just didn't think to do it). What's been great is sell through was amazing (other books are $4.99), so all-in-all still happy.

But if this kind of thing ever happens again I'll definitely drop to 99c and treat it almost like a promo and opportunity to grab as many readers as I can.

The other thing I liked was that it gave me a good sense of what results you get with high visibility on a super high ranked book. I know people are paying $1 a click and more (possibly much more) to get those spots... and I have to say... *I think they are nuts*. Even if their impressions and click ratio is better than mine, it's still a money pit and the ONLY scenario where I can see it making sense is when you have a large back catalog and are okay with losing money to gain new customers.

But we've all known for a while that AMS is turning into a rich man's game. And just my theory, but visibility is getting harder than ever on AMS as I think sales are slumping for a lot of authors and they are upping bids.


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant

Reporting in on my "One Month, Let It Run Because I Haven't The Slightest Idea What I'm Doing" ad.

After a few frustrating experiments with ads in romance (which were getting very expensive with no real return that I could see) and cozy mystery (not so expensive, but also generally unproductive), with a lot of time spent tweaking keywords and bids to no appreciable benefit, I decided to run a very low budget experiment with the cozy mystery for one month to see what happened when there was no interference on my part.

I restarted an existing ad for a $0.99 first in series cozy mystery at $2/day, $0.21 max bid, approximately 230 keywords. About a dozen kws were generated by Amazon (insightful words that I couldn't possibly have come up with myself like, "mystery" and "cozy mystery" and a couple that were way out in left field). The balance were similar titles generated on yaniv.com.

The ad's now run for 31 days. Despite its official ACoS of 104.8%, I'm guessing [!!] that related KU borrows and possibly related sales on other titles (impossible to sort out, at least for someone as statistically challenged as myself) made it somewhere about a 100% return on my vast total investment of $24.90. At the very least, I'm quite sure it didn't actually lose me money.

Overall, ~95,000 new impressions. After a couple of days to get started, it fell into a surprisingly consistent ~2000 impressions/day, 525-550 impressions/click, 6 clicks/sale, $0.13 bid. Total spend was $24.90, so less than $1/day, well below the max of $2. The bid average started at about $0.11, went up to a smidge under $0.15, settled back to $0.13 at about the one week point, then never budged from there. Impressions per day were pretty consistent right from the start except for one brief surge around Memorial Day when it went up to around 5000/day for a couple days before falling back into the groove.

Of the approximately 230 kws, only 41 showed impressions, with the impressions/click all over the board from thousands/1, to 1/1. Of the Amazon-generated kws, only "mystery" and "cozy mystery" had any success. "Cozy mystery", naturally, had much better impressions/click/sales ratios, since "mystery" would have hit a lot of people who weren't interested in anything with a slight whiff of "cozy." Of the 41 kws with impressions, only 15 returned actual sales. The highest ACoS was 209% on a competing title. The next two highest were 111% on an author name (also the highest CPC of $0.16) and 108% on "mystery" ($0.13 CPC). All others fell under 80% ACoS down to my favorite at 6.5% (1 click, two sales--the first sale registered at no clicks for two weeks before the second sale with the first click).

I think the main benefit of the ad (and I think it's an important one) is that it's helped stabilize the sales ranking for the title. It didn't make it a bestseller or money earner, by any means, but, as the first in series, I think this steadier sales rank will be an advantage when I publish the next book in the series (which is way past my original planned pub date).

Notice all the "thinks" and "guesses" in the above. More "thinks" are: I haven't decided for sure, but I think I'll let it continue to run as-is until I notice a significant decline in performance. For romance, I can't decide whether to start an ad for a different title, or restart an ad I've already run but reset it at the $2/day, $0.21 max/bid. That's very low for romance so it may not be worth the effort. It certainly wasn't worth the effort at the much higher rates I'd tried before, even though the books were priced at $3.99. But the key difference may be in letting the ad run for a couple weeks without playing with it, allowing it to settle in and find the spot where it might actually work. Either that, or I'll just be throwing some money on the pyre for a couple of weeks to see the pretty glow as it burns. 

Nothing here of any use to the ad-savvy, but maybe of some interest to those, like me, who can't muster even a smidge of "savvy".  I'll post once I decide on a new romance ad and it has some time to run, and on the cozy mystery ad when it takes a major move one way or the other.


----------



## Decon

Amazon no longer want my money. For six books they could max me out at $33 per day. The results are just getting worse.










The historic results as at today mean nothing because they've been fairly static for 2 months.


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

Decon....how long have the ads been running relative to each other?  Launched at about the same time?  Launched at widely varying intervals?


----------



## Decon

My Dog's Servant said:


> Decon....how long have the ads been running relative to each other? Launched at about the same time? Launched at widely varying intervals?


Five of them were set up within a month of each other before Christmas. The top one which is a short story compilation was set up in March this year. In itself, it doesn't look like I've made much in sales, but as an example I had 89,000 page reads in December, spread evenly across all books. This last two days though I have had none and I'll be lucky if I hit 7,000 page reads this month.

I'd say I'm well into profit, but something has changed and it just no longer works for me in the way that it did.

When it was working, I obviously had a decent chart position that pulled in other organic sales and page reads, also print sales. I'm looking at free promos now to give them a boost in the charts as I can no longer work out a change in dynamics that would improve my AMS results. Prior to AMS I was earning less than $100 per month. I regularly pulled in $300 per month when I started and with over $600 in December. Now I'm back to less than $100 for the past 2 months.


----------



## CassieL

Decon said:


> Amazon no longer want my money. For six books they could max me out at $33 per day. The results are just getting worse.


Are you still following a low bid strategy? They're spending my money these days but my aCPC is in the 35 cent+ range on the ads where that's happening.


----------



## Decon

I just can't justify say a 35c bid. Without working it out and excluding the shorts compilation, I'm around 20 clicks to one sale on 4 books and say 11 on one book. It's not that I haven't changed covers or altered blurbs, because I have on at least two of them and the reviews are okay.

If I end up actually paying say 20c per click, and with all my books at $2.99, I'd lose $2 for every sale on the 4 books and 20c on the one book. (Excluding page reads) I'm not in it to give Amazon my money for no return.

If all my books were performing with say 6/8 clicks per sale, I might have increased my bids substantially. Maybe the answer is to increase my retail price, then I can increase my bids.

Edited: I should say that I started out with all my keyword bids at 3c and at the time my ACOS was arould 11%. I do have some book keywords with higher bids but the maximun I bid is 25c, so I have increased my bidding over the period.


----------



## CassieL

Decon said:


> Maybe the answer is to increase my retail price, then I can increase my bids.


Worth a try unless you have a bunch of sales you'll lose because of it. The romance novel of mine that it's spending on right now is priced at $4.99 and the fantasy novel it's spending on is priced at $5.99. I suspect, but could be wrong, that they might run the ads more on higher-priced titles since I was struggling to spend my budget when that fantasy novel was on a recent free run. Same actually with the romance novel's free run. I don't think I had a day where I ended up spending as much when it was on its free run as I do now that it's back to full-price. So maybe just bump your prices and don't bump your bids and see if it kicks in again. And then if it doesn't you can move your bids up.


----------



## Decon

Cassie Leigh said:


> Worth a try unless you have a bunch of sales you'll lose because of it. The romance novel of mine that it's spending on right now is priced at $4.99 and the fantasy novel it's spending on is priced at $5.99. I suspect, but could be wrong, that they might run the ads more on higher-priced titles since I was struggling to spend my budget when that fantasy novel was on a recent free run. Same actually with the romance novel's free run. I don't think I had a day where I ended up spending as much when it was on its free run as I do now that it's back to full-price. So maybe just bump your prices and don't bump your bids and see if it kicks in again. And then if it doesn't you can move your bids up.


You're probably right about the pricing. To be honest, the increased income would be welcome, but AMS has sucked enough life out of me and and my time and I'm concentrating on writing just now. I have one book ready for publishing that's sitting on Wattpad, (Girl at the window) and I'm a third of the way into the 2nd in the series of In Search of Jessica, and a third of the way through the second in the series of The Killer's amongst Us. So I want 3 more books ready in total for December as a priority.

All my books are standalones, but three of them need to be series as there is nowhere for the readers to go if my other standalones don't impress. After six years, I'm still loooking at the long game and hoping, lol.


----------



## Seneca42

Decon said:


> Amazon no longer want my money. For six books they could max me out at $33 per day. The results are just getting worse.


I don't think it's that. I think it's:

* the "average bid price" is way above 25c they suggest. I think it's probably more like 50c, and well over a $1 for popular books and near-front of carousel. 
* sales for books seem to be down the past 2-3 months (I think the economy is tipping over, but time will tell if I'm right on that)
* Amazon is oversaturating the carousel in many cases (being on page 50 is completely useless. After the first 5 or so pages I think visibility is nearly zero).
* I think AMS gives preference to books already selling (ie. already getting lots of clicks).

The only exception I've seen AMS give to the above has been on free books. But I think that's because they get a lot of clicks, which the algo interprets as high reader interest and hence it gives ads better placement at lower bids.

But the system is massively oversaturated at this point.


----------



## 39416

I just figured out that in my AMS ads, since March 20, I've made $61 and Amazon has made $193 (plus the KU subscription money they receive).


----------



## Decon

Seneca42 said:


> I don't think it's that. I think it's:
> 
> * the "average bid price" is way above 25c they suggest. I think it's probably more like 50c, and well over a $1 for popular books and near-front of carousel.
> * sales for books seem to be down the past 2-3 months (I think the economy is tipping over, but time will tell if I'm right on that)
> * Amazon is oversaturating the carousel in many cases (being on page 50 is completely useless. After the first 5 or so pages I think visibility is nearly zero).
> * I think AMS gives preference to books already selling (ie. already getting lots of clicks).
> 
> The only exception I've seen AMS give to the above has been on free books. But I think that's because they get a lot of clicks, which the algo interprets as high reader interest and hence it gives ads better placement at lower bids.
> 
> But the system is massively oversaturated at this point.


If it is 50c, or $1 that's needed as a bid as you say , then I'm out of the ball park as far as continuing with AMS, because I ain't going that high. It just doesn't make sense for me with my average click to buy ratio and my retail price. I'll just leave it as is and forget it to concentrate on writing and go back to free promos.

I think your points 1 & 3 are the most likely of the culprits for the downward spiral for my genre.


----------



## Seneca42

LilyBLily said:


> Joking aside, I agree that Amazon is getting a lot of money from some of us for not much ROI.
> 
> Here's a question: Say someone sees our sponsored ad and does not click. Then, later, maybe during the same session or maybe not, they're combing through the category listings and they see our book--not our ad--and they click. AMS doesn't charge us for that click, does it?


They supposedly do not charge you for multiple clicks until a certain period of time has gone by. So if in the same 72 hours the same IP address clicks on the same ad seven times, it's not charged seven times. The reason for this is obvious as it would be incredibly easy to click-swarm the competition.

Like if I wanted to take you out of the market. I'd just click your book a 1,000 times and burn your budget up. But I can't... I can only click on it say once every three days... so at best I might nail you with 2 clicks in a week, but that's all the system will burn you for.

Now, if I'm a bot farm and have access to 1,000 of IP addresses, that's a different story. If I want to target you with a 1,000 IP addresses I probably could.

While I have no evidence, I have to imagine some of that is going on in the high value spots. I'm sure there are authors getting burned on $1 a click ads as bots rack up the bills on clicks that aren't even humans genuinely interested in the book.

AMS isn't as flawed as KU, but it is flawed. I don't think it's abused nearly as much as KU either, cross fingers the botters don't turn their eyes to it. The reason it's not abused as much as KU because the botters don't actually make money, so all they would be doing is making AMS money. But I can see a day where they start doing this if only to break the system for fun. Or I could see authors paying for them to target competition and bump those books out of their premium slots.

Anyway, the ROI is AMS is great when you bid low, but performance is horrible. Performance is great when you bid high, but ROI is horrible.

From Amazon's perspective, they love this. The authors with large catalogs are happy to pay a ton because one sale can lead to 10 more. But for everyone else, it's a meat grinder.


----------



## BillyDeCarlo

I just finished the M.L. Humphrey book AMS Ads for Authors (authored by Cassie Leigh here on the forum) and rated it five stars. I was happy to pay for it, particularly since she's helping here every day. The book has a ton of AMS ad knowledge and it's very up to date, since it was just published. No connection other than a satisfied reader. If you are interested in this AMS ads topic, it's a must-read.


----------



## weigle1234

BillyDeCarlo said:


> I just finished the M.L. Humphrey book AMS Ads for Authors (authored by Cassie Leigh here on the forum) and rated it five stars. I was happy to pay for it, particularly since she's helping here every day. The book has a ton of AMS ad knowledge and it's very up to date, since it was just published. No connection other than a satisfied reader. If you are interested in this AMS ads topic, it's a must-read.


Glad to see another 5-Star for Cassie - I submitted my own 5-Star yesterday, and I see it has finally appeared this afternoon. In fact I am now in the middle of capturing zillions of Keywords per her advice.

Gordy Weigle


----------



## CassieL

Thanks guys!  Really appreciate it.  (And if I'm not as active over the next two weeks my apologies. I'm at a writing workshop trying to up that side of things but given my kboards addiction expect I'll be on here at least once a day still.)


----------



## Jena H

Maybe it's just me but there's waaay too much info being thrown around in this thread... it makes my head spin, and not in a good way.   

As far as I can tell, also, there is NO general consensus on the who/what/when/where/how of AMS ads-- best practice for creating them, and what specifics to aim for, etc.  All the testing in the world will yield only info on past results, and not necessarily a blueprint for future ads.


Now, having said that, I bet it probably isn't the best time for me to ask for confirmation that contemporary romance / women's fiction is a tough field for ads these days.  Very crowded, can run up the daily spend if I want to be seen, etc.  Is that currently correct?  I'm planning to throw an ad up for one of my very first books, which has been languishing in the back of beyond.  I figure that spending a few bucks on it can't hurt and might succeed in getting the ball rolling a bit (even if it's rolling on a flat plateau, lol).


----------



## weigle1234

I just submitted the following message to "Contact Us:"

Referring to the “Advertising Campaigns” Chart, does the “Est. Total Sales” figure reflect only eBook sales, or does it also include any Paperback sales that may have occurred as the result of clicking on AMS ads?

Thanks for your anticipated reply.

Gordy


----------



## Accord64

Jena H said:


> As far as I can tell, also, there is NO general consensus on the who/what/when/where/how of AMS ads-- best practice for creating them, and what specifics to aim for, etc. All the testing in the world will yield only info on past results, and not necessarily a blueprint for future ads.


I'm going to be making a presentation of AMS to a group of indie authors, and sadly I'm reaching the same conclusions regarding best approaches. I suppose I'll focus on how to set one up, make some suggestions, and with a shrug of my shoulders say "good luck" with a straight face. 



LilyBLily said:


> Unfortunately, for most, a 25-cent bid or higher seems necessary to get the best placement.


I think this has more to do with the 25-cent default bid price that Amazon displays while setting up keywords. It becomes the defacto starting benchmark for most. Probably the 'Zon's way of keeping the bid prices up. I wonder how things would be if they defaulted to 10-cents instead.


----------



## Jena H

LilyBLily said:


> You could be correct, although I didn't start my ads that high. When everybody jumped into the pool, things changed in popular categories. I started at very low numbers, like 2 cents and 6 cents. I can still be on page one in nonfiction history at 7 cents because there's very little competition, but in a subcat of romance, no way. However, in most cases I am not paying 25 cents per click even though I am bidding higher than that.


How far back in the carousel did you find your books? And (without being nosy, so you don't have to go into detail) were you able to get sales at all from your ad? I don't mind using the default .25 bid, as I'll have a relatively low daily budget. I haven't yet looked into authors to use as keywords--I don't really have a solid subcategory to specify, either, but have a number of particular keywords I'm going to try.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

weigle1234 said:


> I just submitted the following message to "Contact Us:"
> 
> Referring to the "Advertising Campaigns" Chart, does the "Est. Total Sales" figure reflect only eBook sales, or does it also include any Paperback sales that may have occurred as the result of clicking on AMS ads?
> 
> Thanks for your anticipated reply.
> 
> Gordy


Yes, it does include paperbacks.


----------



## CassieL

Jena H said:


> Now, having said that, I bet it probably isn't the best time for me to ask for confirmation that contemporary romance / women's fiction is a tough field for ads these days. Very crowded, can run up the daily spend if I want to be seen, etc. Is that currently correct? I'm planning to throw an ad up for one of my very first books, which has been languishing in the back of beyond. I figure that spending a few bucks on it can't hurt and might succeed in getting the ball rolling a bit (even if it's rolling on a flat plateau, lol).


Romance definitely is a tough field for ads. My romance novels are on the borderline between romance and women's fiction. One was as much about dealing with a cancer diagnosis as falling in love. The other about dealing with grief. They don't fit in with most "contemporary romance" titles and I don't read enough romance to know who to put them up against in terms of authors. To add to that, the first one is sort of snarky and humorous, too. Because, you know, lots of people want humor and cancer combined in the same novel.

Which is to say not only am I targeting romance but I did not write to any known category at all. A marketing nightmare.

Early on--over a year ago--I had a fantastic run with AMS ads on that first novel. I spent $8 and had over $100 in sales. That was with a Product Display ad. But then I struggled to get ads to work on that book again. I got another Product Display ad working on it earlier this year but then that fell off.

I just could not get enough impressions to get it going and was not willing to bid really high. But I released book 2 and figured I had two books for people to go to. So what worked for me was doing a free run on book 1, running my long-standing slow-moving but profitable Sponsored Product ad on that book 1 through the free period, and then keeping it going afterward. I think AMS rewards momentum and high-ranked books so you have to get that outside of AMS either through other ads or organically. (But that's just a guess.)

I am bidding high. I think when I first did the free run I was over $1 on words like "romance" and "contemporary romance" but have since backed those down. And my ACoS is close to 300% because of the free run and borrows, but between borrows and sales I'm making a profit and that book is hanging in the 8-20K range right now whereas before it was in the 125K range.

I think combining a free run and AMS works if (1) you're in KU so people can borrow during your free run, (2) you have a genre that borrows heavily so you can come off your free run at a high enough rank, and (3) you're willing/able to bid high enough. I'm doing this on a novel priced at $4.99. I think I'd be losing money if it were priced lower even though a lot of that rank is coming from borrows. (Yesterday I had two sales and about 8 full read equivalents, for example.)

I should note that I tried this with my fantasy novel and it has not worked as well. That book never made it high enough during its free run and is now moving around in the 35-50K range where it came out after its free run, but it's like pulling teeth to keep it there.


----------



## Jena H

Al Stevens said:


> Question: How do you terminate or delete a campaign that has been rejected? The status column has no pop-down for that.


I don't believe you can. It's just going to sit in your file as Rejected.  (I have one, too.)


----------



## Jena H

Thanks, Cassie and LilyBLily.  My book also straddles the romance/women's fiction line (no cancer, but not standard romance, either).  I'll have to poke around bit to see what authors to use as keywords (again, outlier book).


----------



## Hasbeen

I just had a campaign end. I wanted to evaluate the keywords etc. after a month. I thought I could just restart the campaign after I looked things over and decided what I wanted to change etc. 

Well when I went to try and re-start the campaign I found I couldn't all I could do was 'copy' it. So I copied it and tried to start a new campaign will all the keywords etc. When I 'started' this new campaign it only brought over the first 52 keywords and left the other 200 or so behind. 

Am I missing something or am I going to have to re-enter all of the keywords beyond the first 52? Isn't there a way to re-use an existing campaign without going to all that trouble?


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Hasbeen said:


> I just had a campaign end. I wanted to evaluate the keywords etc. after a month. I thought I could just restart the campaign after I looked things over and decided what I wanted to change etc.
> 
> Well when I went to try and re-start the campaign I found I couldn't all I could do was 'copy' it. So I copied it and tried to start a new campaign will all the keywords etc. When I 'started' this new campaign it only brought over the first 52 keywords and left the other 200 or so behind.
> 
> Am I missing something or am I going to have to re-enter all of the keywords beyond the first 52? Isn't there a way to re-use an existing campaign without going to all that trouble?


When setting up an ad, don't put an end date. If a campaign is "ended" you can't restart it. Also, if you don't have an end date, pause it. Don't terminate it.

I've copied ads and all keywords were transferred. Did it copy into Excel for you?


----------



## weigle1234

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Yes, it does include paperbacks.


The general consensus on this forum seems to be the "Est. Total Sales" figure does include paperback sales. The object of my message to the "Contact Us" folks is to see if they will or will not acknowledge such - and if they do, whether they will also acknowledge including only those paperback sales resulting from AMS ad clicks.

If organic paperback sales are also included in the "Est. Total Sales" that figure is basically worthless for determining how our AMS ads are performing.


----------



## Jena H

Hasbeen said:


> I just had a campaign end. I wanted to evaluate the keywords etc. after a month. I thought I could just restart the campaign after I looked things over and decided what I wanted to change etc.
> 
> Well when I went to try and re-start the campaign I found I couldn't all I could do was 'copy' it. So I copied it and tried to start a new campaign will all the keywords etc. When I 'started' this new campaign it only brought over the first 52 keywords and left the other 200 or so behind.
> 
> Am I missing something or am I going to have to re-enter all of the keywords beyond the first 52? Isn't there a way to re-use an existing campaign without going to all that trouble?


Some of us have experienced a sad effect: that copying an ad results in an ad that's never quite as successful as the original. Personally I haven't noticed that a copied ad "loses" keywords... maybe just a glitch? In any case, I know it's a pain, but it shouldn't be too difficult to copy the 'old' keywords and paste them into the new ad.

When I run my next ad, I'm going to make it without an end date, and then just pause it after X amount of time. That way I'll be able to use it again and again.


----------



## A past poster

Accord64 said:


> I think this has more to do with the 25-cent default bid price that Amazon displays while setting up keywords. It becomes the defacto starting benchmark for most. Probably the 'Zon's way of keeping the bid prices up. I wonder how things would be if they defaulted to 10-cents instead.


I don't believe it has anything to do with the default price. I've seen prices for keywords go up steadily, going from 15 cents to over 30 cents in women's fiction to get impressions at the beginning of the carousel.



LilyBLily said:


> In women's fiction, author names seem to work, and of course, similar covers, hooky blurbs, etc. Unfortunately, for most, a 25-cent bid or higher seems necessary to get the best placement.


This has been my experience.


----------



## A past poster

I just checked my AMS dashboard and found something interesting. Two books have 2 fewer clicks each than they had eight hours ago. The spend amount is the same.


----------



## LFGabel

weigle1234 said:


> The general consensus on this forum seems to be the "Est. Total Sales" figure does include paperback sales. The object of my message to the "Contact Us" folks is to see if they will or will not acknowledge such - and if they do, whether they will also acknowledge including only those paperback sales resulting from AMS ad clicks.
> 
> If organic paperback sales are also included in the "Est. Total Sales" that figure is basically worthless for determining how our AMS ads are performing.


It would be handy to have a filter to include/exclude paperbacks from the data output. However, if you track it every day, you'll know when you sell a paperback. I make sure to exclude it from my ROI calculations on my advertising spreadsheet.


----------



## khotisarque

Al Stevens said:


> I've seen that too. I think we're dealing with beta software.


Gasp! The famous algos are betas? Mama might be imperfect? We really are all throwing ad money into a black hole where it might or not be placed, somewhere , sometime, with no reason given and at a price to be told to us after the event? Please say it's not so!  Or my faith will be utterly destroyed.


----------



## NatPane

khotisarque said:


> Gasp! The famous algos are betas? Mama might be imperfect? We really are all throwing ad money into a black hole where it might or not be placed, somewhere , sometime, with no reason given and at a price to be told to us after the event? Please say it's not so!  Or my faith will be utterly destroyed.


I hate to say it, but I think it is so. I've tried to give Amazon the benefit of the doubt but they have yet to restore my faith in this wonky Ad system. Frankly, I think it's a bit of a scam. But, I'll quickly eat my words if I see anything different. I have an ad running for weeks (product display) which has curiously frozen on me for some weird reason. Clicks and impressions just stopped. I was told here that this normally happens and to lower my bid which is set at a $1.00. I decided not to touch it to see what would happen and it crawled suddenly with one or to impressions and I think two clicks. Then froze again. I lost my patience and any feelings of curiosity with this ad and decided to do what was advised here: lower my bid. But guess what? I can't do this. It will not allow me to. So I'm stuck with a frozen ad which in all likelihood I will have to terminate. And btw, I have never seen said ad, to date. Crazy? Yup, I think so.


----------



## weigle1234

LFGabel said:


> It would be handy to have a filter to include/exclude paperbacks from the data output. However, if you track it every day, you'll know when you sell a paperback. I make sure to exclude it from my ROI calculations on my advertising spreadsheet.


I sold my first paperback via Amazon on April 28 of last year (I just checked). I spent many, many years in the mail order business and always kept accurate records. I have done likewise with Amazon. Unlike myself, I believe most folks here let Amazon and Kindle handle everything, but I do not. I have every book printed (the same books I wrote and sold for the last 30 years - with updates) and shipped from Rockford, with others doing all the footwork. Since starting with Amazon I have sold something less than 300 books. At any time I can check my records and account for every penny, who spent it, when, their address, and for which book.

I love selling books - it is clean, quick, and easy. I developed other products for mail order, but most of my money came from book sales. I got lucky and had a few breaks long ago and sold tons of books. I rode a huge gravy train for almost 25 years, and thought it would go on forever - until the mail order business started going bust about 10 years ago. In the meantime I was consistently netting between 300 and 400K each year (of course, the tax thieves always stole what they thought was their share). My point is (other than bragging) I can account for every penny ever spent over all those years.

I am but a drop of water in the ocean compared to Amazon and Kindle - and I can assure you; they also keep accurate records. They did not get to where they are by being stupid.

This "Est. Total Sales" thing (and a few other things) really bothers me. The powers that be should show us exactly which sales are via Kindle and which for paperback, with those sales broken down into those that result from AMS ads along with those and/or from organic sales. It is a complex thing, but should be a simple matter for them. Without us knowing exactly what the true "Est. Total Sale" really is, that information is meaningless. We can only make a very rough guess at whether or not our AMS ads are working (perhaps not working). It is the old "Confusion Factor" that I addressed in an earlier post - the old "Mushroom Effect" - feed them horse manure and keep them in the dark.

Actually IMHO, Amazon does a really great job overall. From what I can gather, only about half of us ever sell even our first book. Amazon loses millions right up front carrying that burden - most folks could not sell a single page if they had to do it on their own. And of the remaining half, only a small percentage make any real money - with Amazon also carrying that burden. Looking at the whole picture, I feel Amazon has accomplished something amazing. Who else has ever come even close to their success?

But, I sense the pain and frustration of folks on this, and other forums - we deserve better feedback. I am 75 years old - I will be lucky to even be alive 5 years from now. You guys and gals are pretty sharp, with a future - you are the ones making money for Amazon, and deserve to be treated better.

P.S. If Kindle and Amazon keep tabs on these forums (which, at least to some extent, they likely do) I may soon be part of their history - but so be it.


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## Accord64

khotisarque said:


> Gasp! The famous algos are betas? Mama might be imperfect? We really are all throwing ad money into a black hole where it might or not be placed, somewhere , sometime, with no reason given and at a price to be told to us after the event? Please say it's not so!  Or my faith will be utterly destroyed.


Not sure I'd classify them as being in beta. AMS has been around for a long time, but within the past year was made available to everyone (previously only those in Kindle Select had access). I think the wonky behavior is mostly due to the algos being overloaded due an over-subscribed system. So, yeah, in a way they might as well be in beta.


----------



## Decon

I don't think there is anything wrong with the way Amazon run this. The problem is in the hands of the authors and human nature and it is exasperated with the meagre margins of book royalties.

I've been in this long enough to remember the self-distruction of authors chasing sales in the downward spiral to 99c and then free as the norm,to the extent it no longer worked as it did for the pioneers who everyone tried to emulate at that 99c price point, like Amanda Holding and Konrath.

To a large extent Amazon rescued us all with the intro of KU with 6 free days and other new marketing tools, and clamping down of free sites to wein us off low pricing, and hey presto, it worked.

We now have AMS. I'd like to bet that the ones in AMS hardly use free days anymore when they try AMS. It' also lends itself to pricing at around $2.99 and above. Another result for Amazon in getting us away from low pricing.

AMS isn't in Beta, It's been running a long time, but it was first introduced for products other than books with high margin products.Then they introduced it to authors for their books after years of garnering data. It started off great because it was restricted to KU members, so you could bid low and make tons of sales. Since they threw it wide open, there are too many chasing sales and increasing bids to a level where it is hardly profitable for authors and less successful. That isnt Amazon's fault. It 's the authors' fault for chasing sales by increasing bids to the extent that it is no longer viable in the same way as they all joined in the downward spiral to 99c.

Sometimes I think we are are own worst enemy.


----------



## Hasbeen

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> When setting up an ad, don't put an end date. If a campaign is "ended" you can't restart it. Also, if you don't have an end date, pause it. Don't terminate it.
> 
> I've copied ads and all keywords were transferred. Did it copy into Excel for you?


I've never tried to take into Excel. I'm not much of an Excel person. Very good advise though thanks.


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## weigle1234

Here is some good news via Kindle reply to my "Contact Us" message - following is their reply.

The "Est. Total Sales" figure DOES NOT include paperback sales. So, we can get some decent info from the chart. We need to account for updating delays, but that is no big deal in the overall picture.

A big plus with our AMS ads is that some paperback sales definitely will result from those ads. I discovered that just a week ago. I created a new ad for a slow moving eBook to test using over 900 Keywords. Low and behold, a few days later two separate paperback orders came through (but, so far, no eBook orders). There is no way of proving the sales are a result of the AMS ad, but chances are the ad is responsible.

Also, I was not aware that we can place ads for paperbacks - something that may be worth investigating. (From the looks of their rely, doing so may be a hassle - but we are used to that.)

Here is the reply:

Hi Gordy,

A sale is attributed to a campaign whenever a shopper that clicked on an ad purchases your brand's products at Amazon.

You'll see data on direct conversions from ad clicks to sales in the advertising report on your Amazon Marketing Services account home page. If a customer clicks your ad but waits up to two weeks to buy your book, the sale is still tracked in your report. The Total Sales metric is the total dollar value of your brand's products sold to shoppers within 14 days of them clicking on your ad.

However, please know the Est. Total Sales figure reflects only eBook sales, as currently, we do not have the ability to schedule any kind of ads through AMS for KDP paperback books.

Since KDP Print is one of the newest things we have introduced and we are continually working to improve the features. Advertising print books requires many internal changes, and hence we are unable to provide the feature to the publishers straightaway. The only option to schedule ad campaigns for the paperback books would be through Vendor central account. If you wish to schedule ad campaign for your paperback books, you may create a vendor central account and proceed.

Also, for more information on advertising your paperback book, you may also reach out to AMS team directly here:
https://ams.amazon.com/contactus/ref=ams_footer_contactus

You may find lot more information on how to market and promote your books by visiting the link below:
http://amazonauthorinsights.com/tagged/market#reach_readers

Please know that "Est. Total Sales" will only reflect eBook sales only.

I certainly hope this information has been helpful to you. Thank you for your understanding and support.

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---- Original message: ----

Subject: Advertising Campaigns Chart

Referring to the "Advertising Campaigns" Chart, does the "Est. Total Sales" figure reflect only eBook sales, or does it also include any Paperback sales that may have occurred as the result of clicking on AMS ads?

Thanks for your anticipated reply.

Gordy


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## Gertie Kindle

Interesting. I've had paperback sales included in the total. Maybe they are changing things up so that only KDP Print titles will eventually be included.


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## Amyshojai

I get quite a few paperback sales (createspace) I'm sure result from the AMS ads, even though they are not tracked. *shrug* My nonfiction print sales have increased substantially since I began advertising the kindle versions. I've not yet used AMS for the fiction, though.


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## PearlEarringLady

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Interesting. I've had paperback sales included in the total.


So have I, many times. I think this reply is answering a different question than was asked.


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## weigle1234

Here's a neat FREE site for Keyword list cleaning. Per common sense, I store all my Keywords in separate unique files.

My latest "Just for Kicks" brainstorm is to test unique Keywords lists among a few alternating and paused ads - and see what falls out.

I'm just finishing up my latest list (879 Keywords so far - per Cassies' method and advice - about 100 more to go).

http://www.scriptalicious.com/tools/keyword-list-cleaner/


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## weigle1234

Hasbeen said:


> I've never tried to take into Excel. I'm not much of an Excel person. Very good advise though thanks.


I tried the Excel approach - my Windows XP version hates it - will not bring it up.

In fact, for whatever reason, my computer went "Ape" when I tried. The screen went goofy flashing junk on and off for a few minutes. I could not get it to stop no matter what I tried.

I finally had to power down. After powering back up, I got a message asking me to confirm whether I wished to remove all 417 tabbed items - STRANGE. As far as I can determine, no damage resulted from that fiasco.


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## A past poster

Yesterday I posted that I had two books that had two fewer clicks each than they had eight hours previously and that the spend amount was the same.  I am having a similar problem with clicks today. Also, today I was charged 34 cents for a click that had a spend limit of 20 cents. I sent an email requesting an explanation.


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## amdonehere

I started 3 ads for my new release. Sadly, I've been absolutely unable to get the AMS algo to show my book to 90% of the relevant books and authors pages of the main genre of this book. I don't know why. Except for a few KWs (all of which have way too expensive CPCs), the rest, nil, zilch, to 1, to low two digits. I can't get the algo to kick in at all. It's been very frustrating and I don't know what to do.


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## Jena H

Okay, dumb question time.  I learned the hard way that AMS doesn't like an em-dash, and you also can't use multiple punctuation (!! or ??).  (And you really don't need to use them, anyway.)

But what about ellipses?  I'm thinking about a situation like when you're listing things and include something odd.  For example:  "bacon, lettuce, and... banana?"  I assume AMS won't have an issue with that.  Right?


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## novelist11

Marian said:


> Yesterday I posted that I had two books that had two fewer clicks each than they had eight hours previously and that the spend amount was the same. I am having a similar problem with clicks today. Also, today I was charged 34 cents for a click that had a spend limit of 20 cents. I sent an email requesting an explanation.


I had the same thing happen to me. I was getting charged 10 cents cpc when I had my max cpc set to 7 cents. I wrote to them but they told me they had checked my account and nothing was wrong. I really don't trust amazon sometimes. But what can you do?


----------



## Decon

*In reply to weigle1234 and the reply from Amazon*

*I can definitely say 200000000% and on into infinity that AMS print book sales at least sold via Create Space are included in the estimated sales along with eBooks. At least that has been the case on my account.*

I posted my figures earlier and it shows 1 sale for $12.99 at the top of the list. That is a paper book sale priced as such, and that short story compilation had sold no eBooks sales upto the the day it showed up on what was a new ad at the time. I checked Create Space and that month 1 sale showed up for that paper book. If you click on Lunch Break Thrillers you will see that it exactly matches the retail price of $12.99 for the print book. My eBook is $2.99 and if you divide it into 12.99 it doesn't fit, which proves beyond a doubt it is not from eBook sales.

So in effect the ACOS is way out as the cost to date of clicks is the same as my royalty, so it's made no profit. There are quite a few occasions where my sales have risen by the retail price of a print book which always tracks back to a sale on create space, so someone at Amazon doesn't know how it works. People do buy print books without finding them from the AMS carousel, so they don't always match with AMS sales. If a print sale hasn't increased your estimated sales within 2/3 weeks, it's a safe bet it wasn't from a click on the carousel.










I would also point out that you do advertise on print book pages if you choose a keyword for an eBook title and that eBook has a print book, then if you have bid right, your book will show on the print book page for people who browse and buy print books. Hence the increase in print book sales when you join AMS which distorts the ACOS.


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## NatPane

Ok, seems there was a sort of legitimate reason why my ad froze on me (I figured out today). I sorted out the issue and paused my ad, because well, I'm a bit tired of it and need a little breather at the moment. So really, I don't even know if sorting out the issue improved matters with the ad or not. But just knowing that an issue could have probably played a role in my ad freezing eased some of my frustrations a bit. Not eating my words about my lack of trust in AMS ads just yet though. We'll see when I make the ad live once again. If it freezes again, then I'll probably start doing promotions elsewhere.


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## amdonehere

Do you guys have any info/thoughts/theory on this? I used to get some paperback sales from AMS ads. But the PB sales suddenly came to a dead cold stop. I don't know why, but after a rise in PB sales when I began running AMS ads, it seems like suddenly people weren't buying PBs anymore. I think back to whether anything had changed, and the only thing I can think of is that I stopped expanded distributions.

Do you think stopping expanded distribution leads to AMS ads stop showing your book as ads on the paperback pages of other books?


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## PearlEarringLady

AlexaKang said:


> Do you think stopping expanded distribution leads to AMS ads stop showing your book as ads on the paperback pages of other books?


I've never had expanded distribution, but my PB sales showed the same pattern - lots of sales when the ads first started, then tapering off. But all sales from the ads have tapered off for me, so it's all in proportion.


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## Accord64

AlexaKang said:


> I used to get some paperback sales from AMS ads. But the PB sales suddenly came to a dead cold stop. I don't know why, but after a rise in PB sales when I began running AMS ads, it seems like suddenly people weren't buying PBs anymore. I think back to whether anything had changed, and the only thing I can think of is that I stopped expanded distributions.
> 
> Do you think stopping expanded distribution leads to AMS ads stop showing your book as ads on the paperback pages of other books?


I noticed the same trend, but I didn't make any changes to my CS distribution. Up to a couple of months ago I was pleasantly surprised that I was selling PB's through my AMS campaigns (which were also showing up in Est. Total Sales). Since then, nothing.

I don't click on my own ads (obviously), so I've been assuming it leads to the standard product page that show all format options. Now I'm wondering if Amazon has made some changes and only the "Digital Book" option shows. Or perhaps the PB option only shows if you've published through KDP? Has anyone checked this?


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## Jena H

Al Stevens said:


> FWIW, after a short time in AMS, the only of my books making sales from these campaigns are non-fiction works. The novels get a few clicks and zero sales. It might be too soon to draw conclusions, but I'm seeing $ going down a rat hole.


I haven't run any ads for my non-fictions. Maybe I'll give that a go at some point.


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## A past poster

novelist11 said:


> I had the same thing happen to me. I was getting charged 10 cents cpc when I had my max cpc set to 7 cents. I wrote to them but they told me they had checked my account and nothing was wrong. I really don't trust amazon sometimes. But what can you do?


They corrected the overcharge for the click and said they would get back to me by June 25 regarding the disparity in the number of clicks from early in the day to later in the day.


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant

Great...  I finally got the print version up of the book I'm running on that AMS ad.  The print and ebook versions aren't linked yet, but there's my sponsored ad for the ebook, right at the front of the carousel.  I have a terrible feeling I might be paying for a few clicks to the reviews on the ebook page before the two versions finally get linked.


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## Jena H

I'm going to be running a new ad and using some contemporary women's fiction books/authors as keywords. I was just strolling through the carousel of one of my potential keyword books, and amid all the women's fiction and romance books there, I saw a number of books (by same author, I think) that are thrillers or spy novels or male-oriented action books. Kind of discouraging that prime carousel slots for similar/kindred novels are taken by "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" strategies by writers who have other, more appropriate avenues of advertising.

Note, I'm _not_ saying that that author, or others, are doing anything wrong--there's nothing illicit about advertising on book pages that are in a different genre. But it's disappointing that some books are advertised so far afield, while others that are closer to that particular book page are relegated to page 14 or 23 or whatever of the carousel. Sort of a distant cousin of the keyword-stuffing, or title-stuffing problem that we see on Amazon every day.


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## khotisarque

Jena H said:


> I'm going to be running a new ad and using some contemporary women's fiction books/authors as keywords. I was just strolling through the carousel of one of my potential keyword books, and amid all the women's fiction and romance books there, I saw a number of books (by same author, I think) that are thrillers or spy novels or male-oriented action books. Kind of discouraging that prime carousel slots for similar/kindred novels are taken by "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" strategies by writers who have other, more appropriate avenues of advertising.
> 
> Note, I'm _not_ saying that that author, or others, are doing anything wrong--there's nothing illicit about advertising on book pages that are in a different genre. But it's disappointing that some books are advertised so far afield, while others that are closer to that particular book page are relegated to page 14 or 23 or whatever of the carousel. Sort of a distant cousin of the keyword-stuffing, or title-stuffing problem that we see on Amazon every day.


Dare I suggest that Mama's own 'relevance' test in the 'algos' don't work worth a damn? And perhaps the entire obscure auction process is equally flawed? Has the Empress no clothes? One answer, of course, is to smile and walk away from the game; another is to accept that it's a game of chance but roll the dice anyway. That's what Mama does herself, on the grand scale: try lots of crazy ideas, then drop whatever fails to work out. Remember ABNA? Or WriteOn? There are successes too, and more often. Luck comes from the barrel of the shotgun?


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## amdonehere

Jena H said:


> I'm going to be running a new ad and using some contemporary women's fiction books/authors as keywords. I was just strolling through the carousel of one of my potential keyword books, and amid all the women's fiction and romance books there, I saw a number of books (by same author, I think) that are thrillers or spy novels or male-oriented action books. Kind of discouraging that prime carousel slots for similar/kindred novels are taken by "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" strategies by writers who have other, more appropriate avenues of advertising.
> 
> Note, I'm _not_ saying that that author, or others, are doing anything wrong--there's nothing illicit about advertising on book pages that are in a different genre. But it's disappointing that some books are advertised so far afield, while others that are closer to that particular book page are relegated to page 14 or 23 or whatever of the carousel. Sort of a distant cousin of the keyword-stuffing, or title-stuffing problem that we see on Amazon every day.


Jena, This is happening to me too. I do wonder though, that it may be Amazon's algo putting a lot of these books of most popular genres there, rather than the authors/publishers. I've found that Amazon has a long list of pages of AMS ads that they often throw onto hot newly released books that aren't caught by advertising authors yet. If the new release doesn't remain very hot, the list of 100+ pages of ads with tons of unrelated genres disappear and go back down to even 1-2 pages. That's when we can finally get our books on there. But if the new release remains very hot, that list doesn't go away.

I'm really perplexed by this and I feel your pain. I finally got myself on a page of a book I needed to be on, but last I checked, my ad was on p. 36 (out of 100 or something). Tons of books in pages ahead of mine are from unrelated genres. Related genre ads were interminttently inserted throughout the pages, 1 here, 1 there. It's very disheartening. If I were the reader, why would I bother scrolling those pages to get to p. 20, or 30, to MAYBE see a book I want to read like the one on the page I'm on?


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## 39416

I don't understand AMS ads worth beans. I sold books and made money with them for ten weeks and then it fell off the proverbial cliff and nothing brings it back. Now no matter what I do, however much money I make, that's exactly what the ads end up costing. So I'm just working for Amazon, and I don't know if that's worth it. On the other hand, flatlining is not pleasant.

And I miss abna!!    I remember when one entrant made the first round but Amazon had changed his book's title to "Mr."  Turned out that when the author had filled out the entry form he'd gotten a bit confused on what to type into the little box marked "Title." No hee hee's like that in the Storyteller contest!


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## BillyDeCarlo

Has anyone figured out how to get Amazon to spend the daily limit? Mine is $2 for a non-fiction book and I have 162 keywords, some bidding as high as $1.03 (just to see if that would help). I never hit the daily max. Does upping the daily max help to make it less conservative? Upping the bids? More keywords? Changing my name to Stephen King? Changing the book name to have 'Girl' in it? Change the cover to contain yet another man with no shirt and airbrushed abs? (j/k of course).


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## jcalloway

Does anyone else have campaigns that shoot off like a rocket upon approval and then all but die ~two days later? 

Every ad I create seems to behave this way. I get amazing results the first day or two and then my impressions flatline. It's maddening to see a book shoot up in ranks and then have all that momentum disappear.

After about a week/week-and-a-half, my ads stabilize and deliver as expected, but it's still nowhere near the initial burst.

*dons tinfoil fedora* Does Amazon choke the delivery after the first day so as to incentivize continued ad runs? I imagine there are plenty of people who might pause an ad if they think the visibility from their improved rank will push more books than AMS. 

Maybe Amazon is the shady guy in the dark alley, offering the first hit for free.


----------



## Jena H

LilyBLily said:


> Mark Dawson conclusively proved that upping the daily spend drastically did nothing. He threw big bucks at the ads and nothing changed. That's why he suggests spending the money on numerous small ads instead. But I am at a loss to come up with enough keywords to do that. And I confess I am too lazy to write another blurb to see if different ad copy will produce different and better results, to do true A/B testing.
> 
> I have very, very seldom hit the daily max on any ad, and most of mine are $1 or $2. However, I did have one at $8 that hit the limit, so I raised it to $15. It has never hit the limit since.
> 
> Only about three keywords work on that ad to produce multiple sales. The thing that drives me nuts is that there's no way to know if a keyword produces page reads instead. Since that title gets lots of page reads, I don't usually pause the keywords that get impressions even if few clicks. Yet only 54 of my 177 keywords for that title have ever registered a sale. Given that Amazon can and does reduce the payout for page reads arbitrarily, it's much better to get sales than reads, but there's a large contingent of romance readers using KU and I want to hit that market, too. Unfortunately, Amazon won't tell us which keywords generate page reads. I could be wasting my ad dollars on keywords that don't produce anything at all.
> 
> My books do not feature shirtless men.


I know the conventional wisdom about keywords is to "throw everything in, including the kitchen sink, and see what works," but I too end up with a lot (most?) keywords being absolutely superfluous, and only about 1/5 being effective. (ALthough I admit that I usually don't have more than 100-125 keywords; I just can't think of more than that.)



jcalloway said:


> Does anyone else have campaigns that shoot off like a rocket upon approval and then all but die ~two days later?
> 
> Every ad I create seems to behave this way. I get amazing results the first day or two and then my impressions flatline. It's maddening to see a book shoot up in ranks and then have all that momentum disappear.
> 
> After about a week/week-and-a-half, my ads stabilize and deliver as expected, but it's still nowhere near the initial burst.
> 
> *dons tinfoil fedora* Does Amazon choke the delivery after the first day so as to incentivize continued ad runs? I imagine there are plenty of people who might pause an ad if they think the visibility from their improved rank will push more books than AMS.
> 
> Maybe Amazon is the shady guy in the dark alley, offering the first hit for free.


This is one reason why I don't usually run ads for very long. Five-seven days is usually long enough. My current ad is the first one I'm running without a set end date, but I plan to pause it the middle of next week so it doesn't run continuously.


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## novelist11

If an ad isn't doing that great should you maybe pause it for 2 weeks to a month and then restart it? That way people won't see it and maybe forget about it and then when you restart it they might think it's a new ad? Like that saying goes out of sight out of mind.


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## Dpock

I have an AMS ad that began early this morning and has so far garnered 80 impressions and zero clicks or sales. I know there's a lag in reporting but what's a good ballpark estimate?


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## Decon

I haven't done this because I'm busy writing, but here goes. I'm just letting my existing ads ride as is until I have something else to publish.


I've experienced what most have on here, and that is success of whatever discription, good or fair to middling for a period and then next to nothing.

Forgetting the mysteries of Amazon and really I think you should all stop second guessing and fretting over what you will never know, here's an observation. I didn't spend too much time looking, but I'm on a few first pages on carousels with some of my books with not all that high a bid. However, my total impressions overall have dropped from in some cases tens of thousands per day, to hundreds. When I look at those books chart position where I had sales in the past and I am still on the first page, then they have themselves nose dived in the charts over this past 6 months.

I guess like me that when you start out, if you are looking for titles, it's quite a task, but in my case, I made good use of book titles in my genre in the charts that were hot, and then on to their also boughts which only get on there because they are selling and so they also have eyes on them. I did mine over 6 months ago, and I haven't really added to them after the first 2 months. It made sense at the time to choose those titles, because those books would have lots of eyes on them, ergo, better the chance of impressions and clicks, and therefore sales. From there it was just a case of getting your bids right for visibility.

I think that increasing bids after you have run an ad for some time has little effect, because those keywords for titles are themselves no longer popular.

I get the impression, that although we would all like to think that when you publish a book, regular sales will flow forever. It's clear it doesn't work that way. All bestsellers have a sell by date and then other usurpers take over. 

I think that it's all well and good starting new ads and copy across your existing keywords, but that's lazy. I get the feeling that you'd be better starting from scratch say every 2 months and looking for the latest hot books and their also boughts which will have more eyes on them than your existing keywords. The old keywords might show favourable results, but if you have run an add for some time, those sales could be historic and not produce aqgain.


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## amdonehere

Decon, your continuous voice of reasons astounds me. Why didn't I think of that?


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## amdonehere

Al Stevens said:


> Could it be that most of those who would be drawn to your ad have seen it by then and it has outlived its usefulness?


I could be wrong, but I personally don't buy this theory, unless we're a bestselling author who sold hundreds of thousands of the book being advertised.

When I see how many copies a top selling book in each genre can sell, I think we would need to sell many, many more copies to reach even a fraction of that. And I'd be very happy to reach even 5-10%. The market is huge. It makes no sense that our book has reached all the possible audience after a few days, weeks, or even months.

Also, there are new people checking out the page your ad's on. People who bought that book where your ad's on are not the ones repeatedly coming back to check that page. They should be new people, which means new eyes are looking at your ad. So how can it be that everyone who would be interested would've already seen it?

I think Decon has a point that a hot selling book too, will at some point slow down. But even those continue to sell well for months and months. Not 1, 2, or 3 weeks.

I've had the same ad running since August 2016. I still see my book on page 1 of the carousel on some keywords pages. Sales did slow down abruptly a couple of months ago, but I think we all suspect that soemthing had changed with the AMS algo around that time. The AMS ads have suddenly become less effective, but we don't know why.

My ad is still being shown. I don't think impressions are dead, although it's hard to tell now because it's got such a long history. I don't think I'll stop it any time soone though. What I do plan to do, is to take all the KWs with "-" impressions and start a new ad with those, maybe with a different tag line, to see if the new ad would get those KWs going.


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## Jack Krenneck

The market is huge, but the percentage of people using the ad carousel is much smaller.

I say _use_, because there's a certain subset of buyers who will flip through the carousel in an active search for books to buy - they use it just like the also-boughts. These are the ones that count. The rest are just impressions - the ads are 'seen' but not 'looked at.'

So, in that sense, I think it's much, much easier to tap out the ad audience than it is to tap out the full market. And though there may be new buyers going to a target book/author all the time, those same buyers (if they actively use the ad carousel) have also gone to other books/authors where the ad has likely appeared.


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## Jena H

Just this morning I had an ad approved for a book that's been out for years--it was the very first one I ever published.  It's not the best book (written before finding Kboards, learning a lot about publishing, etc.) and I've done zero marketing for it.  Basically I just kind of ignored it for years.  No surprise that it languished in the one million-land of book ranks.    Anyway, I still believe in the story itself, so I simply updated the backmatter and tweaked the blurb and ran an ad.  Lo and behold that even though the book's page still shows the abysmal one-plus-million rank, my KDP dashboard shows a sale of that book today.  Hooray!!  I've also seen a sales increase of a few other books in the same pen-name.  That must be sheer coincidence because I doubt someone would have bought the book, finished the book, and bought some other titles from the listing in my backmatter.  Either way, I'm pleased so far.


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## Accord64

AlexaKang said:


> Also, there are new people checking out the page your ad's on. People who bought that book where your ad's on are not the ones repeatedly coming back to check that page. They should be new people, which means new eyes are looking at your ad.


My cynical side thinks that more than a couple of clicks are coming from other authors who are researching keywords for their AMS campaigns.


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## Gertie Kindle

One of my ads just kicked in with page reads and follow-thru sales.



Accord64 said:


> My cynical side thinks that more than a couple of clicks are coming from other authors who are researching keywords for their AMS campaigns.


I try to avoid doing that even to myself.


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## weigle1234

Lots of luck to anyone hoping to decipher AMS ad Keyword logic.

Three weeks ago I mentioned I would test (just for kicks) two identical ads for my technologically outdated (like 20+ years) VapoKarb manual (priced at 99-cents).  So, here are the results:

Ad #1 - Sponsored Products - Automatic mode - 2-cent Bid
aCPC: 1-cent
Results: 10 Clicks - 4,545 Impressions - Ratio: 0.22%

Ad #2 - Sponsored Products - Manual mode (972 Keywords) - 2-cent Bid
aCPC: 1-cent
Results: 169 Clicks - 398,207 Impressions - Ratio: 0.04%

The results for Ad #1 seem reasonable.  The results for Ad #2 make no sense at all (not to me, that is).  Can anyone explain this?

The ads produced 6 orders, with total royalties of $2.10.  No pages were read; which comes as no surprise since the “Look Inside” feature reveals an exploded pictorial of all the VapoKarb components - thus diminishing the Curiosity factor.

Total Spent (both ads) - $2.49

So, the ads cost me 39-cents.  I perused many other related ads to check my ad Impressions under their sponsored product carousels and found my VapoKarb Impressions usually appearing along with at least a few of my other product Impressions, but on carousel pages 2 or 3 (my DIY genre is relatively same).

I did all this on my wife’s computer - to avoid the possibility of the results being skewed if AMS were to identify my account.

I intend to keep the ads running (just for kicks); 39-cents seems like pretty cheap exposure.  It remains to be seen if the ad results continue along these lines.  I doubt they will, but who knows?

Have a fun weekend!


----------



## LFGabel

If people are getting clicks, but no sales, could it be that there's something not working on the book detail page? Perhaps the write-up isn't up to snuff? We can't assume that a click off an ad should be an automatic sale. But one thing it does do is get into the person's Amazon browsing history and hopefully they'll be targeted via email later.


----------



## Jena H

weigle1234 said:


> Ad #2 - Sponsored Products - Manual mode (972 Keywords) - 2-cent Bid
> aCPC: 1-cent
> Results: 169 Clicks - 398,207 Impressions - Ratio: 0.04%


I just have to chuckle at this because I don't think there's any way on earth I could come up with 972 keywords for a book. I applaud those who can use that many, but I have trouble getting 100-150, even including other author names. I guess maybe I don't have a lot of imagination... which is strange to say for someone who writes fiction.  But I can't seem to stretch my thinking to come up with anything close as that many words. Maybe if I have a scene where the characters make breakfast, I should include keywords like Aunt Jemima pancakes, Tropicana, and Quaker Oats. 



LFGabel said:


> If people are getting clicks, but no sales, could it be that there's something not working on the book detail page? Perhaps the write-up isn't up to snuff? We can't assume that a click off an ad should be an automatic sale. But one thing it does do is get into the person's Amazon browsing history and hopefully they'll be targeted via email later.


Yeah, we can never assume or take or granted that a click (to the book page) will automatically lead to a sale. But at least it means people are looking at the book, so that's a plus.
Not sure what you mean about people getting targeted via email. Would that be targeted for an email from Amazon? What would it say?


----------



## khotisarque

AlexaKang said:


> The AMS ads have suddenly become less effective, but we don't know why.


When I see [in science fiction genres, but I suspect some others are the same] that a 'typical' book by a 'typical' author has 100 or more subpages of sponsored ads, plus the also-boughts, I wonder why we expect any good results from such an over-saturated market. Imagine a TV show of two hours with 600 commercials shown? Or buying a car with 600 competing salesmen jostling your elbows?

If anyone selling a book or series at $0.99 can do anything but lose money on these ads, I'd love to know how. Or, if Amazon is posting them for free just because they can, how that can be considered as anything but rigging an 'auction'? The ads on subpage 5 thru 100 are not looked at by any plausible buyer, and they are presumably cheap or free; but their existence raises the cost of getting onto page 1, where there is real exposure.

The utter failure of the display ads, and the puny performance of Amazon's suggested auto keywords, indicates that Amazon themselves cannot make AMS effective for books [other products work just fine] because of the sheer volume of starving and desperate authors. But their effectiveness does not matter: 500 ads even at $0.02 each represents $10 of potential income - set your own views-per-click ratio - compared to $0.95 potential income from the sale of the original book at $2.99 - set your own guess at Amazon's views-per-sale ratio. Actual income per view? Maybe 2 cents from ads and half a cent from original book sale. If the ads also produce a secondary sale, that's just gravy.

That makes it profitable for Amazon. Making a profit from a service that does not work for the buyers i.e. authors is not a 'scam', but nor is it good long-term business behavior. Probably Amazon would like to find a model that works for everyone but are overwhelmed by the unexpectedly enormous response they have received.

I don't think I am being cynical, but I do believe that the 'algos' and the underlying business model are severely flawed in the super-competitive genre novel environment.


----------



## amdonehere

I honestly don't know if Amazon algo for AMS ads are truly a mess, or they're just playing some sinister game that benefits them but not us.

But if the system is a mess, then at the least, they can begin by showing ONLY genre-related books on each book's page. Like, stop showing shifter PN romance on pages for military sci-fi maybe? That would be a good beginning.

Honestly, I don't mind if some popular book page have many pages of ads if the ads are clearly of books in the same genre. If others outbid me, that's fine. I can perhaps find some other way around, or go bid on the books that are bidding on the book page where I want to be on. But when my book is buried and all the books before me are in non-related genre, WTH??!

Then again, Amazon is really a data company.  I can only assume that they have some Big Data showing that if they show man-chest with dame in Regency ball gown as ad on a page of a LitPRG book, there must be a reason. . . .


----------



## Seneca42

AlexaKang said:


> I honestly don't know if Amazon algo for AMS ads are truly a mess, or they're just playing some sinister game that benefits them but not us.


100% a mess.  Everything about Amazon is a mess though. They can't even get categories right. You've got "I don't know who the father of my alien baby is" in the top 20 of scifi half the time.

If there's one thing that seems to be true with Amazon it's that their algos seem to work on the logic that if x amount of people like something then 10x will like it also. Therefore, if something gets "sticky" their algos go to work pushing that to everyone else.

I don't think Amazon is anywhere near as nuanced as a lot of people like to believe. I think the algos are extremely complicated, sure, but in actual application I think they end up behaving more like a baseball bat than a scalpel.


----------



## LFGabel

Jena H said:


> Not sure what you mean about people getting targeted via email. Would that be targeted for an email from Amazon? What would it say?


Speaking as a reader, when I browse Amazon and look at books, I know that Amazon is tracking my browsing history. Then a few days later, I'll get a reminder email that says "Based on your recent visit, we thought you might be interested in these items." Usually the books I have been browsing are there, among other related books.


----------



## weigle1234

Seneca42 said:


> 100% a mess.
> 
> If there's one thing that seems to be true with Amazon it's that their algos seem to work on the logic that if x amount of people like something then 10x will like it also. Therefore, if something gets "sticky" their algos go to work pushing that to everyone else.


Coming up with zillions of Keywords really is not that difficult. Kindle has "Help" sites addressing Keywords, but I find their Help sites are generally confusing. Google searches are always much more productive for me.

A Google search on "Keywords" brings up lots of great ideas (along with lots of hype from vendors promising to make your rich by buying their Keyword programs). After sorting through Google info, here is what I came up with as the most popular approach, and it seems to work for me - but testing its effectiveness is a work-in-progress for me.

Let Kindle do the work for you. Bring up their Search Window and type in a single term or word related to your genre. Kindle will then start providing Keyword related words and terms.

For example, one of my DIY manuals is for building a home based solar electric system. So, I entered the word Solar - and up pops:
Solar electric
Solar power
Solar energy
Solar storm (unrelated)

So, right away I have 3 great keywords.

Then, I use the old, but proven, "Add a letter approach" - in alphabetic order.

For example: Solar "a" yields: Solar arcade (unrelated) - solar arc (unrelated) - solar astronomy (unrelated)

Solar "b" yields: Solar books (related) - Solar bones (unrelated) - (2 others unrelated)

Solar "c" yields: solar cooking (related) - Solar charger (related) - (2 others unrelated)

Solar "d" yields: Solar diy (highly related)

Solar "e" yields: Solar energy (already have that)

Solar "g" yields: Solar greenhouse (related)

Solar "l" yields: Solar lights (related)

Solar "z" yields: Solar zapper (loosely related, but a decent Keyword IMHO)

Every related Keyword discovery leads to other related Keywords. For example:

diy "b" yields: diy books

diy "c" yields: diy crafts

diy "p" yields: diy projects

You can go nuts with this alphabetic thing - the further you get into it, the more related Keywords you will discover - the world is your oyster! Even loosely related Keywords are, IMHO, worth trying. Keep in mind, other than Amazon itself, only God understands how their algorithm works.


----------



## NatPane

Here we go with AMS ads again. How can your daily limit be spent (10.00) but have zero clicks, someone please tell me?


----------



## Mike Stop Continues

NatPane said:


> Here we go with AMS ads again. How can your daily limit be spent (10.00) but have zero clicks, someone please tell me?


It takes a while for Amazon to update the dashboard.


----------



## NatPane

Mike Stop Continues said:


> It takes a while for Amazon to update the dashboard.


Ok thanks. It's never happened to me, and so I thought it odd.


----------



## Decon

How many of you have used any free days if you are enrolled in KU while having a book that has taken up AMS?

*The question I am asking isn't about if you pause your KU ads on free days, or even if you have used promo sites, but what free day usage if any you have had on individual books.*

Eg. I haven't used any free days for 1,2,3,4, 5, or 6 months. Or say, my free days are down by 100% 50% 40% 30% 20% over the past (however long approx)etc

I think I know the answer, but I want to see if I am right. Maybe I'll be wrong?


----------



## Jena H

LFGabel said:


> Speaking as a reader, when I browse Amazon and look at books, I know that Amazon is tracking my browsing history. Then a few days later, I'll get a reminder email that says "Based on your recent visit, we thought you might be interested in these items." Usually the books I have been browsing are there, among other related books.


Okay, thanks. I've never gotten en email from Amazon but that could be either because maybe I opted out (if that's doable), or because I've never bought an ebook other than my own, which was downloaded to a laptop for viewing purposes. I don't own a Kindle, so maybe they know that.


----------



## khotisarque

weigle1234 said:


> Coming up with zillions of Keywords really is not that difficult.


That is true, and I understan that your motivation is to be helpful.

However, that may well be a large part of the problem. Someone's SF novel 'Solaris' or 'Solar system' or anything even 'loosely related' becomes the target for all these 'loosely related' but really random keywords used indiscriminately by thousands of authors [I see that you weed out your list; not everyone is equally conscientious]. Amazon pares it down to fiction, possibly even a genre by its 'relevance testing', but we are left with all the inappropriate 'loosely related like fifth cousins by second-marriage' matches competing inside the auction. Since views are free, irrelevance does not matter.

As soon as even a small price is put on views as well as clicks, the problem will ease. As soon as Amazon starts charging clicks by value - limit the number of sub-pages displayed, perhaps to three or five, and letting a real auction market sort out who appears - we will have better results. The current model appears from Amazon's own description to accept all entrants with an unlimited number of slots but rank them according to bid. A real auction would limit the number of opportunities and sell only to the highest bidders. There should be penalties for indiscriminate bidding.

Also, in a real auction, bid-stuffing by the auctioneer would be considered..well, let's call it bad behavior.


----------



## khotisarque

LilyBLily said:


> Two things: Procter & Gamble puts ads for detergents in the middle of tense television dramas. Apparently, these ads sell the product despite the disconnect.
> 
> Additionally, none of us whose books are in KU can know which irrelevant keyword of ours is gaining us page reads. If Amazon told us, of course we'd pause the keywords that simply cost us money but produce nothing. That would not be to Amazon's advantage, though. We all pay for keyword clicks that don't result in sales.


Those are both good points. P&G probably have no idea which of their ads work, but they have few if any 'relevant' TV series to choose from. Their aim is brand recognition in marketing a commodity. A similar situation would apply to an author seeking name recognition in a sea of bare-chested covers. Advertize everywhere you can afford. Especially if the exposure is free. And too bad that our irrelevant ads send the viewer to sleep and he never sees anyone else's possibly highly-relevant ad. The point is that 'loosely relevant' free views produce nothing if you are really looking for clicks leading to sales, but they have some value if you just want someone later on to recall 'I've seen that name before'.

As to the page reads, my ignorance is immense But is there any reason to think that there is no correlation between sales and reads? Is a keyword that produces no sales likely to generate lots of reads? I don't know. Certainly, any sort of feedback from Amazon would help us develop more effective ad strategies, more sales, more $$ for Mama.

I do believe that Amazon is a thoroughly honest company. But not nearly as smart as the omniscient image they like to project. They do make mistakes; I'd like to see those mistakes corrected for the benefit of all sides.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Yes, a keyword that does not generate sales is likely to produce page reads. In fact, that's exactly what my keywords do the majority of the time. Since the only books that are producing page reads are those that are promoted through AMS, I'd say it's extremely likely. Some sales do occur, but in my case, it's mostly page reads.


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> Two things: Procter & Gamble puts ads for detergents in the middle of tense television dramas. Apparently, these ads sell the product despite the disconnect.


Ad placement within the carousel chain is the only factor I feel confident in having correctly analyzed. Which is; high Bid ads appear on earlier pages. Such reasoning seems logical - but, I think many of us would agree that logic does not appear to be especially helpful in understanding the realm of AMS advertising.

To illustrate my point, I started a 25-cent Bid (900+ Keywords) ad (just for kicks, as usual). It usually appears early in carousels, sometimes on page 1. My DIY genre is relatively small - where 2 to 4 page chains are the norm (sometimes only 1 page).

However, my 2-cent Bid (900+ Keywords) ads usually appear close to my 25-cent Bid ad. Within a 1-page carousel, 3 or 4 of my 2-cent ads often appear alongside my 25-cent ad.

I am keeping a close eye on my 25-cent ad. If all my ads keep performing as expected, I will soon be dumping the 25-cent ad - going back to a 2-cent or 5-cent ad.

Any 900+ Keyword ad is definitely "Stuffed" (perhaps bordering on gaming the system, or being a tad unethical). As a result, my ads are scattered hither and yon. But, my 2-cent ads generate, on average, 10 to 100 times as many Impressions as my 25-cent ads. Likely that is because many appear in obscure genres, where Bid competition is nonexistent. However, it is my guess that such genres usually have 1-page carousels - giving my 2-cent ad high visibility.

IMHP, any Click may be just about as good as any other, no matter where it occurs. If someone clicks on your ad within an entirely different genre, they probably did so out of mere curiosity, and many folks buy out of mere curiosity.


----------



## khotisarque

weigle1234 said:


> If someone clicks on your ad within an entirely different genre, they probably did so out of mere curiosity, and many folks buy out of mere curiosity.


Fascinating. Could you reveal what your out-of-genre clicks-per-sale ratio looks like compared to within-genre? And I'm also curious about how many impressions are generated for these one or two-page carousels. In SF I see books with [I suspect from their sales rankings] practically zero views but 20-page carousels. Maybe you've found the secret sauce [shhh! don't tell a soul!]


----------



## Jena H

LilyBLily said:


> Two things: Procter & Gamble puts ads for detergents in the middle of tense television dramas. Apparently, these ads sell the product despite the disconnect.


That's true. But there is a difference between advertising on Amazon and advertising during a TV show. Ads on TV are commercials purposely inserted during a TV show, which viewers expect. (And most try to avoid these days, lol.) Ads on Amazon are basically a commercial that someone sees while shopping. If someone is shopping for a backyard grill, they probably don't want to see an ad for a urban fantasy book. And someone browsing for a yoga mat likely isn't interested in seeing the latest space opera books. I'm not saying those people don't read, but chances are they don't want to see the advertised product _at that moment._

This is one reason why I try to limit my keywords. I target people who are likely in my audience _and_ are shopping for entertainment products (books, movies, DVDs, etc.). If I'm shopping at a store for, say, shoes, I wouldn't want ads popping up in front of me for books. But hey, if it works.... maybe I'll have to talk myself into doing something I don't agree with.


----------



## khotisarque

Jena H said:


> But hey, if it works.... maybe I'll have to talk myself into doing something I don't agree with.


Don't argue against facts, m'am. But I don't think it does work in any positive way. Unfortunately there is no disincentive to plastering the universe with ineffectual flyers. Add a small price for each impression of nuisance ads [for ALL ads, so we don't have to define 'nuisance'] and let the advertizers decide if that still works for them.

And if you'd like a good laugh at the amazon algo interpretation of 'relevance', try searching for fiction classics. I got 'Hot Bastard Next Door' by Rye Hart as #2. No offence, Rye, Mama's mis-placement.


----------



## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> Fascinating. Could you reveal what your out-of-genre clicks-per-sale ratio looks like compared to within-genre? And I'm also curious about how many impressions are generated for these one or two-page carousels. In SF I see books with [I suspect from their sales rankings] practically zero views but 20-page carousels. Maybe you've found the secret sauce [shhh! don't tell a soul!]


Wishful thinking on the Secret Sauce thing - nobody gets that lucky!

At this point I can only make a rough guess at sales within my DIY genre. It is much lower than the typical 8 Clicks per sale I keep hearing about. I have done some analysis in that respect, and my rough guess is that, for myself, it is more like 50 Clicks per sale.

The reason I mention Rough Guess is that I feel a big chunk of my paperback sales are the result of AMS ads - and paperback sales do not show up in our AMS data. I am aware that some folks on this forum are certain they do - but I have never seen any evidence of that with my ads. Kindle recently replied to my inquiry in that regard, and I believe them - paperback data is not reflected in AMS data. Perhaps the person that answered my inquiry is perpetrating a lie in line with company policy, but I doubt it. If lying is the case, everyone also selling paperbacks will always be in the dark.

A big factor is my genre - DIY manuals. My best selling manual here is for building a solar electric system, the same with mail order. But, most people are dreamers. I sold well over 30,000 copies of that manual via mail order (at $40 a pop, not $10 for the few hundred sold here). Not once have I heard back from someone who has actually built the entire system. I got hundreds of letters asking all kinds of questions, none actually mentioning they had even taken step 1 of the building process. Surely someone out there completed the system - if so I never heard about it. If someone actually built the system and it caused their house to burn to the ground, at least I would have heard about it. In short, my solar manual caught lots of interest - out of curiosity - but only by dreamers. In other words, good bathroom reading material.

I have no reason to question my dreamer opinion for my few Kindle sales. My ad captures their attention, so they Click on it. But that is as far as it goes 49 times out of 50 Clicks. After reading a few pages revealed by Look Inside, they realize the whole thing actually involves some effort, so they quickly lose interest. I have nothing against dreamers - they buy tons of books here on Amazon. That is why we are here, basically trying to sell books to dreamers.

I never checked any out-of-genre books for my AMS ads - obviously there has to be lots of them out there. I am surmising my ad placement within their carousel. Just the fact that my 2-cent ad is there at all indicates the carousel is a short one.

Along my same line of thinking, I have never taken much time trying to analyze individual Keyword vs. sales data. This relates back to the paperback sales data not being considered by AMS. The Keyword mystery appears to be the most consuming factor with most writers on this forum - trying to analyze it may be a waste of time. Using the old shotgun approach, and hoping something sticks, may be the most efficient approach - but not necessarily the most ethical.

When it comes to money, in the real world money usually beats out ethics (legal ethics, of course).


----------



## weigle1234

Jena H said:


> But hey, if it works.... maybe I'll have to talk myself into doing something I don't agree with.


I wonder if many of our forum members have experimented much with eBook pricing, at prices that will hold - at least long enough to get solid feedback?

My only trusted still-living mail order guru is Dave Dee - practically everything he ever suggested worked for me. His best advice has to do with pricing. He feels one of the most common mistakes made by even established business folks in general is under-pricing their wares. In short, according to Dave, increasing prices often results in increased sales.

Dave is big into sales psychology, and talks a lot about "Perceived Value." He suggests increasing prices gradually - noting the effects, and sticking with the most profitable figure. That approach generally worked well for me in mail order.

Most of my eBooks are priced the same - which may be a mistake. My next "Just for Kicks" project will be increasing the price ($5.49) on my most popular DIY manual to, perhaps, $6.39.

A business friend once told me he found the best way for getting rid of slow-selling stock is to increase the price - and I have heard the same thing from other small business guys. Their philosophy seems to be that just about anything is worth trying at least once. As one business friend expressed, "If I understood the human mind, I would be a Billionaire!"

For example; Let us say you are selling a $5 gizmo that looks like a piece of junk, but some folks will eventually buy a few. You will never offer that gizmo again, but still have a few taking up shelf space.

So, you up the price to $10. Along come folks whose brains are wired differently. They look at the gizmo and rationalize "That gizmo looks like a piece of junk, but for $10 there must be something special about it" - they plunk down their $10 and walk away happy.


----------



## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> Fascinating. Could you reveal what your out-of-genre clicks-per-sale ratio looks like compared to within-genre? And I'm also curious about how many impressions are generated for these one or two-page carousels. In SF I see books with [I suspect from their sales rankings] practically zero views but 20-page carousels. Maybe you've found the secret sauce [shhh! don't tell a soul!]


Eureka! I finally discovered an obscure out-of-genre site where my 2-cent ads appear.

It is "Worms eat my Garbage." It has but 1 carousel page, with 5 sponsored products - 4 of which are mine.

My BIG question is: Why does my 25-cent ad not also appear there?


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> When I asked a Facebook author group if I should move to $3.99, people replied that I should make the book 99 cents or free.


I too am trying to decide how to change eBook prices, and for which books.

Most writers are emotionally attached to their books - they have lots of "Blood, Sweet, and Tears" invested in their creations - these are your "Babies." But, I have an advantage in that my books were written long ago, and I never intend to write another book. Besides, I ran out of new DIY manual ideas awhile back - with a few on the back burner, but nothing that excites me.

I am fascinated with the Kindle concept, and enjoy toying around with new ideas - most of which caught my attention on these forums. Since I am getting lazy in my old age, sitting around vegetating gets more appealing with each passing year.

The idea of giving away FREE eBooks goes completely against my grain. But, giving away Freebies with actual orders is another matter. With each paperback sale I include my Free Reports - such as "Secrets of Fantastic Gas Mileage" and "How to make Your Car last at least 300,000 Miles." Also small books on saving energy - the more orders, the more Freebies.

It is a great idea I picked up from Dave Dee years ago. Always give the customer more than he expects. It is called good customer relations. It costs but a few cents, encourages repeat orders, and reduces refunds almost to zero.

All my paperbacks are enrolled in the Matchbook program - with the eBook being FREE. But, I am not confident that most folks are even aware of the Matchbook option. Kindle does not appear to give Matchbook much publicity. Any ideas on how to do Freebie things similar to paperback Freebies with eBook orders?

Getting back to the FREE eBook topic - IMHO, FREE eBooks appeal only to Moochers - Freeloaders - those who, from a business standpoint, will NEVER be of any real benefit over the long haul. I know there are varied opinions as to how FREE eBooks help improve rankings, perhaps even other good things. Some of all that may be true, but at this point I am skeptical. The long haul is what counts.

Regarding my last post, as to why my 25-cent ad does not appear along with my 2-cent ads in the "Worm" carousel. Perhaps Kindle uses such ads merely as some kind of "Sympathy Ads" - something to let the Worm gals know Kindle is aware they are still around, and has concern for them as clients.


----------



## Dpock

1) Is there a way to see you daily spend on the AMS dashboard? All I can is a summary page for the campaign.

2) When I'm looking at the AMS report how dated is the information? An hour old? Five? It seems to refresh about every three hours, but is the refresh delivery current stats?


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Dpock said:


> 1) Is there a way to see you daily spend on the AMS dashboard? All I can is a summary page for the campaign.
> 
> 2) When I'm looking at the AMS report how dated is the information? An hour old? Five? It seems to refresh about every three hours, but is the refresh delivery current stats?


If you go into Billing History, you can click on a month and see how much you've spent that month on each individual book. That's as close as I've seen to figuring out my daily spend.


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> I clicked on the decluttering book, but the extended description convinced me not to buy it. As a fail-safe (that term dates me, doesn't it?) I had Amazon send a sample to my Kindle. If others behave as I do, there's always a chance that a click might lead to a sale days, weeks, or even months after the click happens.


Very Interesting! Another Amazon mystery to add to our collection.

Immediately after reading your post, I turned on my wife's computer. Her Worms carousel is the same as yesterday - one page with 4 of my ads along with the Declutter ad.

Just before composing this post on this computer (mine) I checked Worms - same results.

If results are based on browsing and buying habits, why identical results? I never used my wife's computer until a few days ago, and never used it to purchase anything.

My wife's computer (a laptop) operates via Wi-Fi, while mine (a desktop) is connected via cable. At the moment both computers are located within inches of one another. Perhaps there is some affecting interaction between the two computers via the Wi-Fi signal and/or cable connection. As soon as my son (a computer nerd) gets back from work I will see if he can enlighten me.

The term fail-safe dates us both. I was a nuke missile technician way back in my Air Force days in the early 60s. The missile warhead electronics progress through 6 or 7 stages. In theory they are fail-safe; but, of course, nothing is perfect. While sitting behind a console within yards of the missile, during testing of the warhead circuits, the thought often crossed my mind as to what it would be like if the thing was not truly fail-safe - especially while testing the fusing circuit, the final stage.

During testing, a live warhead was never in place. The real thing had been removed, and a concrete cylinder with identical electronic circuitry took its place. But, neither is the human mind fail-safe. What if someone screwed up and the real warhead was still there?


----------



## Wired

I keep getting a 'budget spent' warning...but the actual amount spent is far less than the campaign budget. Anyone else?


----------



## amdonehere

weigle1234 said:


> Very Interesting! Another Amazon mystery to add to our collection.
> 
> Immediately after reading your post, I turned on my wife's computer. Her Worms carousel is the same as yesterday - one page with 4 of my ads along with the Declutter ad.
> 
> Just before composing this post on this computer (mine) I checked Worms - same results.
> 
> If results are based on browsing and buying habits, why identical results? I never used my wife's computer until a few days ago, and never used it to purchase anything.
> 
> My wife's computer (a laptop) operates via Wi-Fi, while mine (a desktop) is connected via cable. At the moment both computers are located within inches of one another. Perhaps there is some affecting interaction between the two computers via the Wi-Fi signal and/or cable connection. As soon as my son (a computer nerd) gets back from work I will see if he can enlighten me.
> 
> The term fail-safe dates us both. I was a nuke missile technician way back in my Air Force days in the early 60s. The missile warhead electronics progress through 6 or 7 stages. In theory they are fail-safe; but, of course, nothing is perfect. While sitting behind a console within yards of the missile, during testing of the warhead circuits, the thought often crossed my mind as to what it would be like if the thing was not truly fail-safe - especially while testing the fusing circuit, the final stage.
> 
> During testing, a live warhead was never in place. The real thing had been removed, and a concrete cylinder with identical electronic circuitry took its place. But, neither is the human mind fail-safe. What if someone screwed up and the real warhead was still there?


I think the algo shows you AMS books in line with your browsing habits--sometimes. I don't think they do it all the time. This is what I've noticed. They do it sevearal ways:

1. New Release -- the throw in about 2 pages of old stand-bys (always the same favored books bidding at 2-5c. Don't ask me why they're favored, they just are. I can't tell if it's Amazon who decided this or it the author running the ad is a genius who cracked the code.)

2. New Release becomes Hot (making the top 100 in good categories) -- the throw in 100+ pages of standbys of many different genres. Not point in bidding on these books for as long as they're selling. Your book will never get on the carousel. Even if it does, it'll be buried.

3. Niche categories with not enough books running AMS ads -- they throw in 100+ pages of standbys of many different genres. Not point in bidding on these books for as long as they're selling. Your book will never get on the carousel. Even if it does, it'll be buried.

4. New Release sales slow down and becomes normal -- now they start showing books of the same genre. Pages of AMS ads go down to anywhere from 1-30. If you're lucky and catches this when they're just starting to populate the AMS, you can get on p.1 with low bid. But you'll have to monitor this page as more ads begin to populate, and up your bid.

5. New Release becomes part of the indefinite catalogue -- Algo begins to rotate among (1) no ads whatsoever, (2) show 2-30 pages of AMS ads in related genre, with some that MAY respond to your browsing history (data from cookie stored in your browser, or your ISP, or you're logged in); (3) show 2-40+ pages of random ads of no relations whatsoever. Your ad is nowhere to be found.

The above is my observation. The reasons I suggested are entirely my opinion and may have no basis whatsoever. :/


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## StephenBrennan

Well it's been several months for me, and about a hundred clicks, but not one attributed sale. I've had some KU hits here and there, but it's kind of a Bigfoot scenario where "maybe it was AMS, maybe it wasn't". Works differently for different books I guess.


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## Jena H

Here's an update on my current ad for my long-dormant, dead-in-the-water first-ever book. The first day the ad ran, I had a sale. Another sale today. (Yay!) My KDP dashboard obviously reflects sales in practically 'real time,' so that's how I know. Also, for some reason, my AMS dashboard reflects sales as well, although the "sales" amount it shows does not add up to or equal the sale of either one or two books. So I'm not sure where their "sales" amount comes from. 

Anyhoo, an interesting tidbit is that according to this data, all sales (whether it's one or both, however it's reflecting) are attributed to the same keyword. "Divorce." The main character of my book, which is a women's fiction/relationship/not-exactly-a-romance story, is a single mother, so I guess that makes sense. By _far_ my keyword with the most impressions/clicks is another generic one: divorce.

Another interesting fact: I use the name of about four authors as keywords. Two of them are well known names in women's fiction/romance, a third is a familiar here on kboards, and the fourth is someone I'd never heard of before, but she wrote a book with a similar theme as my story. The "unknown to me" author name is the one with second most impressions and clicks.

I'll be pausing this ad in another day or two, ad running one for another of my books, which I want to run over the July 4th holiday.


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## Philip Gibson

Wired said:


> I keep getting a 'budget spent' warning...but the actual amount spent is far less than the campaign budget. Anyone else?


Yes, me.

Yesterday my newest ad spent its $5 budget. I increased it to $10 and a couple of hours later it spent that. I increased it to $12 and one hour later it reached that limit and I stopped increasing it. It was a new ad so, as usual, number of clicks was not being shown although number of impressions was.

Then today I looked at both my billing history and my AMS dashboard and see that the actual amount I spent was only $0.62 for 5 clicks.

Anyone else?

Philip


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## A past poster

Philip Gibson said:


> Yes, me.
> 
> Yesterday my newest ad spent its $5 budget. I increased it to $10 and a couple of hours later it spent that. I increased it to $12 and one hour later it reached that limit and I stopped increasing it. It was a new ad so, as usual, number of clicks was not being shown although number of impressions was.
> 
> Then today I looked at both my billing history and my AMS dashboard and see that the actual amount I spent was only $0.62 for 5 clicks.
> 
> Anyone else?
> 
> Philip


A while ago I had a book that was shutting down everyday with the 'Budget Spent' when the budget hadn't been spent. I sent an email about the problem and it was eventually corrected.

The gap in reporting has become a real problem. It is difficult to tell which keywords are effective in real time. What this means is that we could be upping bids on keywords that have lots of clicks but no sales.


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## khotisarque

Marian said:


> A while ago I had a book that was shutting down everyday with the 'Budget Spent' when the budget hadn't been spent. I sent an email about the problem and it was eventually corrected.


To what address did you send the e-mail?

I have come to the conclusion that the AMS reporting and ad exposure processes are both pure garbage. Look at the sundry, repeated, inexplicable problems that different users havve reported here. Then hear about my latest little experiments.

Last night I started a new small campaign, using keywords I considered unrelated to my books and probably rarely encountered. The campaign started, about 80 total views in first 1 hours. Then I searched for one of my keywords that hd seen activity, and sure enough I found my book. I repeated that; book in exactly the same position for quasi-independent searches. So much for fresh auctions every search. Then I clicked on my own book, hoping to see an acpc in due course. It certainly did not come up in real time. Now, 24 hours later, neither the views nor the click have shown. I know that because they are still showing zero views, zero clicks.

Worse. I had both an author and a single book title as keywords. Book shows up when searched by author, not when searched by title. This is for a small carousel, 4 pages. Author search does produce views on other titles.

Specific anomaly. I used 'alexandria quartets' as a keyword. Both amazon.com and amazon.uk respond to a google initial search by saying there are kindle editions; when the book title is pulled to give product detail pages. neither site admits to kindle, only pb and hb versions. Zero sponsored products pages on either site. Yet that keyword produced 29 alleged views overnight.

Garbage. Possibly useful garbage in the 'better than nothing' sense. But if I were running a retail IT company I would almost die from shame. So how do we communicate the situation to amazon?


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## Decon

Decon said:


> How many of you have used any free days if you are enrolled in KU while having a book that has taken up AMS?
> 
> *The question I am asking isn't about if you pause your KU ads on free days, or even if you have used promo sites, but what free day usage if any you have had on individual books.*
> 
> Eg. I haven't used any free days for 1,2,3,4, 5, or 6 months. Or say, my free days are down by 100% 50% 40% 30% 20% over the past (however long approx)etc
> 
> I think I know the answer, but I want to see if I am right. Maybe I'll be wrong?


I am trying to look for other factors for the drop off besides increased competition, and everyone's fixation on keywords and impressions and Amazon's crazy algos.

Okay, disappointed no one has replied to my post above, so here's my own experience. I was hoping to find out other's experiences in reducing the days they use for free promos.

I am enrolled in KU, having set up my first AMS in October and then gradually added the others upto November. I had already booked free days with promo sites for Oct/Nov. Basically over 5 books, one had 5000 downloads on one day and the others a minimum of 2000 for single days and that were also enrolled in AMS. It was therefore hard for me to get a handle on page reads attributed, only the sales on the AMS dashboard and paper books, as sales and page reads skyrocketed after the free days and ergo, their ranks.

I stopped using free promo sites after those already booked, relying on AMS and stopped using my 5 my free days altogether, having had 80,000 pages reads in December and total royalties of over $600. In January/ Feb that halved. Then total royalties dropped to $100 and gradually to $20. This month I'm around $20 with page reads and sales of $40, but I have only had one sale earning me $2 on AMS and my bill so far is $9.

I am well into profit as you have seen from my screen shots, but ongoing monthly results are now at a loss.

I'm looking here at the correlation between rank of individual books and AMS click to buy results that is possibly reducing my effectivess of AMS ads.

What do you think? And can you see this in your own results if you have stopped using free promo days to boost rank?

I hope I've made sense with the post?


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## Dpock

In five and a half days I have 60,269 impressions, fifty-three clicks, and zero reported sales. KENP reads are negligible. The KENP activity is troubling unless there's really long lag in reporting there and I'm not seeing the true picture, but I have reason to believe I am.


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## Dpock

I decided to "Pause" my campaign. The only option I saw was "Terminate" - is that how you pause a campaign?


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## Dpock

LilyBLily said:


> No, it's not. You have a choice to pause, enable or terminate. Toggle to get pause.


Funny - the only options I have are "Pause" or "Terminate".


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## Jena H

Dpock said:


> Funny - the only options I have are "Pause" or "Terminate".


For my ad that's currently running, my only two options are also Pause or Terminate.


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## vvcam

Dpock said:


> Funny - the only options I have are "Pause" or "Terminate".


You can only "Enable" *Paused* campaigns and "Pause" *Running* campaigns


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## amdonehere

Decon said:


> I am trying to look for other factors for the drop off besides increased competition, and everyone's fixation on keywords and impressions and Amazon's crazy algos.
> 
> Okay, disappointed no one has replied to my post above, so here's my own experience. I was hoping to find out other's experiences in reducing the days they use for free promos.
> 
> I am enrolled in KU, having set up my first AMS in October and then gradually added the others upto November. I had already booked free days with promo sites for Oct/Nov. Basically over 5 books, one had 5000 downloads on one day and the others a minimum of 2000 for single days and that were also enrolled in AMS. It was therefore hard for me to get a handle on page reads attributed, only the sales on the AMS dashboard and paper books, as sales and page reads skyrocketed after the free days and ergo, their ranks.
> 
> I stopped using free promo sites after those already booked, relying on AMS and stopped using my 5 my free days altogether, having had 80,000 pages reads in December and total royalties of over $600. In January/ Feb that halved. Then total royalties dropped to $100 and gradually to $20. This month I'm around $20 with page reads and sales of $40, but I have only had one sale earning me $2 on AMS and my bill so far is $9.
> 
> I am well into profit as you have seen from my screen shots, but ongoing monthly results are now at a loss.
> 
> I'm looking here at the correlation between rank of individual books and AMS click to buy results that is possibly reducing my effectivess of AMS ads.
> 
> What do you think? And can you see this in your own results if you have stopped using free promo days to boost rank?
> 
> I hope I've made sense with the post?


Decon, I don't think we're not responding, as opposed to we don't know how to respond. I don't know the answer. The AMS ads are so confusing, I don't even have an opinion anymore.

And I for one haven't looked into my results as deeply as you have. All I know is my book's ranking is holding. Sales aren't super like when I first started the ads. But I've experimented with pausing the ads, and my ranking (and thus sales) nosedives. So the ads must be doing something, and I therefore I can't stop them or else my sales might flatline.


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## Jena H

AlexaKang said:


> Decon, I don't think we're not responding, as opposed to we don't know how to respond. I don't know the answer. The AMS ads are so confusing, I don't even have an opinion anymore.
> 
> And I for one haven't looked into my results as deeply as you have. All I know is my book's ranking is holding. Sales aren't super like when I first started the ads. But I've experimented with pausing the ads, and my ranking (and thus sales) nosedives. So the ads must be doing something, and I therefore I can't stop them or else my sales might flatline.


Ditto. I don't get too deepy-thinky about how these ads work--I get a headache with all the variables involved--so I'm far from qualified to offer advice or theories. All I do is run ads and keep my fingers crossed, hoping for the best. Why and how they work (or don't) is beyond me.  (I know that sounds pitiful and sad, but there we are.)


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## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> They say each of us has a different Amazon experience based on our browsing and buying habits.
> 
> I went to the Worms Eat My Garbage page and found a three-page carousel with 10 adult coloring books, your books, and 1 on decluttering (a topic dear to my heart). Two of your books were on page 1 and two were on page 2. As I have never even looked at an adult coloring book on Amazon, I'm baffled as to why they're on the Worms page; can't be in response to my browsing habits.


About three weeks ago I mentioned I would test (just for kicks) two identical ads for my technologically outdated (like 20+ years) VapoKarb manual (priced at 99-cents). So, here are the results as of Today (June 27):

Ad #1 - Sponsored Products - Automatic mode - 2-cent Bid
aCPC: 1-cent
Results: 11 Clicks - 5,722 Impressions - Ratio: 0.19%
Spent - $0.14

Ad #2 - Sponsored Products - Manual mode (972 Keywords) - 2-cent Bid
aCPC: 1-cent
Results: 189 Clicks - 480,089 Impressions - Ratio: 04%
Spent - $2.61

The results for Ad #1 seem reasonable. The results for Ad #2 make no sense at all (not to me, that is). For every Ad #1 Impression, Ad #2 yields 84 Impressions (480,809 / 5,722)

Can anyone explain any of this to me?

The ads produced 11 orders, with total royalties of $2.45. No pages were read; which comes as no surprise since the "Look Inside" feature reveals an exploded pictorial of all the VapoKarb components - thus diminishing the Curiosity factor.

Total Spent (both ads) - $2.75

So, the ads cost me 30-cents.

My original intention was to run these ads "Just for Kicks" for only about 3 weeks, and then Pause or Terminate them. Since they are costing me next to nothing, I will let remain as they are. Mostly out of curiosity, just to see what develops.

Regarding the varied results you noted between my computer sponsored ads carousel page locations for "Worms Eat my Garbage" vs. those viewed on your computer, the differences are likely what seems to be the general conscientious on these forums (i.e., browsing, bidding, and buying habits) - according to my son (the computer guru/geek).

Also, as to why the Worms carousel being identical on both my computer and the wifes', according to my son, that is because even though my computer is on cable and hers is on Wi-Fi, we share the same IP address. Makes perfect sense to me (I guess).


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## weigle1234

Correction to my last post - my VapoKarb ads produced 7 sales ($2.45), not 11 sales.


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## Wired

Well...shoot. Yet another brand-new ad that shut off with a "Budget Spent" message and only a few pennies spent (actual daily budget was $10).

After messing with AMS for over a year and now this...I have to conclude that AMS is pure GARBAGE.


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## khotisarque

So I sent an email to Amazon suggesting that they read recent posts on this thread and then fix something; no reply just yet.

Tonight I see that my self-click from yesterday has been recorded at an acpc of 0.02. But with no corresponding impression. A click without a view! However, a separate campaign for the same book has lost a click that had been there for a week or so; at the same time its acpc changed and the total spent went up [so I was charged 0.16 more for one less click than yesterday!]

It's gotta be garbage.


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## khotisarque

Long-ish post but I hope it is useful. First section _in italics_ is the response overnight from Amazon. Second section is what I've sent them today.

"_I understand that one of your concerns was finding your ad, and clicking on it. However, 24 hours later, no impression nor clicks had been reported. Further, the click then had reported, but not the impression itself.

Please note that there is a latency in tracking activity for ad campaigns from the website. Therefore, we always suggest to allow up to two days to see the latest click data and up to three days to be able to see your views (impressions). Sales that may be resulting from your ad may take up to 14 days to appear.

Furthermore, ads created within AMS are currently only displayed on Amazon.com, which is why you would not find an ad of yours displaying on Amazon.co.uk when searching with one of your keyword searches.

In addition to this, as your ad is an automatic auction against other relevant ads for space, there's no guaranteed way to see where your ad displays. The system displays ads based on the customer's interests, and with so many users and so many ads in the system at once, your ad could be displaying on multiple pages even when you are searching keyword specific - other ads who may have one the ad spaces at the time of viewing would most likely display as opposed to yours.

Just because you may not have found it when using a keyword does not mean it would not have been displaying at all while other customers would be searching.

Lastly, within the link provided I can see many concerns coming from various publishers, and although I would like to be able to further investigate into their concerns, at this point in time I would not be able to as the specific concerns require in depth, account related investigation which requires communication directly from those publishers for security purposes.

However, regarding your ad campaign which seems to reflect no click but has an ad spent, I will be further investigating into this with the help of our Marketing team to clarify the way in which it is currently reporting. As soon as I have feedback for you, I will notify you immediately.

For now, I thank you for your patience during this time_"

To which I replied: Thank you, Zinia, that is a most intelligent response.

At the root of the problem may be your statement "The system displays ads based on the customer's interests". That may well be the intent. As a reader-customer I would say that the automated guess of what I am interested in is often ludicrous; I doubt if I am alone in that. I looked up Amazon's 'classic science fiction' list and was amused to find that #2 of 100 was a bare-chest soft-porn romance described as a 'hot new release'. A classic? SF?

But Amazon's customer for AMS is also an author. As customer, that author is entitled to have his/her interests considered too. When I offer to pay for an ad I expect to receive value; and that is what is hard to see. I cannot figure out what, if anything, I am actually paying for.

I could understand a model where I bid into a lottery; random ads are chosen, given impressions, pay for clicks. Some feel for the odds would be nice, but just knowing up-front that it is a pure lottery is adequate. That is not the case.

I could understand a model where a fixed number of ad spaces are available to highest bidder. That is not the case either. Some products have hundreds of ads attached [most of which are buried too deep to ever be seen] while others have a few or even zero pages. Some of these one-pagers do not even fill that page; when I see three blatantly non-relevant ads on page 1, two empty slots, and my own relevant ad that I am happy to pay for is not shown, I do not understand what is happening. Do you, really?

I could understand a guaranteed-acceptance but no-guarantee-of-being seen model. That is not the case.

What is the case appears to be some mix of all these models plus stocking-stuffers plus the latency of reporting plus some apparent mis-reporting of the stats; all on top of the imperfect auto-estimate of "the customer's interests".

It is possible that the sheer volume of data is overwhelming the available resources. Perhaps AMS for authors is a victim of its own success. But it really does need fixing.

Thanks for listening. I hope you will pass these comments on to whoever has some power to take action. I hope you don't mind that I am going to post your reply on the K-boards thread for others to see.

*OK, folks, Amazon is listening. Let them know what you see as the problem, they may be able to fix it after they've heard from all of us.* The e-mail is [email protected]


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## Seneca42

Jesus. Talking to some CSR about the AMS model is tantamount to walking into McDonal's and discussing with the cashier the meat processing plant and logistic fulfilment procedures and how McDonald's could be structured to produce a better patty.

Guy at the cash does *not* give 2 shits.


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## A past poster

khotisarque said:


> To what address did you send the e-mail?


Click on 'Help.' It is in the upper right hand corner of your AMS dashboard.


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## 39416

After months of dealing with AMS ads my conclusion is that it is a waste of effort trying to affect them, understand them, or trust their graph info.


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## A past poster

I had a campaign shut down again with 'Daily Budget Spent' when the budget for the book wasn't half spent. This happened previously to a different book, and it definitely impacts sales. I sent an email and received a polite response that the problem would be investigated. 

I've posted before, as have others, about books that aren't relevant to the genre being on the first pages of the carousel. I'm now beginning to wonder if this isn't deliberate. I write literary women's fiction, which certainly isn't as competitive as romances, thrillers, and erotica, yet I see the first pages of carousels filled with books that have no relevancy whatsoever to the book pages they are posted on. One of my keywords is for a book entitled "The Heirs," which is literary women's fiction. For days the first two pages of the carousel has been dominated by bare-chested men. I have nothing against covers that have bare-chested men--they look great--but they belong with their genre, not with literary fiction. I started raising my bid, trying to get to the first page of the carousel, but the bare-chested men stayed. That's when I began to wonder if these books were intentionally placed as a way of boosting the bidding. From what has been posted on this board, the keywords for erotica, romances, and thrillers are more competitive and expensive than the keywords for genres like literary fiction. Are we being played?

It has become almost impossible to make reasonable decisions about AMS campaigns because of the delayed reporting. I have paused keywords only to learn days later that those keywords produced sales. And I have increased spending on keywords that shouldn't have been increased. 

Amazon's reporting has gotten so bad that a change in rank for the sale of one of my books took three days (the book isn't in AMS).


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## Jena H

Marian said:


> I had a campaign shut down again with 'Daily Budget Spent' when the budget for the book wasn't half spent. This happened previously to a different book, and it definitely impacts sales. I sent an email and received a polite response that the problem would be investigated.
> 
> I've posted before, as have others, about books that aren't relevant to the genre being on the first pages of the carousel. I'm now beginning to wonder if this isn't deliberate. I write literary women's fiction, which certainly isn't as competitive as romances, thrillers, and erotica, yet I see the first pages of carousels filled with books that have no relevancy whatsoever to the book pages they are posted on. One of my keywords is for a book entitled "The Heirs," which is literary women's fiction. For days the first two pages of the carousel has been dominated by bare-chested men. I have nothing against covers that have bare-chested men--they look great--but they belong with their genre, not with literary fiction. I started raising my bid, trying to get to the first page of the carousel, but the bare-chested men stayed. That's when I began to wonder if these books were intentionally placed as a way of boosting the bidding. From what has been posted on this board, the keywords for erotica, romances, and thrillers are more competitive and expensive than the keywords for genres like literary fiction. Are we being played?
> 
> It has become almost impossible to make reasonable decisions about AMS campaigns because of the delayed reporting. I have paused keywords only to learn days later that those keywords produced sales. And I have increased spending on keywords that shouldn't have been increased.
> 
> Amazon's reporting has gotten so bad that a change in rank for the sale of one of my books took three days (the book isn't in AMS).


The bad thing is, we don't know what keywords other authors use, which results in their books appearing in the carousel of our target books. In the case you mention, maybe those romance books are in the carousel for "The Heirs" because that author's keywords include words like _inheritance, heirs, will, legitimate, Scottish duke,_ etc. If Six-Pack Abs Romance (SPAR?  ) appears in the carousel for a lit-fic book, most likely one or more of SPAR's keywords put it there.

So, while on one hand it doesn't seem to "belong" on the page with lit-fic, at the same time it _does_ belong there based on keywords used by SPAR's author when creating the ad.

As far as I'm concerned, this is one reason I wish AMS would limit the keywords for ads. I would think that, say, 200 carefully curated words would be sufficient to get the book to appear in related--and relevant--product pages, and not simply on any book that has one word or location in common.


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## Gertie Kindle

I read all kinds of romance plus mysteries, police procedurals, historical fiction, etc. You'll find all of those in my browsing history. Wouldn't Amazon want to show me all of those categories? 

I can't be the only reader who reads multiple genres and I think that's what's happening. Sometimes I read cozy mysteries and sometimes I want hard-boiled so I'm sure Amazon is going to show me both. 

There must be crossover, not only within genre, but outside a particular genre.


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## A past poster

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I read all kinds of romance plus mysteries, police procedurals, historical fiction, etc. You'll find all of those in my browsing history. Wouldn't Amazon want to show me all of those categories?
> 
> I can't be the only reader who reads multiple genres and I think that's what's happening. Sometimes I read cozy mysteries and sometimes I want hard-boiled so I'm sure Amazon is going to show me both.
> 
> There must be crossover, not only within genre, but outside a particular genre.


I don't read romances or erotica, so why would I be shown these books? I can understand a crossover based on my reading history, but I've seen too much placement that doesn't make sense.


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## A past poster

Jena H said:


> The bad thing is, we don't know what keywords other authors use, which results in their books appearing in the carousel of our target books. In the case you mention, maybe those romance books are in the carousel for "The Heirs" because that author's keywords include words like _inheritance, heirs, will, legitimate, Scottish duke,_ etc. If Six-Pack Abs Romance (SPAR?  ) appears in the carousel for a lit-fic book, most likely one or more of SPAR's keywords put it there.
> 
> So, while on one hand it doesn't seem to "belong" on the page with lit-fic, at the same time it _does_ belong there based on keywords used by SPAR's author when creating the ad.


It could be a keyword problem. Filters by genre should be in place. The erotica writers can't happy with the results their books are getting on lit/fic pages.


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## khotisarque

Seneca42 said:


> Jesus. Talking to some CSR about the AMS model is tantamount to walking into McDonal's and discussing with the cashier the meat processing plant and logistic fulfilment procedures and how McDonald's could be structured to produce a better patty.
> 
> Guy at the cash does *not* give 2 [crap]s.


Well, maybe. My experience with Amazon is that not all their staff are knowledgable, but those who are can be very much so. The cashier at McD's probably knows his supervisor and/or the manager and maybe even the owner of the franchise. There is a communication channel of some sort; it's worth a try. If I really was Jesus I'd have an alternative approach, of course, but I'm not, so there we are...


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## khotisarque

Jena H said:


> The bad thing is, we don't know what keywords other authors use, which results in their books appearing in the carousel of our target books. In the case you mention, maybe those romance books are in the carousel for "The Heirs" because that author's keywords include words like _inheritance, heirs, will, legitimate, Scottish duke,_ etc. If Six-Pack Abs Romance (SPAR?  ) appears in the carousel for a lit-fic book, most likely one or more of SPAR's keywords put it there.
> 
> So, while on one hand it doesn't seem to "belong" on the page with lit-fic, at the same time it _does_ belong there based on keywords used by SPAR's author when creating the ad.
> 
> As far as I'm concerned, this is one reason I wish AMS would limit the keywords for ads. I would think that, say, 200 carefully curated words would be sufficient to get the book to appear in related--and relevant--product pages, and not simply on any book that has one word or location in common.


Those same keywords used for six or ten or twelve books, and they all headed multiple auctions? Possibly so. I search for 'christian novel' and #1 in the top 100 shows as 'The Lady Lures the Earl; a Regency Romance'. Go figure. Then I look at that title's sponsored carousel and #2 is a SPAR, 'The Dragon of Passion' in which, says the blurb, 'Twilight meets 50 Shades'. Now go figure some more. This goes beyond ill-matched, it is certainly downright offensive to a large section of the original searchers, Amazon customers whose 'interests' are being 'met'.

Limiting the keywords might help reduce the indiscriminate wall-papering that is going on. Placing a small price on views as well as clicks might also help. Doing nothing will bring the whole experiment into disrepute, which would be a loss to all of us.

Six-Pack Abs Mystery [SPAM] seems to be present.


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## Dpock

With just a single campaign running you can't "Pause" it (only terminate), so early yesterday I dropped the daily budget to $2.00, noted the total spent, and moved on.

I just went back to create another campaign which is now sitting in review (about five hours now). Checking its status I noticed my total spend on the first campaign had gone up $28 in twenty-four hours, even though the campaign had been set to a $2 maximum about twenty-six hours ago.

With a second campaign pending, I now get the "Pause" option on the first campaign, so it's now offline. Or is it? And for how many more days will I see total spend numbers rising on the paused campaign? 

It's a little scary.


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## weigle1234

loraininflorida said:


> After months of dealing with AMS ads my conclusion is that it is a waste of effort trying to affect them, understand them, or trust their graph info.


Statistical data is very accurate, and can be very meaningful - providing it is drawn from a large data base.

About 3 weeks ago "Just for Kicks" I started a Keyword-Stuffed ad (972 Keywords - 2-cent Bid) for my VapoKarb eBook. There's no way that eBook could possibly earn a profit - its only purpose is to establish a data base.

As of today, June 28, the ad has generated 210 Clicks and 500,675 Impressions - Click / Impression ratio of .042% (I made note of the ratio and recorded it).

From what I can gather the total universe of Kindle eBooks is approx. 5-Million.
So, my ad appears in approx. 10% of Kindle carousels - that is a very sizeable percentage of a very sizeable data base. More than enough to draw an accurate conclusion of its general popularity relative to the popularity of my other eBooks.

Next, I repeat the process exactly for another eBook. EXACTLY meaning I use the same Keywords, same 2-cent Bid, and run the ad for the same length of time. If ANY Keyword is changed, the entire process will be for naught. Again, I will make note of the Clicks / Impressions ratio and record it.

Chances are, the Impressions for the second eBook, will be different - since the book title, cover, subtitle, description, etc. will be influenced by the Mysterious Algorithm. All this information tells me the book with the higher Clicks / Impressions is generally the more popular of the two - and where I should be concentrating most of my efforts to boost sales.

I am aware that many forum folks believe Amazon is constantly screwing with the Algorithm. I do not see evidence of that. On a day-to-day, week-to-week basis, my daily impression increases, Clicks / Impressions ratio, aCPC, etc. are very consistent. Those figures would be all over the place if AMS were actually messing with the Algorithm.

NOTE: for the most accurate results, my first ad will be paused at least a few days before running my second ad. Otherwise, the appearance of the first ad alongside the second ad (in those instances where it actually occurs) will influence the outcome of the second ad stats (to what extent, if any, is probably impossible to predict - without going totally batty over the numbers).

I am only basing my results on Stuffed-Keyword, 2-cent Bid ads. The same could be accomplished with higher bids and less Keywords, but will take much longer, involve a smaller data base (less accuracy), and will be more expensive if the ads are losers.

Something else to keep in mind. Even if an ad is a loser, its appearance alongside your other ads is, in effect, a form of FREE advertising.


----------



## Seneca42

khotisarque said:


> Well, maybe. My experience with Amazon is that not all their staff are knowledgable, but those who are can be very much so. The cashier at McD's probably knows his supervisor and/or the manager and maybe even the owner of the franchise. There is a communication channel of some sort; it's worth a try. If I really was Jesus I'd have an alternative approach, of course, but I'm not, so there we are...


hehe sorry my reply definite came off snarky when it wasn't meant to.

Or rather, my snarkiness is more directed at Amazon. They are kings of boilerplate reponses. They are good for fixing stuff (ie. if something goes wrong they troubleshoot well)... but beyond that they tend to know substantially less than what folks on here know (or they at least pretend to know less, one of the two).


----------



## weigle1234

A quick thought: the AMS Algorithm is Proprietary Information - just as is Coca-Cola’s formula.  They spent millions of dollars fine-tuning it.

The Kindle library is already bursting at the seams.  Imagine what it would be like if AMS publicized the Algorithm -  and anybody with a vocabulary of more than 50 words tried to become a publisher.  (An elitist attitude, but we do tend to think of ourselves as would-be Hemingways.)


----------



## NatPane

My ad stopped running on Monday. But for some reason I keep getting clicks until this minute. Lots of them which means that I'm spending money that I had no intention of doing and I'm unable to stop this ad because it ended on Monday the 26th!!! I swear to God. Every time I take a break then go back and look at my dashboard, a spate of clicks appear. Why am I paying extra money for an ad that ended two days ago? I'm not even flattered about the clicks. Obviously this system is flawed.


----------



## weigle1234

A couple (Dumb?) Questions:

Let us assume we have an AMS ad running with 5,000 Impressions.  Let us also assume that although the ad continues Running, Impressions slow down, or come to a screeching halt.  Will all 5,000 original Impressions still remain intact, or will some start getting bumped off by higher Bids?

Let us assume our 5,000 Impression ad is Paused.  If in the future we Enable the Paused ad, do we still retain the original 5,000 Impressions, or are we back to zip?


----------



## weigle1234

NatPane said:


> My ad stopped running on Monday. But for some reason I keep getting clicks until this minute. Lots of them which means that I'm spending money that I had no intention of doing and I'm unable to stop this ad because it ended on Monday the 26th!!! I swear to God. Every time I take a break then go back and look at my dashboard, a spate of clicks appear. Why am I paying extra money for an ad that ended two days ago? I'm not even flattered about the clicks. Obviously this system is flawed.


There is always a lag in updating AMS data. The Clicks you are experiencing are likely those acquired before your ad officially ended. For myself, lags rarely exceed more than a few days. If it does, I would advise contacting the AMS folks via the "Contact Us" option at the bottom of your Sales Dashboard - they handle things very professionally.

I only had one ad that Ended - many moons ago. I soon learned the best way to set ads is with NO End Date. That way your ad just keeps on Running, giving you the option of Pausing or Terminating it at will.


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## weigle1234

NatPane said:


> I'm not even flattered about the clicks.


You will be flattered if they result in orders. I am a Newbie myself (since January) - It takes a while to get the hang of the this AMS thing. It is seemingly complex because there are zillions of possible variations within the system.


----------



## NatPane

weigle1234 said:


> You will be flattered if they result in orders. I am a Newbie myself (since January) - It takes a while to get the hang of the this AMS thing. It is seemingly complex because there are zillions of possible variations within the system.


Maybe you're right. Sigh. I've calmed down a little, but I'm too petrified to look at the ad anymore. I think I'll wait out the night before I start pulling out my hair again.


----------



## NatPane

weigle1234 said:


> There is always a lag in updating AMS data. The Clicks you are experiencing are likely those acquired before your ad officially ended. For myself, lags rarely exceed more than a few days. If it does, I would advise contacting the AMS folks via the "Contact Us" option at the bottom of your Sales Dashboard - they handle things very professionally.
> 
> I only had one ad that Ended - many moons ago. I soon learned the best way to set ads is with NO End Date. That way your ad just keeps on Running, giving you the option of Pausing or Terminating it at will.


I'll definitely take the No End Date tip moving forward. Thanks


----------



## khotisarque

weigle1234 said:


> A couple (Dumb?) Questions:
> 
> Let us assume we have an AMS ad running with 5,000 Impressions. Let us also assume that although the ad continues Running, Impressions slow down, or come to a screeching halt. Will all 5,000 original Impressions still remain intact, or will some start getting bumped off by higher Bids?
> 
> Let us assume our 5,000 Impression ad is Paused. If in the future we Enable the Paused ad, do we still retain the original 5,000 Impressions, or are we back to zip?


My understanding is that an 'impression' is a one-time event; one searcher saw one carousel containing your ad. After his search is over, you have tallied one impression, but the next searcher will see a different carousel based on a fresh auction. If an impression represented a permanent place in a carousel, the carousels would simply silt up with old ads. For record-keepig purposes, the latest cum total of impressions appears to be shown; it is a history of ghost appearances, not a census of living ads. I think, but I am not sure of anything.


----------



## Philip Gibson

I usually spend $5 to $10 per day spread across an average of 12 campaigns. According to my AMS dashboard and my Billing Report, today I spent over $50. 

My AMS dashboard shows each of the 12 campaigns has increased its number of clicks MASSIVELY with none of the corresponding, predictable number of sales per clicks.

Something is badly wrong!

My daily average number of clicks has been between 40 and 90 across all campaigns. for months and months.  Today there have been (according to the report) 503 clicks across all 12 campaigns.  Each campaign showing a massive increase of up to 10x the average.

But without any corresponding increase in typical daily sales (I look at my KDP dashboard to monitor sales).

Something is badly wrong here.  I can't afford to spend $50 a day.


Philip


----------



## EmparentingMom

I have had the opposite problem - my dashboard has not updated at all since morning, even though I know there have been impressions. Anyone else noticing a frozen dashboard?


----------



## Colin

Philip Gibson said:


> My AMS dashboard shows each of the 12 campaigns has increased its number of clicks MASSIVELY with none of the corresponding, predictable number of sales per clicks.
> 
> Something is badly wrong!


The same thing happened to me overnight - a big increase in clicks. But I think you'll/I'll have to wait a few days to see the sales appear.

.


----------



## Author A.C. Salter

I've had a quiet month conpared to May, but had almost 30 clicks over night - no sales though.

Something strange is afoot...


----------



## A past poster

Like some others who have posted, I've had a HUGE number of clicks with no corresponding sales (57 since yesterday morning on one book that usually sells ). Something is really wrong here. Rather than watch money draining, I have paused some keywords. There is nothing else I can do other than pause campaigns.


----------



## Dpock

Until the reporting becomes live the best way to run an AMS campaign may be to run it for a day, pause for two or three, and repeat. As it is, it's too hard to draw a correlation between impressions, clicks and sales.


----------



## weigle1234

Anyone here the victim of the latest Amazon security fiasco - the “Two-Step Verification” process for accessing Amazon Seller Central?

I do my own production and shipping of paperbacks through Seller Central, and want to disable the Two Step inconvenience (IMHO, just another hurdle to navigate).

Here is the Amazon procedure:

To disable Two-Step Verification:

1. Go to Advanced Security Settings.  (Good so far, actually works for me).

2. Click “Disable Two-Step Verification” and you will be prompted for the security code.

(We have a problem here - “Disable Two-Step Verification” does not exist.  These folks must be taking lessons from the Amazon “Help” folks - whose group should be properly addressed as “Lots of Luck.”)

3. Enter the code that ….. 

(Never mind, this step will likely make as much sense as Step 2).


----------



## weigle1234

Regarding my last post, here’s the copy I just sent to the “Contact Us” folks:

I do my own production and shipping of paperbacks through Seller Central, and want to disable the “Two Step Verification” process.

What is the real story here?  The deadline for doing this is tomorrow, June 30.

Here is the Amazon procedure:

To disable Two-Step Verification:

1. Go to Advanced Security Settings.  (Good so far, actually works for me).

2. Click “Disable Two-Step Verification” and you will be prompted for the security code.

(We have a problem here - “Disable Two-Step Verification” does not exist.  These folks must be taking lessons from the Amazon “Help” folks - whose group perhaps should be addressed as “Lots of Luck.”)

3. Enter the code that ….. 

(Never mind, this step will likely make as much sense as Step 2).


----------



## PearlEarringLady

I've also had a huge number of clicks posted suddenly, with no corresponding increase in impressions, even on a paused ad. In fact, impressions have been frozen for hours now. I'm guessing there's some housekeeping going on. Is it too much to hope there'll be a sudden jump in sales to match?


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## novelist11

I like everyone else here had a lot of clicks but not one sale. I thought there was some click fraud going on so I wrote to support about it but they told me everything was fine. It's hard to believe amazon sometimes. But without proof what can you do?


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## Philip Gibson

PaulineMRoss said:


> I've also had a huge number of clicks posted suddenly, with no corresponding increase in impressions, even on a paused ad. In fact, impressions have been frozen for hours now. I'm guessing there's some housekeeping going on. Is it too much to hope there'll be a sudden jump in sales to match?


Check your Billing History page to see if you will be billed for those false clicks. My billing total for yesterday increased by $50+ instead of the usual $5 as a result of getting 10x the usual number of clicks - clicks that had no effect on sales.

Philip


----------



## weigle1234

It works! (Fingers crossed)

Regarding my posts about the new Seller Central Security Code(s) - No thanks to Amazon, I finally figured out how to disable the Code - hopefully the process works (for whatever it may be worth - Amazon confirmed such for myself) .  But I will only know for sure after tomorrow (June 30) - the “drop-dead-date” for disabling.

Here is what to do (In my words, not a typical Amazon HELP approach) - Good Luck!

- Sign in to Seller Central
- Go to “Settings” (Upper right-hand corner)
- Click on “Login Settings”
- Locate “Advanced Security Settings” and Click on “Edit”

- Simply follow their instructions (Miracle-of-Miracles, they seem to work!)

Again - GOOD LUCK!


----------



## weigle1234

Has anyone here responded to KBoard’s “Donate” appeal, and run into any problems?

I will be happy to send a few bucks their way, but I have become paranoid (for good reason) about releasing credit card data via the Internet.

I do not care to use PayPal for my own reasons.  Does anyone have a snail-mail address to which I can drop a check?


----------



## weigle1234

novelist11 said:


> I thought there was some click fraud going on so I wrote to support about it but they told me everything was fine.


IMHO, AMS (and Amazon in general) runs a tight ship. Chances are AMS will eventually straighten things out (keep after everyone involved - meanwhile, do not hold your breath).


----------



## Mark Dawson

I'm speaking to Amazon at a senior (and very relevant to this particular issue) level. I think this is a glitch. Don't panic! If it is, I'm very confident that credits will be applied. It's happened before and was quickly fixed.


----------



## A past poster

Philip Gibson said:


> Check your Billing History page to see if you will be billed for those false clicks. My billing total for yesterday increased by $50+ instead of the usual $5 as a result of getting 10x the usual number of clicks - clicks that had no effect on sales.
> 
> Philip


I just paused a campaign that has a $3 spend limit per day. Since Tuesday morning--not quite 3 days--$15.79 has been spent. Yesterday a keyword that had 24 clicks now has 20 clicks. There are a number of keywords like this. Apparently I'm being charged for clicks the keywords didn't get. I sent them another email, but I still haven't heard back from the email I sent this morning.


----------



## Mark Dawson

This is directly from Amazon: Our ad products use advanced click-validation and impression-validation software to determine whether each impression and click on your ad is invalid. Invalid impressions and clicks (if any) are generally removed from your impression and click statistics the same day they occur. However, some identified invalid impressions and clicks may take up to three days to get removed as additional impression and click validation is completed. As a result, you might see your impression and click statistics fluctuate slightly from day to day. The most accurate impression and click data will be available after at least three days have passed.

While we do not disclose specifics on what we filter out, we do filter out known bots, and we are constantly looking for new ones. Beyond the blocking on the front end, we review impressions and clicks for up to three days after for additional validation.

(My interpretation: Amazon got hit by a bot. The bot caused a lot of clicks and, obviously, no buys. The bot has been caught and is currently being beaten to within an inch of its life in a basement in Seattle. I would 100% expect that illicit clicks will be retracted and anyone affected will be refunded). Relax. All is fine.


----------



## 39416

That explains a lot! I guess moral is, data is not "final" for three days. 

Just out of curiosity, why would somebody build a bot like this? What does it get them?


----------



## Jena H

Note to self (and others): punctuation matters when it comes to ad copy. I had a previous ad rejected for use of em-dash (--). I switched to a comma, even though it wasn't really correct. Also rejected is a double exclamation point or question mark. So for my current ad, I was leery about using an ellipsis, as I thought it would be lumped into the same category as double exclamation points. I ended up trying two periods, to avoid being an actual ellipsis. Example: one, two, and.. eight? That ad got rejected and I was schooled on the fact that an ellipsis has _three_ periods--like I didn't know. 

From the email:
- Headline or Custom Text contains inappropriate use of ellipses. Ellipses are restricted to three maximum in Custom Text: one at the start, one in the middle, and one at the end. An ellipsis uses 3 periods consecutively without a space before or after the ellipses, other formats are not acceptable.

So now we know.


----------



## Jena H

loraininflorida said:


> That explains a lot! I guess moral is, data is not "final" for three days.
> 
> Just out of curiosity, why would somebody build a bot like this? What does it get them?


I'd give it a grace period of at least five days or all data to be reflected.


----------



## Colin

Mark Dawson said:


> (My interpretation: Amazon got hit by a bot. The bot caused a lot of clicks and, obviously, no buys. *The bot has been caught and is currently being beaten to within an inch of its life in a basement in Seattle*. I would 100% expect that illicit clicks will be retracted and anyone affected will be refunded). Relax. All is fine.


Thanks for the update, Mark.

I guess the bot is now senseless in Seattle.


----------



## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> My understanding is that an 'impression' is a one-time event; one searcher saw one carousel containing your ad. After his search is over, you have tallied one impression, but the next searcher will see a different carousel based on a fresh auction. If an impression represented a permanent place in a carousel, the carousels would simply silt up with old ads. For record-keepig purposes, the latest cum total of impressions appears to be shown; it is a history of ghost appearances, not a census of living ads. I think, but I am not sure of anything.


Your hypothesis certainly makes sense. Since my Keyword-Stuffed ad has already generated 500,000+ impressions, it does not seem logical that if I were to run the ad approx. 10-times as long, every Kindle product would end up with my ad appearing in their carousel (even though it might appear on page 99).

Some fine day when the mood strikes me, and I can come up with a coherent message to "Contact Us," I will contact them in this regard. Just to get a reply "Straight-from-the-Horse's-Mouth" - hopefully a reply from a knowledgeable Horse.


----------



## Jena H

Colin said:


> Thanks for the update, Mark.
> 
> I guess the bot is now senseless in Seattle.


----------



## Donna White Glaser

Jena H said:


> Note to self (and others): punctuation matters when it comes to ad copy. I had a previous ad rejected for use of em-dash (--). I switched to a comma, even though it wasn't really correct.


I found that if I copy/paste the text from a Word doc with the em dash already converted to the full em dash instead of two hyphens, then the ad is accepted.


----------



## PearlEarringLady

Mark Dawson said:


> (My interpretation: Amazon got hit by a bot. The bot caused a lot of clicks and, obviously, no buys. The bot has been caught and is currently being beaten to within an inch of its life in a basement in Seattle. I would 100% expect that illicit clicks will be retracted and anyone affected will be refunded). Relax. All is fine.


Thanks for this. I long ago stopped worrying about day-to-day fluctuations in reported results. No doubt it will all come out in the wash.


----------



## A past poster

Mark Dawson said:


> (My interpretation: Amazon got hit by a bot. The bot caused a lot of clicks and, obviously, no buys. The bot has been caught and is currently being beaten to within an inch of its life in a basement in Seattle. I would 100% expect that illicit clicks will be retracted and anyone affected will be refunded). Relax. All is fine.


Thank you for the explanation. We needed it!


----------



## Jena H

Donna White Glaser said:


> I found that if I copy/paste the text from a Word doc with the em dash already converted to the full em dash instead of two hyphens, then the ad is accepted.


I thought I had done that. I have a Word doc with all my various ad texts included, and I usually just copy & paste. Maybe I had to retype or rejigger some words to squeeze into the 150 character limit.


----------



## LFGabel

Mark Dawson said:


> (My interpretation: Amazon got hit by a bot. The bot caused a lot of clicks and, obviously, no buys. The bot has been caught and is currently being beaten to within an inch of its life in a basement in Seattle. I would 100% expect that illicit clicks will be retracted and anyone affected will be refunded). Relax. All is fine.


I wonder if this had anything to do with the Petya cyberattack this week. The timing seems right.


----------



## A past poster

I restarted the book I paused to see what would happen. There are 18 fewer clicks and the price charged to my account has gone up.


----------



## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> I think, but I am not sure of anything.


I just took a quick look at my ads on the "Worms Eat my Garbage" carousel. About a week ago 5 ads appeared (all on Page1); 4 of my ads and a "Declutter&#8230;" ad. A few days later several additional ads appeared (on Pages 1 & 2); including my same 4 ads, along with Declutter.

A few minutes ago I checked Worms again; now it is 3 of my ads and Declutter (all on Page 1). My theory is that someone Clicked on the missing ad (which of the original 4 I do not recall), causing it to be deleted.

To support my theory, I am hoping you will be so kind as to take a quick look at "Worms&#8230;.", and Click on any 1 of my 3 remaining ads, making note of which ad you chose.

My 3 ads are for - Wind Wizard, Sol-Air, and E-Z Wizards.

It realize it will cost me 1-cent when you Click on my ad, but I am willing to make this sacrifice in the name of research.

Thanks - hope to hear back from you.

Have a pleasant weekend.


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> Happy to oblige.
> 
> I went to the Kindle store and put in Worms Eat my Garbage. This time what came up was the 35th edition, which is a different one from the one I clicked on a day or so ago. Clicked on it, and the sponsored ads were the decluttering book (I read a sample; the opening section is too dry and too much of the "here's your problem" kind of talk, so I'm not going to buy it), and your books in this order: Wind Wizard, Sol-Air and E-Z.
> 
> I clicked on Wind Wizard, costing you a penny. On that page, there's a carousel of four pages which are mostly DIY projects with an emphasis on decluttering (something I click on often) and knitting (something I never, ever click on), 22 ads in all. Yours, Sol-air, E-Z, and VaporKarb, are on the fourth and last page, along with a book of caricatures (?).
> 
> Then I backed out to the main listings for Worms Eat my Garbage, and went to the title I'd looked at before, Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up and Maintain a Worm Composting System, 2nd Edition Paperback - April 14, 2016. There was the carousel of three pages, with two composting, one decluttering, and three adult coloring books on page 1. Page 2 has your E-Z, Wind Wizard, and Sol-Air ads, and three more coloring books. Page 3 has six coloring books.
> 
> Then I looked at Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up and Maintain a Worm Composting System Revised and expanded second Edition. Three coloring books and that decluttering title, plus your E-Z and Sol-Air on page 1 of 3. Page 2 has your Wind Wizard and five coloring books. Page 3 has four coloring books.
> 
> I don't know what you can make of this. Worms Eat My Garbage has a lot of editions, and you are getting placement on each. I didn't browse anonymously, but if Amazon were truly being responsive to my personal browsing habits (including research I've done), there would have been personal finance books and romances in the mix. So I think these sponsored ads were tailored specifically to the keywords of the advertisers, not the preferences of the browsing customer.
> 
> I hope this gives you some useful information.


Thanks for your feedback. The Worm I am viewing is the 35th Anniversary Edition - so I feel confident we are both viewing the same book.

Very interesting. The Wind Wizard is still there; and all 3 books are in the order you describe.

The Declutter is first in line, with all 4 on Page 1 (the only page on my carousel).

My feeling was the ad would disappear upon you Clicking it; just seemed logical. But, my logic is apparently different than that of Amazon. I guess they will just keep thumbing their nose at me.

Thanks again - have some fun this weekend - forget about Amazon for awhile. At least we may have gained a tiny bit more information from this experiment (albeit likely useless information).


----------



## Jena H

Well, I'm bummed a bit.  After my first ad got rejected due to the ellipsis thing, I submitted a new ad at about 4 or 4:30 Thursday afternoon.  I wanted the ad 'live' by this morning, June 30.  My ad copy plays on the Independence Day hype, so I wanted it to run beginning all day today in advance of the holiday next week.  So here it is, late Friday afternoon (and 24 hours later), and the ad is still "in review."  All I did was add a lousy period... how long does it take to approve that??  Which means I'm losing an entire day of relevant ad time.


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> So I think these sponsored ads were tailored specifically to the keywords of the advertisers, not the preferences of the browsing customer.
> 
> I hope this gives you some useful information.


I take back my comment in my previous posting, "&#8230;..albeit likely useless information". The experiment did not yield the result I expected. But your comment, "So I think these sponsored ads were tailored specifically to the keywords of the advertisers, not the preferences of the browsing customer" is probably very useful information.

Late last night I discovered my same 3 or 4 ads on a few other product views - all related to DIY subjects - which supports your supposition.

Thanks again.


----------



## weigle1234

weigle1234 said:


> Late last night I discovered my same 3 or 4 ads on a few other product views - all related to DIY subjects - which supports your supposition.


The other night, along with my ads being discovered in other carousels, my old VapoKarb ad popped up. I do not recall the chronology of all the ad placements, but for whatever reason the VapoKarb ad always appeared as the last of my ads in those carousel chains.

The fact that it is the only 99-cent book of my group (2 are each $5.49, 1 is $2.99 ) leads me to conclude even book pricing may determine carousel position. Seems logical that Amazon would place higher profit potential ads earlier in the carousel but, as with my earlier supposition regarding my "disappearing" ads, logic may not be a factor at all.


----------



## Jena H

Jena H said:


> Well, I'm bummed a bit. After my first ad got rejected due to the ellipsis thing, I submitted a new ad at about 4 or 4:30 Thursday afternoon. I wanted the ad 'live' by this morning, June 30. My ad copy plays on the Independence Day hype, so I wanted it to run beginning all day today in advance of the holiday next week. So here it is, late Friday afternoon (and 24 hours later), and the ad is still "in review." All I did was add a lousy period... how long does it take to approve that?? Which means I'm losing an entire day of relevant ad time.


Grrr. My ad is _still_ "pending review."


----------



## Guest

Mark Dawson said:


> I'm speaking to Amazon at a senior (and very relevant to this particular issue) level. I think this is a glitch. Don't panic! If it is, I'm very confident that credits will be applied. It's happened before and was quickly fixed.


Really hoping so. Did my first little run of Amazon Ads, just trying it, with a one week run. Had 50,000 or so impressions, 11 clicks, and 1 sale. Not spectacular, but it was at a profit at least, even with the 1 sale being a 35% commission one, and enough I was going to tweak and let it run some more. Then overnight, impressions stayed about the same, but it jumped to 54 clicks, but no new sales and over my meager little daily budget


----------



## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> My understanding is that an 'impression' is a one-time event; one searcher saw one carousel containing your ad. After his search is over, you have tallied one impression, but the next searcher will see a different carousel based on a fresh auction. If an impression represented a permanent place in a carousel, the carousels would simply silt up with old ads. For record-keepig purposes, the latest cum total of impressions appears to be shown; it is a history of ghost appearances, not a census of living ads. I think, but I am not sure of anything.


Since I am running temporary tests of low-bid, keyword-stuffed ads, I just submitted the following inquiry to the "Contact Us" folks:

After running for approx. one month, one of my AMS ads (with a list of nearly 1,000 keywords related to its DIY genre) has received well over 500,000 impressions.

Obviously, since the Kindle eBook universe is finite, there has to be an eventual saturation point where the impression rate begins to diminish.

As long as my ad continues Running do all the impressions remain in place, or is each unique impression deleted when that unique impression has been clicked upon?

Thanks for your help - I am looking forward to your reply.

Gordy Weigle
Kustom Power


----------



## khotisarque

Today's sightings of garbage.  One campaign increased views by a thousand or two but clicks diminished by 2 compared to ysterday's report.  Latency schmatency, no late reporting can reduce the clicks, only a perceived and corrected error.  However, to compensate for this, the same campaign acpc increased from 0.22 to 0.30.  Creative accounting indeed.

Separate campaign, the one with unlikely but not irrelevant matches: when I click on the author name which I used as a keyword and then go to his best-known title, no carousel of sponsored ads.  16 pages of also-boughts, zero sponsored ads.  So no question of higher bids, favored pricing, mysterious algo rank adjustments -  I was apparently the only one bidding on that keyword; but still not favored with a view, so I conclude no auction was run.  Amazon clearly do not care whether or not they fulfil their side of the contract.  We're dealing in pennies as far as individual authors are concerned, but large amounts for AMS as a whole.  Someday someone will decide to investigate these shenanigans.


----------



## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> Today's sightings of garbage. One campaign increased views by a thousand or two but clicks diminished by 2 compared to ysterday's report. Latency schmatency, no late reporting can reduce the clicks, only a perceived and corrected error. However, to compensate for this, the same campaign acpc increased from 0.22 to 0.30. Creative accounting indeed.
> 
> Separate campaign, the one with unlikely but not irrelevant matches: when I click on the author name which I used as a keyword and then go to his best-known title, no carousel of sponsored ads. 16 pages of also-boughts, zero sponsored ads. So no question of higher bids, favored pricing, mysterious algo rank adjustments - I was apparently the only one bidding on that keyword; but still not favored with a view, so I conclude no auction was run. Amazon clearly do not care whether or not they fulfil their side of the contract. We're dealing in pennies as far as individual authors are concerned, but large amounts for AMS as a whole. Someday someone will decide to investigate these shenanigans.


Below is the latest reply, to my previous post, from the Contact Us group.

My VapoKarb ad (2-cents, 972 Keywords) still continues to generate an average of 20K - 22K impressions each day. It will be interesting to see if it ever reaches saturation, or if Amazon eventually decides to just start plastering it everywhere, regardless of Keyword relevance.

The ad is a loser, but that is no big deal since it is just another of my "Just for Kicks" tests. I started the ad on June 5. So far it has cost me $3.71, yielded 8 Sales, and Royalty of $2.80 - for a net loss of 91-cents. But, for whatever it may be worth, I consider the appearance of some of my other ads alongside it in the carousels as a bit of FREE advertising for the other ads.

As with all my other ads, the day-to-day Click / Impression Ratio is very consistent. Also, each time I check its appearance as a sponsored ad with a specific book, it is consistently there, sometimes along with some of my other ads, although sometimes on different carousel pages. IMHO, both factors are evidence that AMS is not messing with their Algorithm (at least not in my case).

*******************************************************

Hello Gordy,

No, Ad impressions will not be deleted at any time; Ad impression is different from the Ad Click.

> An impression occurs whenever an ad is shown to a shopper. The impressions metric is a count of how many times your ad has been shown to shoppers. We provide you the total number of impressions for each campaign and keyword.

> A click occurs whenever a shopper clicks on an ad. The clicks metric is a count of how many times shoppers have clicked on an ad. We provide you the total number of clicks for each campaign and keyword.

For more information: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/A29SDHM2KNHV0N

I hope the information provided was helpful. Thank for Amazon KDP.

...............................................................
Did I solve your problem?

If yes, please click here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/survey?p=A1L85JPWD0WR2G&k=hy

If no, please click here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/survey?p=A1L85JPWD0WR2G&k=hn
...............................................................

Regards,

Princy 
Kindle Direct Publishing
http://kdp.amazon.com


----------



## A past poster

Has anyone had an adjustment for the glitch that caused the large number of clicks and charges?


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## Colin

Marian said:


> Has anyone had an adjustment for the glitch that caused the large number of clicks and charges?


No adjustment here.


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## weigle1234

As previously posted, my VapoKarb “Just for Kicks” ad (2-cents Bid, 972 Keywords) produces average daily impressions of 20K - 22K.  However, I just realized I also have an identical ad Running (2-cents Bid, Automatic - which I thought I had Paused - and did in fact Pause just a few minutes ago).

Anyway, the Auto ad Spent was 16-cents.  So my total spent is $3.87 - with a total of 8 Sales for the ads, thus my loss is actually $1.07 so far.  Problem is, I cannot say with certainty which ad produced the 8 Sales.  Likely it is the 972 Keywords ad since it has produced 264 Clicks vs. 13 Clicks for the Auto ad.

After waiting at least a few more days for possible Auto ad influence to fade away, I will resume monitoring the 972 Keyword ad.


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## weigle1234

I have one more eBook, the Mini-Wizard (another sure loser) for which I recently started a second “Just for Kicks” ad campaign on June 3.

The only meaningful data I can provide so far has to do with ad Impressions.  Any other data would be meaningless - since I ran the ad at 25-cents, in Auto from February 5 - April 23.  During that span it produced 393,686 impressions and 336 Clicks - at an ad cost of $40.99, with the book priced at $2.99.  It was one of the few ads I actually terminated, so it must have made few sales, or was close to break-even.

Since then, I have run the same ad all over the place - with varying Keywords, in both Manual and Auto modes with 2-cent Bids, and lowering it to its current price of 99-cents.  Thus, data before June 3 is meaningless for my present “Just for Kicks” ad since previous sales, and other factors, would influence current results.

Here is what puzzles me.  Both ads are in the DIY genre, both with 2-cents Bid, and both with an identical Keyword list (except for the 20-30 Keywords initially chosen by AMS).  However, while the VapoKarb ad produces a  daily average of 20K - 22K impressions, the Mini-Wizard ad produces only 5K - 6K daily impressions.  

The two books are totally different - the VapoKarb pertains to a DIY project to Save Gasoline; the Mini-Wizard pertains to a DIY project to produce Free Electricity.  Thus the book titles, subtitles, descriptions, ad wording, etc. are totally different.

All this leads me to surmise that Keywords in and of themselves only play a minor role in creating impressions.  IMHO, previous histories of Sales, Impressions, Clicks, etc. are the major influences.  Or, am I missing something here?

As usual, only continued testing will (hopefully) provide answers.


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## Author A.C. Salter

My clicks shot from 67 to 96, stayed for a day then droped to 80. Its now taken a couple of days to sneak up to 86 while the impressions are around the 112k mark.

My pages read died for the same peroid but suddenly shot up around the same time as my clicks were adjusted.


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## Jena H

So far my ad is a bust.    I think I'm getting decent placement in the carousel (at least, on the few pages I spot-checked) but the results have been dismal.  Since my book deals with the Revolutionary War, my hope was that the "spirit of the Revolution" might spur some interest and sales over the Independence Day holiday.  So far, though, instead of fireworks, my dashboard is showing me duds.


----------



## quiet chick writes

Jena H said:


> So far my ad is a bust.  I think I'm getting decent placement in the carousel (at least, on the few pages I spot-checked) but the results have been dismal. Since my book deals with the Revolutionary War, my hope was that the "spirit of the Revolution" might spur some interest and sales over the Independence Day holiday. So far, though, instead of fireworks, my dashboard is showing me duds.


Well, it's going to rain all evening pretty much throughout the whole East coast. Maybe some people will be looking for something to read?

Both of my ads have been pretty stagnant for a few days now. I think people are busy doing summer things. Any books they're reading on their downtime are books they bought already.


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## weigle1234

Here is my latest Brainstorm - and I am about to start testing it with one of my more profitable books, using the AMS default 25-cent Bid.

I already have a list of 1,000 genre-related Keywords (obviously, loosely related).

I submit Ad A with 500 of those Keywords.  Immediately after submitting Ad A, I submit identical Ad B, with the remaining 500 Keywords.  If Ads A and B each pass Review, I must assume no Algorithm factor (or AMS human reviewer) recognizes my Brainstorm, and rejects either Ad.  If either Ad is rejected, my Brainstorm will not work.

When sales pop up on Ad B, I check their ACoS factors.  If any ACoS is less than 70%, its associated Keyword is at least ALIVE.  Suppose its ACoS is 10%, I would tag that Keyword as HOT.

Next, I add Keywords tagged between HOT and ALIVE to Ad A - starting with the HOTTEST Keywords since those will most likely produce the most reliable test results.  (Keywords less than HOT can always be added later.)

Here is the Tricky part - the part where the Algorithm kicks in:  Does any Keyword added to Ad A go into an Impression search mode different than that used with Ad B.?

Will that Keyword in Ad B influence the Algorithm effect on the same Keyword in Ad A?

If I Pause the Keyword in Ad B, will the Algorithm effect on the Ad A Keyword then swing in a different direction?

I know all this seems like a cold, unthinking, mathematical approach to maximizing ad efficiency.  But, the computer Algorithm is based on mathematical statistics - the best we can do is give it a chance to work more in our favor.

If anyone has any ideas to add to my Brainstorm, or even thinks the whole concept is ridiculous, I would love to hear from you.  I will start testing within the next few hours, before we join friends for July 4 celebrations.

Happy 4th!


----------



## A past poster

I assume ya'll have been charged by AMS for June clicks. Was anyone's bill adjusted for the excessive clicks and charges that some of us experienced? I didn't see an adjustment on mine. 

Has anyone been charged for clicks and then had the clicks 'adjusted?' For example, a keyword can have 60 clicks in the morning, then late in the day the same keyword will have 58 clicks but a charge goes through based on the 60 clicks. I contacted AMS help about this and was told they'd get back to me by June 25. Today I received an email that they're still looking into it.


----------



## Jena H

Marian said:


> I assume ya'll have been charged by AMS for June clicks. Was anyone's bill adjusted for the excessive clicks and charges that some of us experienced? I didn't see an adjustment on mine.
> 
> Has anyone been charged for clicks and then had the clicks 'adjusted?' For example, a keyword can have 60 clicks in the morning, then late in the day the same keyword will have 58 clicks but a charge goes through based on the 60 clicks. I contacted AMS help about this and was told they'd get back to me by June 25. Today I received an email that they're still looking into it.


I got charged, but I'm not sure exactly where the amount came from. I wonder what Amazon's "billable" month is: for example, from the 24th of one month to the 23rd of the next, etc. Because I don't run more than one ad at a time and somehow I'm not sure where they came up with the figure that I was charged. (I'm not saying it's incorrect, it cold be partially from my May ad as well as my June ad; I simply don't know how it was determined.)


----------



## Decon

Not sure of its worth reporting. Last month I was charged $12.99 for my six books and my dashboard shows two sales earning me a total royalty of $4. So that's an $8.99 loss for the month, excluding any possible page reads which were also very poor. That's me gone from sponsored ads after 3 bad months. Guess it will make things better for those who stay. I've made decent money since starting them in Sept last year, and virtually had no need for free days, but for me it no longer works. Too many in the game and bids are off the scale that I no longer consider that it makes sense to me. Others might be faring better.

Did a free day this Sunday with one book and no promo site to pay and made 6 sales the day after @ $12 royalty. and 600 page reads.

I think I can see where my breads is buttered just now. 6 books with 5 free days each, that's 30 free days every 90 days. (10 per month)


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> I'm interested to learn the results.
> 
> In the past, it has been said that to keep an AMS alive--to keep it running, keep the impressions constant--it's best to tweak the keywords with some regularity. For me that usually means adding new keywords, playing with the bid amounts, or changing the daily spend limit.
> 
> It has also been said that pausing an ad that has been getting impressions can sometimes kill it. When the ad is unpaused, it doesn't get the same play. I have not found that to be true, but I've only paused and unpaused the ads for my worst-selling stand-alone books. I've never dared to pause (and why should I?) the ads that are my tentpoles.
> 
> Another thing often said is that if you have two ads running for the same product, they will not conflict with each other but they could eat into each other's potential to be shown widely to gather impressions. I don't know if that's true or not.


Yesterday I submitted both ads mentioned in my previous post. I purposely submitted them about 8-hours apart, in hopes that at least one ad would appear while Mr. Blurb Picky was not on duty. No such luck! Both ads were rejected. A few hours ago I re-submitted them, with blurb changes. Then, a few minutes ago, I re-submitted them, with different blurb changes, but at 2-cent Bid level.

There has to a way to please AMS!

It all has to do with capitalization. Apparently AMS changed their rules in that regard. Either that, or Mr. Blurb Picky has a capitalization phobia.

Four ads in a row have been rejected - all due to capitalization, as in the AMS response to each ad &#8230;.. - The ad contains inappropriate capitalization.

Each of those ads went through with flying colors in the past. So, it looks like I am involved in a guessing game with AMS.

It seems like such a waste of time for everyone involved. IMHO, AMS should be a bit definitive as to what is inappropriate. Things such as:

- No all-caps on individual words.
- No more than 2 cap words per sentence (any sentence first word, of course, is capitalized, but such logic may defy AMS reasoning).

For what they may be worth, here are a couple links which seem to address some of our concerns. I don't know how reliable the info is, but IMHO they give a lot of thought for differing approaches.

http://www.indiesunlimited.com/2017/05/02/tips-for-successful-amazon-marketing-services-ads/

http://www.indiesunlimited.com/2017/05/01/the-key-to-amazon-marketing-services-ads-keywords/

Hope everyone had a happy long-weekend holiday - Now, back to reality!


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## Jena H

weigle1234 said:


> It all has to do with capitalization. Apparently AMS changed their rules in that regard. Either that, or Mr. Blurb Picky has a capitalization phobia.
> 
> Four ads in a row have been rejected - all due to capitalization, as in the AMS response to each ad &#8230;.. - The ad contains inappropriate capitalization.


One of my ads was also rejected for capitalization. I had capitalized a word for emphasis, since we can't italicize. (All text in an AMS ad is in italics.)


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## weigle1234

If you click on the links mentioned in my previous post, be sure to peruse the Comments - IMHO some of the best (and most reveling info) is contained there.

Also IMHO, I feel the link promoter, Shawn Inmon, is on the level.  I am new to the AMS ad game, but I think I have had enough exposure to be able to spot a phony.  Again IMHO, not matter what the game, with enough exposure, one develops an intuitive feel for what is B.S. (and more importantly, what is not B.S.)


----------



## CassieL

I've been largely without internet for three weeks so haven't been able to keep up on this thread, so the below is a bit of a mish-mash.

In terms of what ad copy they allow, this link might help: [removed link and added directions a few posts down since people couldn't access the document]

Specifically, page 3 includes (in part):
-Custom Text must be in sentence case
-Ad copy cannot be in ALL CAPS, unless the book cover or title on the detail page is formatted in the same way, or for well-known 
abbreviations such as YA (Young Adult)
-Does not use overly forceful phrases or exclamation points (e.g. "Don't miss out!", "HURRY - SAVE NOW" are not acceptable)

Also, I think someone mentioned multiple !! at some point and they say on that one: Must not end with any punctuation marks other than a single question or exclamation mark. Although, obviously periods work just fine, too.

There was a discussion at some point about paperbacks being included in the estimated sales number. I can say for me that I'm 99.9% certain that they're included in the estimated sales numbers for my ads. One, because of the price point I use that isn't divisible by my ebook prices ($15.95) and two, because when I see those values on my AMS dashboard, I also see a print sale that matches.

I do think that tending your ads works better than leaving them alone. Because of my internet issues I had to largely leave my ads to themselves for that period of time and I found that both my main romance ad and my main fantasy ad stopped running pretty much on the same day even though I'd started them at different times and they were spending different amounts of money per-day before that. I took the time to tweak both and they both started running again.

Someone had asked if anyone ever gets that daily budget spent message without seeing the daily budget spent yet and I have. But for ads where I didn't then raise the budget again, I also saw bids and spend accumulate throughout that day to come close to the budget. If it was for the ads that display on Kindles that might make sense since they have to deploy the ads before knowing who'll click on them, but not sure why that happens on the other type of ad. I just know it does. And that sometimes Amazon says the budget is spent but the total spend for the day ends up being less than the budget.

In terms of billing...I used to get billed once a month around the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th of the month, but if you start spending more money they do bill you more often although I still have at least one monthly invoice that falls on those days.

I basically assume that any bill I'm issued covers from the last date a bill was issued to one day before this bill was issued. So, for example, I was billed 6/11, 6/21, and 7/4. To see how those ads performed, I would look at sales between 6/11 and 6/20 and then 6/21 and 7/3 for those last two invoices.


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## weigle1234

Jena H said:


> One of my ads was also rejected for capitalization. I had capitalized a word for emphasis, since we can't italicize. (All text in an AMS ad is in italics.)


I just tallied my AMS ad history. Having submitted 87 ads, 22 have been Rejected.

Perhaps I should publish a book entitled "How to go insane with AMS ads - for Dummies."


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## weigle1234

Cassie Leigh said:


> -Does not use overly forceful phrases or exclamation points (e.g. "Don't miss out!", "HURRY - SAVE NOW" are not acceptable)


Glad to have you back on line!

Perhaps my phrase "starting Now!" gets their dander up. I may change that - in my next ad attempt - for Rejection #23.

I will check out your suggested link. With help from authors on this and other forums, we are getting lots of useful info - in spite of AMS, or so it seems.


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## CassieL

Yep, that capitalized N in now is probably what's causing the problem.


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## weigle1234

Cassie Leigh said:


> Yep, that capitalized N in now is probably what's causing the problem.


Thanks - I will change the N to lower case. In fact I will do that within the next few minutes - and give the ad another shot.

Also, I was just about to post the following:

Hi Cassie, I just clicked on that link within your recent post, and all I get is a blank page. I also tried "Copy & Paste" with the same result.

The problem may be with my Windows Version XP - which acts weird at times. It goes "Ape" when I attempt clicking on anything having to do with Microsoft Excel (generates hundreds of tabs, which I can only stop by powering down).


----------



## Jena H

weigle1234 said:


> Hi Cassie, I just clicked on that link within your recent post, and all I get is a blank page. I also tried "Copy & Paste" with the same result.
> 
> The problem may be with my Windows Version XP - which acts weird at times. It goes "Ape" when I attempt clicking on anything having to do with Microsoft Excel (generates hundreds of tabs, which I can only stop by powering down).


I also couldn't access the link Cassie posted. I'm not on XP.


----------



## A past poster

LilyBLily said:


> Another thing often said is that if you have two ads running for the same product, they will not conflict with each other but they could eat into each other's potential to be shown widely to gather impressions. I don't know if that's true or not.


I'm experimenting with this now. I think it might be true.


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## A past poster

I contacted AMS help to ask about the excessive clicks and overcharges. I received the following helpful email, which I'm sharing:

_I've already received answer from our technical team and everything have been solved, Sponsored Product ads are now working as expected and any overages were corrected in your most recent invoice. To verify this you can go to your AMS account and click on "Billing History" at the top of the page.

Your Sponsored Products daily budget is the average daily amount you are willing to spend on each campaign over a calendar month. For example, if you set your daily budget to $100, Amazon.com will deliver a monthly budget up to $3,100 worth of clicks in that calendar month, assuming you start your campaign on the first day of a 31-day month.

However, on any given day you can spend less or more than your actual daily budget. For example, if your budget is $100 and you receive $50 worth of clicks on the 1st day of the month, you may receive up to $150 worth of clicks on the 2nd of the month. This would bring your total spend over 2 days to $200, which is in line with your daily budget.

During a calendar month, Sponsored Products uses budget pacing algorithms designed to deliver clicks that meet a monthly budget based on the daily budget you set for a campaign. Traffic patterns can and do vary, so your daily spend may fluctuate above or below your daily budget. In each case, future ad delivery may be adjusted to meet your daily budget average for the month. If your monthly budget limit has been reached, your ads may be suspended until the next month begins or you increase your daily budget.

Whenever you modify your daily budget (which can be up to ten times a day), we use the new daily budget to calculate the monthly budget based on the number of days remaining in the month.

_


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## weigle1234

I just submitted my latest pair of ads - following Cassie’s thoughts on changing “starting Now!” to “starting now!  Now I have 6 ads with “Pending review” status.

So, as usual, its “Sit back and Wait” time to see what develops.

This makes for 3 pairs of the same ad (6 total ads) - each pair differing only with Keywords and Blurb changes. Just for kicks, I submitted the last pair with a 3-cent Bid (first time for other than 2-cent or 25-cent Bids).


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## CassieL

Sorry about that guys.

The document I was linking to is called _Book Ads Creative Acceptance Policy_ and is published by Amazon.

I access it by choosing "New Campaign" and then clicking on "Learn more" in the description for one of the two ad types and then clicking on "Book Ads Acceptance Policy" in the fifth row of the document that pulls up which covers eligibility requirements.

It's a good overview of what is/is not allowed in covers and ad copy.


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## weigle1234

Anyone here print their own paperbacks, and placed them on Vacation Hold?

Ten days from now I will be flying out to Phoenix for a week or two (where I conducted my mail order business for 20+ years).  That is Phoenix as in “The Valley of the Sun.“  I need a break from this miserable Midwest climate - and am used to the desert heat of summer.  Besides, a friend has invited me to join him in Vegas for a business convention, all expenses paid.

According to Seller Central, “Any Buyer-Seller Messages received while on vacation will still require a response in 24 hours.”  What a pain that will be - thanks a lot Amazon!  Looks like I get stuck with taking the wife’s laptop along.  Or, is there a way around that requirement?

Also, I may place any 25-cent bid AMS ads on Pause, lest one turns out to be a big-time loser while away.  Or, I may opt to keep tabs on them with the laptop if I am forced to cart that along.

Any advice on unforeseen snags I may run into?


----------



## weigle1234

Cassie Leigh said:


> The document I was linking to is called _Book Ads Creative Acceptance Policy_ and is published by Amazon.


Thanks Cassie - I will take a look. Hope it was not written by someone from an Amazon "Help" Group. Otherwise I will be looking for an interpreter.


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## weigle1234

Cassie Leigh said:


> I access it by choosing "New Campaign" and then clicking on "Learn more" in the description for one of the two ad types and then clicking on "Book Ads Acceptance Policy" in the fifth row of the document that pulls up which covers eligibility requirements.


Just what I expected from Amazon. The site directs to Download. From there I pick up the PDF version - and from there to the "Book Ads Acceptance Policy." By clicking on that, all I come up with is a blank page. So, as usual, here we go again - just what I expected from Amazon!


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## CassieL

I wonder if you need to change a setting somewhere?  I use Firefox and both documents load for me in the browser window and never need to be downloaded.


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## weigle1234

Jena H said:


> One of my ads was also rejected for capitalization. I had capitalized a word for emphasis, since we can't italicize. (All text in an AMS ad is in italics.)


Of my last 3 ad pairs (6 total ads), 5 ads have been Rejected. Here is the ad now Running (2-cent Bid, 522 Keywords):

Discover how to capture Free - Never-ending - Electric Power from the Sun - Do it the easy way - save Big dollars - go Green, starting Now!

This ad pair was created from a 952 Keyword master list, split in half to create 2 separate lists - each containing 476 Keywords.

Its twin ad (Blurb identical to the above, 2-cent Bid, 519 Keywords) was Rejected. The only difference between the twins is the final Keyword count (522 vs. 519). For each ad I allowed Amazon to add their own Suggested Keywords - obviously their selections differed by 3 Keywords. It does not make sense that the Rejection would occur because of the 3 Keyword difference.

IMHO, none of this makes sense. The only conclusion I can draw is - it is the luck of the draw. Mr. Blurb Picky rejected one ad; his coworker Mr. Nice Guy approved the identical ad.

Just before submitting this post I deleted the rejected ad, and re-submitted it as an entirely new ad with absolutely no changes (hoping the Kindle guys will not recognize it as having been previously rejected). With any luck, this new ad has not landed in Mr. Blurb Picky's in-box!


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## weigle1234

Here are Blurb copies of each of my other 2 Rejected  twin ads (4 total ads).  Can anybody offer an opinion (or guess) as to why each ad has been Rejected (but one of the twins of the ad in my previous post was approved by Mr. Nice Guy)?

(25-cent Bid, 519 Keywords)
Discover how to capture Free - Never-ending - Electric Power from the Sun - Do it the easy way - Save Big dollars - Go green - starting Now!

(3-cent Bid, 523 Keywords)
Discover how to capture Free - Never-ending - Electric Power from the Sun - Do it the easy way - save Big dollars - go Green, starting now!

I made note of the time I re-submitted the Rejected twin ad of my previous post (8:00 AM, local).  If that ad is approved I will assume that Mr. Blurb Picky is not on duty, and will submit other ads at 24-hour intervals (only 1 ad each time).


----------



## khotisarque

I contacted KDP Support asking why I had seen the click count decrease while the acpc increased. This is part of their response:

"I have been advised by the team that they have found the following (at the time while the investigation was pending):

Clicks: 7 
Invalid clicks: 4 
Spend: 1.16 
Invalid spend: 0.19

The reason the click disappeared is that it got invalidated. However, the reason they still see a spend is due to other clicks (still 3 valid clicks as of their time checking it). I then queried as to how a click would become invalidated along with the relevant spend for that click, and this is because any click that is detected to have been from a robot.

That said, they can confirm that your account is reflecting accurate data according to actual clicks, impressions etc and there is no issue with it at this time."

So there is a problem with the robo-clicks, today's version of the spammer. Result is that displayed click-counts are provisional and accurate data appears later, possibly much later. This does not really affect those who have long-running stable campaigns [the lag is a nuisance but the inaccurate data is not directly acted on] but it does make day-to-day campaign tweaks and pauses etc useless.

One hidden depth plumbed, about 99 to go...


----------



## weigle1234

I just read the Kindle rejection emails for the 2 twin ad pairs of my previous post, which include:

- The ad contains inappropriate capitalization.
- The ad copy contains grammatical errors.

They have now added an additional reason for Rejection.  Does anyone here see the Grammatical Errors?

If not, perhaps I should not assume the ads were rejected by Mr. Blurb Picky.  Perhaps Mr. Dumb Guy is also on staff.


----------



## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> One hidden depth plumbed, about 99 to go...


What a CIRCUS this AMS ads thing - don't know whether to laugh or cry!

Guess I should be thankful I am only running 2-cent Bid test ads (along with a couple 5-cent ads) at the moment. I am losing only a few pennies here and there - nothing to lose sleep over.

It would be nice if I could coax AMS into Approving a new ad or two - instead of all the mysterious Rejections of late. If they will let me back into their game again, I will eventually start playing with 25-cent Bids once more. With any luck we will both start picking up a few bucks, instead of just me losing pennies.


----------



## Gregg Bell

Whenever one of my keywords is doing well I increase my bid, and as soon as I do, AMS increases the ACPC. This one keyword's ACPC was at .30. I had a couple of sales there and so I increased my bid to 3.00. Overnight the ACPC for that keyword went to $1.01! Am I missing something? It seems like AMS knows I've bid high and they're taking advantage of it by jacking up the ACPC. 

And so many of you are doing are doing small bids (less than ten cents) but almost all the thriller categories (where I'm bidding) are at least .20 ACPC. 

Nearly every day my four campaigns are "daily budget spent." (without the corresponding sales). I feel like I'm missing the boat with AMS.


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## weigle1234

Well, that was quick!  I just set a new ad Rejection record.

At 8:00 AM today I re-submitted an identical, but new, copy of a previously Rejected ad.  Even though I was hoping they would not recognize that fact, apparently they did.

Looks like it’s back to the old Blurb guessing game again.


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## CassieL

I received an interesting email today. I have one ad that routinely maxes out its budget each day. I start it at $10 and then when it maxes out I'll raise the budget by $10 at a time assuming sales/borrows/rank justify it until the day is over, sometimes getting as high as $40 or $50 a day. Today Amazon emailed me to let me know that around the Prime Day festivities they're sending out notices if you are close or have maxed out your daily budget on an ad so you can go in and adjust your budget since they're anticipating additional traffic on the site as a result of their promo. For this ad they suggested a budget of $27/day.



Gregg Bell said:


> Whenever one of my keywords is doing well I increase my bid, and as soon as I do, AMS increases the ACPC. This one keyword's ACPC was at .30. I had a couple of sales there and so I increased my bid to 3.00. Overnight the ACPC for that keyword went to $1.01! Am I missing something? It seems like AMS knows I've bid high and they're taking advantage of it by jacking up the ACPC.


ACPC is your average cost per click. If you up your bid, you're going to probably end up paying more per click than you were before which will drive up your average. When you bid more they show your ad more frequently (sometimes/usually) but you're probably then up against others who are bidding higher which means that when you are clicked on you end up paying more for that click than before. I'd only find the fact that your ACPC went up strange if you had no new clicks with the new bid.



Gregg Bell said:


> And so many of you are doing are doing small bids (less than ten cents) but almost all the thriller categories (where I'm bidding) are at least .20 ACPC.


I bid high. My two biggest ads are in fantasy and romance. I've been over a $1 with bids for both but dialed it back some, but I'm nowhere near as low as 10 cents with my bids. I want enough impressions that lead to clicks that lead to buys to move my rank and for me that requires bidding higher. It's really down to strategy. As a passive, low-cost approach bidding low works or it can work for those in niche categories with little to no competition, but for thrillers, romance, etc. I think you have to bid higher than a few cents to get enough exposure for it to move the needle.



Gregg Bell said:


> Nearly every day my four campaigns are "daily budget spent." (without the corresponding sales). I feel like I'm missing the boat with AMS.


This is what you need to be worried about. If you're getting clicks but not getting borrows/sales enough to pay for them then something is off and you want to fix it. Things to consider are where your books are priced (are you priced high enough to justify your high bids) and do your covers/ad copy/blurb/look inside all align so that readers who click on your ads find the type of book they thought they would? It sounds to me like you're either overpaying for your ads or, more likely from how you phrased it, there's a disconnect between your cover and ad copy and what they find when they get to your product page. The worst thing that can happen with ads like these is when people click on the ad but then don't buy. You either want them to not click or to click and buy. If they click and don't buy it gets costly fast.

I have a long-running ad where I get 1 purchase at about $5.99 per 22 clicks if that helps you judge your ad performance. There are also borrows in there and I run about 50/50 borrow/sale income on that title so realistically I'm probably getting a customer action of some sort for every 11 clicks or so.


----------



## Gregg Bell

Cassie Leigh said:


> I received an interesting email today. I have one ad that routinely maxes out its budget each day. I start it at $10 and then when it maxes out I'll raise the budget by $10 at a time assuming sales/borrows/rank justify it until the day is over, sometimes getting as high as $40 or $50 a day. Today Amazon emailed me to let me know that around the Prime Day festivities they're sending out notices if you are close or have maxed out your daily budget on an ad so you can go in and adjust your budget since they're anticipating additional traffic on the site as a result of their promo. For this ad they suggested a budget of $27/day.


Good old Amazon. Always so thoughtful.  Do you happen to know what the "Budget utilization" number signifies?

Cassie, thanks for the excellent help!! Things make much more sense now.



Cassie Leigh said:


> ACPC is your average cost per click. If you up your bid, you're going to probably end up paying more per click than you were before which will drive up your average. When you bid more they show your ad more frequently (sometimes/usually) but you're probably then up against others who are bidding higher which means that when you are clicked on you end up paying more for that click than before. I'd only find the fact that your ACPC went up strange if you had no new clicks with the new bid.


The only thing that is deceiving is that _most of the time_ when I drastically increase a bid, the ACPC only goes up marginally. That's why that 300% overnight jump in that one keyword ad weirded me out. But I've gone through all my bids now and with your advice made them much saner.



Cassie Leigh said:


> I bid high. My two biggest ads are in fantasy and romance. I've been over a $1 with bids for both but dialed it back some, but I'm nowhere near as low as 10 cents with my bids. I want enough impressions that lead to clicks that lead to buys to move my rank and for me that requires bidding higher. It's really down to strategy. As a passive, low-cost approach bidding low works or it can work for those in niche categories with little to no competition, but for thrillers, romance, etc. I think you have to bid higher than a few cents to get enough exposure for it to move the needle.


Makes sense.



Cassie Leigh said:


> This is what you need to be worried about. If you're getting clicks but not getting borrows/sales enough to pay for them then something is off and you want to fix it. Things to consider are where your books are priced (are you priced high enough to justify your high bids) and do your covers/ad copy/blurb/look inside all align so that readers who click on your ads find the type of book they thought they would? It sounds to me like you're either overpaying for your ads or, more likely from how you phrased it, there's a disconnect between your cover and ad copy and what they find when they get to your product page. The worst thing that can happen with ads like these is when people click on the ad but then don't buy. You either want them to not click or to click and buy. If they click and don't buy it gets costly fast.


Excellently explained. I'm leaning toward thinking I've been overpaying as I've been reckless once a keyword ad sells something, often going to a 7 or 8 or even a ten dollar bid and then I get clicks at the rapidly increasing ACPC and wonder what happened.



Cassie Leigh said:


> I have a long-running ad where I get 1 purchase at about $5.99 per 22 clicks if that helps you judge your ad performance. There are also borrows in there and I run about 50/50 borrow/sale income on that title so realistically I'm probably getting a customer action of some sort for every 11 clicks or so.


Yeah, that helps a lot. Takes some patience if you're running up to 22 clicks though without the sale, but I'm sure you've got experience with that ad and know it will eventually produce.

Thanks again for the help! (I'm no longer panicking!)


----------



## LFGabel

Marian said:


> I contacted AMS help to ask about the excessive clicks and overcharges. I received the following helpful email, which I'm sharing:
> 
> _...Whenever you modify your daily budget (which can be up to ten times a day), we use the new daily budget to calculate the monthly budget based on the number of days remaining in the month.
> 
> _


This is an interesting takeaway and could explain how people are getting charged large amounts that seem over the daily budget. If you had an ad running for $1/day for 30 days, the monthly budget is $31 (assuming a 31-day month). Then let's say you boosted that daily budget to $2 for the last day (day 31). According to the above, the new monthly budget is $62. Up until day 30, you would have spent $30. But on the last day the increase of the daily budget creates a reserve of $32 ($62 - (30 days x $1/day) ). So on day 31, Amazon could spend $32 even though the daily budget is $2.

Does this make any sense?


----------



## Shelley K

weigle1234 said:


> I just read the Kindle rejection emails for the 2 twin ad pairs of my previous post, which include:
> 
> - The ad contains inappropriate capitalization.
> - The ad copy contains grammatical errors.
> 
> They have now added an additional reason for Rejection. Does anyone here see the Grammatical Errors?
> 
> If not, perhaps I should not assume the ads were rejected by Mr. Blurb Picky. Perhaps Mr. Dumb Guy is also on staff.


All the dashes and capital letters instead of normal punctuation. And "save big dollars." Yeah, those would ping most people's grammar radar. Just use normal sentences and capitalization. It'll also keep your ad from reading like a 3am local used car lot commercial or a spam email. I assume the ads are for a book that teaches people to build solar panels or something.

Save big money with free solar energy. Go green, starting today! 
Save $1000 or more on your electric bills this year. Go green!
I save $1000 a year by using free solar energy. Find out how!
Get the book that will teach you to save $1000 on your electric bill. 
Get never-ending electric power from the sun. Do it the easy way.
Discover how to capture free, never-ending electric power from the sun. 
Get free never-ending electric power from the sun the easy way.

Just normal, correct sentences, and you shouldn't have a problem.


----------



## weigle1234

Shelley K said:


> All the dashes and capital letters instead of normal punctuation. And "save big dollars." Yeah, those would ping most people's grammar radar. Just use normal sentences and capitalization. It'll also keep your ad from reading like a 3am local used car lot commercial or a spam email. I assume the ads are for a book that teaches people to build solar panels or something.
> 
> Save big money with free solar energy. Go green, starting today!
> Save $1000 or more on your electric bills this year. Go green!
> I save $1000 a year by using free solar energy. Find out how!
> Get the book that will teach you to save $1000 on your electric bill.
> Get never-ending electric power from the sun. Do it the easy way.
> Discover how to capture free, never-ending electric power from the sun.
> Get free never-ending electric power from the sun the easy way.
> 
> Just normal, correct sentences, and you shouldn't have a problem.


Thanks Shelley,

Lots of good ideas there - I will start working up another ad as soon as I get this reply posted.

I was a mail order guy most of my life; they are a much less sophisticated audience than Internet folks. With them, the more hype and B.S. I mailed their way, the more they liked it (encouraged sales). Anything gimmicky, especially with lots of hype and B.S. mixed in, really trips their trigger!

You are right, the ad is for my photovoltaic solar system, the Solar Wizard. I am not trying to solicit sales here. But, if you check sponsored ads for the Wizard a few days from now you should eventually come across my latest ad for that eBook, with your Blurb advice incorporated.

If fact , if you send a Private Message my way with your snail mail address, I will mail a paperback copy your way on Monday.

Thanks again - have a pleasant weekend!


----------



## weigle1234

Shelley K said:


> All the dashes and capital letters instead of normal punctuation. And "save big dollars." Yeah, those would ping most people's grammar radar. Just use normal sentences and capitalization. It'll also keep your ad from reading like a 3am local used car lot commercial or a spam email. I assume the ads are for a book that teaches people to build solar panels or something.
> 
> Save big money with free solar energy. Go green, starting today!
> Save $1000 or more on your electric bills this year. Go green!
> I save $1000 a year by using free solar energy. Find out how!
> Get the book that will teach you to save $1000 on your electric bill.
> Get never-ending electric power from the sun. Do it the easy way.
> 
> Discover how to capture free, never-ending electric power from the sun.
> Get free never-ending electric power from the sun the easy way.
> 
> Just normal, correct sentences, and you shouldn't have a problem.


Hi Shelley, I just submitted the following ad:

Discover how to capture Free, never-ending electric power from the Sun. Save $1,000 or more on your electric bills this year. It's easy to go Green!

That is exactly how my new Blurb will appear. Perchance it is rejected, I will tone it down a bit, more in line with your advice.

Sorry, but I just HAD to throw in 3 extra Caps. Old habits are hard to break - hope I get away with it!

Thanks again.


----------



## Shelley K

Thanks for the generous offer a free book, but I still prefer to stay anonymous here. I appreciate it, though.



weigle1234 said:


> Hi Shelley, I just submitted the following ad:
> 
> Discover how to capture Free, never-ending electric power from the Sun. Save $1,000 or more on your electric bills this year. It's easy to go Green!
> 
> That is exactly how my new Blurb will appear. Perchance it is rejected, I will tone it down a bit, more in line with your advice.
> 
> Sorry, but I just HAD to throw in 3 extra Caps. Old habits are hard to break - hope I get away with it!
> 
> Thanks again.


Unless your ad happens to slip through the cracks, you won't. But if you resubmit with normal capitalization, there's no reason it shouldn't fly. Good luck!


----------



## Jena H

I didn't realize that Amazon was restricting first-letter caps, I thought it was only all-caps words.  But I'm glad.  IMHO, unnecessary capital letters are annoying, and can cause something to look unprofessional.  So I applaud AMS for cracking down on them.


----------



## weigle1234

Shelley K said:


> Unless your ad happens to slip through the cracks, you won't. But if you resubmit with normal capitalization, there's no reason it shouldn't fly. Good luck!


No such luck! Mr. Hawk Eye did catch my felonious attempt to sneak those 3 caps past him. I resubmitted my "3 caps less" version late yesterday, and am awaiting approval.

Thanks again for your help.


----------



## weigle1234

A hypothetical situation here:  Suppose the entire Kindle library consisted of 1,000 eBooks, and a “Broadly Relevant Keywords” ad eventually reached a saturation point of appearing in 500 carousels. 

If we were to continue Running that same ad, would AMS start placing it in the remaining 500 carousels, even though the ad is no longer relevant?  (Of course new eBooks keep increasing the library domain while others are deleted - so the overall impact of both factors may be minimal.)

Which brings up the other hypothetical situation:  Let us assume they do not place ads in irrelevant carousels.  Since the saturation point is continually approached, our ad would generate few new impressions.  Thereafter, we would only be charged for Clicks to the existing 500+ impressions.

It stands to reason that the Click rate would gradually diminish as the effectiveness of the 500+ impressions diminishes, eventually approaching Zero-Clicks.  What happens after that?

There would be no advantage to Terminating the ad since it would cost little-to-nothing to keep it Running perpetually.  Would AMS allow the 500+ impressions to remain in place forever?


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> In your longtime experience, did running exactly the same ad in the same magazine (and probably on the same page and even in the same position on the page) issue after issue, year after year, produce saturation? I was told many years ago by another magazine veteran that if you see the same ad twice, they're making money, but that's a comment on the beginning of the ad life, not the end.
> 
> Supposedly, Amazon stops showing ads when it deems a saturation point to have occurred, and does not stop showing them if we change the keywords from time to time--providing new points of relevance. Numerous people claim we have to churn our ads or else they eventually will not get shown.
> 
> Would Amazon show the ad to searchers it didn't previously show the ad to? Not on its own, I don't think. If our ads are played out, it's not Amazon's job to goose them.


Over the years I tested ads in dozens of magazines. Very few were profitable. I would always run only one ad in a new magazine and await the results, which were almost always zilch. If an ad produced at all, I continued testing cautiously since responses almost always died off after just a few ad appearances.

The guy mentioning that any ad appearing twice is making money makes no sense at all. The vast majority of magazines ads are losers. Those that do run for more than an issue or two, and then disappear, are almost always by newbie victims that got sucked into buying blocks of several ads at discount.

Those newbies fell for the old line of B.S. that ads must run for at least a few issues before they become productive. Just the opposite is true. Almost without exception, the first ad or two are the most productive. After an issue or two, the response gradually declines and then stabilizes, which is almost always at a continuing loss.

The only certainty is, if an ad keeps appearing month after month then most likely it is making money. Any other assessment is nothing more than guesswork.

I ran continuous ads only in very productive magazines, and alternated unique ads from month to month - and never saw them reach saturation. Only 3 magazines were that productive; Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, and Mechanix Illustrated. Mechanix Illustrated was, by far, the most productive. Those ads produced at least twice the number of inquiries, and each inquiry produced at least twice the profit levels of the other magazine ads.

All those ads were very productive, yielding inquiry order response levels of around 5%. But the number of actual inquires steadily declined over the years. My best results came from working up customer list trades with other successful mail order folks. Those yielded response levels averaging between 12% and 17%. Profits at those levels are astronomical. But, gradually everyone I traded with went out of business - somehow I outlasted them all.

An amusing incident: I once ran an ad in Grit magazine many years ago, and got no response. A few years later a response finally came through. The guy spotted a torn page on a table while awaiting a dental appointment, and had no idea where the page originated. But, he noticed my ad, clipped it out and mailed it to me, asking for my "Fantastic Gas Mileage - It's Easy - FREE Details." That was my one and only Grit response!

Eventually all magazine ads ceased to be productive. Occasionally I would run a few test ads, but it was always wasted money. In the meantime I gravitated to renting mailing lists - the vast majority of which are bogus. One can lose their butt in short order if they do not test them very cautiously.

Our AMS ads have a big advantage over periodical ads - they continue to stay in place as long as we keep them Running. Also, we can Pause or Delete them at will. Periodical ads are short-lived. The subscriber takes a quick glance; if he misses the ad, the periodical is soon discarded; the ad never to be seen again until it appears in the next issue.

Assuming AMS does stop displaying ads when they reach saturation, if that is even possible, how do they notify us? Or, do we surmise it has happened if we no longer see impressions occurring?

Obviously this reply has turned into a mini-novel, and I don't know if I have even properly addressed your inquiry. I often considered writing a book about the mail order business, but nobody would buy it if I told the whole story. The market is still flooded with "How to get Rich in Mail Order" garbage - almost always B.S. The worst part, IMHO, is that most of that garbage is purposely misleading, in hopes of stifling competition.


----------



## Decon

LilyBLily said:


> In your longtime experience, did running exactly the same ad in the same magazine (and probably on the same page and even in the same position on the page) issue after issue, year after year, produce saturation? I was told many years ago by another magazine veteran that if you see the same ad twice, they're making money, but that's a comment on the beginning of the ad life, not the end.


I know this wasn't aimed at me, but I'd like to respond.

Magazine ads for goods/brand are a completely different type of advertising to the Amazon experience, in the same way that newspaper, television, billboard, and radio ads are different, so I am not sure that you can draw conclusions from that type of experience. The exception would be perhaps if it were a book publishing related magazine.

You can also split the market into two and have, Brand awarenes ads, and direct sales ads. You can split this further in to three, World wide, National, and local.

I could give you the example of two types of local newspaper ads that stayed the same for years with only maybe a change to the latest fad for a product and the ads produced week in and week out, year in and year out.

The determining factors were a customer need for product - the market for the product - competition - and number of eyes on the ad, (circulation) then producing an ad of -how to get it - what it was - and where to get it.

This sequence I used above was the opposite to the norm as other ads would start with - what it is - then where to get it - how to get it.

Unfortunately, Amazon ads work as - what it is, cover blurb - where to get it, click - how to get it, click buy button. There is no deviation to this for everyone. The only difference is placement for visibility. Visibility the only thing we have control over really via the bids, besides cover and blurb. Even all the sizes of the cover/ads are uniform.

The other thing to take into account relates to what you are advertising be it services or goods.

In this case it was electical goods and newspaper advertising, a highly competetive market based on retail price and fine margins.

As a small business, I couldn't compete on price, in many instances I was at a 15% disadvantage. So when I looked at the competition, all were advertising on "We won't be beaten on price." They'd have the suggested cash price with a line struck through and then their discounted price, or they have SALE splashed all over their ads. The other thing they would do is to have their name very large at the beginning, taking up a good chunk of the add. I had mine small at the end with the address as I wasn't selling a brand

I took price right out of my ads, and aimed at a completely different market segment. It didn't matter if it was in the classified section, or the body of the newspaper, although placement regards position in the newspaper was a factor. Because the same ads produced week in and week out, they were cost effective. 
]
The nearest we would have to taking price out of the equation would be to be able to truthfully splash NYT bestselling author in the blurb

Amazon ads reporting don't allow us to work out the cost effectiveness, because they don't include the vital statistics of page reads, nor do they splt out books.

The other thing it doesn't allow us to do is to form ads that would blow the competion out of the water by deviating from the set format. One extreme example of this was a car retailer who always put his ad upside down if the car sales section. To read it they'd have to turn the newspaper uspside down which effectively took their eyes of all the other ads,

To give you a clue, my adds had bold, No Deposit Instant Credit, a picture of the goods, then the address tele no. For classified, it just missed out the image, then described what the goods were in one word. Very simple, but it made me a good living. I hardly ever sold the goods for cash, so price was never a consideration, only the monthly payment. So not only did I make margin, but I got a good chunk of finance commision with ever sale.

Classified was the nearest to Amazon ads for visibility in that if I put it in a block to pay more, it would go at the top of the section.

So really, saying all that, you can forget most of what anyone has learned from the old media standard ad marketing as far as Amazon is concerned. Especially me, as despite all my years advertising product, I can't get the damn things to work for me. lol


----------



## Jena H

Some of this discussion is getting a little too wonk-y and metaphysical for me. 

I ran an ad a few weeks ago for one of my two relationship novels. Actually it was the second of the two; not a sequel, but simply a companion to the first. Anyway, the ad didn't do much at the time, but yesterday I sold one of each of the two books. (I assume the same person bought both--too much of a coincidence otherwise.)

(OT alert: this part isn't related to the ad)
Anyway, I went to the product page for both of the books (to bask in my glorious ranking, lol). Here's what they are:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #220,701 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#3127 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > *Sports*
#3248 in Books > Romance > *Sports*
#8191 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Women's Fiction > Romance

I have no idea how this book got into any subcat relating to sports. It has absolutely nothing to do with any sport--the characters don't even go to a ballgame.


----------



## CassieL

Jena H said:


> (OT alert: this part isn't related to the ad)
> Anyway, I went to the product page for both of the books (to bask in my glorious ranking, lol). Here's what they are:
> Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #220,701 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
> #3127 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > *Sports*
> #3248 in Books > Romance > *Sports*
> #8191 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Women's Fiction > Romance
> 
> I have no idea how this book got into any subcat relating to sports. It has absolutely nothing to do with any sport--the characters don't even go to a ballgame.


If any of the following are in your keywords, that would also put it into the romance>sports category: sport, hockey, soccer, baseball, basketball, football, olympics, climbing, lacrosse, nascar, surfing, boxing, martial arts, golf


----------



## Jena H

LilyBLily said:


> Sometimes one word alone will trigger an ad placement. I puzzled for a long time about a Regency romance that was in the carousel in Westerns. Then I realized Amazon had equated the titles of nobility of Regency England with such descriptions as "cattle baron." Earls and barons, get it? Lame, but then the Regency placement made perfect sense. Did the Regency placement sell books? No way of knowing.





Cassie Leigh said:


> If any of the following are in your keywords, that would also put it into the romance>sports category: sport, hockey, soccer, baseball, basketball, football, olympics, climbing, lacrosse, nascar, surfing, boxing, martial arts, golf


I think I figured out the subcat question. Maybe. The female main character's young son--like millions of other kids--plays youth soccer, so there's mention of that sport, plus the woman is truly a soccer mom. That's the only reason I can think of why the book ended up categorized as it is.


----------



## 67499

How many folks out there are selling 1,000s of books from AMS ads?  (Great thread even tho' reading it all hurts my head, so thought I'd cut to the big chase.)


----------



## Colin

Steven Hardesty said:


> *How many folks out there are selling 1,000s of books from AMS ads?* (Great thread even tho' reading it all hurts my head, so thought I'd cut to the big chase.)


Not sure, but it's likely that many 1000s of AMS advertisers are selling 10s of books!


----------



## weigle1234

Shelley K said:


> Thanks for the generous offer a free book, but I still prefer to stay anonymous here. I appreciate it, though.
> 
> Unless your ad happens to slip through the cracks, you won't. But if you resubmit with normal capitalization, there's no reason it shouldn't fly. Good luck!


Your advice is working - in spades! Yesterday I went nuts and submitted 12 ads for various books, including my De-Capped "3-Cap Disaster" - which I reworded in line with your suggestions.

Thanks to you, all the ads are now Running, with the exception of one where I accidentally left in a few caps. Within the next few hours I will correct that ad, and resubmit it.

Take care.


----------



## weigle1234

Decon said:


> Magazine ads for goods/brand are a completely different type of advertising to the Amazon experience, in the same way that newspaper, television, billboard, and radio ads are different, so I am not sure that you can draw conclusions from that type of experience. The exception would be perhaps if it were a book publishing related magazine.


I totally agree - trying to get into someone's head with any form of advertising is a fascinating process.

In all my mail order years, I only ran classified ads in mechanically-oriented magazines. I experimented a few times with small display ads, but they never worked for me. A $30 classified ad, placed in the same issue as a small $400 display ad, would out-perform the display ad by a margin of 3 to 1.

I often considered doing newspaper classifieds, but never got around to it. Any time I researched the subject I was advised that such ads do not work for mail order. Which was reason enough for me to try it anyway, since most advice I ever came across related to mail order was bad advice.

The closest I ever came to seriously researching other advertising formats had to do with running late-night TV infomercials. My biggest customer ever (by far) was the singer Brook Benton (Benjamin Peay). Way back in the mid-1980s he sporadically bought hundreds of the only product I ever sold for a manufacturer; the "RamJet" gas saver. He wanted to start running RamJet infomercials, and I did my best to discourage that approach.

He always assumed I was the manufacturer, and I never did anything to cause him to think otherwise. What he did with all those Ramjets, he never volunteered. When someone sends that kind of money your way, you do not ask questions. Benton occasionally talked about visiting my "manufacturing facilities." The wife and I always got a chuckle out of envisioning him driving up to our residential address (my Rockford, Illinois office location) looking for my manufacturing facilities, and thinking "I must have the wrong address."

Other advertising approaches I occasionally considered, but never followed through with, were locally distributed flyers, ads on restaurant placemats, product giveaways at special events, radio ads (a great way to dump money into a bottomless pit), etc.

I like Kindle ads - they require a frustrating learning process, but are quick, clean, and easy. Once an ad blurb pops into my head, I can have the ad submitted within the following 10 minutes.

Whether I ever make serious money with Kindle ads remains to be seen but, so far, I am having a great time trying to make them work.


----------



## Decon

Colin said:


> Not sure, but it's likely that many 1000s of AMS advertisers are selling 10s of books!


It reminds me that publishers would be happy with 10 authors selling 1 million books each, whereas someone like Lulu POD would be happy with a million self-published authors selling 10 books each. Same overall sales for the producers, with different outcomes for the authors.


----------



## Colin

Decon said:


> It reminds me that publishers would be happy with 10 authors selling 1 million books each, whereas someone like Lulu POD would be happy with a million self-published authors selling 10 books each. Same overall sales for the producers, with different outcomes for the authors.


I suspect that quite a few self-published authors dream about selling 10 books. That's not said in total ignorance: I have access to a fair number of self-published accounts, and can verify that not many make it into treble figures. Sad really, but there's so much slush out there that many good books get buried under the pile.


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## Kay7979

I know sales data is delayed, but are the number of clicks and the amount of impressions also delayed by 2-3 days, or are they closer to real time?


----------



## A. N. Other Author

Anyone else signing up to Bryan Cohen's "how to scale up AMS Ads" seminar. We are promised it is NOT one of those designed to sell a course at the end. Just info.

This link takes you there, but (in an attempt at full disclosure) it tracks some sort of incentive that tells him it was me that sent you. Not financial, not an affiliate, but ... something ... anyway, I'm going because I'm interested not because I'm selling the course. Check it here if you're interested in scaling up: http://upvir.al/ref/k7291661


----------



## Jena H

Well, I paused my current ad.  The book I was advertising takes place during the Revolutionary War, so I had an "Independence Day" hook in my ad text, and ran the ad from about July 1 through today.  The ebook is free, but my goal was to sell some paperbacks.  It's worked before, right before Christmas, and again a few months ago.  But this time....  epic fail.    I did get quite a few downloads of the ebook (although not as many as I would have thought), and maybe some of those readers will go on to buy the next book(s).  But as for this first book-- the ad simply didn't perform.  It had decent position in the carousels I checked, although maybe not first page every time.  Luckily the spend was pretty minimal, so this isn't all that costly an experiment.


----------



## weigle1234

If two ads for the same book are run simultaneously, but with different blurbs, can they both appear in the same carousel?  Or, appear in the same carousel, but on different pages?


----------



## A past poster

weigle1234 said:


> If two ads for the same book are run simultaneously, but with different blurbs, can they both appear in the same carousel? Or, appear in the same carousel, but on different pages?


I don't believe so.


----------



## A past poster

You might want to check the cost of the keyword clicks on your campaigns. On one of my keywords, I had a limit of 20 cents per click and was charged 36 cents; on another keyword the charge was 23 cents for a 20 cent limit. The number of clicks for this campaign has been erratic all day as well. Is AMS getting wonky again?


----------



## Alvina

Yep! it appeared that I got organic sales almost everyday? Because for 2 weeks AMS still said I'm getting nothing! Am I just wasted my money on them? (Although there were increasing in KU read.)


----------



## CassieL

Marian said:


> You might want to check the cost of the keyword clicks on your campaigns. On one of my keywords, I had a limit of 20 cents per click and was charged 36 cents; on another keyword the charge was 23 cents for a 20 cent limit. The number of clicks for this campaign has been erratic all day as well. Is AMS getting wonky again?


Today is a book-related promo day leading up to Prime Day on the 11th. I'd expect higher than normal ad spend and some wonkiness. Unfortunately, all of their book promos seem to be geared towards KU or a very small group of novels.



weigle1234 said:


> If two ads for the same book are run simultaneously, but with different blurbs, can they both appear in the same carousel? Or, appear in the same carousel, but on different pages?


Agree with Marian. Don't think that can happen.


----------



## weigle1234

Quick Questions:

Whenever I enter words within a reply on this forum containing an apostrophe, e.g., can’t, won’t - everything look normal,

However, after posting, when I refer to it to on this forum to verify it transmitted correctly, it almost always has weird highlighted ? characters inserted in place of the apostrophes, e.g., can?t - won?t

Did this reply come through OK without the ? replacing apostrophes, or is my computer acting weird?  (The same thing also happens with quote marks, e.g., ?The Blurb? - ?The Blob?)


----------



## Jena H

weigle1234 said:


> Quick Questions:
> 
> Whenever I enter words within a reply on this forum containing an apostrophe, e.g., can't, won't - everything look normal,
> 
> However, after posting, when I refer to it to on this forum to verify it transmitted correctly, it almost always has weird highlighted ? characters inserted in place of the apostrophes, e.g., can?t - won?t
> 
> Did this reply come through OK without the ? replacing apostrophes, or is my computer acting weird? (The same thing also happens with quote marks, e.g., ?The Blurb? - ?The Blob?)


Usualy when I see those weird symbols, it's when someone copies/pastes something from another document. I can't imagine why the symbols would appear if you're typing directly into kboards and using the standard keyboard.


----------



## weigle1234

Jena H said:


> Usualy when I see those weird symbols, it's when someone copies/pastes something from another document. I can't imagine why the symbols would appear if you're typing directly into kboards and using the standard keyboard.


I'm sure you've spotted the problem. That's exactly what I've been doing. I always type everything in a Works document, then copy / past. I'm in the habit of proofing everything I write as I go and saving it at regular intervals. Also, I then have a retrievable copy if I need to reference it later.

I'm typing this directly - we'll soon see if it ain't messed up, won't we?


----------



## weigle1234

Jena H said:


> Usualy when I see those weird symbols, it's when someone copies/pastes something from another document. I can't imagine why the symbols would appear if you're typing directly into kboards and using the standard keyboard.


I just copied the previous post and pasted it here in Works. Now I'm repeating the copy / paste thing to do a double-verification.

Thanks for your help. Here goes:

I'm sure you've spotted the problem. That's exactly what I've been doing. I always type everything in a Works document, then copy / past. I'm in the habit of proofing everything I write as I go and saving it at regular intervals. Also, I then have a retrievable copy if I need to reference it later.

I'm typing this directly - we'll soon see if it ain't messed up, won't we?


----------



## weigle1234

Jena H said:


> Usualy when I see those weird symbols, it's when someone copies/pastes something from another document. I can't imagine why the symbols would appear if you're typing directly into kboards and using the standard keyboard.


Strange! The ? thing now appears in the first sentence only. There has to be a reason - go figure. IMO, it really is not worth wasting more time on this issue. But such unknowns tend to bug me.


----------



## weigle1234

I am trying to look a bit into the future regarding the possible ad saturation issue.

If Kindle decides to slow an ad, or stop it entirely when it deems saturation to be approaching, can we simply Terminate the ad. Then replace it with the same ad, but with a different blurb, or different blurb along with new Keywords - and start it afresh?


----------



## Colin

weigle1234 said:


> I just copied the previous post and pasted it here in Works. Now I'm repeating the copy / paste thing to do a double-verification.
> 
> Thanks for your help. Here goes:
> 
> I'm sure you've spotted the problem. That's exactly what I've been doing. *I always type everything in a Works document, then copy / past. *I'm in the habit of proofing everything I write as I go and saving it at regular intervals. Also, I then have a retrievable copy if I need to reference it later.
> 
> I'm typing this directly - we'll soon see if it ain't messed up, won't we?


Try typing directly into MS Notepad instead of Works, and copy and paste into the post. This should rid the post of weird symbols. You can add any required italics, underlines, bolding etc. before hitting the Post button.


----------



## Jena H

weigle1234 said:


> I'm sure you've spotted the problem. That's exactly what I've been doing. I always type everything in a Works document, then copy / past. I'm in the habit of proofing everything I write as I go and saving it at regular intervals. Also, I then have a retrievable copy if I need to reference it later.
> 
> I'm typing this directly - we'll soon see if it ain't messed up, won't we?


No weird ? marks here.  Also, to proof or preview a post, what I do after I type is hit the Preview button (next to Post), and review it that way. It appears above the typing block, so I usually have to SCROLL UP to see it. When it's fine and I've fixed whatever errors I find, I click Post,


----------



## Jena H

Quick question:  does the conventional wisdom say that when Unpausing an ad, the best strategy is to tweak keywords at the same time, to possibly "jump start" it into action?  I'm likely going to unpause one or both of my paused ads, because of Prime Day.  (If I'd remembered Prime Day is tomorrow, I wouldn't have paused my latest ad yesterday.  Grrr.   )

So...  to tweak (keywords, or bids, or whatever) or not to tweak?


----------



## Author A.C. Salter

Jena H said:


> Quick question: does the conventional wisdom say that when Unpausing an ad, the best strategy is to tweak keywords at the same time, to possibly "jump start" it into action? I'm likely going to unpause one or both of my paused ads, because of Prime Day. (If I'd remembered Prime Day is tomorrow, I wouldn't have paused my latest ad yesterday. Grrr.  )
> 
> So... to tweak (keywords, or bids, or whatever) or not to tweak?


Having read this thread from the beginning and experienced my own ups and downs with AMS, I think I've learned that nobody really knows how the system works. We're merely Muggles in the Amazon world of Hogwarts.

Anything is worth a shot - if nothing else it will be a lesson learned.


----------



## Kay7979

I know sales data is delayed, but are the number of clicks and the amount of impressions also delayed by 2-3 days, or are they closer to real time?


----------



## CassieL

Kay7979 said:


> I know sales data is delayed, but are the number of clicks and the amount of impressions also delayed by 2-3 days, or are they closer to real time?


Those should be closer to real time. I think they generally show up same day as they occur since you'll start to see them on a new ad the day it starts running.


----------



## amdonehere

LilyBLily said:


> Why should we believe that this guy has the secret to scaling up?


LilyBLily I'm wondering about that too. But Bryan is the co-host of the Sell More Books podcast and has a great rep as one of the "good guys". I love that podcast and found it more informative than ether Mark Dawson's or Joanna Penn's. I've signed up for his webminar to see what he has to say.


----------



## Gregg Bell

This is getting wacked. I had a keyword that was costing me 41 cents ACPC so I reduced my bid to 25 cents. Well, AMS has gone on to bill me 1.71 ACPC for the next five clicks. Unreal. And they'd started out billing me monthly and now they're billing weekly. Soon I suspect it will be every day. (Makes the bills seem more manageable when in reality they're exploding upward.) I paused the one campaign and am on the verge of getting out altogether.


----------



## Gregg Bell

Get rid of the weird symbols with this. It's easy. It works. https://dan.hersam.com/tools/smart-quotes.html


----------



## Gregg Bell

What happens when you pause a campaign? Besides it being paused, I mean. When you re-start it, does it take forever to get going again?


----------



## weigle1234

I got myself zapped again.  Just as some folks are color-blind, I think I have become cap-blind.

A day or two ago, I submitted an ad which I thought was cap-free.  Later in the day I checked in on it to make a reference copy for my Works files.  Lo and behold, 4 renegade caps jumped right out - worse yet,  most of their sentence locations do not even make sense.  As expected, it was rejected.

I just edited the ad - so off it goes again to the AMS slaughter house.  That poor book is developing a rejection complex.

I may be the only person here with this problem but, for what its worth; double-check for illegal caps.


----------



## Jena H

Gregg Bell said:


> What happens when you pause a campaign? Besides it being paused, I mean. When you re-start it, does it take forever to get going again?


I think the unpausing makes the ad active almost immediately. I unpaused mine (tweaking a keyword or two) and I saw it in a major book's carousel within the hour.


----------



## Jena H

Here's a really, REALLY dumb question, that's not necessarily directly related to AMS ads. (But it IS related to book searches for books we might use as keywords, so... I guess it actually is tangentially related.) Anyway....

One of my ads uses keywords such as _divorce, celebrity, soccer mom,_ and _second chance,_ among others. (The book is about a 30-something mother who meets an actor.) I know some of these keywords are pretty effective for the ad, but I don't have any particular book listed whose carousel I can look at, to find my ad. 

On Amazon, how do I find books that might have my ad in their carousel? If I type in my keywords, I'll either get my book in the results, or other books that don't necessarily fit the same category, and (as far as I can tell) might not have my ad in their carousels.


----------



## A past poster

LilyBLily said:


> Here's something new. Yesterday, AMS emailed, urging me to add to the budget for one of my books, claiming its daily budget had been reached. Since its budget is $1, I found that plausible enough, and I did change the budget after adding a bunch of new keywords. Today, AMS wrote me saying that budget has been spent AND the budget of my lead ad--which I dropped from $15 to $14 yesterday. And AMS suggested I change the first title's budget to $3 and the second to...wait for it...$45. Because of Prime Day tomorrow.
> 
> So I did. I'll give it exactly 48 hours. Probably will lose my shirt.


I received one of those emails several days ago. They suggested that I change the daily budget from $3 to $21 for a book that sells for $3.99 in anticipation of their Prime Day sale. It made absolutely no sense. People who will be shopping online tomorrow for the super sale will be looking for bargains, NOT for books at full price. I'm considering pausing the ad for the book they wanted me to raise the budget on because sales have dropped. Also, I'm sure Amazon has already decided on the books they'll be pushing during their sale. The authors who should be upping their budgets are the ones who Amazon will be promoting. I'm not one of them.

Another thought: If budgets increase substantially, bids could increase substantially as well. I don't think it's a win-win situation for authors. I'd be interested in hearing from people who upped their budgets and what their results were.


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> Here's something new. Yesterday, AMS emailed, urging me to add to the budget for one of my books, claiming its daily budget had been reached. Since its budget is $1, I found that plausible enough, and I did change the budget after adding a bunch of new keywords. Today, AMS wrote me saying that budget has been spent AND the budget of my lead ad--which I dropped from $15 to $14 yesterday. And AMS suggested I change the first title's budget to $3 and the second to...wait for it...$45. Because of Prime Day tomorrow.
> 
> So I did. I'll give it exactly 48 hours. Probably will lose my shirt.


$45! &#8230;Sounds like wishful thinking with AMS. But what the heck, sometimes the goofiest ideas end up making the most money. Hope it is you making all that money, not them. Just pray you do no get stung.

Kind of reminds me - years ago a friend was complaining about her restaurant revenues. I suggested she start charging a flat-rate of $5,000 per meal. That way just a few customers a week would put her way over the top.


----------



## Jena H

So Amazon suggested that writers (or at least one   ) raise daily spend limit/budget for Prime Day.  Is anyone else going to do it?  To what level?  Sorry, but $45 is a little too steep for me, lol.


(edited to fix typo.  d'oh!)


----------



## CassieL

One of the big promos they ran on the 9th was for new KU subscribers and I think they're still pushing that. They also had some big discounts on buying Kindle ereaders. So it's a bit like at Christmas time when people are looking for books to borrow after they get their new Kindles and KU subscriptions.


----------



## weigle1234

A few days ago Shelley posted that my hyped-up ad looked like a 3am car lot commercial or a spam mail - all of which I agree.

Thing is, IMHO, that is the kind of crap that sells!  On the other hand, I understand why AMS does not care for crappy ads.

My crappiest ads are the ones creating the most Clicks, also the best Clicks vs. Impressions ratios.  Whether those Clicks ultimately produce the most sales is yet to be seen - my guess is they do.

All of which is now a mote point since AMS deems most Caps a big No-No.  It would be nice if I could go back to the good old days, when just about anything passed muster.

Perhaps AMS could be a bit more lenient with the Caps issue?  Of course it is guys like me who may be responsible for AMS tightening-up on the Caps thing.

As the SNL Gilda Radner character often exclaimed, "Oh well, if it's not one thing it's another."


----------



## amdonehere

I haven't logged in to my dashboard for a few days but now you guys are making me wonder what to do about ad limits relating to Prime Day. So is the better strategy to pause the ad or go for broke and up the ad spend!!!


----------



## khotisarque

Marian said:


> "I received one of those emails several days ago. They suggested that I change the daily budget from $3 to $21 for a book that sells for $3.99 in anticipation of their Prime Day sale. It made absolutely no sense."
> 
> Absolutely none. It is the result of 'algorithms' using 'Artificial Intelligence' , or what I refer to, technically, as 'garbage'.
> 
> Stopping my rant right there, Amazon recently answered one of our questions on overspending daily limits. Their story was that daily limit really meant monthly limit; they would over-run if needed on any given day but average over the whole month. So if your daily limit is, say, $5, then AMS feel entitled to spend $150 on one day then zero it for the next 29 days to average it out. Of course, you would be unwise to rely on that working to your advantage. Next week's rationale will be a different black magic formula.
> 
> 8-( and ;-)


----------



## Jena H

khotisarque said:


> Marian said:
> 
> 
> 
> "I received one of those emails several days ago. They suggested that I change the daily budget from $3 to $21 for a book that sells for $3.99 in anticipation of their Prime Day sale. It made absolutely no sense."
> 
> Absolutely none. It is the result of 'algorithms' using 'Artificial Intelligence' , or what I refer to, technically, as 'garbage'.
> 
> Stopping my rant right there, Amazon recently answered one of our questions on overspending daily limits. *Their story was that daily limit really meant monthly limit; they would over-run if needed on any given day but average over the whole month. So if your daily limit is, say, $5, then AMS feel entitled to spend $150 on one day then zero it for the next 29 days to average it out. * Of course, you would be unwise to rely on that working to your advantage. Next week's rationale will be a different black magic formula.
> 
> 8-( and ;-)
> 
> 
> 
> Thing is, not everyone runs on-going ads. I usually run ads for only 7-10 days at a time.
> 
> 
> 
> LilyBLily said:
> 
> 
> 
> Put a broad category or an author name you have as a keyword into the Amazon search bar. Try it in "All," and in "Kindle Store," and in "Books." Click on the top book on the results page. You should see a carousel and be in it.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I do have a couple of author names as keywords, but if the author has 10, 20, or more books, I have no way of knowing which one to look at.  Ah, well, in the long run, it's not that important an issue, and only for one of my ads.
Click to expand...


----------



## A past poster

Cassie Leigh said:


> One of the big promos they ran on the 9th was for new KU subscribers and I think they're still pushing that. They also had some big discounts on buying Kindle ereaders. So it's a bit like at Christmas time when people are looking for books to borrow after they get their new Kindles and KU subscriptions.


I'm not in KU, so upping the spending limit wouldn't make sense for me. I think people will be using their KU subscriptions to fill their new Kindles.


----------



## Gregg Bell

Jena H said:


> I think the unpausing makes the ad active almost immediately. I unpaused mine (tweaking a keyword or two) and I saw it in a major book's carousel within the hour.


Thanks Jena


----------



## amdonehere

Ok Amazon hasn't emailed me at all so should I feel left out? Does the Zon think I'm so hopeless that I shouldn't even bother


----------



## weigle1234

Colin said:


> Try typing directly into MS Notepad instead of Works, and copy and paste into the post. This should rid the post of weird symbols. You can add any required italics, underlines, bolding etc. before hitting the Post button.


Thanks, I'll give the notepad thing a try. My gut feeling is that it will work OK.

BTW, I'm typing this reply directly within the forum. My other gut feeling is that this too will be OK.

As before : will it - won't it - can it - can't it - is it - ain't it.

Will ...........turn out OK - or will it convert to:
?turn out OK.


----------



## weigle1234

AlexaKang said:


> Ok Amazon hasn't emailed me at all so should I feel left out? Does the Zon think I'm so hopeless that I shouldn't even bother


Don't feel bad - I've been here at my computer for days on end without a minutes sleep - waiting, waiting, waiting, wa........................


----------



## Colin

weigle1234 said:


> Thanks, I'll give the notepad thing a try. My gut feeling is that it will work OK.
> 
> BTW, I'm typing this reply directly within the forum. My other gut feeling is that this too will be OK.
> 
> As before : will it - won't it - can it - can't it - is it - ain't it.
> 
> Will ...........turn out OK - or will it convert to:
> ?turn out OK.


I see no weird symbols above!


----------



## weigle1234

Colin said:


> I see no weird symbols above!


Thanks - came through just fine on my screen also.


----------



## amdonehere

Ok so, so far Prime day has had no effect on my book rankings. Or is there a delayed reporting going on?


----------



## Accord64

AlexaKang said:


> Ok Amazon hasn't emailed me at all so should I feel left out? Does the Zon think I'm so hopeless that I shouldn't even bother












Nope, nothing for me either. I have the feeling that Prime day is going to be a lot like a Charlie Brown Valentine's Day for me.


----------



## weigle1234

Accord64 said:


> Nope, nothing for me either. I have the feeling that Prime day is going to be a lot like a Charlie Brown Valentine's Day for me.


Cute!


----------



## weigle1234

I have a problem with my Advertising Campaign chart.

Those charts yield all kinds of useful information.  However, my chart almost never lists the Est. Total Sales.  Lately I have been running differing ads for the same book - i.e., split-run testing (A/B testing).  Lacking Est. Total Sales data, there’s no way to compare short-term ad performance.  Or, are there other ways I’m not aware of?

Even if the sales data were there I do not know that I would put much confidence in it - being it is Estimated.  But, it might give me at least a rough idea.

So far I rely on both Impressions and Clicks data - the most important, IMO, being Clicks.  I have always contended that “One click is generally as good as another“ no matter where the ad appears.

The ideal ad location, of course, is on page 1 of the carousel.  Obviously lots of authors on this forum are forking out lots of money (high bids) in hope of grabbing page 1.  My feeling is that most page 1 Clicks are by pure circumstance - for whatever reason that page 1 ad caught their eye; they would have never even considered scrolling into the carousel.

But, the guy who scrolls into carousels is a different animal - he is more discerning.  The more discerning he is, the farther he will be willing to scroll.  IMO, the farther he scrolls before your ad is the one receiving his Click, the higher the odds he will order vs. the guy who Clicks on a page 1 ad.

All of this is pure conjecture, of course.  I am sure it could be proven or disproven, if someone is so inclined and willing to put forth great effort.  That rare someone will not be me.


----------



## Christopher Bunn

weigle1234 said:


> But, the guy who scrolls into carousels is a different animal - he is more discerning. The more discerning he is, the farther he will be willing to scroll. IMO, the farther he scrolls before your ad is the one receiving his Click, the higher the odds he will order vs. the guy who Clicks on a page 1 ad.


It could be that the guy who scrolls into the carousels is also more curious than others. That said, your ad might suffer from his curiosity. He sees it, is intrigued, but then thinks, hmm, I wonder if there's an even more intriguing book on the next set of ads in the carousel? He then scrolls even further...


----------



## weigle1234

Christopher Bunn said:


> It could be that the guy who scrolls into the carousels is also more curious than others. That said, your ad might suffer from his curiosity. He sees it, is intrigued, but then thinks, hmm, I wonder if there's an even more intriguing book on the next set of ads in the carousel? He then scrolls even further...


Good point!

When it comes to advertising, everything is up for grabs - years in the mail order business taught me that. It helps to think "Out of the box;" which isn't that easy. It can drive a guy batty if you don't give it a break.

My motto is; unless your idea is totally ridiculous, give it a shot. Even if it is totally ridiculous, there will always be at least a few nut cases out there who just love your blurb.

As a friend pointed out to me years ago; "If I could understand the human mind I would be a Billionaire."


----------



## Harald

*99-DAY UPDATE:* Here's a quick summary of a single running campaign for a $0.99 series opener (historical fiction novella):
* 402 keywords, 22 of which are selling
* still keeping my bids low: aCPC is $0.02; range of selling keywords: 0.02-0.05
* all selling keywords (except one) are under 35% ACoS; the lone exception is barely above
* overall campaign ACoS is 23% so paying for itself in "raw" terms (+ bonus of KU reads, follow-on sales, etc.). Trickle Effect continues to work.
* 560 Impressions per Click; 15.6 Clicks per Sale
* am busy writing so just letting this one run while I keep an eye on it and doing "constant gardening" as keywords rise and fall.


----------



## khotisarque

Harald said:


> *99-DAY UPDATE:* Here's a quick summary of a single running campaign for a $0.99 series opener (historical fiction novella):
> * 402 keywords, 22 of which are selling
> * still keeping my bids low: aCPC is $0.02; range of selling keywords: 0.02-0.05
> * all selling keywords (except one) are under 35% ACoS; the lone exception is barely above
> * overall campaign ACoS is 23% so paying for itself in "raw" terms (+ bonus of KU reads, follow-on sales, etc.). Trickle Effect continues to work.
> * 560 Impressions per Click; 15.6 Clicks per Sale
> * am busy writing so just letting this one run while I keep an eye on it and doing "constant gardening" as keywords rise and fall.


Curious about the math: 15.6 clicks at 2 cents gives 31 cents ad cost per sale. At $0.99 sale price the overall aCoS looks more like 32%? More important question: how do you get a decent number of views at the 2 cent acpc? Is historical fiction less heavily bid on, or more intensively viewed, than other genres? At the 2 to 5 cent level I struggle to get 1 views per keyword per day, which would suggest, with your 400 keywords and 8000 views per sale, a single sale every 20 days or so per title. My math is based on false assumptions?


----------



## PearlEarringLady

Author A.C. Salter said:


> Having read this thread from the beginning and experienced my own ups and downs with AMS, I think I've learned that nobody really knows how the system works. We're merely Muggles in the Amazon world of Hogwarts.


This is exactly my position, too. The whole thing is a chaotic black-box system. You can repeat an ad exactly, and get a wildly different result, and it's just not possible to predict the outcome. Here are the simple rules I follow:

1) Use as many keywords as possible.

2) Choose a budget that won't break the bank.

3) Monitor results by watching the book's rank, not sales, ACOS, etc.

4) Leave it running until it's no longer cost-effective, measured by increased revenue.

5) Run ads only on new books, first in series, box sets, full-price books.

6) Cross your fingers and hope for the best.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

PaulineMRoss said:


> This is exactly my position, too. The whole thing is a chaotic black-box system. You can repeat an ad exactly, and get a wildly different result, and it's just not possible to predict the outcome. Here are the simple rules I follow:
> 
> 1) Use as many keywords as possible.
> 
> 2) Choose a budget that won't break the bank.
> 
> 3) Monitor results by watching the book's rank, not sales, ACOS, etc.
> 
> 4) Leave it running until it's no longer cost-effective, measured by increased revenue.
> 
> 5) Run ads only on new books, first in series, box sets, full-price books.
> 
> 6) Cross your fingers and hope for the best.


Number 6 seems to be the key.


----------



## Guest

I've now run two ad experiments, so here are my results, if they are useful to anyone. In both cases I did a $5 daily budget, the default 25 cents CPC bid, and the ad ran for my YA love story Aisuru, which was at full price of $4.99.

*Ad 1 ran 6/23 -6/30*
I had 61 keywords, of which 50 had impressions, 17 had at least 1 click, and 1 had sales. For the keyword with sales, average CPC was 16 cents.

Overall impressions: 57,498
Clicks: 54 (though 43 of those came on the last day and seemed to be part of the batch mentioned earlier in the thread of potential fakes).
Sales: 1 or 2 (Amazon says 2, I say 1 because the second one they counted came July 3rd, long after it was done).

Total spend: $9.98
Total earnings: $1.75 (the sale I'm counting was non-US on the .com site and ended up being 30% royalty)

*Ad 2 ran 7/04 -7/11*
I expanded the keywords to 109 (how on earth do y'all come up with 200-300) and changed the ad text. Of those 69 had any impressions and only 14 had clicks. Two had sales (two different ones from the one in the last ad), with ACPC of 8-9 cents.

Overall impressions: 22,913
Clicks: 24 (no fakes yay)
Sales: 2
Total spend: $9.98
Total earnings: $6.84

So lost on both, but book's rank briefly came out of the six digits at least.  Not the best results, but first sales I'd had since May, which is nice. Of course, more would be better, but I suspect that will require me to be way better at the keyword thing to come up with more relevant (and searched) ones.


----------



## Harald

khotisarque said:


> Curious about the math: 15.6 clicks at 2 cents gives 31 cents ad cost per sale. At $0.99 sale price the overall aCoS looks more like 32%?


* Avg cost per click (ACPC) is Total Spend divided by # Clicks. And I'm at 0.02 on that. Average cost of sales (ACoS) is Total Spend divided by Total Sales. I'm at 23% on that. The difference here is how "efficient" each keyword is. I've got some keywords that are 100% efficient, i.e., 1 Click = 1 Sale = 2.02% ACoS. At least half of my selling keywords are under 10% ACoS. Maybe that explains?



> More important question: how do you get a decent number of views at the 2 cent acpc? Is historical fiction less heavily bid on, or more intensively viewed, than other genres? At the 2 to 5 cent level I struggle to get 1 views per keyword per day, which would suggest, with your 400 keywords and 8000 views per sale, a single sale every 20 days or so per title. My math is based on false assumptions?


* Yeah, I think (guess) that bidding prices are very genre dependent. 
* My range of Impressions per Keyword are (daily avg): 250/day down to 0/day, although hard to gauge exactly with newer keywords having less time on the board. I'm guessing that my Selling Keywords average about 20 Imprs/day. (my overall campaign for this book averages about 2k Imprs per day)
* I might go several days without an AMS sale (on this one book) but then rack up 4 AMS sales on one day. My average over 99 days is about 1 sale per 3 days (on this book). Not enough to pay the mortgage obviously but that's the raw baseline. Add KENP Reads, follow-on sales at higher prices for other books, etc., and it starts to look better. 
* Bottomline for me is that AMS is paying for itself and then some. Not a lot of Some but some Some. And with more titles in the pile (coming), who knows what will happen. On va voir, mes amis. On va voir.


----------



## CassieL

I had about ten ads running on Prime day.  Only my romance one kept exceeding its budget throughout the day although my fantasy one seemed to generate sales and borrows as well.  By the end of the day I had my budget up to $100 on the romance title.  Probably lost money on the day if it actually spent that (I had about 6 sales and 5K page reads), but the last few days of Prime Day promos and AMS ads running on that title let me get that book back to about 8K ranking.  It had slipped to 20K or so while I was mostly offline for a few weeks and unable to actively manage the ad.  The performance of that ad compared to my others does confirm my suspicion that just like with everything else, Amazon rewards momentum and prior performance or being brand new and untested.


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## amdonehere

No change for me at all. Just another day in Amazon Land.


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## MichelleD

Hi, I'm new to KBoards! Usually my partner Des keeps an eye on things here and comments but thought I'd give it a whirl myself.  I've been using AMS and overall I think it's working but now I'm evaluating the success of different campaigns. 

One question...when there is a keyword that generates a number of impressions, some clicks but no sales, do you cull that keyword from your list? There is one keyword that I have used over all my campaigns that seems to do this. Do you cull it from your list as it costs you more money with no results? Seems like the answer should be obvious but in this game with Amazon, what really is obvious?


----------



## CassieL

MichelleD said:


> Hi, I'm new to KBoards! Usually my partner Des keeps an eye on things here and comments but thought I'd give it a whirl myself. I've been using AMS and overall I think it's working but now I'm evaluating the success of different campaigns.
> 
> One question...when there is a keyword that generates a number of impressions, some clicks but no sales, do you cull that keyword from your list? There is one keyword that I have used over all my campaigns that seems to do this. Do you cull it from your list as it costs you more money with no results? Seems like the answer should be obvious but in this game with Amazon, what really is obvious?


Welcome!

My personal answer to your question is it depends.

If I have a lot of impressions but almost no clicks (like I get with, for example, Harry Potter for my fantasy novel), I shut down the keyword because obviously even though the book is getting in front of a lot of viewers it isn't what they have any interest in.

If I have a lot of impressions and a good ratio of clicks (at least 1 click per every 2,000 impressions) then if the book is not in KU (so I can only generate sales on it), I shut it down when I hit somewhere between 10 and 20 clicks, figuring that people are looking for KU books and not interested in buying my title at full price.

If I have a lot of impressions and a good click ratio and the book is in KU, then I will generally keep the keyword running but will lower my bid on it. That's assuming I do have sales for other keywords with that number of clicks. So right now on my romance title that's 2/3 KU borrows and 1/3 sales, I have low bids on any keyword where I've had over 15 clicks and no sales because I'd rather focus my advertising money on those keywords that have also generated sales in addition to borrows.

Others have had keywords like that where they paused them and noticed a definite drop in rank and/or page reads, so you have to be prepared to change it back if that happens.


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## weigle1234

My VapoKarb ad is now approaching big numbers.

This is one of my “Just for Kicks” test ads for a DIY book about a gas saving contraption I designed over 30 years ago - which has long since been technologically outdated.  I have no illusions about turning a profit with this ad, it is strictly a test.

I owe a lot to the VapoKarb.  Along with a lucky break (stumbling across a legitimate mailing list that turned out to be pure gold), it got me off to a running start in the mail order business, where I eventually sold over 50,000 copies.

Following are the stats on the ads so far. (I love big stat numbers, they yield very accurate analysis.)

I am Running 2 ads for this 99-cent eBook.  Both ads were launched on June 5.  Each ad is identical  with the exception that Ad #1 is an Automatic ad, while Ad #2 is a 972 Keywords-Stuffed Manual ad. Each ad carries a 2-cent Bid.

Ad #1 (Automatic) - 2-cent Bid:

14 Clicks, 11,672 Impressions - Clicks vs. Impressions - .12%
Ad cost - $0.17

Ad #2 (Manual) (972 Keywords) - 2-cent Bid:

357 Clicks, 822,993 Impressions - Clicks vs. Impressions - .04%
Ad cost - $5.08

9 books sold - $3.15
153 Pages read - approx. $0.76

So, my net loss is $1.17 (something even I can afford).

Without knowing which ad produced which of the 9 sales, it is impossible to make an accurate analysis.  But, I think I can come close.

Assuming the average sale requires 8 clicks (as often mentioned in this forum), I can assume the Auto ad (14 Clicks) is responsible at best for 2 sales.

Obviously the Manual ad, while not very efficient, probably produced 7 or 8 of the 9 sales.  If every 8 Clicks there had produced a sale, the result would have been 44 sales.

While my Manual test ad is a loser (as expected), it probably would have lost even more money had I test run it at the 25-cent default Bid level - although Impression placement would likely have been much different at the 25-cent level (the algorithm factor).

I plan is to let the ads run until the Manual ad reaches about 1,000,000 Impressions.  (which should occur within about 8 days at the present Impression rate).  I may then Pause the ad for about a week and then set it Running again just to see if anything different, or weird (algorithm trickery), occurs.

- After Pause / Restart I intend to allow the ad to continue Running just to see if it eventually reaches saturation - hopefully within my lifetime - and what may occur if it does reach saturation.

Any comments or ideas will be appreciated (other than questioning my sanity for expecting anyone to have wasted valuable time reading this lengthy post).


----------



## Decon

*Okay, enough of this messing about.* No way can I make this work by bidding any higher with my books at* $2.99*, which means I am wasting my money. I'm now in a position where I have had a book ready for 2 months, cover, edited, beta readers, formatted as print and eBook, and I just don't have the heart to publish it I'm so p****d off.

I have had 6 paused ads for a few days now, when my meagre spend for this month produced no sales, and my page reads were in the toilet, and zero print sales for 8 weeks.

*Here's what I am doing as a trial*

First of all I have nothing to lose, as I am selling peanuts and not getting page reads worth mentioning, so earnings are poor $$$ wise.

What I've done is to increase the price to* $4.99* on 5 books & * $3.99* on a collection of shorts. The prices should be active tomorrow.

I have over 1 million impressions each on 3 books and good data on the the others as an early adaptor of AMS. I know exactly what my click to buy ratio is on each one, though the retail price will make a difference to customers buying or not, but it could influence more page reads.

Basically on five of the books I will have $3,40 royalty after the delivery charge to play with insted of $1.90.

*How I've been doing to date*, not including the shorts which is a new ad.

*Click to buy ratio*
book 1. 12 - 1 current click paid $0.09 = $1.08 royalty $1.90 profit $0.82 per sale
book 2. 13 - 1 current click paid $0.04 = $0.52 $1.32
book 3. 19 - 1 current click paid $0.07 = $1.33 $0.57
book 4. 22 - 1 current click paid $0.06 = $1.32 $0.58
book 5. 22 - 1 current click paid $0.07 = $1.54 $0.36

*Now here is where I'm stuck.*

I don't have a clue what to increase my bids to. Looking at those figures, do you have any suggestions? I don't bid high, so I don't know the sort of average figures you pay against what you bid to be in with a chance of getting on first, or early pages. If I bid 51c on every one and end up at 50c per click then my best performing would cost me $6 and the worst one $11 per sale.

To be honest it just seems the math is crap to making it pay when I hear of people bidding $1. Open to ideas to get the trial going.


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## CassieL

Decon said:


> I don't have a clue what to increase my bids to. Looking at those figures, do you have any suggestions? I don't bid high, so I don't know the sort of average figures you pay against what you bid to be in with a chance of getting on first, or early pages. If I bid 51c on every one and end up at 50c per click...


On my ads where I bid in the 50-75 cent range I think I have an overall aCPC somewhere around 30 to 40 cents, so assume you'll end up paying about half of your bid and go from there.


----------



## Jena H

PaulineMRoss said:


> This is exactly my position, too. The whole thing is a chaotic black-box system. You can repeat an ad exactly, and get a wildly different result, and it's just not possible to predict the outcome. Here are the simple rules I follow:
> 
> 1) Use as many keywords as possible.
> 
> 2) Choose a budget that won't break the bank.
> 
> 3) Monitor results by watching the book's rank, not sales, ACOS, etc.
> 
> 4) Leave it running until it's no longer cost-effective, measured by increased revenue.
> 
> 5) Run ads only on new books, first in series, box sets, full-price books.
> 
> *6) Cross your fingers and hope for the best.*


I think this pretty much sums it up. Especially #6.

I appreciate everyone poring over their data and parsing it all, and sharing it with us, but... has it actually TOLD us anything?? Sometimes results are just an effect of random occurrence, and can't be duplicated or quantified.

And, to quote what should become the official (or unofficial) motto of Kboards: what works for one person may not work for another. And what works for you today may not work for you tomorrow.

Going forward, unless there's some big breakthrough on figuring out human nature (and Amazon's metrics) I'm gong to go with Strategy #6 above, or maybe the "spaghetti on the wall" plan.


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## weigle1234

Christopher Bunn said:


> It could be that the guy who scrolls into the carousels is also more curious than others. That said, your ad might suffer from his curiosity. He sees it, is intrigued, but then thinks, hmm, I wonder if there's an even more intriguing book on the next set of ads in the carousel? He then scrolls even further...


Your reply seems logical. But I have been giving it a bit more thought (which I have been known to do on occasion).

Suppose a Strange Duck loves to dig into carousels. He spots your ad on page 4, but decides not to Click it. Instead he keeps digging, and on page 6 he spots the ad of his dreams and Clicks it. All you lost was a potential sale when he glanced at your page 4 ad without Clicking - you lost no money. But the Strange Duck, since he put more effort into finally Clicking on his dream ad, has increased odds of actually buying from that Click compared to the guy who would have just incidentally Clicked the same ad had it appeared on page 1.

If any of this makes sense, please explain it to me.


----------



## weigle1234

Jena H said:


> I think this pretty much sums it up. Especially #6.
> 
> I appreciate everyone poring over their data and parsing it all, and sharing it with us, but... has it actually TOLD us anything?? Sometimes results are just an effect of random occurrence, and can't be duplicated or quantified.
> 
> And, to quote what should become the official (or unofficial) motto of Kboards: what works for one person may not work for another. And what works for you today may not work for you tomorrow.
> 
> Going forward, unless there's some big breakthrough on figuring out human nature (and Amazon's metrics) I'm gong to go with Strategy #6 above, or maybe the "spaghetti on the wall" plan.


Trying to make logical sense of the AMS algorithm may be an exercise in futility and frustration. The algorithm is extremely complex, and beyond understanding without insider knowledge.

I have yet to play around with changing, adding, or deleting Keywords, but will likely give that a try somewhere down the line - just to see what falls out. Right now I am using what you term a Spaghetti approach.

I think we tend to minimize the impact of how Keyword changes affect the algorithm. Basically, the algorithm does not change. It is pretty much cast in stone. But the change of even a single Keyword could trigger it such as to send it off in an entirely different direction - hopefully in a direction in our favor. But not necessarily - the algorithm may suddenly determine that our single Keyword change gives preference to another guys ad - sending our ads into entirely different carousel locations.

The best we can do is make minor changes one-at-a-time, and monitor the results. If we do not like the results, backtrack to the previous Keyword(s) - and then change something else. Making other than minor Keyword changes one-at-a-time, IHMO, is self-defeating. Doing otherwise is pretty much a matter of depending on luck - which sometimes works out. But do no bet your life on it!


----------



## khotisarque

Decon said:


> *Okay, enough of this messing about.*


Quite so. There is an amazing amount of garbage in AMS, a small amount of gold, and prospector's luck never was sold in a bottle.

Fundamental problems: One hundred or more pages of sponsored ads for a single book ensures that virtually nobody reads the tail end. And the upward step process guarantees that the page 1 or 2 or 3 slots are very expensive. On low-priced individual items, it is impossible to make money with such a high click-price-to-proceeds ratio unless you have a wonderful, magical sales-per-click number. Higher prices meet resistance, unless you are already a well-established 'name'.

Why are there a hundred pages of ads? Partly because impressions are free, so there is no penalty for swamping carousels with clearly inappropriate material. Authors should be free to decide on appropriateness, not amazon algos or staff, but those decisions should have some consequences. Even a tiny per-impression price would ease the problem a lot (I think).

Another part of the problem is that AMS is obviously and blatantly stuffing carousels. Reprints of classics at $0.99 or free are clearly not reputable advertizers hoping to make sales; they are fillers to make carousels appear full and competitive. Or possibly fakes used by deep-pockets publishers to deny visibility to shallow-pockets indie authors?

When AMS decides to throw out a lot of their garbage, the ads may become effective again. Or possibly the whole ad space will have fallen into such disrepute among both readers and advertizers that the whole experiment will fail. It would not be the first good Amazon idea to be abandoned because of poor implementation.

Other than that, how was your day?

But is there a better alternative elsewhere?


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## khotisarque

weigle1234 said:


> Trying to make logical sense of the AMS algorithm may be an exercise in futility and frustration. ... But the change of even a single Keyword could trigger it such as to send it off in an entirely different direction - hopefully in a direction in our favor. But not necessarily - the algorithm may suddenly determine that our single Keyword change gives preference to another guys ad - sending our ads into entirely different carousel locations.


And by symmetry, if someone else changes a single keyword, all your ads are treated differently. This is an unstable system, technically referred to as 'CHAOS'.


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## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> And by symmetry, if someone else changes a single keyword, all your ads are treated differently. This is an unstable system, technically referred to as 'CHAOS'.


As good a description as any I suppose. Amazon is like any business, or even ourselves as authors for that matter - looking out for #1, following the money or at least trying to in our own small ways. Thing is, it is their game and the algorithm is set in their favor. If we really think about it, why would it be any different?


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## Accord64

I've said this before: AMS is like playing poker with a deck that's always changing.



> I don't have a clue what to increase my bids to.


And that's the big issue here. I've come to the conclusion that too many in AMS don't care about ROI on a campaign because they commonly place bids that well exceed the royalty of a sale - all for the sake of gaining visibility. Not a bad goal, assuming it leads to increased sales sometime down the road (but I suspect most don't ever see anything out of this).

So in then end, trying to achieve a positive ROI in an AMS campaign is extremely difficult simply because too many are in AMS for something else: visibility at any cost. Amazon doesn't care because they make even more money this way. The house always wins.


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## BillyDeCarlo

Accord64 said:


> And that's the big issue here. I've come to the conclusion that too many in AMS don't care about ROI on a campaign because they commonly place bids that well exceed the royalty of a sale - all for the sake of gaining visibility. Not a bad goal, assuming it leads to increased sales sometime down the road (but I suspect most don't ever see anything out of this).


I think this is spot on, after my own analysis and experience. It's the same concept as those who give their books away for free to get visibility or try to sell follow-ons. It hurts us all and I don't think it achieves the goal in may cases. Freebies are too often just grabbed because, well, they're free so why not. It also leads to flippant bad reviews (oh I thought this dark-looking Vigilante Angels book was a romance....). I'll never do free again. I felt dirty the first time. $1.99 achieves the same goal, but yields motivated readers that have some skin in the game. Just my opinion, of course, for my situation.


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## Decon

LilyBLily said:


> Here are some examples from my top-producing keywords:
> 
> Nonfiction (not competitive), ACPC $0.07:
> $0.40, click cost $0.15
> $0.30, click cost $0.06
> $0.27, click cost $0.07
> $0.26, click cost $0.10
> 
> Romance (lots of competition), ACPC $0.22:
> $0.51, click cost $0.30
> $0.51, click cost $0.33
> $0.46, click cost $0.22
> $0.46, click cost $0.31


That's what I was looking for, really appreciate you taking the time. I think those second set of figures would be nearer the mark for thrillers which are equally competitive.

*My current figures*

Click to buy ratio
book 1. 12 - 1 current click paid $0.09 = $1.08 royalty $1.90 profit $0.82 per sale
book 2. 13 - 1 current click paid $0.04 = $0.52 $1.32
book 3. 19 - 1 current click paid $0.07 = $1.33 $0.57
book 4. 22 - 1 current click paid $0.06 = $1.32 $0.58
book 5. 22 - 1 current click paid $0.07 = $1.54 $0.36

*Price increase to$4.99 bids increased to average 22c actually paid.*

Click to buy ratio
book 1. 12 - 1 current click paid $0.22 = $2.64 royalty $3.40 profit $0.76 per sale
book 2. 13 - 1 current click paid $0.22 = $2.86 $0.54
book 3. 19 - 1 current click paid $0.22 = $4.18 ( $0.7 loss
book 4. 22 - 1 current click paid $0.22 = $4.84 ( $1.44) loss
book 5. 22 - 1 current click paid $0.22 = $4.84 ( $1.44) loss

*Well, that doesn't work unless page reads go viral.*



> @Cassie Leigh. On my ads where I bid in the 50-75 cent range I think I have an overall aCPC somewhere around 30 to 40 cents, so assume you'll end up paying about half of your bid and go from there.


That's out of the ballpark for me. I'd make a loss on every sale, even after increasing my price to $4.99.



> @khotisarque Quite so. There is an amazing amount of garbage in AMS, a small amount of gold, and prospector's luck never was sold in a bottle


As ever. You put it elegantly, LOL.

My problem is that as an early adaptor, I was making an average of $350 per month profit on AMS from virtually nothing. December was amazing with 89,000 page reads alone and tons of sales.

Then it went downhill and this last 3 months I've been lucky to make $50 per month and thats not profit from AMS which has been losing money. Having found a gold deposit, it obviously ran out and I've been looking for the end of the rainbow ever since. Maybe just now it's an illusion for all the reasons you mention.



> @accord 64... that's the big issue here. I've come to the conclusion that too many in AMS don't care about ROI


Good observations on your whole post. I don't think it's a question of not caring about RO1 for all, especially those with a series. Hopefully my figures demonstrate the futility for other than series books and to at least get people to re-evalute instead of thinking that any figure less than ACOS is a profit.

My problem is my click to buy ratio. When I started this, all books averaged 10-1. As more have joined and the pages have extented, maybe more people are now browsing them, clicking and then checking out more books as there is more choice. Back in the day, average was around 5 pages, with many only having a one page carousel. Unfortunatley, because many people try ads short term and chop and change, it's hard for those to get a handle on their avarage click to buy ratio, whereas those who have long term ads, you have a better chance of extracting average data.

Still don't have a clue what to do regards bidding. I might just try only the two best performing click to buy ratio ones at bids similar to Lily Bily's bids and forget the others.


----------



## PearlEarringLady

Accord64 said:


> And that's the big issue here. I've come to the conclusion that too many in AMS don't care about ROI on a campaign because they commonly place bids that well exceed the royalty of a sale - all for the sake of gaining visibility. Not a bad goal, assuming it leads to increased sales sometime down the road (but I suspect most don't ever see anything out of this).


This is why it's critical to know what your ad is trying to achieve. Is it to get a positive ROI on that particular book? Then bid within the royalty margin. But if that book is in KU, or is first in a series, or you have a huge backlist to spin off it, then the calculation becomes a different thing, and you can bid way above the royalty level.

Example 1: my Regency series has six books, with the first at 99c (royalty 35c). But I know from sell-through rates that a sale of book 1 is worth $4-6 of total royalties (depending on whether it's bought or borrowed), so I can bid much, much higher and still make a positive ROI overall. If I had another series or two, that would work even better.

Example 2: I've just released book 8 of my fantasy series. It's a stand-alone, but still - who's going to buy book 8? Not many people, as it turned out. But a LOT of people saw the AMS and FB ads and went on to buy or borrow book 1 and the box set (books 2, 5 and 7 - don't ask), and that's still going on. I spent $845 on AMS and FB ads, plus $400 on other promos, and made $230 from the advertised book itself, but sales and pages read on the others gave me a good positive ROI overall.

Note: neither of these examples is about visibility - they're purely exercises in spending money to make money. One of my AMS ads had a bid of $1.01 and an ACOS of 2372%, the other a bid of 51c and an ACOS of 737, and they MADE MONEY.

I honestly don't think it's necessary to know how the ads work, and one could go mad trying to make sense of them, frankly. Use them like you would any other promo, with a specific goal in mind, and judging effectiveness by rank and increased revenue.


----------



## A past poster

PaulineMRoss said:


> I honestly don't think it's necessary to know how the ads work, and one could go mad trying to make sense of them, frankly. Use them like you would any other promo, with a specific goal in mind, and judging effectiveness by rank and increased revenue.


I think this is the most practical thing we can do.

What I have learned: The cost per click can be misleading. For example, for one book my dashboard said the average cost per click was 20 cents. But when I discovered that the cost per click is listed for each book on the monthly invoice, I found that the actual cost per click for the book that month was 28 cents per book. Although I was still making a profit, I paused the book. The bid had gotten too rich.


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## CassieL

PaulineMRoss said:


> This is why it's critical to know what your ad is trying to achieve. Is it to get a positive ROI on that particular book? Then bid within the royalty margin. But if that book is in KU, or is first in a series, or you have a huge backlist to spin off it, then the calculation becomes a different thing, and you can bid way above the royalty level.
> 
> Example 1: my Regency series has six books, with the first at 99c (royalty 35c). But I know from sell-through rates that a sale of book 1 is worth $4-6 of total royalties (depending on whether it's bought or borrowed), so I can bid much, much higher and still make a positive ROI overall. If I had another series or two, that would work even better.
> 
> Example 2: I've just released book 8 of my fantasy series. It's a stand-alone, but still - who's going to buy book 8? Not many people, as it turned out. But a LOT of people saw the AMS and FB ads and went on to buy or borrow book 1 and the box set (books 2, 5 and 7 - don't ask), and that's still going on. I spent $845 on AMS and FB ads, plus $400 on other promos, and made $230 from the advertised book itself, but sales and pages read on the others gave me a good positive ROI overall.
> 
> Note: neither of these examples is about visibility - they're purely exercises in spending money to make money. One of my AMS ads had a bid of $1.01 and an ACOS of 2372%, the other a bid of 51c and an ACOS of 737, and they MADE MONEY.
> 
> I honestly don't think it's necessary to know how the ads work, and one could go mad trying to make sense of them, frankly. Use them like you would any other promo, with a specific goal in mind, and judging effectiveness by rank and increased revenue.


Yep. Well said.


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## weigle1234

Accord64 said:


> So in then end, trying to achieve a positive ROI in an AMS campaign is extremely difficult simply because too many are in AMS for something else: visibility at any cost. Amazon doesn't care because they make even more money this way. The house always wins.


I think you hit things "Right on the Money."

Here are the exact numbers (stats) for my "Just for Kicks" VapoKarb book test ad (972 Keywords, 2-cent Bid). No ad element has been changed (any change whatsoever and the test will be meaningless). I started the ad on June 6, and I keep accurate records for each and every ad.

Clicks / Impressions - Percentage

June 10 - 62 / 122,593 - .05%
June 11 - 66 / 144,737 - .05%
June 23 - 169 / 398,207 - .04%
June 27 - 189 / 480,809 - .04%
June 30 - 257 / 557,884 - .05%
July 2 - 264 / 590, 468 - .04%
July 6 - 301 / 678,932 - .04%
July 12 - 357 / 822,993 - .04%

The ad has been running for about 37 days. So far the results have been fairly consistent.

I ran my very first ad for my Solar Wizard book from December 26 through May 25 (about 5 months) - in Auto Mode, 25-cent Default Bid - I never changed a single element, same blurb, same everything (mainly because I did not know squat about this algorithm thing - still do not).

I am perusing my charts right now. The Click / Impression stats for that book were a steady .11% about 70% of the time. I see one entry where it hit .13%, a stretch from April 7 through May 25 (when I Terminated the ad) where it hit .10% (a definite anomaly, but a difference from the norm of only .01% - perhaps approaching saturation with 749,446 Impressions?).

Stats kick in with any Keyword change - the fewer the Keywords, the more profoundly the stats will change. If I have 2 Keywords and I change but 1, everything may go crazy. However, If I have 972 Keywords and change but 1, the overall effect will likely be minimal. But, if I start screwing with a bunch of Keywords, everything is up for grabs!

Everyone has different experiences of course. Do I think AMS is screwing with the algorithm? IMHO, no way - It is not the fault of AMS.

As the Pogo character in Walt Kelly's famous comic strip lamented, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."


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## weigle1234

Accord64 said:


> Amazon doesn't care because they make even more money this way. The house always wins.


When you get to be an old guy like me, just about anything reminds me of something else - whether that something was last week, or 60 years ago.

Many years ago I was sitting in the basement cafeteria at a Vegas casino in mid afternoon. The place was practically empty, and I was listening to a couple guys a few tables away. It became obvious that a guy was being interviewed for a position as a Blackjack dealer.

The Interviewer mentioned that that the casino earns $100 per hour per Blackjack table. To which the interviewee replied - But that is only in theory. To which the Interviewer replied - It is not theory at all. At the end of the month when everything is tallied, it is exactly $100 per hour per Blackjack table.


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## ThrillerWriter

PaulineMRoss said:


> This is why it's critical to know what your ad is trying to achieve. Is it to get a positive ROI on that particular book? Then bid within the royalty margin. But if that book is in KU, or is first in a series, or you have a huge backlist to spin off it, then the calculation becomes a different thing, and you can bid way above the royalty level.
> 
> Example 1: my Regency series has six books, with the first at 99c (royalty 35c). But I know from sell-through rates that a sale of book 1 is worth $4-6 of total royalties (depending on whether it's bought or borrowed), so I can bid much, much higher and still make a positive ROI overall. If I had another series or two, that would work even better.
> 
> Example 2: I've just released book 8 of my fantasy series. It's a stand-alone, but still - who's going to buy book 8? Not many people, as it turned out. But a LOT of people saw the AMS and FB ads and went on to buy or borrow book 1 and the box set (books 2, 5 and 7 - don't ask), and that's still going on. I spent $845 on AMS and FB ads, plus $400 on other promos, and made $230 from the advertised book itself, but sales and pages read on the others gave me a good positive ROI overall.
> 
> Note: neither of these examples is about visibility - they're purely exercises in spending money to make money. One of my AMS ads had a bid of $1.01 and an ACOS of 2372%, the other a bid of 51c and an ACOS of 737, and they MADE MONEY.
> 
> I honestly don't think it's necessary to know how the ads work, and one could go mad trying to make sense of them, frankly. Use them like you would any other promo, with a specific goal in mind, and judging effectiveness by rank and increased revenue.


How are you calculating sell-through on borrowed books?


----------



## PearlEarringLady

David Beers said:


> How are you calculating sell-through on borrowed books?


I just assume the sell-through rate is the same as for the bought books. Obviously there's no way of knowing the actual numbers, but I don't see why it would be wildly different.


----------



## LFGabel

I have two books, priced at $4.99. I have four ads running on each, one of them is an automatic (and the least effective so far.)

From the manual ads, I am thinking of creating an additional ad for each book, just for shits and giggles, using only the keywords that produce (good CTR, ACoS & sales) from the others. I am planning to add to the keyword list as time goes on for the producing keywords, just to see what happens. Likely diddly squat, I know. Close my eyes and throw the dart.

Regarding the automatic bidding, I've gotten almost no action at all, and I suspect it's because I'm not bidding enough. However, the same bid amounts and daily budget limits work well on the manual ads. Perhaps Amazon doesn't know how to place my ad in the automatic system. I'm considering pausing them.

One thing I've noticed is financials do improve for me over time, due in large part to my book prices.


----------



## Decon

LFGabel said:


> I have two books, priced at $4.99. I have four ads running on each, one of them is an automatic (and the least effective so far.)
> 
> One thing I've noticed is financials do improve for me over time, due in large part to my book prices.


Have you sold any books an AMS at that $4.99 price? (using the manual one)

How mant clicks per sale at that price. (Manual one.)

"What is you average bid paid in relation to what you bid? (Manual one)


----------



## amdonehere

PaulineMRoss said:


> This is why it's critical to know what your ad is trying to achieve. Is it to get a positive ROI on that particular book? Then bid within the royalty margin. But if that book is in KU, or is first in a series, or you have a huge backlist to spin off it, then the calculation becomes a different thing, and you can bid way above the royalty level.
> 
> Example 1: my Regency series has six books, with the first at 99c (royalty 35c). But I know from sell-through rates that a sale of book 1 is worth $4-6 of total royalties (depending on whether it's bought or borrowed), so I can bid much, much higher and still make a positive ROI overall. If I had another series or two, that would work even better.
> 
> Example 2: I've just released book 8 of my fantasy series. It's a stand-alone, but still - who's going to buy book 8? Not many people, as it turned out. But a LOT of people saw the AMS and FB ads and went on to buy or borrow book 1 and the box set (books 2, 5 and 7 - don't ask), and that's still going on. I spent $845 on AMS and FB ads, plus $400 on other promos, and made $230 from the advertised book itself, but sales and pages read on the others gave me a good positive ROI overall.
> 
> Note: neither of these examples is about visibility - they're purely exercises in spending money to make money. One of my AMS ads had a bid of $1.01 and an ACOS of 2372%, the other a bid of 51c and an ACOS of 737, and they MADE MONEY.
> 
> I honestly don't think it's necessary to know how the ads work, and one could go mad trying to make sense of them, frankly. Use them like you would any other promo, with a specific goal in mind, and judging effectiveness by rank and increased revenue.


Pauline, you and I pretty much have the same strategy now. Every step.

How'd you figured that your Book 8 is directing people to buy Book 1? I've experimented a little by running ads on a later book in the series. Obviously that one gets no buys, but I can't tell if it leads people to buy Book 1 since I have ad running on Book 1 at the same time.


----------



## LFGabel

Decon said:


> Have you sold any books an AMS at that $4.99 price? (using the manual one)
> 
> How mant clicks per sale at that price. (Manual one.)
> 
> "What is you average bid paid in relation to what you bid? (Manual one)


Here's an overview. The ads are staggered because I just started adding more ads as I went to see which would work. The earliest started June 9. I write standalone and I'm wide.


I've sold 9 books (7 horror, 2 YA)
A sale every 32 clicks. I know that's high, but the number has been dropping.
Average bid ranges from $0.14 - $0.24. However, I change my bids depending on what happens. I start at $0.15/keyword. If I get a click, I raise that keyword to $0.30. If I get a sale, I raise that keyword to $0.50. If a keyword hits 2000-3000 without a click, I pause it. I also pause high impression/low click keywords.
Some other stats:

Total ACoS of 108.68%, which is okay for now because I'm also getting organic sales. Since June 9, I've sold 20 books. Only 9 were registered on AMS. If I took into account all sales during that period, my ACoS would be closer to 48%, ROI closer to 43%, a sale every 15 clicks and conversion of 7%. I'm not sure if AMS is helping with visibility that leads to organic sales. Probably not.

Total Impressions: 561,941
Total Clicks: 286
Impr. / Click: 1965
Conversion: 3.15%
Overall ROI: -35.59%
Overall CTR: 0.05%

As I said before, I'm thinking of pausing the automatic ads as they do nothing but spend money (not a lot, however.)


----------



## Decon

LFGabel said:


> Here's an overview. The ads are staggered because I just started adding more ads as I went to see which would work. The earliest started June 9. I write standalone and I'm wide.
> 
> 
> I've sold 9 books (7 horror, 2 YA)
> A sale every 32 clicks. I know that's high, but the number has been dropping.
> Average bid ranges from $0.14 - $0.24. However, I change my bids depending on what happens. I start at $0.15/keyword. If I get a click, I raise that keyword to $0.30. If I get a sale, I raise that keyword to $0.50. If a keyword hits 2000-3000 without a click, I pause it. I also pause high impression/low click keywords.
> Some other stats:
> 
> Total ACoS of 108.68%, which is okay for now because I'm also getting organic sales. Since June 9, I've sold 20 books. Only 9 were registered on AMS. If I took into account all sales during that period, my ACoS would be closer to 48%, ROI closer to 43%, a sale every 15 clicks and conversion of 7%. I'm not sure if AMS is helping with visibility that leads to organic sales. Probably not.
> 
> Total Impressions: 561,941
> Total Clicks: 286
> Impr. / Click: 1965
> Conversion: 3.15%
> Overall ROI: -35.59%
> Overall CTR: 0.05%
> 
> As I said before, I'm thinking of pausing the automatic ads as they do nothing but spend money (not a lot, however.)


Really appreciate you sharing. It's a pity you are not in KU to have page reads data. Yeah, the 32 clicks worries me, but then $4.99 is a tough sell, which is what is worrying me now all my books are $4.99. The only thing I might have an edge with is it will make the books more attractive for KU readers... I hope.

I think the best thing for me to do is to just try increased bids on my best selling book and to see what happpens and to keep a close eye on it.


----------



## PearlEarringLady

AlexaKang said:


> How'd you figured that your Book 8 is directing people to buy Book 1? I've experimented a little by running ads on a later book in the series. Obviously that one gets no buys, but I can't tell if it leads people to buy Book 1 since I have ad running on Book 1 at the same time.


I don't have any ads running on book 1 just now, but it shot from a 100K ranking to better than 10K when book 8 came out. I also have an ad running on the box set (books 2, 5 and 7) and that will be pulling in sales of book 1 too, but I've had ads on that running off and on since it came out and never had such a spectacular effect on book 1, so I'm setting most of the effect at book 8's ads.

ETA: since I stopped the ad on book 8, book 1's rank has dropped from 23K to 45K, even though the ad for the box set is still running. Seems pretty conclusive to me.


----------



## Colin

I'm not sure if this is particularly useful information, but quite interesting nonetheless: For a historical fiction series covering The Great War, I used the well-known book title, All Quiet on the Western Front as a keyword/phrase. After three weeks it has 'gained' zero impressions, zilch, nada, sod all. At the same time - and to see if incorrectly titled books might produce some AMS action - I added the slightly modified, All's Quiet on the Western Front. This has gained 27,000 impressions!

It has also generated ten clicks, but thus far, no sales.


----------



## Decon

Okay, the trial begins now I've increased my books to $4.99.

I've increased my bids subtantially on two books from what they were, but then they were low and I've not gone over the top. I can increase them further as I get data. I've also increased my daily spend.

It's only been 12 hours, but not much movement impression wise, but I'v already had 2 clicks on each book. the average is 26c on one book per click and 16c on the other. 26c paid as an average is too high if I don't get a sale within current click to buy data for the book, or page reads don't follow.

I'll wait and see.


----------



## SuzyQ

I was running a few small ad campaigns for a while, then I heard people were spending big on it so I took another swing at it. Blew through the budget in two days without any actual results. My ranks did jump quite a bit but wow, not a good investment.

So, the overcrowding and high bidding is what is ruining this approach as well? Sigh.


----------



## weigle1234

Accord64 said:


> I've said this before: AMS is like playing poker with a deck that's always changing.


Try Blackjack - be sure to double-down on Aces and Eights!


----------



## weigle1234

Something nice for a change.

I submitted an ad about 30 minutes ago, and moments later an error message popped up regarding a system glitch - and the usual advice on who to contact.

A few minutes later I went back to the Advertising Campaign chart, hoping no damage had occurred.  There was my ad, in all its glory, already up an running - instant approval!

Now, the waiting game - to see if it functions normally.

Happy weekend!


----------



## weigle1234

I have been running quite a few Keyword-Stuffed (like 972 of 'em), 2-cent Bid test ads.  I am finding it to be a great way to test Blurb Impressions on the cheap.

No matter which way the Impressions head, there is no way of losing more than a few cents even if the ad runs for a week or two.

My DIY genre is very small compared to those for most folks on this forum - so I do not know if anything I am testing applies to anyone else here.

For myself, this testing approach creates massive Impression numbers - averaging about 20,000 impressions each day, for each unique Blurb, across my varied Blurb submissions.  When it comes to analyzing stats, those are nice numbers to be testing.


----------



## weigle1234

Exclamation Marks Mystery - !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

An interesting thing just happened - one which is no big deal in the overall scheme of things.

Yesterday I accidentally submitted 2 ads with each containing 2 exclamation marks (a definite no-no since we are allowed only 1 per ad).

As soon as each ad appeared as Pending Review, I double-checked to assure everything was correct.  To my horror, I discovered the errant ads, and immediately resubmitted each ad with but a single exclamation mark.

Both errant ads are now up and Running.  Of all 14 ads submitted yesterday, only 1 was Rejected - an ad identical to others (but for different books) with but a single exclamation mark.

Obviously, not all AMS ad editors are particularly observant.


----------



## weigle1234

While Pausing ads at times may be useful, I believe subsequent results may be drastically different after the ad is placed back to Running.

Let us assume, for example, that an ad has 100,000 Impressions  when Paused.  When placed back to Running:

- Does the now Un-Paused ad continue accumulating Impression exactly beyond 100,000 - e.g., 100,001, 100,002, etc?  If so, do the original 100,000 Impressions still appear in the same carousels?  And, if that is so, it seems the original Impressions may now be occupying vastly different carousel pages since countless other ads have since been introduced.  (The Algorithm will have literally made billions of new calculations each time any new ad for any new book is introduced.)

- In essence Paused ads are actually Reserved ads.  Even though an ad is Paused, the Algorithm must still take all its information into account.  When a new ad for the same book is submitted, the Algorithm must account for the Paused ad carousel locations.  Otherwise, if the Paused ad is Un-Paused, the old ad may have to be shifted to another books carousel to prevent 2 ads for the same book appearing in the same carousel.

If the new ad does not take Paused ad information into account, when the old ad is Un-Paused, some of its ads must now be shifted to new book carousels to prevent those ads from appearing in the same new ad carousels.

Perhaps the most prudent course, if submitting a new ad for the same book, is to first Terminate any Paused ad for the same book.  Otherwise, the new ad results will likely be unpredictable.

Trying to analyze even a fraction of the entire Algorithm scenario is mind-boggling (perhaps an exercise in futility).  There are literally billions of constantly changing and shifting factors being fed into the Algorithm.  The best we can hope for is that while the impact of those factors is constantly being Averaged-Out by the Algorithm, it is being Averaged-Out in our favor - which apparently is not often the case.

IMHO, this is why the Algorithm will always remain a mystery.  The Algorithm is for real, extremely complex (only super-computers can make it work effectively), and basically unchanging - perhaps with minor tweaks being performed on rare occasion.  I feel certain Amazon has invested millions of dollars in developing the Algorithm, and so it will always remain proprietary information - something not to be messed with.


----------



## Colin

LilyBLily said:


> Somewhere here on KBoards there's a comment naming the Amazon algorithm. Sorry I don't know how to find it.


I believe it could be Algorithm #666...


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> Somewhere here on KBoards there's a comment naming the Amazon algorithm. Sorry I don't know how to find it.


Probably obscene - not printable on most forum without moderator censorship.


----------



## khotisarque

Colin said:


> I believe it could be Algorithm #666...


Or love potion #9? But certainly not the First Law of Robotics.


----------



## Decon

Hmm, early days, but since increasing my prices to $4.99 and the bids on two of my book's keywords. I've had 2 AMS sales,  and from no page reads to 1000 page reads.

The cost was $1.69 for the clicks

$4.20 for the page reads 

$6,80 for the royalties. 

So that's $11 earned - cost $1.69 =  Profit $9.31 

Not much faith it will continue, but promising so far.


----------



## bberntson

Decon said:


> Hmm, early days, but since increasing my prices to $4.99 and the bids on two of my book's keywords. I've had 2 AMS sales, and from no page reads to 1000 page reads.
> 
> The cost was $1.69 for the clicks
> 
> $4.20 for the page reads
> 
> $6,80 for the royalties.
> 
> So that's $11 earned - cost $1.69 = Profit $9.31
> 
> Not much faith it will continue, but promising so far.


That's encouraging. I was doing some weird goofy stuff like pausing my ads until about 5pm then letting them run until Midnight, and I noticed I got some major page reads in the evening, along with some sales. That has since dwindled of course, but it was an interesting experiment.


----------



## Jena H

I had paused an ad about July 8, then when I realized Amazon Prime Day was July 11, I unpaused it the day before. Lo and behold my AMS dashboard is crediting the ad with a sale on July 12.  I think I paused the ad again (re-paused) on that same day, the 12th. It's a hardcover sale, which was my goal with the ad.

I can't say that I've learned anything that will be of use, but hey, a result is a result. (In fact, as Mythbusters will teach us, even the _lack_ of result is a result.)


----------



## Author A.C. Salter

Even though my books are urban fantasy, there is a strong romantic thread through the story. So 1 of my keywords is 'romance'. Since beginning AMS in May, I've had plenty of impressions but no clicks on that word and was about to pause it. However, several days ago I had a sale and when I checked, I had a click and a sale for romance and I'm chuffed to buggery. It's a low bid yet I'm reluctant to put it up incase it alters the algorithm.

Maybe if you wait long enough, the algo eventually sweeps you up for a bit.


----------



## Harald

Author A.C. Salter said:


> Even though my books are urban fantasy, there is a strong romantic thread through the story. So 1 of my keywords is 'romance'. Since beginning AMS in May, I've had plenty of impressions but no clicks on that word and was about to pause it. However, several days ago I had a sale and when I checked, I had a click and a sale for romance and I'm chuffed to buggery. It's a low bid yet I'm reluctant to put it up incase it alters the algorithm.
> Maybe if you wait long enough, the algo eventually sweeps you up for a bit.


"chuffed to buggery" eh? Ah, you Brits! 

I've had sales on super-general keywords like "fiction" so if your bids are low and you're not getting many clicks on 'romance' then not much of a damp squib, is it?


----------



## khotisarque

Harald said:


> "chuffed to buggery" eh? Ah, you Brits!
> 
> I've had sales on super-general keywords like "fiction" so if your bids are low and you're not getting many clicks on 'romance' then not much of a damp squib, is it?


Hey, keywords are free. Why not try "chuffed" and "buggery" and "damp" and "squib". Maybe not too many impressions unless a cult forms ;-) but those that do match might give 100% sales-to-clicks-to-impressions ratios.


----------



## Harald

LilyBLily said:


> Had to look both idioms up. Learned something.
> ...
> It's all a game, but at least by doing these ads I'm in the game instead of watching on the sidelines.


Right on! (and another idiom


----------



## Author A.C. Salter

"chuffed to buggery" eh? Ah, you Brits! 
Yeah sorry - at least I didn't use military terminology.


----------



## quiet chick writes

I just can't get Amazon to take any of my money. I have my best keywords set to $0.25-$0.45. My daily spend is $10, but the ad only uses up pocket change, at most. My sales to clicks is good, ACoS 33%, but I'm just not getting many impressions most days. (~1000 a day over the whole set of keywords) It's kind of hard to get clicks if they're not showing my ad to anyone. I've tried pausing and unpausing, but the ad is just crawling. Most of the previous ads I've tried would at least get an initial burst of impressions, but this one has been slow crawling since it was born. Using the same keywords that performed well for previous ads. 

How many impressions a day are you guys getting? 

I'm not in KU, by the way, if that makes a difference.


----------



## Guest

My first ad, averaged 8,214 impressions a day, and got about 1 click per 1,065/impressions or so.

Second ad, run a few days later and with more keywords, the average dropped to 3,272/day, but the click rate went up to about 1 click for every 954 impressions.

Still working on another round of keyword expansion to try round three.

I had all mine set to 25 cent rates for the keywords.


----------



## BillyDeCarlo

Laura Rae Amos said:


> I just can't get Amazon to take any of my money.


They have no shortage of people throwing money at them. That's one problem. I think their algorithm factors in how good the books are (probably based on number and average review score, and how many people finish reading it), and how 'saleable' they feel the book is by other factors (rank in genre, etc) , how popular you are as an author (number of backlist or series titles, author page following on amazon.com) before they place the ad. Remember, your ad money at so many cents per click *if* someone clicks it, is a pittance compared to the revenue they get if someone buys a book that they are placing.

So that's the primary goal of the algorithm, and what I'd be looking at if I was writing the code.


----------



## CassieL

BillyDeCarlo said:


> They have no shortage of people throwing money at them. That's one problem. I think their algorithm factors in how good the books are (probably based on number and average review score, and how many people finish reading it), and how 'saleable' they feel the book is by other factors (rank in genre, etc) , how popular you are as an author (number of backlist or series titles, author page following on amazon.com) before they place the ad. Remember, your ad money at so many cents per click *if* someone clicks it, is a pittance compared to the revenue they get if someone buys a book that they are placing.
> 
> So that's the primary goal of the algorithm, and what I'd be looking at if I was writing the code.


I think they do look at momentum, but I don't think the factors you've listed matter to them. My most successful ad the book only has 11 reviews and that ad would spend $40+ a day every day if I let it. That pen name only has two titles out and I doubt it has any Amazon followers. It's in contemporary romance which is highly competitive so I don't think it's on any of the top lists anywhere. What got that ad moving was a strong free run that led to a number of borrows in a short period of time and then AMS have allowed me to keep it at the rank it achieved during that free run.


----------



## quiet chick writes

Cassie Leigh said:


> What got that ad moving was a strong free run that led to a number of borrows in a short period of time and then AMS have allowed me to keep it at the rank it achieved during that free run.


I think you might be onto something with this theory. The only time I ever had an ad spend close to its limit was when I did a 99c promo and the book was selling better than normal. That ad still gets more impressions than my other (the slow ad, for a different book) even after the fact. Maybe I'll run a promo on the the book with the slow ad and see if that makes a difference. Kind of dumb that you have to get your book selling on your own first before the ad will work to sell your book, lol!


----------



## Steven Kelliher

My random experience with PD ads taking off like rockets. Some here may have advice or find it useful. 

So ... I've recently been experimenting with PD ads more than SP. I find that when PD ads take off, they're WAY more effective than SP for me personally, even though everyone has told me not to bother with them. 

That said, AMS's reporting delays have made it really difficult to scale ads and avoid overspending. 

What I did: Started 16 PD ads on July 1 with low bids (11c). Those ads sat for two weeks and generated zero reported impressions across the board. Setting: "Run as quickly as possible."

I then went into the ads and adjusted the bids up to 26c across the board. Three days later, impressions ROCKETED. Thousands and thousands, and by the time I saw those reported numbers, I had spent $300 across 16 ads. I jumped in in a panic and adjusted them down to 16c bids, but with clicks still coming in furiously at the new bid (I'm now over $450 in spend this week alone,) I adjusted them down again to 12c on Tuesday. The data that I'm getting in today is still displaying 16c spending, so I'm not sure yet if the 12c bids are spending or not. 

Book sales did shoot up, but not enough to account for the spend at the 26c rate. 

That said, this whole experience has given me a weird theory that I sort of tricked the system into kicking off my two-week old ads by adjusting/increasing bids, and then when I scaled back down, they kept going. It's almost like once the ads have kicked off, the bids don't matter as much, but the bids may have to be higher to actually catch the attention of the system. 

Maybe the system would have eventually kicked the ads off at the 11c bids, but according to my reporting, not a single impression ever came from those low bids. Only when I scaled up did I get impressions/clicks. 

Either way, the reporting delays (3 days on average) is really pretty ridiculous.


----------



## CassieL

I decided to set up a new ad for my fantasy novel that has about 5 million impressions across all of its ads at this point and for the first time ever I saw that they were actually suggesting some author names as keywords for that ad. Usually their suggestions are such helpful things as "edition" and "trilogy". Nicely enough their list of author names coincided pretty closely with my list of top authors who've generated sales for me with one exception which was an author who'd been in my also-boughts at one point but had never shown sales on my AMS reports.

I checked a few other books and my romance novel that has about 2 million impressions across its ads was also showing some author names, but another one of my books that has far fewer impressions across its ads didn't have any author names suggested.

For those who have ads with a lot of impressions built up who are in KU it may be worth looking at to see which authors are listed in case any of your no sales but lots of clicks authors are on there.

Also, the latest notice email I received said it could take as long as* 3 business days* to review my ad.


----------



## CassieL

Steven Kelliher said:


> My random experience with PD ads taking off like rockets. Some here may have advice or find it useful.
> 
> So ... I've recently been experimenting with PD ads more than SP. I find that when PD ads take off, they're WAY more effective than SP for me personally, even though everyone has told me not to bother with them....


When I was working on the AMS book I started a PD ad for my beginning writer book and set it to spend as fast as possible and it took off and spent something like $50 on its first day, but I didn't see an equivalent level of sales to match the spend so shut it down. It took some time to shut down, too, so cost me a pretty penny by the time all was said and done. I think PD ads are a way to get a lot of impressions fast, and one of my most successful ads on a romance novel (over a year ago) was using them, but I think they can be much more costly to use because they spend so quickly and don't shut down immediately.

I've also noticed with the handful I've run recently that they won't run at my original bid and I have to keep pushing it higher and higher until they kick in which sounds like what you found as well. It's sort of feast or famine with them. I either have no impressions or tons of them.


----------



## khotisarque

BillyDeCarlo said:


> They have no shortage of people throwing money at them. That's one problem. I think their algorithm factors in how good the books are (probably based on number and average review score, and how many people finish reading it), and how 'saleable' they feel the book is by other factors (rank in genre, etc) , how popular you are as an author (number of backlist or series titles, author page following on amazon.com) before they place the ad. Remember, your ad money at so many cents per click *if* someone clicks it, is a pittance compared to the revenue they get if someone buys a book that they are placing.
> 
> So that's the primary goal of the algorithm, and what I'd be looking at if I was writing the code.


Putting aside the philosophical question as to whether the ad-carrier's staff should be making value judgments on which products to push, I queston whether the ad revenue stream is really a pittance compared to sales margin. On a $2.99 book, Amazon takes $0.90 off the top as its share. At a supposedly typical 10 clicks per sale, and for example an acpc of $0.10, the AMS revenue exceeds the primary margin. At the suggested bid level of around 25 cents, the acpc is likely to be in the 12 to 15 cents range, giving AMS perhaps $1.20 to $1.50 per sale. More than a pittance. At higher book prices, the situation may be reversed, but the ad stream is still significant.

It is entirely possible that the most efficient way to use AMS, from an author's point of view, is to bid low and seek exposure without clicks; background passive brand awareness at zero cost. Then run non-AMS promotions in front of a potential readership who have at least seen your name somewhere before (like on page 77 of a sponsored product carousel).


----------



## CassieL

LilyBLily said:


> Then my sales took off exponentially--they had nearly flatlined, so it's not a fortune we're talking about--and the engine has been running smoothly ever since. Since then I have run a couple of ads elsewhere, but they never did a lot. It was the usual: discount my book to almost no profit per sale, and barely make enough sales to cover the ad cost.
> 
> AMS has been consistently profitable, although not for every ad I've done...
> 
> Now that I have a complete series, do I even need the AMS ad? Yes, I believe so, since it's not a best-seller. All the anecdotal evidence this year has been that continuous advertising is now necessary to keep a book selling, whether that advertising takes the form of frequent new releases or of ads. I don't release as often as I'd like, so I intend to keep the ads going.


Yep, sounds like my experience with them as well. I had books that weren't selling, started the ads, and started to see steady sales but know that if I stop the ads those sales will go away again.

Since I'm horrible at linking to screenshots here, I did a blog post on the AMS ads and free run combo. If anyone wants to read it, it's at https://mlhumphrey.com/2017/07/21/the-difference-ams-can-make/. Short and sweet summary is that doing a free run on a romance novel goosed a long-running AMS ad into being much more active than before and has resulted in about $1275 in sales/page reads on that title in the last two months. A big difference from the first free run I did on that title that paid for itself but didn't sustain sales or rank for all that long after.


----------



## Decon

Cassie Leigh said:


> Yep, sounds like my experience with them as well. I had books that weren't selling, started the ads, and started to see steady sales but know that if I stop the ads those sales will go away again.
> 
> Since I'm horrible at linking to screenshots here, I did a blog post on the AMS ads and free run combo. If anyone wants to read it, it's at https://mlhumphrey.com/2017/07/21/the-difference-ams-can-make/. Short and sweet summary is that doing a free run on a romance novel goosed a long-running AMS ad into being much more active than before and has resulted in about $1275 in sales/page reads on that title in the last two months. A big difference from the first free run I did on that title that paid for itself but didn't sustain sales or rank for all that long after.


I've not read it all, but it's very interesting. I've been long on the opinion that by itself AMS won't do it and that you need to gain rank besides having early visibiily on the carousel. You're post seems to back that up. (I think)

I posted on here a while back asking if contibutors on here had stopped free ad promos or slowed them down and didn't really get any feedback, so your blog post is worth its weight in gold. The reason I asked was that I more or less stopped my free days since joining AMS last year and I had a severe drop in rank. It's my belief that you have to maintain a combination of free promos and AMS for a continuous tail of buys, reads, and paper book sales. I believe that's why increasing bids alone for visiblitiy on the carousel doesn't cut it, because there is one valuable factor missing in a customers decision to buy.

Here's how I see AMS working.

*Basics*

1, Good cover genre appropriate.

2, Reasonable star reviews.

3, Good ad blurb.

4, Placed on the whole with appropriately priced books for the main keyword.

5, Bids sufficient for early carousel placement.

*Customer reaction.*

1, Reader clicks.

2, Checks attributes including rank in relation to retail price.

3, The lower the stars or rank, the less chance of a buy if priced at $2.99 - $4.99

3, Buys or moves on.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Cassie Leigh said:


> Yep, sounds like my experience with them as well. I had books that weren't selling, started the ads, and started to see steady sales but know that if I stop the ads those sales will go away again.
> 
> Since I'm horrible at linking to screenshots here, I did a blog post on the AMS ads and free run combo. If anyone wants to read it, it's at https://mlhumphrey.com/2017/07/21/the-difference-ams-can-make/. Short and sweet summary is that doing a free run on a romance novel goosed a long-running AMS ad into being much more active than before and has resulted in about $1275 in sales/page reads on that title in the last two months. A big difference from the first free run I did on that title that paid for itself but didn't sustain sales or rank for all that long after.


Cassie, did you pause the ad while your free promo was running?


----------



## CassieL

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Cassie, did you pause the ad while your free promo was running?


No. I let it run through the free period.

When I tried the same thing on my fantasy novel I did pause the ad and actually ran an ad specific to the free run and only went back to the old ad after the free run was over. That one didn't do as well, but it also didn't have as high of a peak rank when it came off its free run which I think was the bigger issue with its performance.


----------



## Gertie Kindle

Cassie Leigh said:


> No. I let it run through the free period.
> 
> When I tried the same thing on my fantasy novel I did pause the ad and actually ran an ad specific to the free run and only went back to the old ad after the free run was over. That one didn't do as well, but it also didn't have as high of a peak rank when it came off its free run which I think was the bigger issue with its performance.


Thanks, Cassie. I think I'll let it run. My rank right now is 62,758. I do okay on KU follow-thru reads, too, but sales have been dismal.


----------



## EmparentingMom

Hi, I apologize if this question has already been asked and answered - but I wasn't able to find it anywhere. 

I have an AMS ad that's actually doing pretty well. One thing I noticed, however, is that even though a keyword for a very popular book (ranking around 5000 paid) is consistently causing my book to appear on page 1 - the AMS reporting is showing something like 140 impressions. Which makes zero sense. 

Are AMS reporting delays really that bad? I added the keyword yesterday morning, and I suppose it's vaguely possible that the reporting just hasn't caught up yet. But generally I have seen impressions (as opposed to sales and, sometimes, clicks) updating fairly quickly.  Anyone know of another possible explanation for this? 

Thanks!


----------



## EmparentingMom

Hi - Yes, it is on page 1 _of the carousel under the book_ for the relevant keyword. Whenever I open the page of that book, it appears - so I know the keyword is showing. The impressions just aren't appearing on the report. But then - maybe it is a delay. Have you ever had impressions or clicks show up a couple of days late? I know there are _some_ delays, because my budget has been used up but not all clicks are appearing.


----------



## EmparentingMom

Yes, checking impressions and clicks has become yet another method of avoiding actual work...


----------



## Jena H

One thing I don't get about Amazon.  I normally use an ad-blocking program, which I turn off when I run an ad, so I can (hopefully) see my book in a carousel.  But the ad block program doesn't always seem to travel from one page (or open tab) to the next.  That's annoying.

So that's a pet peeve.  But my question is, why is it that some books don't seem  to have any Sponsored Products books?  I mean, no carousel at all.  And I'm not talking about obscure books that nobody has ever heard of (and don't advertise on).  I'm talking some 'big' books, or books from well-known authors.  Heck, even some of MY piddly, nowhere books have ads on them.  But other books...  nothing.  As we used to say when we were kids, I wonder how come??


----------



## khotisarque

Would Occam's Razor suggest a high garbage content in the famed 'algorithms'?  When they work they can work well, but often they fail to work and randomness prevails?


----------



## Jackson Lear

Some very minor findings I have found ...

I ran an ad using only author names who use a full stop (J.K. Rowling, for example). I got tired of adding the varieties of those names into each ad (J.K., JK, and J K), so I ran a test with 100 author names and tried out 3 variations for each one. After running it for 2 weeks with 2,000 impressions, my results are:

No full stops and no spaces (such as 'JK') is by far the most popular. It came up 73.52% of the time.
No full stops but using spaces (such as 'J K' is the next most popular. This and the above makes up 94.93%
Full stops in the name was by and large a dud. Sometimes the J.K. version of an author's name was more popular than the JK or J K version, but the full stop versions would've been at 5 impressions and the others were at 1 or 2.

Now I can stop typing all of those pesky full stops.


----------



## Jena H

Jackson Lear said:


> Some very minor findings I have found ...
> 
> I ran an ad using only author names who use a full stop (J.K. Rowling, for example). I got tired of adding the varieties of those names into each ad (J.K., JK, and J K), so I ran a test with 100 author names and tried out 3 variations for each one. After running it for 2 weeks with 2,000 impressions, my results are:
> 
> No full stops and no spaces (such as 'JK') is by far the most popular. It came up 73.52% of the time.
> No full stops but using spaces (such as 'J K' is the next most popular. This and the above makes up 94.93%
> Full stops in the name was by and large a dud. Sometimes the J.K. version of an author's name was more popular than the JK or J K version, but the full stop versions would've been at 5 impressions and the others were at 1 or 2.
> 
> Now I can stop typing all of those pesky full stops.


That's good info to know.

My question about using popular author names is the fact that it's impossible to know which of their books my ad will appear in--or how many of them. For example, if someone who writes thrillers uses James Patterson as a keyword... which of Patterson's ten gazillion books would that author look at to find his ad on the carousel?  As it is, I have to randomly check books to see if my ad is visible.


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

I'm back to report on the status of my "set it and let it run" ad (cozy mystery) that I started because my first couple of AMS ads got me nowhere (in romance--still paused), and my efforts to manage the ads were often counterproductive since I knew squat about what I was doing.

The ad's now been running for about 3 1/2 months.  $2/day max (never comes close, haven't even spent $1/day very consistently), $0.21 bid max on all KWs.

The first almost three months were at a $0.99 price, the last at a $3.99 price. 

At the lower price, I got about 2000 impressions/day. At the higher, it's only been running about 1500 imp/day. I have no idea where they appear on the carousels because I gave up trying to find them--didn't seem worth my time to bother.  After the first week of settling in, the ACPC has been fixed at $0.13--no deviation on that whatsoever.  Ditto about 500-550 imp/click and about 6-8 clicks/sale.  After the first couple of months I did add a few kws and pause others, but nothing major.  My ACOS at $0.99 ran about 110%. The ACOS at $3.99 has, of course, dropped and continues to drop. It's currently at 78% and will fall considerably farther in the next couple of days, assuming at least some of the sales shown on the dashboard over the past couple of days are credited to the ad.

At the higher price point, the ad will be more than paying for itself in sales alone. I believe it's paid for itself all along with borrows, but I can't prove that, of course. What I CAN attribute to the ad is a smoothing of the revenue stream--I don't think it's gotten me any significant bumps in either sales or borrows, but it has definitely smoothed in the holes--rank is holding steadier and both sales and borrows are more stable, too.

So....I'll continue to let this one run and am going to redo one of the romance ads and start another on a book I haven't had in AMS before. I'll try playing with one and leaving the other to run steadily like the cozy ad and see where that gets me.

Again, thanks to everyone on this thread. I've learned a lot, even though some of it makes my head spin!


----------



## RD

The answer to this is probably obvious, but if I have a keyword that has 35 impressions and 3 clicks, I should probably increase something like that? Right now it sits at .05 

Will this net more impressions with more of an investment? Say .15 instead? This issue is the keyword has been sitting for about a month with no sales, so I want to boost activity.


----------



## Decon

Well, 8 days ago, I increased the price of my books to $4.99 from $2.99 and increased my bids. The hope was that it would kick start sales and page reads via AMS.

The results have not been what I was expecting, but I'm reasonably happy. So far I have had 8 sales at the new price, but only one of them is attributed to AMS on one of the books. That cost me $8 to make $3,40 royalty, so thats a loss. Of course the other books are stacking up clicks with no sales and so they add to the loss, although the clicks are at a lower rate.

However, I've gone from zero to 1849 page reads during that period @ 0.0042 =$7.77

Don't know what to make of it just yet apart from people are prepared to pay $4.99 for my books. That's something I really wasn't expecting.


----------



## CassieL

RD said:


> Will this net more impressions with more of an investment? Say .15 instead? This issue is the keyword has been sitting for about a month with no sales, so I want to boost activity.


It might. The higher your bid the more likely you are to get impressions as long as Amazon thinks that keyword is relevant for your book. Only way to know is to bump your bid and see what happens.


----------



## CassieL

Decon said:


> So far I have had 8 sales at the new price, but only one of them is attributed to AMS on one of the books....
> 
> However, I've gone from zero to 1849 page reads during that period @ 0.0042 =$7.77


Sounds to me like a success with page reads counted.

I'd expect a few more of those 8 sales will be attributed to the ad eventually. I'm seeing a four day+ delay in sales being credited to my ads right now.


----------



## Author A.C. Salter

OK- chuffed to buggery period is over. I've had some generous page reads over the last couple of weeks and a few sales. Nothing spectacular but good for me. Yet it has suddenly dropped off. 4 days of Zilch. I dont know if the algorithm has shifted again or not but I'm going to drop the 1st in my trilogy to 99cents and see what happens.

Who dares, wins - and all that.


----------



## Decon

Cassie Leigh said:


> Sounds to me like a success with page reads counted.
> 
> I'd expect a few more of those 8 sales will be attributed to the ad eventually. I'm seeing a four day+ delay in sales being credited to my ads right now.


Yes you're right. but it was only one sale more. Still that's $3.40 into the pot.


----------



## Donna White Glaser

Decon said:


> Well, 8 days ago, I increased the price of my books to $4.99 from $2.99 and increased my bids. The hope was that it would kick start sales and page reads via AMS.
> 
> The results have not been what I was expecting, but I'm reasonably happy. So far I have had 8 sales at the new price, but only one of them is attributed to AMS on one of the books. That cost me $8 to make $3,40 royalty, so thats a loss. Of course the other books are stacking up clicks with no sales and so they add to the loss, although the clicks are at a lower rate.
> 
> However, I've gone from zero to 1849 page reads during that period @ 0.0042 =$7.77
> 
> Don't know what to make of it just yet apart from people are prepared to pay $4.99 for my books. That's something I really wasn't expecting.


Interesting. I've been pondering whether to adjust my books from $3.99 to $4.99. When I went from $2.99 to $3.99 a couple years ago, I saw no change in momentum, but when I tried the same thing from $3.99 to $4.99 sales lagged. Might be worth a month of experimenting though.


----------



## Decon

Donna White Glaser said:


> Interesting. I've been pondering whether to adjust my books from $3.99 to $4.99. When I went from $2.99 to $3.99 a couple years ago, I saw no change in momentum, but when I tried the same thing from $3.99 to $4.99 sales lagged. Might be worth a month of experimenting though.


Yeah, I'm not sure it will work long term. I haven't had a sale since posting, so I'll have to hold my nerve for a month and see what happens


----------



## weigle1234

Donna White Glaser said:


> Might be worth a month of experimenting though.


To further add to the Keyword confusion factor, I just discovered another deviation from the norm (at least for myself) while preparing my latest AMS ad.

Until now, all my Manual test ads have included a usual 20-30 Suggested Keywords option. I have always included all 20-30 since they generally seem to be effective (although I have never closely analyzed their effect). For my latest test ad, AMS now offered 80 Suggested Keywords - all of which I included. This will likely have little effect on my 2-Cent Bid, Keyword Stuffed test ads.

However, it seems that most authors on this forum are not Keyword Stuffing. So, if their new ads were to include all 70+ Suggested Keywords, adding all 70+ could possibly have a proportionately significant impact on ad effectiveness.

The most cautious approach might be to eliminate Suggested Keywords altogether - especially if AMS starts varying their quantity willy-nilly.

Since my DIY genre is fairly small, all my 2-Cent Bid, Keyword Stuffed test ads produce lots of Impressions / Bids - which I believe makes ad analysis more accurate. The most responsive such test ad so far (Running since July 9) has generated 315,312 Impressions and 181 Clicks (Click / Impression factor of approximately .06%).

I am running a total of 53 test ads for 9 books, and all 9 ads are actually showing a profit, albeit very small profits. But, my intention has always been to disregard profits (and losses) in lieu of gathering test data. Hopefully, I will eventually be able to make some sense of the data - and begin scaling things up with the few most effective test ads. All my testing efforts may well turn out to have been in vain - but, at this point, I see no other logical approach. Plain old intuitive trial-and-error guesswork may turn out to be just as effective.


----------



## weigle1234

I have been using Google searches in hopes of determining the total quantity of eBooks in the Kindle library.  The most reliable estimate I seem to be able to locate so far is 5 Million - dated January 13, 2017.

My VapoKarb test ad (eBook cost of 99-Cents), which has been Running since June 5, 2017, has generated 1,128,671 Impressions and 480 Clicks so far - for a very consistent Click / Impression factor of approximately .04%.

I am puzzled as to how this 2-Cent Bid, 972 Keyword Stuffed ad can be appearing in approximately 20% of 5 Million ad carousels - it just does not seem possible.  Even more mind-boggling is the fact that of those carousels in which I have located it, the ad often appears on carousel pages 1 or 2 (my DIY genre is fairly small).

I am by no means complaining.  It is strictly a test ad, never intended to make money.  So far it has generated Royalties and Page Reads yielding about $4.01 - with ad Spent of $7.16 - for a net loss of $3.15.  IMO that is a pretty good investment for a test ad appearing more than a million times.

Especially since the ad always seems to appear alongside at least 3 or 4 of my other unique test ads - thus drawing at least some attention to those eBooks - which, in turn, hopefully draw attention to my paperbacks (where the vast majority of my piddling profits seem to be generated).  It is possible that the majority of those piddling paperback profits may have even been organically generated.

My plan is to run the VapoKarb test ad indefinitely.  Surely, some fine day it will eventually reach saturation.  If saturation is close to 5 million Impressions, I will become suspicious!


----------



## BillyDeCarlo

Is there any way to remove keywords? I only see the pause option. I'm close to the 1,000 limit and want to remove the paused ones to make room. Also at one point I added keywords to the wrong book. I had to pause them, there are a lot, I'd like to be able to remove them also.


----------



## CassieL

BillyDeCarlo said:


> Is there any way to remove keywords? I only see the pause option. I'm close to the 1,000 limit and want to remove the paused ones to make room. Also at one point I added keywords to the wrong book. I had to pause them, there are a lot, I'd like to be able to remove them also.


No.



weigle1234 said:


> I am puzzled as to how this 2-Cent Bid, 972 Keyword Stuffed ad can be appearing in approximately 20% of 5 Million ad carousels - it just does not seem possible. Even more mind-boggling is the fact that of those carousels in which I have located it, the ad often appears on carousel pages 1 or 2 (my DIY genre is fairly small).


This is the second time you've made a statement along these lines (or at least that points to the same underlying belief) and I think you're not understanding how the AMS ads work. They're not static. Every single time a customer goes to a product page, a new AMS auction happens. Just because your ad is on a book's page once doesn't mean it will be there the next time. And if it is that will be counted as a new impression.

So, say there are 5 million books in the store. And that on average each of those books has 100 customers viewing it on any given day. That means there are 500 million possible views that could occur for one day. Times that by eight books that display on the first page of the carousel. That's 4 billion possible impressions. On one day. For just books.

Each product page view is a new set of at least eight impressions.


----------



## BillyDeCarlo

Cassie Leigh said:


> No.


If I copy the ad to a new one (assuming at some point that's my last resort) will I get the opportunity to prune keywords?

I guess the best option is to start a new ad with additional keywords when I discover them. I have released book two in the series, but it seems that ads for a book other than the first one aren't a good idea.


----------



## CassieL

BillyDeCarlo said:


> If I copy the ad to a new one (assuming at some point that's my last resort) will I get the opportunity to prune keywords?
> 
> I guess the best option is to start a new ad with additional keywords when I discover them. I have released book two in the series, but it seems that ads for a book other than the first one aren't a good idea.


Yes, you can remove keywords when you copy an existing ad before you submit it for review. Another option is to download your current list of keywords, prune the ones you don't want, and then copy and paste the remaining words into your new ad. Shouldn't take that long to do. That's what I do because I also use that as an opportunity to segment my keywords based on performance and set up bids that reflect that.

Just know that sometimes copying an ad affects performance. You can keep everything the same and a successful ad won't be successful anymore when copied. So always pause old ads rather than terminating them.

I've actually run an ad on a book 3 of a series because I thought the cover for book 3 might pull in different readers. It was marginally successful. I spent $60 and had $45 in reported sales on the ad plus whatever KU borrows it generated. Only way to know is to try.


----------



## Jena H

Okay, here's an issue I've never seen addressed, and I'm starting to become unhappy about this....

My non-fiction books are related to an old television show.  So I thought it was a no-brainer to run an ad for these books, and use as my keywords "Show Title season one," "Show Title season two," etc., so the book would appear whenever anyone looked at the show DVDs.  Simple, no??  It's not a Game of Thrones type of show, it's relatively niche-y and small, so I thought my chances were good.

Well, I've looked at a number of versions of the show's DVDs, and they have sponsored products ranging from 3 pages to about 18 pages.  And my ad DOES NOT appear in any one of those pages.  All I see are ads for other DVDs.   I thought the purpose of the AMS ad was that an ad for product A can be seen on the page for product I, whether they're both books or not.

Does anyone have any knowledge of whether we can run ads on non-book pages??


----------



## CassieL

Jena H said:


> Does anyone have any knowledge of whether we can run ads on non-book pages??


I definitely think you can. I've used words like that and had impressions recorded but never gone looking for them on the carousel.

This also might be one where it would be good to try a Product Display ad instead because then you could specifically select all of the DVDs to target.


----------



## Decon

I had this happen to me with Von Danikan books when I listed his titles which are kind of niche. The only way I got them to show was to use his name rather than his titles which I added after approval. I think Amazon at times considers some keywords as not applicable to your product at the approval stage, and so turns them off at their end, but they are not consistant.


----------



## Jena H

Cassie Leigh said:


> I definitely think you can. I've used words like that and had impressions recorded but never gone looking for them on the carousel.
> 
> This also might be one where it would be good to try *a Product Display ad* instead because then you could specifically select all of the DVDs to target.


This might be a good idea. I'll try it as a PD ad next time.



Decon said:


> I had this happen to me with Von Danikan books when I listed his titles which are kind of niche. The only way I got them to show was to use his name rather than his titles which I added after approval. I think Amazon at times considers some keywords as not applicable to your product at the approval stage, and so turns them off at their end, but they are not consistant.


As far as I can tell, all my keywords are included and operative now. Sounds like your situation was a little different from mine, as I don't have a person's name to attach to the product. Glad you got your ad the way you wanted it, and I hope it was successful.


----------



## weigle1234

Cassie Leigh said:


> Just because your ad is on a book's page once doesn't mean it will be there the next time. And if it is that will be counted as a new impression.
> 
> Each product page view is a new set of at least eight impressions.


My understanding is that an ad Impression for any one of my eBooks remains on a unique product (another eBook) carousel as long as my ad is Running. The only reason my ad would disappear from that carousel is if I were to either Pause or Terminate the ad.

However, my ad position within the carousel would depend on various other factors (others Bids, others Keywords, etc.) as determined by the Algorithm at any particular moment. For example, my ad may appear on carousel Page 1, but when that same eBook page is viewed minutes later by another individual, my ad may then appear on carousel Page 7. But, my ad would always remain somewhere within that carousel. Is this correct?

For whatever reason, a maximum of 6 Impressions / carousel page appear on my screen. In some instances, fewer than 6 Impressions / page appear - as is the case with the David Alba eBook (Smileage) - where 3 Impressions / page appear within a total of 4 pages (11 total Impressions, 9 of which are my eBooks).


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> And yet, there are many pages that have no sponsored ads running on them at all, and no carousel. So it is conceivable that on Monday, if you put an author name or a book category in the search box, you'd find your ad in line on page 1 or a following page, or on a carousel, and the next day, Tuesday, there would no in-line sponsored ads on that same search term and no carousel, either. I don't think any of us know for sure when or if Amazon deigns to run ads.


Thirty minutes ago I brought up the David Alba eBook (Smileage) page. The entire carousel of 11 Impressions has simply vanished. Where did it go?

Taking a simplistic approach; suppose we were to run but 1 ad, and that 1 ad generated but 1 Impression. We discover that 1 Impression appearing as the only Impression in the carousel of eBook-X. Thirty minutes later we return to the eBook-X product page to discover that no carousel exists. What happened to that 1 ad? Was it transferred to another carousel? Has it temporarily disappeared - if so, for how long? Has it permanently disappeared? Obviously something has occurred - but what - and more importantly, why?


----------



## Accord64

weigle1234 said:


> What happened to that 1 ad? Was it transferred to another carousel? Has it temporarily disappeared - if so, for how long? Has it permanently disappeared? Obviously something has occurred - but what - and more importantly, why?


In a previous AMS topic (months ago), a K-board member contacted an AMS rep regarding ad performance. An admission was made that performance algorithm governed the process, and how it worked was a trade secret. So if an ad disappeared, it could be the result of almost anything - max daily limit reached, individual bid process for that keyword, or just that the algo shut the ad down because it failed to meet whatever performance benchmark being applied.

I recently experienced the "wrath of the algo." My ad's first day saw 104k impressions (huge for me), the second day dropped to 57k, day three 9k, day four 2k. Clicks followed. Fairly obvious what's going one here.

When asked what to do if an ad lost momentum, the AMS rep had stated the best thing to do is to terminate the ad and start over with a new one. However, my experiences (and others) have mixed results on this tactic. Same mixed results with pausing.

This sums up my frustration with AMS: Too difficult to predict and nearly impossible to pivot in a timely manner with the lag in reporting.


----------



## khotisarque

LilyBLily said:


> A mystery only Amazon knows the answer to. Best guess: for variety.


Dare I say..."garbage"? The Emperor has no clothes, the 'algos' are not fully developed and are unpredictable, there is some limited order but the outcomes are largely chaotic? Yet even an unruly marketplace is preferable to none. Elbow your way in and scream louder than those around you, it's a hurly-burly not an analytic, polite, predictable art auction.


----------



## A past poster

Accord64 said:


> When asked what to do if an ad lost momentum, the AMS rep had stated the best thing to do is to terminate the ad and start over with a new one. However, my experiences (and others) have mixed results on this tactic. Same mixed results with pausing.
> 
> This sums up my frustration with AMS: Too difficult to predict and nearly impossible to pivot in a timely manner with the lag in reporting.


Does the time lag in reporting work to Amazon's advantage? I've raised bids based on the lag in reporting when I probably shouldn't have.


----------



## A past poster

LilyBLily said:


> Sharpening my elbows now.
> 
> I do agree that we probably waste time trying to understand what is happening, but of course the reason to try is so we can make our ads more efficient. If I knew which keywords produced the most page reads, for instance, I would up my bids on them and/or add similar ones, and I would permanently pause or terminate the keywords that did not produce page reads.


How can you be sure the keywords that didn't produce page reads in one campaign wouldn't produce page reads in a different campaign unless your decision was based on the number of images the keyword received? And if a keyword didn't receive images in one campaign, it could get images in a different campaign. Again, it's unpredictability. There are no definitive answers here. We're all guessing.


----------



## Accord64

khotisarque said:


> The Emperor has no clothes, the 'algos' are not fully developed and are unpredictable, there is some limited order but the outcomes are largely chaotic?


My guess is that ever since AMS became available to everyone in KDP, the floodgates opened and their Algos got overwhelmed by an oversubscribed system.


----------



## weigle1234

Accord64 said:


> I recently experienced the "wrath of the algo." My ad's first day saw 104k impressions (huge for me), the second day dropped to 57k, day three 9k, day four 2k. Clicks followed. Fairly obvious what's going one here.


For each and every one of my ads, the stats make no sense at all for the first days of Running - so I totally ignore them.

Same thing for the last few days of Running, due to Kindle delays in updating critical stats (which is the case, not the exception), those stats are also useless - so I totally ignore them.

My No-Brainer approach is to totally ignore stats from the first and last weeks of Running. I Run an ad for at least 4 weeks - that gives me at least 2 reliable weeks of solid data - enough to get a handle on ad effectiveness.

IMHO, anyone testing this approach will be surprised with the consistency of the stats - which, again IMHO, gives the lie to the theory that Kindle is screwing around with the Holy Algorithm.

For this approach to work, the ad has to remain totally untouched and intact. Not even a single Keyword altered, no Pauses, absolutely Nothing changed.


----------



## weigle1234

Accord64 said:


> My guess is that ever since AMS became available to everyone in KDP, the floodgates opened and their Algos got overwhelmed by an oversubscribed system.


I very much doubt their Algos got overwhelmed. Amazon likely has one of the most extensive and sophisticated computer systems on the planet - and AMS employs but a single Algo - one that can easily process a nearly infinite barrage of data. The humans involved with inputting data are the weak link.

Any sophisticated computer system employs Self-Checks to assure reliable operation. If things start going Ape, all kinds of bells and whistles will start going off. The system is shut down, the problem corrected, and the system restored to operation.


----------



## A past poster

weigle1234 said:


> Any sophisticated computer system employs Self-Checks to assure reliable operation. If things start going Ape, all kinds of bells and whistles will start going off. The system is shut down, the problem corrected, and the system restored to operation.


Not always. This past week one of my campaigns was shut down with "Daily Budget Spent," but the daily budget wasn't spent. I'm sure I'm not the only one that had that happen; nor was it the first time it had happened to me. I contacted them and got an email that they'd get back to me. I paused the campaign. I still haven't heard back from them.


----------



## Accord64

weigle1234 said:


> I very much doubt their Algos got overwhelmed. Amazon likely has one of the most extensive and sophisticated computer systems on the planet - and AMS employs but a single Algo - one that can easily process a nearly infinite barrage of data. The humans involved with inputting data are the weak link.
> 
> Any sophisticated computer system employs Self-Checks to assure reliable operation. If things start going Ape, all kinds of bells and whistles will start going off. The system is shut down, the problem corrected, and the system restored to operation.


As someone who spent years working for a large computer company, well, I think you're giving Amazon (and sophisticated computers) far too much credit.

Problems occur. Corrections are made. New problems occur as a result of the corrections, and so on. Trust me, the cycle never ends.

There's another topic going about how Amazon is being gatecrashed by clickfarms. Scammers are beating the system and Amazon can't seem to stay ahead of it. Not a very flattering picture of an industry giant with supposedly unbreakable algos.


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant

Donna White Glaser said:


> Interesting. I've been pondering whether to adjust my books from $3.99 to $4.99. When I went from $2.99 to $3.99 a couple years ago, I saw no change in momentum, but when I tried the same thing from $3.99 to $4.99 sales lagged. Might be worth a month of experimenting though.


I raised my cozy mystery's price from $0.99 to $3.99 at the beginning of the month. Sales have gone down by about 40% (total earnings on sales have gone up over 400% while earnings on KU borrows have gone up about 50%). However, sales attributed to AMS have gone down by about 80%. So they're finding the book and buying it but not buying it from the sponsored ad? Regardless, as the buys through AMS are slowing, the impressions are slowing, too. A lot. At $0.99 I was regularly getting about 2000 imp/day. For the first half of this month, it was sliding down to 1500/day, and for this week it's down further to around 750 imp/day.

Amazon's never come close to spending my $2/day limit, so..... Is this a case for up bids/click, for pause and restart the ad, or for stop and start a new ad?


----------



## weigle1234

Accord64 said:


> When asked what to do if an ad lost momentum, the AMS rep had stated the best thing to do is to terminate the ad and start over with a new one. However, my experiences (and others) have mixed results on this tactic. Same mixed results with pausing.
> 
> This sums up my frustration with AMS: Too difficult to predict and nearly impossible to pivot in a timely manner with the lag in reporting.


As of today, here are the stats for my 2 VapoKarb test ads. Both are identical and carry 2-Cent Bids, with the exception that ad VapoKarb-2 is in Manual mode, Stuffed with 972 Keywords. VapoKarb-1 is in Automatic mode.

Both ads have been Running since June 6 (over 7 weeks).

Since either ad is purposely a guaranteed money-loser, I will gladly reveal any and all related stats to anyone so asking (even to the un-asking, as I am sure some have noticed). Hopefully, at least some of this data may ring a bell with a few fellow co-authors.

VapoKarb-2

To date: 486 Clicks / 1,175,894 Impressions - .04% Ratio: $7.11 Spent.
That Ratio, or something very close, has been very consistent. With 10 specific checks, the Ratio has been .05% 3 times. The Ratio has been .04% 7 times.

The Average Daily Impressions have basically hovered around 20,000.

To my way of thinking, these are very consistent stats - strengthening my belief that AMS does not screw with their Algorithm. They may slightly tweak it on rare occasion, as any reasonable person would. Nothing in this old world is perfect, and to blindly stick with an identical Algo would be kind of dumb.

VapoKarb-1

To date: 17 Clicks / 23,982 Impressions - .07% Ratio: 22-cents Spent.

I made a major boo-boo with this ad. I Paused it for about 3 days after it had been running for about 4 weeks - then set it back to Running on July 6.

On July 2 it had 13 Clicks / 7,225 Impressions - .18% Ratio.

This, IMHO, is a high Ratio - Pausing the ad was not very smart. I guess my reasoning was that with only 13 Clicks, monitoring the stats would be a waste of time.

Realizing my mistake, I started Running the ad again on July 6. The stats were goofy for about a week. Starting with a Ratio of .19% - and eventually stabilizing at .07%.

Again, I was tempted to either Pause or Terminate the ad. But, I have decided to keep it Running for awhile longer - just out of curiosity - to see if it continues to be stable at a .07% Ratio. So far, I have a grand total of 22-cents invested in the ad - and can withstand the loss.

This is the only ad I have ever Paused, and then placed back to Running. I think the AMS guys advice about Terminating Paused ads, and then starting them anew, may be good advice.

I decided to do that on my own about a week ago. I had about 20-30 Paused ads, some paused for several weeks. I Terminated them all since data gathered from them after that would likely be impossible to analyze.

So far, what have I learned form all this?

Only one sure thing - Amazon is not screwing with their Algo. They would have to be stupid to do so. Their Algo is set to give preference to folks making the most money - logically, those also making the most money for Amazon. The rest of us peons have to scratch for what is left over.

Manual ads outperform Automatic ads by vast margins. My Auto ads generate much better Click / Impression Ratios (perhaps as high as .18% vs. .04%). But, they generate about 49 times as many Impressions (1,175,894 vs. 23,982) and about 28 times as many Clicks (486 vs. 17).

I still stand by my philosophy that a Click is a Click, no matter where or when it occurs. I agree with most folks taking exception to my way of thinking in that regard - most of what they say is logical - but only to a degree. With 486 Clicks, something good has to fall out of all that! If nothing else, basically free advertising for my other ads appearing alongside it in those countless carousels.

Hope everyone is enjoying a prosperous weekend. The sun here in Rockford has actually been shining for more that 2 days - unlike that in Phoenix - the Valley of the Sun!


----------



## Decon

Sales are thin on the ground from clicks, but I've definitely had an uptick in page reads since I increased my prices and bids. The impression have started to come back also.


----------



## weigle1234

Accord64 said:


> As someone who spent years working for a large computer company, well, I think you're giving Amazon (and sophisticated computers) far too much credit.
> 
> Problems occur. Corrections are made. New problems occur as a result of the corrections, and so on. Trust me, the cycle never ends.
> 
> There's another topic going about how Amazon is being gatecrashed by clickfarms. Scammers are beating the system and Amazon can't seem to stay ahead of it. Not a very flattering picture of an industry giant with supposedly unbreakable algos.


I think you are right in that the cycle never ends - it will probably get even worse, unless some technological breakthrough for defeating computer Hackers is discovered. It does not surprise me that Amazon is being victimized by all the low-life Click Farms, Scammers, etc. We, in turn, are fellow victims.

By the time Amazon douses one fire, another two or three may begin to pop up. Before any fire is discovered, and corrective action taken, we get hit with junk data. It seems Amazon does their best to repair the damage, but they have to waste valuable resources doing repairs - so everybody losses. All this supports my basic contention that we should never trust data which is less than about a week old.

Even after repairs have been made, it may be wise to wait another week to allow Amazon to hopefully purge possibly remaining junk.


----------



## weigle1234

Decon said:


> Sales are thin on the ground from clicks, but I've definitely had an uptick in page reads since I increased my prices and bids. The impression have started to back also.


Hope that trend continues for you.

About 2 or 3 weeks ago I decided to run all new test ads for one of my better selling eBooks. So, I went nuts and submitted about 8 ads - all in rapid succession in hope of minimizing the submission time element. I am getting good at submitting ads in record time - for whatever good that may be.

I worked from 2 separate Keyword Stuffed lists, each with about 920 Keywords. There are lots of dupes between the 2 lists, but part of my testing is to determine which list is the best performer (an A/B test). By working up combinations of the 2 lists with 4 unique ad Blurbs, I came up with the 8 test lists.

Long story short, the whole experiment was a bust - nothing good happened. All the important data was scattered hither and yon. Daily Impressions were all over the place, same with Clicks. I say were, as in the past tense, being as I Terminated all 8 ads 2 days ago since they were useless. Perhaps my ads fell victim to those Amazon glitches caused by Hackers, etc. But, all my other ads kept on plugging away as always - perhaps just another Algo mystery.

So, late yesterday I submitted a new ad to replace the 8 trouble-makers. That ad is now up and Running. I will keep that singular ad Running at least until it stabilizes, before conducting another series of grand experiments.

I have been behind this computer far too long today. Both myself and my younger son agree it is Beer-Time at Rural-on-Tap. See ya later.


----------



## weigle1234

My experiences with the AMS folks in regard to their responses to "Contact Us" inquiries have always been positive.  I have just submitted the following inquiry:

As with many other fellow authors Running AMS ads, I am attempting to gather meaningful information regarding placement of my ad impressions within eBook carousels.

In general, AMS ad impression placement appears to be a somewhat confusing and contentious issue for many authors.  I feel any information AMS can share toward clarifying impression placement will help promote increased ad efficiency; thus being of financial benefit to both AMS and its authors.

If you would kindly address the following issues, it will certainly be appreciated:

I notice that many of my own ad impressions may appear in a particular eBook carousel but, upon later referring to that same eBook carousel, some of the ads (if not all) no longer appear in that carousel.  Have those ads, for whatever reason you may be able to divulge, simply been deleted from the entire inventory of AMS ads, or have they been transferred to other eBook carousel(s)?

Along that same line of reasoning - if at any moment in time I have (for example) 10,000 total ad impressions appearing for a particular eBook, will those same 10,000 impressions continue appearing as long as I continue running that ad?  Or will certain of those impressions, for whatever reason you may be able to divulge, have been be deleted from the entire AMS ad inventory?

Thanks for your anticipated reply,

Gordy Weigle, Kustom Power


----------



## Decon

Look forward to their reply.


----------



## APeter

Interesting analysis.

Using Amazon Ads to Sell a YA Novel: A Detailed Analysis.

https://janefriedman.com/using-amazon-ads-sell-books/


----------



## Decon

APeter said:


> Interesting analysis.
> 
> Using Amazon Ads to Sell a YA Novel: A Detailed Analysis.
> 
> https://janefriedman.com/using-amazon-ads-sell-books/


Interesting that she made around a $40 loss overall.


----------



## APeter

Decon said:


> Interesting that she made around a $40 loss overall.


It didn't really pan out for her, but I thought she had the right approach. She should have let the ads run longer, though.


----------



## BillyDeCarlo

APeter said:


> It didn't really pan out for her, but I thought she had the right approach. She should have let the ads run longer, though.


She ran sponsored product ads. It would have been advised to read this thread first, to find out that they are rarely successful (at least that's what I remember taking away, and what my experience has been as well). I hope someone tells her about this thread.


----------



## weigle1234

Regarding this prompt reply, perhaps I am a bit paranoid (aren't we all?). Hope this doesn't portend something of a "whitewash?"

***********************************************

Hello,

Thanks for writing to us.

We'll need a little time to look into this ad issue. I've reached out to our Technical Team to investigate this issue.

We'll contact you with more information by the end of the day on "Thursday, August 03 2017".

Thanks for your patience.

Regards,

Karthikeyan SB 
Kindle Direct Publishing
http://kdp.amazon.com
=============================
Connect with KDP and other Authors and Publishers:
Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/KindleDirectPublishing
Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/AmazonKDP 
Community: https://kdp.amazon.com/community/forum.jspa?forumID=9
Resources: https://kdp.amazon.com/help

---- Original message: ----

Subject: Are Ad Impressions consistent?

As with many other fellow authors Running AMS ads, I am attempting to gather meaningful information regarding placement of my ad impressions within eBook carousels.

In general, AMS ad impression placement appears to be a somewhat confusing and contentious issue for many authors. I feel any information AMS can share toward clarifying impression placement will help promote increased ad efficiency; thus being of financial benefit to both AMS and its authors.

If you would kindly address the following issues, it will certainly be appreciated:

I notice that many of my own ad impressions may appear in a particular eBook carousel but, upon later referring to that same eBook carousel, some of the ads (if not all) no longer appear in that carousel. Have those ads, for whatever reason you may be able to divulge, simply been deleted from the entire inventory of AMS ads, or have they been transferred to other eBook carousel(s)?

Along that same line of reasoning - if at any moment in time I have (for example) 10,000 total ad impressions appearing for a particular eBook, will those same 10,000 impressions continue appearing as long as I continue running that ad? Or will certain of those impressions, for whatever reason you may be able to divulge, have been be deleted from the entire AMS ad inventory?

Thanks for your anticipated reply,

Gordy Weigle, Kustom Power


----------



## RD

BillyDeCarlo said:


> She ran *sponsored product ads*. It would have been advised to read this thread first, to find out that they are rarely successful (at least that's what I remember taking away, and what my experience has been as well). I hope someone tells her about this thread.


I thought that was what most people were running now?


----------



## BillyDeCarlo

RD said:


> I thought that was what most people were running now?


You are correct, I was wrong. Got my terminology mixed up. I was thinking of Product Display Ads. I wish they'd change the other to just Keyword Ads or something more intuitive!


----------



## Rising Sun

Thank you everyone for all the sharing and research you have put into this thread.  My ads hit 50,000,000 impressions today and I only wish I had been able to read of your work when I first started. I wouldn’t have had to puzzle over so many basic issues and learn the very hardest way...from experience,. 

First some background then some questions on a troublesome issue I have cropping up.

I handle the AMS program for Rivera Sun. Her four novels and one study guide (to one of the novels) were first enrolled in the program between January and March of this year. The novels are political fiction involved with social and environmental justice issues. One of them is TeenYA. Printbooks are priced at 19.99,  Kindles at 8.99. Pricing relates to normals for non-fiction titles in similar subject areas as we heavily market into non-fiction subject arenas.  The books were first published in print and Kindle from January 2013 to last November. Sales prior to this January were primarily via her website, in person through lectures and workshops that Rivera held on the issues raised by the books and through the initial Indiegogo crowd push at the start of each book. Books are printed by CreateSpace and LightningSource. Until the start of the AMS program, Amazon store sales were minor through all the years rarely breaking through 15 print and 15 Kindle total per month in 2016.

I January I started the AMS ad programs. Initial results were magnificent and they have continued until very recently.

The 5 titles run on 275 separate ads (261 sponsored, 14 product) based in 85 word lists. The word data base lists are 75 to 350 words in length and each has some unifying characteristic, eg best sellers in a particular category, types of authors, also boughts, etc.  The data bases are related to 83 different text ads that hopefully appeal to the target customers. 

Results between data bases and ads vary considerable but overall results have been remarkably consistent.  Gross ACoS 19-21%, net royalty ACoS 34% (adjusting for a considerable sell through of print books). In the several months ending June, impressions were 250M-320m daily, averaging 1000-1500 impressions per click, 11 cent max keyword bid. The top 3 books ran at 60M to 100M Kindle ranking. (Note this system is not based on high unit sales value with a low unit price but on lower unit sales at a higher price). The two lowest producing books are in KU with only a few thousand pages read per month.

Amazon KDP and print book sales have soared many times their normal volume. Awesome. Sales have increased each month.

The system ran untouched for almost 2 months (May, June) due to a family health emergency. Our normal social media went to auto or was dropped at the same time. ( We tweet 2MM impressions to 40,000 followers per month and have 5000 combined FB friends.) In June we started moving our social media sales generated to Amazon.

All the above is the background, so here come the questions...

1.) July AMS sales dropped precipitously and in a very odd manner. Our weekend sales/clics are disappeared. Fri/Sat/Sun impressions are only down 10% but clics/ad spend is down upto 70% with a related drop in sales.  The overall average weekly ad spend is staying about the same as all other weeks because ad spend soars on Monday- Thursday. Unfortunately that spend is happening in the most costly and least productive ads. Sales revenue will be down 20% for July.
Has anyone else experienced weekly dips?

2.) Theoretically we are open to spend $20 a day each on 275 ads ($5500/day)...we have never reached even $20 in a day total. Is daily maximum spend banded?... ie related to indie/major publisher/rank/category

3.) After pausing an ad how quickly will it restart?

4.) Any ideas as to how often the Amazon algorithm is recalculated. Obviously a metadata change should re-do it, will just adding words to a keyword list or changing prices do it?  Any ideas on how often regular updating happens and if it is a particular day of week? How long does any of this take to affect the AMS system?

5.) Then the oddest of all...Only in the last few weeks have I started daily clic/spend analysis. I am seeing negative clics for entire ads. For instance, Saturday (10amMT to 10am MT Sunday) eight ad accounts had a net -1 or -2 clics for the days activity. The only way I could see this is on a low activity account. If the account were higher activity and had say 6 clics and then one subtracted from it, I would only see the 5 clic balance for the days activity and wouldn’t be aware of the negative clic.  Is this normal?

6.) And lastly for deeper discussion… It appears to me that many of the suppositions that I have used in traditional media campaigns in magazines, newspapers, direct mail, et al have to be severely modified for this media. AMS is not selling ad space in a magazine going to millions of people...it is selling ad space in millions of magazines each one tailored for a particular person.  The ad carousel I see is different from the ad carousel Rivera sees and the carousels we see are different from someone else of even very similar tastes, outlook etc., ...after all AMS know I like Rivera’s books so it tends to add them early in my carousel whenever it can...I see them everywhere, a regular person wouldn’t. Which simply means we have to know our potential customers so that we can better target ads, better possibly any other media will allow us to target. It also means that we have to be careful not to think of our own browsing experience as being what the larger public will have. It is all very exciting!

Thanking you all in advance, both for reading this far and for giving whatever help you can.

I look forward to being active on the thread.


----------



## CassieL

Rising Sun said:


> 1.) July AMS sales dropped precipitously and in a very odd manner. Our weekend sales/clics are disappeared. Fri/Sat/Sun impressions are only down 10% but clics/ad spend is down upto 70% with a related drop in sales. The overall average weekly ad spend is staying about the same as all other weeks because ad spend soars on Monday- Thursday. Unfortunately that spend is happening in the most costly and least productive ads. Sales revenue will be down 20% for July.
> Has anyone else experienced weekly dips?
> 
> 2.) Theoretically we are open to spend $20 a day each on 275 ads ($5500/day)...we have never reached even $20 in a day total. Is daily maximum spend banded?... ie related to indie/major publisher/rank/category
> 
> 3.) After pausing an ad how quickly will it restart?
> 
> 4.) Any ideas as to how often the Amazon algorithm is recalculated. Obviously a metadata change should re-do it, will just adding words to a keyword list or changing prices do it? Any ideas on how often regular updating happens and if it is a particular day of week? How long does any of this take to affect the AMS system?
> 
> 5.) Then the oddest of all...Only in the last few weeks have I started daily clic/spend analysis. I am seeing negative clics for entire ads. For instance, Saturday (10amMT to 10am MT Sunday) eight ad accounts had a net -1 or -2 clics for the days activity. The only way I could see this is on a low activity account. If the account were higher activity and had say 6 clics and then one subtracted from it, I would only see the 5 clic balance for the days activity and wouldn't be aware of the negative clic. Is this normal?
> 
> 6.) And lastly for deeper discussion&#8230; It appears to me that many of the suppositions that I have used in traditional media campaigns in magazines, newspapers, direct mail, et al have to be severely modified for this media. AMS is not selling ad space in a magazine going to millions of people...it is selling ad space in millions of magazines each one tailored for a particular person. The ad carousel I see is different from the ad carousel Rivera sees and the carousels we see are different from someone else of even very similar tastes, outlook etc., ...after all AMS know I like Rivera's books so it tends to add them early in my carousel whenever it can...I see them everywhere, a regular person wouldn't. Which simply means we have to know our potential customers so that we can better target ads, better possibly any other media will allow us to target. It also means that we have to be careful not to think of our own browsing experience as being what the larger public will have. It is all very exciting!
> 
> Thanking you all in advance, both for reading this far and for giving whatever help you can.
> 
> I look forward to being active on the thread.


Welcome. It looks like you've had some extensive experience and will have some interesting input to provide. In terms of your questions. I can give my answers for some of them.
1) I don't monitor closely enough to notice something like this. In general, Mondays happen to be a better sales day for me than weekends, so it's possible something like that could be happening.
2) I don't think daily maximum spend is banded in that way. I have one ad that's been going well for about two months now that spends up to $40 a day. That book isn't amazing or special in any way, but it's been spending more since it came off a strong free run in May. So I think momentum leads to more ad spend on a particular title. I also bid higher on that ad than it sounds like you've been bidding on your ads.
3) They seem to restart pretty much right away.
4) Not sure what you mean by this? I can get an ad moving again fairly quickly by playing around with bids, budge, or keywords. But I'm never quite sure what it will take to get a dead ad moving again.
5) I think upthread somewhere someone had asked Amazon about this and they said they take away fraudulent clicks (like from bots) and sometimes you'll see the reduction in clicks because of that.
6) I think you're right and that that's an accurate description of what's happening.


----------



## Rising Sun

Thanks for your comments.

I am currently trying a countdown deal to see if I can get some life into ads for the oldest slowest title. Unfortunately I started it on the weekend when our ads dumped as I mentioned they have recently been doing. The ads didn't respond although the title moved from 500,000 KDP to 13000 and was #1 for 2 days in 2 subgenres. We'll pump the countdown deal on Tuesday/Wednesday and possibly see a response. I am also up-pricing and adding some keywords related to some TYA subgenres where it is high ranked...All ideas gained from this forum...Thank you 

I am also going to try and test response times for up-pricing keywords. It will take a week most likely. Of course the data may be unique to our situation but hopefully it can be seen as a part of the puzzle we are looking at


----------



## Jena H

My two current ads are pretty much on life-support.  For one ad, my spend over the past week or so has been a whopping $1.00, with no sales.    The other ad, which hasn't been running quite as long, has made a spend of 0.25, including one sale.  yay!  Funnily enough, though, the keyword that's credited with the sale is showing ZERO clicks.    Guess the lag in reporting explains that.

Anyway, I upped the bid on a lot of the keywords (both ads) from 0.15 to 0.20.  Maybe that will spark a little momentum.


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> Standard bs. If they reply at all, it will be nonsense. The basic level CSR only knows how to answer routine stupid questions--of which they undoubtedly get many.


The standard B.S. is what I am expecting - but at least it may be good for a chuckle or two.

Back when I was an Amazon newbie (no all that long ago) I tried in vain to get info from Amazon "Help" people via telephone connection. They all spoke with Indian accents. I have no problem with folks from India - I dealt with many Indian profs during my university years - they were gracious people, mostly Phd types.

But, the Amazon guys were a joke. I would spend minutes describing my situation in detail, and they seemed to understand what I was trying to convey. Finally, after I felt they understood what I needed, would come their typical response - "Oh, so you want to write a book."

At that point, all I could think of was "No s**t Jack, what ever gave you that idea?" I then politely told them I had a bad phone connection and would call them back.

I do not know how Amazon comes up with those guys, but even if they work for free, it is a bad investment - what I term negative publicity.


----------



## amdonehere

When does a Sponsored Product Ad actually "dies"? 

So this question sprung from my question yesterday about having 2 or multiple ads for the same book. Here's what I don't understand. Amazon actually tells you not to stop ads but to let it run. They said the more data is accumulated, the better it helps to figure out how your KWs perform. Maybe it helps them, but I've found it hardly helps us. A KW that performs well would suddenly stop.

I also noticed yesterday that one KW, which I had tried in vain to get impressions for months with no avail, had somehow picked up 35k+ impressions now. (I hadn't been able to focus on my ad reports For 2 months now due to being distracted by other things in life.)  So you just don't know when the algo will out of nowhere decide to juice a KW.

I've had this ad running since last August so it's been a year. Its effect has subsided by about 65% in the last few months. But I think I'd inadvertently kept it alive every time I added new KWs, tweaked bids, etc.  I'm now wondering if it might be better to do it more systematically. For example, create a new ad for the book once a month, so new added KWs will be in a separate ad. This way, it'll be easier to monitor when an ad "dies"? I really don't know. Is this something worth doing?

And 2 days ago, I did something that seemed to be logical but apparently not. I had several KWs with highest number of impressions and click rates, which I bid the highest on. I noticed that the average CPC for these KWs were about half of what I bid, and some of them have 100+ ROI. So smarty pants me lowered my bid. Almost immediately, my book ranking dived. I guess this is where KU screws up everything on how you read your data. I can only guess that the high bid was putting my book in front of a lot of readers, and even though they weren't buying, they were reading it on KU. And I put the algo to a halt by lowering my bids.

I've now up my bids to where they were, but not sure if the algo will pick them up again. But lesson learned is don't mess with your bid if it's getting a lot of impressions and clicks. But then how can you ever be sure it's not a clickbait?


----------



## CassieL

AlexaKang said:


> Amazon actually tells you not to stop ads but to let it run. They said the more data is accumulated, the better it helps to figure out how your KWs perform.


I did find when I set up some new ads this month on books that had had ads running for up to a year now that they were now listing some of my best keywords as suggested keywords. That hadn't happened before. So I do think that by running ads over a long period of time they do start to learn what words work best for your book. There's still the general crap in there, too, like "edition", but those first five to ten keywords for me now on some of my books are good, targeted keywords and ones I had independently decided were some of my most successful words.



AlexaKang said:


> I'm now wondering if it might be better to do it more systematically. For example, create a new ad for the book once a month, so new added KWs will be in a separate ad. This way, it'll be easier to monitor when an ad "dies"? I really don't know. Is this something worth doing?


You never know until you try. I find that when I do more narrow ads they don't perform as well. So if I have an ad with 15 really targeted keywords it just costs me money whereas an ad with 150 and those 15 added in as I discover them does great. I've also had ads die and be revived later. Either by pausing for a bit or by playing with keywords, bids, etc.



AlexaKang said:


> So smarty pants me lowered my bid. Almost immediately, my book ranking dived. I guess this is where KU screws up everything on how you read your data. I can only guess that the high bid was putting my book in front of a lot of readers, and even though they weren't buying, they were reading it on KU. And I put the algo to a halt by lowering my bids.


I think they would still have to click even if they're borrowing, so chances are when you dropped your bid it meant you lost more auctions to be on the book pages. I have been able to walk some of my ads down (my romance one at one point had bids over $1 and I didn't want to stay there), but sometimes you do take a hit and have to move back up. With that romance ad I have about forty keywords that have sales on them and so I figure even if the twenty or so with lots of clicks but no sales showing are getting me borrows I want to prioritize the ones that are also getting me sales, so I now bid higher on ones that show sales than I do on ones that show high clicks. But that can possibly mean a rank hit depending on how many buy vs. borrow and how successful one of those other keywords really was in generating borrows.


----------



## CassieL

LilyBLily said:


> Some people assume the ratio of sales to borrows is roughly even. I just checked. My series:
> Book 1 Sales 46% KU 54%
> Book 2 Sales 38% KU 62%
> Book 3 Sales 34% KU 66%
> 
> This is not roughly even at all, not for the sequels. Dollar figures of course are much, much lower for the KU pages, but they still add up to significantly more than the outright sales, because the cover price of a romance is so low. This despite my books being only circa 50k. Which means any keyword for a book in KU that is getting clicks probably should be kept going, because the KU borrows are winning this game.


My numbers are even more extreme than yours. In July for my main romance novel I had 90 sales and the equivalent of 237 borrows in page reads, so sales are only 28% of my customers for the month. But, I earn far more from a sale than a borrow since my novel is priced at $4.99, and I'm not convinced that I want to stay in KU long-term so my goal is to find those readers who are willing to pay full-price for what I write. It's also more profit per customer assuming click-buy or click-borrow ratios are the same. Since I made that shift with my bids my buys per day are up a bit and my rank is holding steady.


----------



## Kay7979

How's this for weird? One of my campaign's clicks just went from in the 1100s to the low 1800s with less than a dollar difference in the spend amount. I have a screen shot from Monday night or I'd think I'm crazy. How can I suddenly have 700 more clicks?


----------



## CassieL

Kay7979 said:


> How's this for weird? One of my campaign's clicks just went from in the 1100s to the low 1800s with less than a dollar difference in the spend amount. I have a screen shot from Monday night or I'd think I'm crazy. How can I suddenly have 700 more clicks?


Clicks? Not impressions? Because 1100 is a pretty high number of clicks.


----------



## Kay7979

Cassie Leigh said:


> Clicks? Not impressions? Because 1100 is a pretty high number of clicks.


Yep. That's clicks. I have 1000 keywords and the ad has been running for months. I just dug a little deeper into this issue and one keyword that I'm sure had around five clicks a few days ago is showing 651 now. Umm. No. This is a typo of some sort.


----------



## CassieL

Kay7979 said:


> Yep. That's clicks. I have 1000 keywords and the ad has been running for months. I just dug a little deeper into this issue and one keyword that I'm sure had around five clicks a few days ago is showing 651 now. Umm. No. This is a typo of some sort.


Yeah, that seems very strange. Maybe a bot got through Amazon's screening. I'd definitely contact them about it. But interesting that they didn't show an increasing spend with those clicks.


----------



## Decon

Well, I now have July behind me.  It was halfway into the month before I increased my prices to $4.99 and made my bids quite a lot higher.

Only 2 sales attributed to AMS sice, @$7.00, but ordinary sales have been better that I anticipated. My page reads have started to recover, standing at 10,000 ($42) for the month, from virtually ziltch. It's a far cry from the 89,000 page reads in December, but at least it's on the up. Saying that, page reads have been a bust this past two days, with only 1 page read Go figure.

Sorry for the plug, but I have a new book I'm trying out on Kindle Scout, the first in my signature, if anyone has a mind to nominate me. Just click the cover to go to the sample and nomination page.


----------



## Jena H

Kay7979 said:


> Yep. That's clicks. I have 1000 keywords and the ad has been running for months. I just dug a little deeper into this issue and one keyword that I'm sure had around five clicks a few days ago is showing 651 now. Umm. No. This is a typo of some sort.


I have a keyword that's credited with a whopping one (1) sale, but the keyword has NO clicks attached. Granted, this was only three days ago, so the infamous lag might be responsible and the corresponding click(s) might still show up. But it's odd to see a single sale associated with a keyword with not a single click.


----------



## Kay7979

Jena H said:


> I have a keyword that's credited with a whopping one (1) sale, but the keyword has NO clicks attached. Granted, this was only three days ago, so the infamous lag might be responsible and the corresponding click(s) might still show up. But it's odd to see a single sale associated with a keyword with not a single click.


I've had that happen once or twice. My sister messaged me today with a similar situation. AMS is like a haunted house lately with things appearing, disappearing, and changing hourly.


----------



## weigle1234

Kay7979 said:


> I've had that happen once or twice. My sister messaged me today with a similar situation. AMS is like a haunted house lately with things appearing, disappearing, and changing hourly.


I also experienced the same mysterious Order w/o Click the other day - have not checked into much else, but a few other strange happenings are also in the works. So, what else is new?


----------



## Accord64

Lately I've seen my reports show a spend amount on a keyword, but zero clicks. I've also counted more clicks in the report body than show in the header. And that includes campaigns that have ended. Of course the spend amounts always add up correctly - go figure.


----------



## 67499

Thinking about this insightful thread and my own experience with AMS strongly suggests AMS has little capacity to generate more than a very few sales / consistently positive ROI.  AMS results aren't worth the trouble to try to make work an inadequate sales tool.


----------



## CassieL

Steven Hardesty said:


> AMS has little capacity to generate more than a very few sales / consistently positive ROI.


I guess that depends on your definition of what a lot of sales are. According to my dashboard I've had over $4,000 in sales and that's not counting KU reads or follow-through sales or sales from increased visibility.


----------



## weigle1234

Cassie Leigh said:


> I guess that depends on your definition of what a lot of sales are. According to my dashboard I've had over $4,000 in sales and that's not counting KU reads or follow-through sales or sales from increased visibility.


Something to Consider?

I do not know if many fellow authors maintain eMail lists, publish blogs, or gather useable eMail addresses from many potential sources. I personally do not maintain eMail lists, since I am basically a mail order guy (also Amazon newbie).

But, for those who do maintain eMail address lists, you may wish to consider working list trades with other successful authors - the profit potential may be enormous.

In my 30+ years in mail order, I made the greatest profits by far by working up customer list trades. At least 90% of my yearly profits resulted from successful customer list trades. Most of my every-day profits came from broker-rented postal mailing lists (the vast majority of which are garbage) - from which I still made a well above average income.

However, on a per-envelope-mailed basis, traded customer lists ultimately generated at least 50 times as much profit. That is because a traded list is generally at least 10 times as productive as a rented (garbage) list, can be used for unlimited mailings (by mutual agreement), and repeatedly mailed to for all the different products one has to offer. Rented broker lists are strictly for one-time use (they can be rented multiple times, but I never had a second rental turn a profit). For Amazon authors, trading eMail lists may have similar profit potential.

The tricky part is convincing others to work up trades. First - they have to be successful enough to have created relatively large list(s). Second - you have to develop a mutual trust, i.e., be assured the traded names (eMail addresses) are legitimate. The way I did this was by suggesting an initial trade of 500 names. If testing proves mutually profitable (it always did for me), the rest is easy - just keep trading until you reach the end of the list. After that, you continue periodically trading as new names become available. I never worked up more than 1,000 names per trade - to eliminate the possibility of stealing the other guys entire list (helps assure continued mutual trust).

If I had unlimited list trading partners, I would have become very wealthy. In reality, the postal customer trading list universe was always small - shrinking to zero as the mail order business (at least for small guys such as myself) gradually went down the crapper. (I stuck it out to the very end - living off savings for the past 5+ years - went from always having 2 or 3 airplanes and a nice Mercedes to where I am now, 1 airplane and a Toyota Corolla.)

The part where most folks have a big problem with trading is that of supposed product competition. However (in my mail order experiences), unless each party is offering identical products, product competition is actually minimal - vastly outweighed by the many advantages of list trading. Since Amazon has a 5-Million+ book library, identical product completion has to be close to zero.

It seems that most folks on this forum write romance novels - for which there is obviously a huge market. IMHO, even those who write fictional-romance could also befit from marketing to nonfiction-romance readers, especially if they have the added advantage of working with traded lists.


----------



## Jena H

Well, my two ads are pretty much dormant.  Not much happening with them (two different genres).  I upped the bid on some keywords, to .25, and a few to .30.  Maybe that will jump-start a little action.


----------



## weigle1234

Steven Hardesty said:


> Thinking about this insightful thread and my own experience with AMS strongly suggests AMS has little capacity to generate more than a very few sales / consistently positive ROI. AMS results aren't worth the trouble to try to make work an inadequate sales tool.


I disagree. Advertising, from my experience, is a crazy affair. You never know what will, or will not, work until you test it. It is a different, weird, crazy, strange, business - but definitely fascinating.

AMS ads may not make you a bundle - but some folks have definitely made them do just that. Ad costs are sure attractive; the price is right (you pay only for Clicks). Just create an ad that makes at least a few bucks here and there, and let it ride. Then move on to the next ad. Do some experimenting to create a similar ad that may do even better.

You may be busting your butt marketing something that barely makes a profit. Then, sometimes by shear luck (most likely intuition), you decide to try something different. Suddenly everything heads in just the opposite direction - the bucks start rolling in - for no obvious reason. It may seem insane when it happens - can almost make you feel guilty - as in, what did I do to deserve this?

But, if you look closely enough, you will discover which factor was responsible for changing everything. Almost always it is a single, obviously simple thing (in hindsight), that made the difference. The trick is to stick with that simple difference. Whatever you do, do not change the original ad. Write an identical ad, but change only a single element, and then see what happens (the old, but proven, A/B testing thing). If the new ad gives better results, keep it. If not, try another variation of the original ad, and try that. Again, it is the old rinse and repeat thing - A/B testing - it works!

P.S. Right now, things with Kindle seems to be going goofy (at least for myself, with some of my ads). I think they are having serious problems - but stick it out - they should soon have the bugs worked out, and be back on track. We shall see!


----------



## weigle1234

Well - as promised by the "Contact Us" folks at Amazon - here is their reply to my recent inquiry, and in a timely manner, also just as they promised.

I have to give them credit - they seem to have given my inquiry serious thought. I do not want to comment on their reply - at least not yet - just hoping to get others' thoughts at this point. I have to give it more studying myself before commenting.

*********************************************************************************

Hello,

I'm following up with you regarding your recent inquiry ads.

1. I notice that many of my own ad impressions may appear in a particular eBook carousel but, upon later referring to that same eBook carousel, some of the ads (if not all) no longer appear in that carousel. Have those ads, for whatever reason you may be able to divulge, simply been deleted from the entire inventory of AMS ads, or have they been transferred to other eBook carousel(s)?

ANSWER: Ads are not 'deleted', but they may be outperformed. Just because you setup a campaign it does not mean that your ad will automatically be shown. AMS is an auction based advertising system and if you bid and CTR are at the right amount to beat out others, then you will be in those placements that you are vying for. However, checking over and over and over again and it showing up one time and then not showing up is not indicator of performance. This is a very common misconception in the author community - please inform your friends too of the about. Please also note more details or located on the AMS help page and within KDP help content in the section promoting your books.

2. Along that same line of reasoning - if at any moment in time I have (for example) 10,000 total ad impressions appearing for a particular eBook, will those same 10,000 impressions continue appearing as long as I continue running that ad? Or will certain of those impressions, for whatever reason you may be able to divulge, have been be deleted from the entire AMS ad inventory?

ANSWER: I am not sure what this question means. The way that AMS works is quite simple. Your ad has the potential to win placements through the following combinations. High bid and High click through rate (when a customer sees your ad and clicks on it) will most likely win every time. CTRs build up overtime, so if you are just beginning to advertise with AMS it is wise to go with a high bid in order to win impressions and thus build up your CTR. Once you have a high CTR for an ad and this is based on longevity so the longer you run an ad the better, you can lower your bid, but only if you have a high CTR. Low bids and low CTRs will see little to no performance because they are not winning the auction when competing against other ads.

Does that make sense? There is not a set number of impressions as this is based on customers that visit the pages that your ads are shown on and as such it may increase with seasonality, more popular shopping days and is also highly dependent on if you are choosing interests or keywords that are popular interests or search terms.

If you have further questions, please feel free to drop us an email at [email protected] We'll be glad to address your concerns as soon as possible.

Thanks for using Amazon KDP.

...............................................................
Did I solve your problem?

If yes, please click here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/survey?p=A1DFZ21DIF7BN6&k=hy

If no, please click here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/survey?p=A1DFZ21DIF7BN6&k=hn
...............................................................

Regards,

Karthikeyan SB 
Kindle Direct Publishing
http://kdp.amazon.com
=============================
Connect with KDP and other Authors and Publishers:
Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/KindleDirectPublishing
Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/AmazonKDP 
Community: https://kdp.amazon.com/community/forum.jspa?forumID=9
Resources: https://kdp.amazon.com/help

---- Original message: ----

Subject: Are Ad Impressions consistent?

As with many other fellow authors Running AMS ads, I am attempting to gather meaningful information regarding placement of my ad impressions within eBook carousels.

In general, AMS ad impression placement appears to be a somewhat confusing and contentious issue for many authors. I feel any information AMS can share toward clarifying impression placement will help promote increased ad efficiency; thus being of financial benefit to both AMS and its authors.

If you would kindly address the following issues, it will certainly be appreciated:

I notice that many of my own ad impressions may appear in a particular eBook carousel but, upon later referring to that same eBook carousel, some of the ads (if not all) no longer appear in that carousel. Have those ads, for whatever reason you may be able to divulge, simply been deleted from the entire inventory of AMS ads, or have they been transferred to other eBook carousel(s)?

Along that same line of reasoning - if at any moment in time I have (for example) 10,000 total ad impressions appearing for a particular eBook, will those same 10,000 impressions continue appearing as long as I continue running that ad? Or will certain of those impressions, for whatever reason you may be able to divulge, have been be deleted from the entire AMS ad inventory?

Thanks for your anticipated reply,

Gordy Weigle, Kustom Power


----------



## weigle1234

Something Strange happening Here?

Within the last day or two I submitted 5 separate ads, 4 of which are for the same book.  Although Impressions are about what I might expect (varying from about 3,000 to 9,000 - much too early to draw any meaningful conclusions) - so far not a single Click has occurred.  All this in spite of the fact that my Bids have now been increased as a result of earlier test ads.

This is definitely at odds from all my past experiences.  I keep harping about waiting for at least a week before ads stabilize, but no Clicks with all these Impressions is really different - even seems weird at this point.

Hopefully this is just typical delays in reporting - but for all 5 ads (2 are only a day old) with lots of Impressions, but no Clicks, seems strange - never had anything even close to this happen in the past.  Any ideas as to what may be going on here?


----------



## Decon

weigle1234 said:


> Well - as promised by the "Contact Us" folks at Amazon - here is their reply to my recent inquiry, and in a timely manner, also just as they promised.
> 
> I have to give them credit - they seem to have given my inquiry serious thought. I do not want to comment on their reply - at least not yet - just hoping to get others' thoughts at this point. I have to give it more studying myself before commenting.
> 
> *********************************************************************************
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I'm following up with you regarding your recent inquiry ads.
> 
> 1. I notice that many of my own ad impressions may appear in a particular eBook carousel but, upon later referring to that same eBook carousel, some of the ads (if not all) no longer appear in that carousel. Have those ads, for whatever reason you may be able to divulge, simply been deleted from the entire inventory of AMS ads, or have they been transferred to other eBook carousel(s)?
> 
> ANSWER: Ads are not 'deleted', but they may be outperformed. Just because you setup a campaign it does not mean that your ad will automatically be shown. AMS is an auction based advertising system and if you bid and CTR are at the right amount to beat out others, then you will be in those placements that you are vying for. However, checking over and over and over again and it showing up one time and then not showing up is not indicator of performance. This is a very common misconception in the author community - please inform your friends too of the about. Please also note more details or located on the AMS help page and within KDP help content in the section promoting your books.
> 
> 2. Along that same line of reasoning - if at any moment in time I have (for example) 10,000 total ad impressions appearing for a particular eBook, will those same 10,000 impressions continue appearing as long as I continue running that ad? Or will certain of those impressions, for whatever reason you may be able to divulge, have been be deleted from the entire AMS ad inventory?
> 
> ANSWER: I am not sure what this question means. The way that AMS works is quite simple. Your ad has the potential to win placements through the following combinations. High bid and High click through rate (when a customer sees your ad and clicks on it) will most likely win every time. CTRs build up overtime, so if you are just beginning to advertise with AMS it is wise to go with a high bid in order to win impressions and thus build up your CTR. Once you have a high CTR for an ad and this is based on longevity so the longer you run an ad the better, you can lower your bid, but only if you have a high CTR. Low bids and low CTRs will see little to no performance because they are not winning the auction when competing against other ads.
> 
> Does that make sense? There is not a set number of impressions as this is based on customers that visit the pages that your ads are shown on and as such it may increase with seasonality, more popular shopping days and is also highly dependent on if you are choosing interests or keywords that are popular interests or search terms.
> 
> If you have further questions, please feel free to drop us an email at [email protected] We'll be glad to address your concerns as soon as possible.
> 
> Thanks for using Amazon KDP.
> 
> ...............................................................
> Did I solve your problem?
> 
> If yes, please click here:
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/survey?p=A1DFZ21DIF7BN6&k=hy
> 
> If no, please click here:
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/survey?p=A1DFZ21DIF7BN6&k=hn
> ...............................................................
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Karthikeyan SB
> Kindle Direct Publishing
> http://kdp.amazon.com
> =============================
> Connect with KDP and other Authors and Publishers:
> Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/KindleDirectPublishing
> Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/AmazonKDP
> Community: https://kdp.amazon.com/community/forum.jspa?forumID=9
> Resources: https://kdp.amazon.com/help
> 
> ---- Original message: ----
> 
> Subject: Are Ad Impressions consistent?
> 
> As with many other fellow authors Running AMS ads, I am attempting to gather meaningful information regarding placement of my ad impressions within eBook carousels.
> 
> In general, AMS ad impression placement appears to be a somewhat confusing and contentious issue for many authors. I feel any information AMS can share toward clarifying impression placement will help promote increased ad efficiency; thus being of financial benefit to both AMS and its authors.
> 
> If you would kindly address the following issues, it will certainly be appreciated:
> 
> I notice that many of my own ad impressions may appear in a particular eBook carousel but, upon later referring to that same eBook carousel, some of the ads (if not all) no longer appear in that carousel. Have those ads, for whatever reason you may be able to divulge, simply been deleted from the entire inventory of AMS ads, or have they been transferred to other eBook carousel(s)?
> 
> Along that same line of reasoning - if at any moment in time I have (for example) 10,000 total ad impressions appearing for a particular eBook, will those same 10,000 impressions continue appearing as long as I continue running that ad? Or will certain of those impressions, for whatever reason you may be able to divulge, have been be deleted from the entire AMS ad inventory?
> 
> Thanks for your anticipated reply,
> 
> Gordy Weigle, Kustom Power


Sorry, probably obvious, but what is CTR?


----------



## Accord64

Decon said:


> Sorry, probably obvious, but what is CTR?


Click Through Rate?


----------



## Decon

Okay, as someone who started AMS between August and Sept last year, and who has not changed their ads other than adding keywords and increasing bids, I now get the CTR thing that they mention that plays maybe a bigger part in the bidding process  than we realize and therefore goes a long way to dictating impressions.

Out of 5 books I have one book with a CTR that is consistantly 200% better than my other book as regards CTR, and which are in the doldrums. Needless to say, it has far more impressions, clicks, and sales of 5 times of the others over the year.  

I should have seen it earlier and taken action. Basically, I need to scrap those 4 ads that are not performing and to start again. 

Saying that, I think that changing ads monthly, or less, doesn't beat their algos which they use to build up a CTR picture, or to give you sufficient time to assess results. If you change them regularly, AMS and you can only work on trial and error and that's why AMS stop your ads performing after a short period to assess your results, which usually encourages you to increase bids.

As they say, you can give individual ads a boost by increasing bids, but if they still are not clicking, then you are wasting your time and need to look at you ad copy and cover, and dare I say it, your offering inside the book.

You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it drink.

I have an example of this at the moment. The first book in my signature is on kindle scout for nominations. Usually I simply write a book, prepare it and publish. This time I decided to try it out. I uploaded to Wattpad. It quickly garnered reads and stars and made it to the top 50 in thrillers. Before I took down the early chapters on Wattpad, in a short space of time I had 5,000 reads and around 500 stars.  I also picked up 4 authors who have read it all the way through with positive feedback and one is on chapter 29 just now and left a comment "great hook at the end" None of them expected me to reciprocate. I also had two indie publishers contact me offering to publish.

Those who have been on writer's sites know that to get anyone to read and comment all the way through is next to impossible, so I thought, great, lets try it with agents. I didn't try many, but they were a good fit, all rejected it. So I thought, okay, let's try it on Kindle Scout seeing as how it garnered interest on Wattpad.

When I searched the internet, I saw graphs of KS books that reached the Hot and Trending for days with only 100 page landings a day. My book has now been on there for 7 days and only had 1 hour in H&T, yet it has had 2.700 page landings. That's 385 page landing per day from people looking to nominate books. I know people are nominating, which is like a sale, but not enough for me to get noticed by the editors by getting on the H&T list.

So I repeat again, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, even if you think it will be good from them to do so.


----------



## Philip Gibson

From the AMS reply:



> Once you have a high CTR for an ad and this is based on longevity so the longer you run an ad the better, you can lower your bid, but only if you have a high CTR.


That's interesting. I though the conventional wisdom was to RAISE bids on successful keywords (those with a good CTR), not to LOWER them.

Philip


----------



## Decon

LilyBLily said:


> A lot of authors are doing something like this now, calling them cross promos. You can check offers on Bookfunnel and other mailing list sites, and other threads here.


I only did one cross promo and never again. It benefits the one arraanging it as you end up with all their books on your also boughts and it takes forever to get rid of them. The other thing is many do them for 2 days and with the second day a bust, there isn't as big a sales tail as there would be from one day.


----------



## Jena H

weigle1234 said:


> ANSWER: I am not sure what this question means. The way that AMS works is quite simple. Your ad has the potential to win placements through the following combinations. High bid and High click through rate (when a customer sees your ad and clicks on it) will most likely win every time. CTRs build up overtime, so if you are just beginning to advertise with AMS it is wise to go with a high bid in order to win impressions and thus build up your CTR. Once you have a high CTR for an ad and this is based on longevity so the longer you run an ad the better, you can lower your bid, but only if you have a high CTR. Low bids and low CTRs will see little to no performance because they are not winning the auction when competing against other ads.


Interesting. So, one strategy to try would be to initially use a high bid (at least the default 0.25 per keyword, if not higher), and then, once the ad establishes some traction, the bids can be lowered. I wonder what is considered an acceptable, or reasonable, CTR when the bids can be lowered again?

Also, I'm still not seeing my ad on the product pages for DVDs of a related TV show.  I increased my bids, too. Is it actually possible that the group that created DVDs for the Thunderbirds, or a C movie called Battle in Seattle, are outbidding me to get onto the carousel of an old TV show?? (And why don't they simply add more pages to the carousel?)


----------



## Decon

Okay. I've terminated my best ad by mistake.

Can someone explain how the copy function works in detail and if that copy function restores keywords somehow?


----------



## Jena H

Decon said:


> Okay. I've terminated my best ad by mistake.
> 
> Can someone explain howe the copy function works in detail and if that copy function restores keywords somehow?


IIRC, yes, it literally copies the ad exactly as it was: keywords and even bid amounts. Click on Copy and see... you can always back out if you don't like what you see. Just be sure to rename the new ad, and when you get to the page, you scroll down to see all your keywords, right where you left them. (It's been a few months since I copied an ad, so I don't recall any other details.)


----------



## Accord64

Jena H said:


> Interesting. So, one strategy to try would be to initially use a high bid (at least the default 0.25 per keyword, if not higher), and then, once the ad establishes some traction, the bids can be lowered.


Does this mean that AMS keeps historical track of CTRs across all book campaigns? So when you start a new campaign on a book that has an established CTR track record from previous campaigns, you don't need to open with higher bids?

This might explain why one of my newer campaigns for a book with an established CTR track record is doing well with relatively lower bids. Meanwhile, another one of my books with no CTR footprint (and similar low bids) died off after the first day. I guess I needed to set higher bids on the no-CTR book to help get it established.


----------



## Decon

Jena H said:


> IIRC, yes, it literally copies the ad exactly as it was: keywords and even bid amounts. Click on Copy and see... you can always back out if you don't like what you see. Just be sure to rename the new ad, and when you get to the page, you scroll down to see all your keywords, right where you left them. (It's been a few months since I copied an ad, so I don't recall any other details.)


Oh, dear. Mine must have had a glitch as it didn't copy the keywords as was. No problem, I've sorted it manually and the other ads are copying the keywords as they should.


----------



## JTriptych

Ive begun to dabble with this and I am averaging about 1 click for every 1000 impressions on two ads so far. 

I am pricing them at $0.99 but it seems almost everyone else is going full price?  

One of my ad results seems pretty strange. Before I started it my book had a rank in the 330K in the paid section. After a few days of the ad I had a few clicks and no sales, but the rank improved considerably to around 70K, so I must have sold two books (or the equivalent in borrows) that are not reflected on the AMS dashboard or its just delayed- or could even have been an indirect sale because of the added exposure. It's pretty baffling to me.


----------



## JTriptych

LilyBLily said:


> Not profitable to run AMS ads on 99-cent books. Raise your price.


Not even if its the first book in a series?


----------



## Jena H

Decon said:


> Oh, dear. Mine must have had a glitch as it didn't copy the keywords as was. No problem, I've sorted it manually and the other ads are copying the keywords as they should.


I seem to recall that after hitting "copy," I saw an ad set-up page, and there was the standard box with the 'suggested' keywords. Which was discouraging to see. But scrolling down below that, there was another box with all my actual chosen/added keywords. And below _that_ was the original ad text.

I just now tested it by clicking "copy" on one of my terminated ads. Not sure why your experience would be different.


----------



## Decon

Jena H said:


> I seem to recall that after hitting "copy," I saw an ad set-up page, and there was the standard box with the 'suggested' keywords. Which was discouraging to see. But scrolling down below that, there was another box with all my actual chosen/added keywords. And below _that_ was the original ad text.
> 
> I just now tested it by clicking "copy" on one of my terminated ads. Not sure why your experience would be different.


Nether do I, but that's what has happened when I terminated. I've tried it again and it's the same. I checked the others, but only in pause and the copy included the manual keywords.


----------



## CassieL

JTriptych said:


> Ive begun to dabble with this and I am averaging about 1 click for every 1000 impressions on two ads so far.
> 
> I am pricing them at $0.99 but it seems almost everyone else is going full price?
> 
> One of my ad results seems pretty strange. Before I started it my book had a rank in the 330K in the paid section. After a few days of the ad I had a few clicks and no sales, but the rank improved considerably to around 70K, so I must have sold two books (or the equivalent in borrows) that are not reflected on the AMS dashboard or its just delayed- or could even have been an indirect sale because of the added exposure. It's pretty baffling to me.


That would be from borrows. The AMS dashboard won't show you any page reads or borrows you get, so if you're in KU you need to track ad performance by watching your rank on any given day as well as your sales.

As for 99 cents. There are some on here who are doing that and if you have enough to sell through to then you can price at 99 cents and make a profit, but your ad will likely look horribly unprofitable in terms of your ACoS. Same with a book that gets a lot of KU borrows. Where you'll lose out is if you try to bid low enough to make that 99 cent book profitable in and of itself. You just won't get enough movement on a fiction ad to be useful at those low bids. (IMO. Others have other experiences.) My best ads are on a romance priced at $4.99 and a fantasy priced at $5.99.


----------



## Accord64

Anyone else have frozen impressions? I have a couple of campaigns where clicks have been piling up, and I have sales, but impressions have not moved for over a day now.

Weird,.. or maybe not these days?


----------



## P.T. Phronk

Accord64 said:


> Anyone else have frozen impressions? I have a couple of campaigns where clicks have been piling up, and I have sales, but impressions have not moved for over a day now.
> 
> Weird,.. or maybe not these days?


Yep. One of my ads is at zero impressions and 7 clicks. My CTR is dividing by zero, defying the laws of mathematics and logic, and likely to tear a wormhole in the space-time continuum that threatens to devour all authors. So yeah, business as usual at Amazon.


----------



## Hasbeen

I may have missed the answer to my question in this thread but how to you change the blurb in your add once you have started it? I can't seem to find where you can do that.


----------



## weigle1234

Historical (Hysterical?) Data

I've found some of the most useful data to be located in the Historical Data charts.

The charts can be accessed by going to the Sales Dashboard.  It's old data (at least a month), but probably accurate simply due to the fact that it is old data.  I don't know if the charts are the same for everybody, but mine go back as far as Mar 2016 (even though my first entries are not shown until Nov 2016 - apparently when my first ads started appearing).

I don't know when chart monthly updates occur.  Mine are showing June as the last month - I assume Amazon has yet to gather accurate data for updating July info.


----------



## Accord64

Hasbeen said:


> I may have missed the answer to my question in this thread but how to you change the blurb in your add once you have started it? I can't seem to find where you can do that.


You can't change it. The only option is to terminate the campaign and start a new one (with the new blurb).


----------



## Decon

Anyone else not able to see any of their ad previews?


----------



## weigle1234

Accord64 said:


> You can't change it. The only option is to terminate the campaign and start a new one (with the new blurb).


To each his own; but, IMHO, making any change whatsoever to any ad (pausing, copying, modifying, etc.) is begging for trouble. Even making changes strictly in line with Kindle rules can be fraught with danger (unless one has lots of experience with such changes).

The one and only change I ever made with an ad really screwed it up. The ad had run for a few weeks and had a very high CTR of about .18%. I Paused the ad for 3 or 4 days (I can't recall why I did that), and then set it back to Running.

For about 3 days the ad returned to its old .18% CTR - after which the bottom dropped out - going down to its new CTR of about .06% (now consistently .06%). I intend to keep the ad Running for another few weeks in hopes the CTR will return to its previous high - but if it does, I will be very much surprised. Looks like that ad is a dead issue - facing Termination.


----------



## weigle1234

Emails can be forwarded to paperback customers.  Is there a way to forward them to Kindle customers?

A guy bought one of my Kindle DIY books and left a 4-Star review for the book; wherein he mentioned that he wished he had purchased the paperback version since it would be confusing to have to keep referring to the Kindle version while building the project.  I would like to contact him - to get his snail-mail address - so I can forward a Freebie paperback copy.


----------



## MmmmmPie

Accord64 said:


> Anyone else have frozen impressions? I have a couple of campaigns where clicks have been piling up, and I have sales, but impressions have not moved for over a day now.
> 
> Weird,.. or maybe not these days?


Yup. Me too. And I'd just started like five new ads a few days ago. Stupidly or not, I terminated them this morning, because I had zero sales showing and no idea what they were doing.

And then, I have another ad that keeps racking up clicks and money spent, with no additional impressions, no additional sales, no rank boost, no nothing, just money being blindly charged. Until a couple days ago, it had been a good ad, or so I thought. But now, the ACS is at 233% and climbing. I have no idea what to do. Pause? Terminate? I've already reduced the bid amounts, but these clicks are coming in from who-knows-how-long ago.

It makes me want to terminate every stupid ad and start over.


----------



## A past poster

MmmmmPie said:


> Yup. Me too. And I'd just started like five new ads a few days ago. Stupidly or not, I terminated them this morning, because I had zero sales showing and no idea what they were doing.
> 
> And then, I have another ad that keeps racking up clicks and money spent, with no additional impressions, no additional sales, no rank boost, no nothing, just money being blindly charged. Until a couple days ago, it had been a good ad, or so I thought. But now, the ACS is at 233% and climbing. I have no idea what to do. Pause? Terminate? I've already reduced the bid amounts, but these clicks are coming in from who-knows-how-long ago.
> 
> It makes me want to terminate every stupid ad and start over.


Check out this thread: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,253900.0.html


----------



## MmmmmPie

Marian said:


> Check out this thread: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,253900.0.html


Thanks for the info!


----------



## LFGabel

Accord64 said:


> Anyone else have frozen impressions? I have a couple of campaigns where clicks have been piling up, and I have sales, but impressions have not moved for over a day now.
> 
> Weird,.. or maybe not these days?


Yep. All my sponsored product keyword keywords ads showed zero impressions yesterday, but I got clicks and sales.


----------



## weigle1234

In previous postings I have mentioned my experiences with broker-rented postal mailing lists several times.  The vast majority of them are bogus, fraudulent, garbage - in short, at least 90% of them suck!

My guess is that that the same applies to broker-rented eMail lists (if not more so).  All lists claim their names are of customers who purchased recently (usually within the past 30 - 60 days) - a BIG lie.

For fellow authors possibly using rented lists, here’s how I weed out garbage lists:

- Most such lists have a minimum rental quantity of at least 5,000 names (or eMail addresses).

- Using an nth-name select factor of 100 (to eliminate demographics), extract at least 50 names (or eMail addresses).  For 5,000 name lists, 50 names would be extracted.

- Using a FREE phone directory, obtain their phone numbers (in my experience only about 50% are obtainable).  So, you should end up with at least 25 verified phone numbers.

- Start making phone calls.  Very time consuming, but the best time investment you may ever make.

- Before starting calls, dream up a believable B.S. story.  All my rented lists were for names of customers who had supposedly purchased a gasoline saving device (e.g., the SuperSaver).  Here is how my typical B.S. storyline went:

- Hi Bill, I sure am glad I am able to get in touch with you.  I am trying to get information on the SuperSaver gas-saving thing since I am thinking of buying one.  I was in the Great-Deal auto parts store here in Rockford the other day, and saw a newsletters on the counter about the SuperSaver.  It mentioned your name, and how you had run tests on your SuperSaver.  I do not believe most of what I read in newsletters, and am hoping you can tell me about your experiences with your SuperSaver.  Are they good, or bad?

- Usually the guy is a bit suspicious, and wonders why his name is in a newsletter.  I always tell them that I have no idea why that is there, but it is.  For whatever reason, the newsletter mentions your name and how you live in Phoenix, so I assume you must really be the same guy.

- Typically (if the list is bogus) the guy will say something such as ……What is a SuperSaver; I never heard of that?

Or ……I bought a SuperSaver a long time ago, at least 5 years ago, and the dang thing is a piece of junk.

- If the guy did actually buy a SuperSaver, he will feel flattered that you contacted him; and will usually volunteer all kinds of information (good or bad).

This approach works great for verifying Postal lists.  If you are working with eMail lists it should work equally well.  Just prepare a written B.S. story along the same lines I use, then Copy and Paste - forwarding it to folks on your eMail list.  Ask them to get back with you via eMail (or even by phone).  Obviously, you will have to contact a lot more folks than I had to since you are not contacting them in person.  But that should be easy if you are set up with mass-mailing equipment, of have access to such.

My most memorable experience was with a huge auto parts company in Chicago.  I will not mention their name for fear of being sued.  But anyone into car repair or restoration will recognize them.

The company is so huge that they manage their customer lists in-house - which is very rare - almost all others use the services of list brokers.  Since the company I mention did their own list management, I surmised that they, if anyone, would be honest.  Big mistake on my part!

Using my B.S. weapon, I phoned at least 20 people.  Not one person ever purchased a SuperSaver from them.  So, I got back with the list manager; complaining that the list was not productive (I knew the list was bogus - and had never made any mailings).  After some prodding, he agreed to replace the 5,000 names with 5,000 new ones at no cost.

Long story short - as expected, those 5,000 names were also bogus.  So, I got back with the list manager for a second time.  He would not give me a refund, so I went out of my way to insult him - in hopes of getting to the truth - and it worked!

I told him that several of my mailings had been returned as undeliverable.  Also, that I had received a few letters from widows informing me that their husbands had died at least 3 or 4 years ago.  So, apparently his company does a lot of business with guys ordering from the afterlife!

Just as I was hoping for, I got the list manager highly pissed.  At which point he blurted out …….Let me put it this way.  If I really did rent the lists you are looking for, everyone would be in the mail order business!

All this from a company that, if any, has a good reputation.

The morale of this ranting is (for those reading this far) - when it comes to mailing lists, do not trust anyone.  Save yourself a bunch of money, time, aggravation, and frustration by first doing a bit of investigating.  Again, most lists are garbage!

Hope you are having a fun weekend.


----------



## David Greene

Decon said:


> Anyone else not able to see any of their ad previews?


I believe this can happen if you have an ad blocker in use. If so, you have to disable it for the AMS site.


----------



## Alvina

LFGabel said:


> Yep. All my sponsored product keyword keywords ads showed zero impressions yesterday, but I got clicks and sales.


I noticed that I have more than 10 clicks on my book yesterday, but there is not even a single sales for more than a week. 

What really happened ...?


----------



## weigle1234

Decon said:


> Sorry, probably obvious, but what is CTR?


Perhaps others have already addressed this. CTR is the abbreviation for "Click Through Rate."

I checked into it via Google, and Wikipedia gives as good a definition as any others I came across:
- Click-through rate (CTR) is the ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view a page, email, or advertisement.

It's expressed in "Percentage" - thus, a CTR of .10% would (in AMS jargon) represent 1 Click per 1,000 Impressions.


----------



## weigle1234

Cassie Leigh said:


> I think you're not understanding how the AMS ads work. They're not static. Every single time a customer goes to a product page, a new AMS auction happens. Just because your ad is on a book's page once doesn't mean it will be there the next time. And if it is that will be counted as a new impression.


Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but I believe I can now draw a couple of conclusions about how at least part of our Holy Algorithm functions.

First, a caveat; My conclusions are drawn from my experiences with running very low bid (2-Cent) Keyword-Stuffed (approx. 1,000) test ads in Manual mode. Much to my surprise, such ads often generate very high numbers of Impressions, and corresponding Clicks.

My DIY genre is quite small compared to those of most authors on this forum, whose ads apparently appear mainly in Romance novel genres. As is oft said; "Your results may vary."

Again, I mention this because I get tons of Impressions from such ads in spite of 2-Cent bids (typically from 10,000 - 25,000 Impressions / Day) - which seems strange.

- With every test ad I make absolutely no changes during its run (I am a proponent of A/B testing).

- Typically, every test ad requires about 1-week Running time before results stabilize (e.g., the CTR remains consistent).

My Conclusion:

After any NEW AD is submitted, reviewed, and place into Running, Amazon initiates a very complex process (using their mysterious Algorithm) to determine the most efficient ad placements. Those placements give preference to the most profitable existing ads - logically, those ads also most profitable for Amazon.

After this initial process is completed (which requires a few days of close Algorithm analysis due to the changing dynamics of the AMS ad universe), the NEW AD is assigned a FIXED CTR value.

Any change made to the NEW AD whatsoever will force the Algorithm to recalculate, and change, the FIXED CTR to a new value. The results of the NEW FIXED CTR value will force the MODIFIED AD results into unpredictable directions.

The key factor in all this is the concept of a FIXED CTR - determined by the Algorithm soon after the NEW AD is up and Running and its FIXED CTR has stabilized.

Due to the constantly changing dynamics of the AMS ad universe, the only possible way to maintain the required FIXED CTR is by continually updating both the quantity and positioning of ad IMPRESSIONS (as determined by the Algorithm at any and all points in time).

In conclusion, IMHO, any ad change whatsoever may create unforeseen results. The best course is the let any ad run unaltered. If changes are deemed necessary, start a new ad incorporating those changes, and compare its results to the existing ad (an A/B test) - followed by Terminating the least effective ad.

All this, again IMHO, is part of what occurs each time we submit new a new ad.


----------



## Decon

What a joke this AMS is.


I terminated my best performing ad by error and I couldn't copy all the 600 keywords for some reason. What I did was to maunually pick out all the best performing of around 71 keywords that produced sales and high impressions and increased all the bids from 26c to 51c. (mostly 51c)

Long and short is I've only had 813 impressions on 13 0f 71 keywords since it started 4 days ago. These arent authors or books that don't get clicks to their pages often as they are all high in the charts.

I've now gone through every one of the keywords and sure enough, I'm nowhere in sight on the carousels of the other 58 keywords. Some of those keywords only have 13 to 29 pages, so it's not like they don't have a space.

I'm just about to go through every one and make them all 52c, then wait a week.  If it doesn't make sense after that, I'm going to send them screen shots and tell them I won't be fobbed off with a standard reply.


----------



## NicoleSmith

Decon said:


> What a joke this AMS is.
> 
> I terminated my best performing ad by error and I couldn't copy all the 600 keywords for some reason. What I did was to maunually pick out all the best performing of around 71 keywords that produced sales and high impressions and increased all the bids from 26c to 51c. (mostly 51c)
> 
> Long and short is I've only had 813 impressions on 13 0f 71 keywords since it started 4 days ago. These arent authors or books that don't get clicks to their pages often as they are all high in the charts.
> 
> I've now gone through every one of the keywords and sure enough, I'm nowhere in sight on the carousels of the other 58 keywords. Some of those keywords only have 13 to 29 pages, so it's not like they don't have a space.
> 
> I'm just about to go through every one and make them all 52c, then wait a week. If it doesn't make sense after that, I'm going to send them screen shots and tell them I won't be fobbed off with a standard reply.


Ugh. Just wanted to say I feel your pain, as that drop-down box got me too (accidentally terminated one of the few that was working). Wish there was a 'resurrect'. Naturally, once copied it stopped performing.


----------



## CassieL

Decon said:


> Long and short is I've only had 813 impressions on 13 0f 71 keywords since it started 4 days ago. These arent authors or books that don't get clicks to their pages often as they are all high in the charts.


Yeah, I tried distilling one of my ads down to just the best performing keywords and started a new ad with it, but it didn't work at all. It just spent money across all of the keywords, but none of them had a sale. So it was 5-6 clicks per keyword across 70+ keywords without a sale on any of them. Very expensive.

And I terminated an ad I didn't want to once, too, instead of pausing it. I was not happy with myself because it was also one where they won't approve an ad with the new cover.

With that old ad, even though it's been terminated, you should still be able to click into the ad and download your keywords into an Excel file. Might be worth doing and adding them to this non-performing. Shouldn't take long. You can bulk ad words you copy from Excel as long as you give them all the same bid.


----------



## amdonehere

Decon said:


> What a joke this AMS is.
> 
> I terminated my best performing ad by error and I couldn't copy all the 600 keywords for some reason. What I did was to maunually pick out all the best performing of around 71 keywords that produced sales and high impressions and increased all the bids from 26c to 51c. (mostly 51c)
> 
> Long and short is I've only had 813 impressions on 13 0f 71 keywords since it started 4 days ago. These arent authors or books that don't get clicks to their pages often as they are all high in the charts.
> 
> I've now gone through every one of the keywords and sure enough, I'm nowhere in sight on the carousels of the other 58 keywords. Some of those keywords only have 13 to 29 pages, so it's not like they don't have a space.
> 
> I'm just about to go through every one and make them all 52c, then wait a week. If it doesn't make sense after that, I'm going to send them screen shots and tell them I won't be fobbed off with a standard reply.


My God Decon, I feel your pain. I wish I know what to tell you but I don't. This is always something that had stopped me from starting new ads. It's because sometimes successful keywords stop working when used for starting a new ad and the old ad is paused or terminated.


----------



## amdonehere

> In conclusion, IMHO, any ad change whatsoever may create unforeseen results. The best course is the let any ad run unaltered. If changes are deemed necessary, start a new ad incorporating those changes, and compare its results to the existing ad (an A/B test) - followed by Terminating the least effective ad


I don't know about not altering anything. I finally read Brian Meek's book. He said ads "die" after a while. I've had a great run with an ad I started in August 2016. In the last 2 months, I have no choice but to conclude that it died. There's just abysmall results now. I finally paused it, separated my keywords into 4 different new ads (all with same ad copy). Will see how it all works out.

Actually, even when the ad was running, sometimes sales would slow down and I'd have to adjust the bid. Finally the adjustments no longer helped so I can only assumed that the ad really died.


----------



## Jena H

ONe of my ads has been running for about 10 days now, and produced ZERO sales.  Actually, very few clicks, for that matter.  I raised my bids on some promising keywords to 30c, and still....  nothing.  On one hand, it's only cost me a whopping $1.20 so far (which is sad, when you think about it).  On the other hand, if this ad hasn't produced any activity by now, I don't think it's doing anything but spinning my wheels.


----------



## LFGabel

Decon said:


> What a joke this AMS is.
> 
> I terminated my best performing ad by error and I couldn't copy all the 600 keywords for some reason. What I did was to maunually pick out all the best performing of around 71 keywords that produced sales and high impressions and increased all the bids from 26c to 51c. (mostly 51c)
> 
> Long and short is I've only had 813 impressions on 13 0f 71 keywords since it started 4 days ago. These arent authors or books that don't get clicks to their pages often as they are all high in the charts.
> 
> I've now gone through every one of the keywords and sure enough, I'm nowhere in sight on the carousels of the other 58 keywords. Some of those keywords only have 13 to 29 pages, so it's not like they don't have a space.
> 
> I'm just about to go through every one and make them all 52c, then wait a week. If it doesn't make sense after that, I'm going to send them screen shots and tell them I won't be fobbed off with a standard reply.


Don't mean to incite anger (because I am in the same boat,) but to expect a copy of an ad *with no history* to perform just as well as an established ad *with history* seems unreasonable. I suspect historical performance of the copied ad plays a part in whether it gets play or not. I don't think it has anything to do with how well the original ad performed. New ads, copies or not, need time to build up that history, and sometimes they take off. That's my 2 cents.


----------



## PearlEarringLady

LFGabel said:


> Don't mean to incite anger (because I am in the same boat,) but to expect a copy of an ad *with no history* to perform just as well as an established ad *with history* seems unreasonable. I suspect historical performance of the copied ad plays a part in whether it gets play or not. I don't think it has anything to do with how well the original ad performed. New ads, copies or not, need time to build up that history, and sometimes they take off. That's my 2 cents.


I agree with this. There is also a randomising element at work. Two identical ads will almost certainly perform differently because they're being shown to different people who respond in different ways. This is why I think anyone who tries to make sense of individual ad performance is on the fast road to crazyville, frankly, because there IS no sense in it. The only way to analyse these ads is by running huge numbers of them to get a statistic distribution (a la Monte Carlo analysis, for those familiar with the term).


----------



## amdonehere

Jena H said:


> ONe of my ads has been running for about 10 days now, and produced ZERO sales. Actually, very few clicks, for that matter. I raised my bids on some promising keywords to 30c, and still.... nothing. On one hand, it's only cost me a whopping $1.20 so far (which is sad, when you think about it). On the other hand, if this ad hasn't produced any activity by now, I don't think it's doing anything but spinning my wheels.


That's happening with one of my ad too and mine's been running for 2 months. I've sort of given up AMS ad on that one.


----------



## amdonehere

I'm kinda panicking now because I paused my old long running ad which I believe might have "died" and started 4 new ads. I know maybe it takes 3 days to a week or so for the new ads to accumulate results but I'm all antsy that maybe I should run back to the security blanket of the old ad even though by all data it seems it had "died" (iow, producing minimal to no results). 

Do you guys think an ad does "die"?


----------



## CassieL

AlexaKang said:


> Do you guys think an ad does "die"?


I think ads go dormant, I don't think they die. I was going to suggest on your prior post that you let the ad sit for about a week and then restart it. I've done that and had it revive a long-running ad that had cooled off and stopped really generating impressions.


----------



## khotisarque

PaulineMRoss said:


> ...Two identical ads will almost certainly perform differently because they're being shown to different people who respond in different ways. This is why I think anyone who tries to make sense of individual ad performance is on the fast road to crazyville


How does this square with the assertion that Algo screens out ads that compete or cannibalize each other? An experiment might be to run two identical ads - identical in every way - and see if they get reasonably equal impression counts in their early days before CTR can become a complicating factor.

Click count differences might then be explained by the different viewers. CTR, I am still unsure how this is measured. First, someone embarks on a search and clicks on the impression of my ad. Is CTR the ratio of those clicks to impressions? Second, he likes my product page and buys. Is CTR the ratio of sales to product page views, or sales to impressions?

Either way, CTR for a new ad must be zero until the first magic click appears. So it cannot reasonably be used as a parameter for Algo until some stabilizing quantity of both clicks and impressions has been established. If you get lucky and have a large initial cluster of clicks, then Algo will favor you with both quantity and quality of future impressions: the rich get richer? Then if you hit a dry patch, Algo will cut you off with no possibility of reprieve? This model seems to agree with reported experiences.

As an aside, there is a vital difference between AMS ads and trad media ads. In a mag or newspaper or radio spot, you buy an ad space, submit copy, the ad runs for as long as you paid up-front for it. With AMS, the media [Amazon itself] decides how well it works for them in generating sales/income, then chooses how intensively to show it, finally bills you for the outcome in clicks. I'm not sure whether that is to my benefit or not, but it merits discussion.

Bottom lines: AMS offers initial exposure at a low cost. The author has almost total control over the effectiveness of her ad and the attractiveness of her product page; but little to no control over the actual ad placement, where 'little' means choosing keywords and bids, which might be viewed either as black magic or individualized topics for micromanagement. What happens after that initial exposure is that Algo tends to favor the successful; not too different from the rest of the real world?


----------



## Decon

I feel better today. Only had 2300 impressions but since I increased every bid to 52c I've had 3 clicks out of the 70 keywords. That's better for clicks than I was getting from 600 keywords at lower clicks. Just need to keep an eye on the daily spend now and the average cost per click, currently 31c on that ad and any Acos I end up with. More that 11 clicks per sale and this particular ad will lose money.


----------



## A past poster

Decon said:


> I feel better today. Only had 2300 impressions but since I increased every bid to 52c I've had 3 clicks out of the 70 keywords. That's better for clicks than I was getting from 600 keywords at lower clicks. Just need to keep an eye on the daily spend now and the average cost per click, currently 31c on that ad and any Acos I end up with. More that 11 clicks per sale and this particular ad will lose money.


You're smart to watch the ad carefully. Even if your book is $4.99, which I assume it is, you're almost at a tipping point in terms of making a profit if your cost per click is over 0.30 cents.


----------



## P.T. Phronk

This is interesting. Facebook has started filtering out accidental clicks so advertisers like us aren't charged for them: https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/08/facebook-unintentional-clicks/

If Facebook can determine if a real person actually intended to click or not, Amazon could probably do similar advertiser-friendly moves. Like better reporting, and filtering out click bots (if they actually exist).


----------



## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> An experiment might be to run two identical ads - identical in every way - and see if they get reasonably equal impression counts in their early days before CTR can become a complicating factor.
> 
> Click count differences might then be explained by the different viewers. CTR, I am still unsure how this is measured.


CTR is the commonly used abbreviation for "Click Through Rate." For our AMS ads, it is calculated by dividing the number of Clicks by the number of Impressions (CLICKS / IMPRESSIONS = CTR).

CTR is expressed in Percentage. Thus, if 1 CLICK occurred for 1,000 IMPRESSIONS the actual Ratio would be .0010 - for a resultant CTR of .10%.

Following are the actual results of a continuously Running test ad for my VapoKarb eBook. This is a Keyword-Stuffed ad (972 Keywords), Running in Manual mode, with all Keyword Bids set at 2-Cents.

Since it is intended solely as a test ad, absolutely NO CHANGES of any kind have been made during its entire Running history. The ad was submitted to AMS on June 5, 2017 - so it has been Running since June 6 - for 63 days.

Here is the order in which I have presented the ad data:

Date - IMPRESSIONS - Average Daily Increase - CLICKS - CTR

Jun 10 - 122,593 - 24,519 - 62 - .05
Jun 11 - 144,737 - 22,144 - 66 - .05
Jun 23 - 398,207 - 21,123 - 169 - .04
Jun 27 - 480,809 - 20,650 - 189 - .04
Jun 30 - 557,884 - 25,692 - 257 - .05
Jul 2 - 590,468 - 16,292 - 264 - .04
Jul 6 - 678,932 - 22,116 - 301 - .04
Jul 12 - 822,93 - 24,010 - 357 - .04
Jul 26 - 1,128,671 - 21,834 - 480 - .04
Jul 29 - 1,175,894 - 15,741 - 486 - .04
Aug 2 - 1,247,158 - 17,816 - 505 - .04
Aug 4 - 1,261,558 - 7,200 - 529 - .04
Aug 6 - 1,296,956 - 17,699 - 546 - .04
Aug 7 - 1,314,353 - 17,397 - 555 - .04
Aug 8 - 1,325,566 - 11,213 - 561 - .04

Average Cost / CLICK - $8.15 / 555 - $0.0146

Total Royalties (13 eBooks sold - last one Aug 6) - $4.55
KU/KOLL (173 Pages @ $0.004 / Page) - $0.69
Total Earnings - $5.24

Total Spend - $8.26

Net Loss - $3.02

My Conclusions:

- My Keywords chart for this ad shows $0.00 (or -) under the Sales column for each Keyword. If (a BIG if) AMS has actually updated the chart accurately, the 13 verified sales may have all occurred organically. A much less likely scenario is that a reader spotted my AMS ad, did not Click on it, but later spotted the VapoKarb on my Product Page, and ordered from there.

- This ad has been Running uninterrupted for 63 days - at a cost of about 5-Cents / day. Many of my other book ads usually appear alongside this ad, thus drawing at least some attention to them - perhaps accounting for indirect sales of those books. At any rate, I consider 5-Cent / day to be a rather modest, low-risk, advertising investment. For that reason alone, I intend to keep the ad Running indefinitely as is; if for no other reason than mere curiosity.

- The average CTR for this ad (.04%) is very consistent - which supports my contention that AMS determines, and assigns, a FIXED CRT value early in the game - usually within a week of Running. After 5-days (starting at June 12, the CTR has basically held steady at .04%. The only exception is for June 30 (a 3-day span from June 27 - June 30), when it averaged .05%. From June 30 onward, the CTR has been a very consistent .04%.

- The Average Daily Impressions Increase from Jul 6 - July 12 (a 6-day span) was 24,010 - with a corresponding CTR of .04%.

The Average Daily Impressions Increase from August 2 - August 4 (a 2-day span) was only 7,200 - yet the corresponding CTR still held steady at .04%.

At some point I intend to place another test ad identical to this, with the sole exception being a different ad Blurb. I will be curious to see what, if any, inter-action results from Running the ads concurrently. I suspect something new (and mysterious) will likely result - hopefully something that can be accurately analyzed.


----------



## khotisarque

weigle1234 said:


> Average Cost / CLICK - $8.15 / 555 - $0.0146


Another of life's little mysteries is how the average cost per click can be 1.46 cents when the minimum is supposedly set at 2.00 cents.


----------



## Author A.C. Salter

I'm biting the bullet and putting Eversong on for free. I've not done it since first releasing it at the beginning of last year. I only hope that it'll make plenty of read throughs and AMS helps keep the rank up.

Fingers crossed...


----------



## quiet chick writes

Alvina said:


> I noticed that I have more than 10 clicks on my book yesterday, but there is not even a single sales for more than a week.
> 
> What really happened ...?


On and around August 4-5th, my ads were very productive in impressions and clicks. I also got a good clump of sales on my KDP dashboard, which I assumed belonged to the ads, but ~5 days later now and neither of the ads are claiming a single additional sale. I don't usually get that many organic sales all at once, and usually the ads register the sale within 3 days. I sell so little that I can actually time this to the hour, lol! But 5 days now and nada. My ACoS is looking pretty dismal for one of them, but I'm scared to pause it and ruin the momentum in case those sales did belong to the ad. Is anyone else noticing 5 days or longer between sales reporting on KDP and AMS?


----------



## Accord64

Laura Rae Amos said:


> Is anyone else noticing 5 days or longer between sales reporting on KDP and AMS?


AMS reports always have a lag in sales reporting. KDP should always be up to date (reporting sales within hours, or at least on the same day). My sales always register on KDP first, and then show up on AMS two to three days later.

However, from time to time there could be issues with KDP reporting, but that's hard to determine. The only way to find out if there's an issue (that I can think of) is if you know that someone purchased a book and you don't see it show up on KDP right away.

I haven't seen anything unusual on my KDP reporting lately, other than a general lack of sales.


----------



## weigle1234

LFGabel said:


> So perhaps bidding higher in the first week, then dropping the bid would be a way to "lock in" a higher CTR?
> 
> Your data is surprising. I wish I had those numbers. What was your daily average budget, BTW?
> 
> Thanks for sharing.


I have no idea what the affect of bidding higher in the first week, then dropping the bid would have on CTR.

Since this is strictly a test ad, I would like to test your suggestion by upping the Bid on this ad to perhaps 5-Cents; then allow at least 2 - 3 weeks for the CRT to stabilize before dropping it back to the original 2-Cent Bid.

The ad contains 972 Keywords - no way am I going to manually change each and every Keyword Bid from 2-Cents to 5-Cents. Is there a way to change them all to 5-Cents with a single editing procedure?


----------



## weigle1234

LFGabel said:


> So perhaps bidding higher in the first week, then dropping the bid would be a way to "lock in" a higher CTR?
> 
> Your data is surprising. I wish I had those numbers. What was your daily average budget, BTW?
> 
> Thanks for sharing.


The data gathered from my VapoKarb test ad helped confirmed a few things in my mind, at least to my satisfaction.

1. AMS does not mess with their Holy Algorithm. If they were doing that, any CONTROLLED TEST results would be inconsistent - thus making the results of any ad changes difficult, if not impossible, to interpret.

2. With ads submitted in Manual mode, the Algorithm establishes a FIXED CTR within about a week (provided no ad changes have occurred). Every one of my test ads (5 or 6) confirms this.

The only useful conclusion I can draw from determining FIXED CTR is that high CTR ads are probably more efficient.

3. With the few ads I submitted in Automatic mode, the CTR was not very consistent. I believe AMS occasionally messes with Keywords while in Automatic mode - thus yielding inconsistent results. Every ad I placed in Automatic mode yielded very poor and/or very inconsistent results; so I avoid them entirely (at least for now).

I am not sure why you would want my numbers. The ad is merely a test - and is obviously a money loser. Since its Keyword chart list nothing under the Sales column it may well be that the ad did not produce even a single sale - the 13 confirmed sales may all be organic.

What puzzles me is the fact that all my 2-Cent Manual ads produce very high Impression numbers. I can only attribute this to the fact that my genre (DIY) is very small - my 2-Cent Bid ads often appear on carousel Page 1.

Even more puzzling are the results of another test ad. I deliberately added a bunch of Keywords specific to a genre totally unrelated to my DIY genre, and sales shot up. This tends to confirm something I discovered in my mail order business many years ago - mere curiosity in itself can be a motivating sales factor. I was about to Terminate the ad since it was only a test, but have decided to let the goofy thing ride, at least for now.

My average daily budget has always been the same - $5.00. It seems like a nice round number; and my daily ad costs never come close to $5.00.


----------



## Decon

Marian said:


> You're smart to watch the ad carefully. Even if your book is $4.99, which I assume it is, you're almost at a tipping point in terms of making a profit if your cost per click is over 0.30 cents.


Yeah, it's $4.99 so I have $3.40 in terms of royaly to play with. So yes, I'll have to keep a close eye on that particular ad because 11 clicks would eat up all the royaly if I only get one sale from them, and although that was it's ratio at $2.99, I expect it to be a lot higher click to ratio for a buy.

That's why I am going to have to factor in page reads which I haven't done before. I'm aleady at 5 clicks for no sales @ 31c for a total of $1.56 from 3713 impressions, so it must be on early pages with so few impressions. The peage reads are standing at 1000 on that book since I had the ad accepted, so that's around $4.20 against the cost of $1.56. It's page reads were nonexistant before the new ad.


----------



## weigle1234

LFGabel said:


> So perhaps bidding higher in the first week, then dropping the bid would be a way to "lock in" a higher CTR?
> 
> Your data is surprising. I wish I had those numbers. What was your daily average budget, BTW?
> 
> Thanks for sharing.


I would like to run another test ad identical to that test ad - with the Bid level set at 5-Cents.

But, there is a problem. The existing 2-Cent Bid ad Blurb is such:

Super-Efficient DIY Fuel Vaporizer - Boosts 
MPG's and Performance - Check these Easy 
Steps and Clear Plans!

And, therein lies the problem. All those caps send AMS into apoplexy. If I change the Blurb thusly (which AMS might accept):

Super-efficient DIY fuel vaporizer - Boosts 
MPG's and performance - Check these easy 
steps and clear plans!

Now, all bets would be off. Drawing ad result comparisons would be futile.

P.S. All my older ads - which used lots of caps - performed better than their replacements with few-cap Blurbs. I got pretty good at creating productive ads and Sales Letter headlines in my many years in mail order. But, AMS sets the rules. I understand their aversion to lots of caps - many folks have no concept of how to present effective Blurbs, and tend to create gaudy Cap-Polluted ads.


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## JTriptych

I'm not quite clear on the difference between putting an ad on auto or manual. So far all the ads I've placed are on manual. What's the difference?


----------



## CassieL

JTriptych said:


> I'm not quite clear on the difference between putting an ad on auto or manual. So far all the ads I've placed are on manual. What's the difference?


With auto you have no control over the keywords just the bid. Amazon chooses the keywords and you never see what they are. With manual you can input your own keywords and/or choose from Amazon's list of suggested keywords.


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## P.T. Phronk

weigle1234 said:


> I have no idea what the affect of bidding higher in the first week, then dropping the bid would have on CTR.
> 
> Since this is strictly a test ad, I would like to test your suggestion by upping the Bid on this ad to perhaps 5-Cents; then allow at least 2 - 3 weeks for the CRT to stabilize before dropping it back to the original 2-Cent Bid.
> 
> The ad contains 972 Keywords - no way am I going to manually change each and every Keyword Bid from 2-Cents to 5-Cents. Is there a way to change them all to 5-Cents with a single editing procedure?


I'm doing some tests to try this out too, and running into the same problem. So far my only solution has been to only change the bids (manually) on keywords that actually have clicks. Every week, I'll go back and lower the bid again on any other keywords that have gotten clicks and established a CTR. It's still really slow, but not quite 972 keywords slow.


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## CassieL

I think that Machete tool (http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,251257.0.html) has the ability to mass update bids. I don't use it, though, so can't say more than that it exists.


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## amdonehere

I'm losing hope. My new ads are not bringing in any sales. 

I just don't know what to do anymore.


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## weigle1234

All my Low-Bid (usually 2-Cent) Keyword-Stuffed (usually around 1,000) test ads have basically served their purposes.

There is usually a lesson to be learned by paying close attention to just about worthwhile endeavor, albeit often a minor one.  I was Running a series of about 6 - 7 test ads for 1 eBook, and decided to Terminate all but 1 ad - the 1 ad producing the best results.  I made the mistake of Terminating the other 5 - 6 test ads in rapid succession.

As a result my remaining productive ad went Ape - most of the stats going in mindless directions.  Obviously all those Terminations temporarily confused the Algo circuitry tracking the good ad.  The ad now seems to be in recovery, but I need to keep a close eye on it.  If the ad does not soon return to its former self I will Terminate it, and start off again with a nearly identical ad.

The moral of all this, at least for myself, is - Terminate unwanted ads on a timely basis.  Perhaps just one each day - until they have all been given a decent burial.


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## weigle1234

AlexaKang said:


> I'm losing hope. My new ads are not bringing in any sales.
> 
> I just don't know what to do anymore.


Something that may be worth considering is using an approach that seems to be bearing fruit for me - i.e., Low-Bid (~2-Cent), Keyword-Stuffed (~1,000 Keywords) test ads.

This approach may work only if your Genre is relatively small. Providing your Genre is relatively small, Low-Bid test ads should produce lots of Impression and ,correspondingly, lots of Clicks. Such ads will likely produce few sales - in fact the ads may actually lose money. But, with a cost of only 1 or 2-Cents / Click, you can gain lots of useful information over a long time span without breaking the bank.

For each eBook I always ran at least 3 or 4 such test ads (still Running some). When each test ad had stabilized after a reasonable time (at least 3 - 4 weeks), I transferred the most productive Keywords from each test ad into a common file. Then, using a Keyword List Cleaner such as:

http://www.scriptalicious.com/tools/keyword-list-cleaner/

I had all dupe Keywords deleted. This Cleaner does a great job - I am sure there are others that will work equally well.

Whatever you do, do not make the mistake of fooling with any Keyword in any test ad - otherwise the test results will be meaningless. Let each ad run its course until its stats finally stabilize (usually after at least 3 - 4 weeks).

By using this technique, I eventually pare the Stuffed-Keywords down from ~1,000 into the neighborhood of ~200 to ~250. From that much smaller list of more effective Keywords, I am developing my finalized ads, using the proven technique of A/B testing - experimenting with various Bid-Levels, Blurbs, etc.

This is what I have been doing for the past several weeks. In essence I am at about the same point in the game as yourself. Hopefully, if you decide to give this approach a shot, things will work out. If not, we will both be in mourning.


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## JTriptych

Cassie Leigh said:


> With auto you have no control over the keywords just the bid. Amazon chooses the keywords and you never see what they are. With manual you can input your own keywords and/or choose from Amazon's list of suggested keywords.


Thanks, looks like I guessed right by choosing manual on my first try.


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## Kay7979

I finally got word back from customer support after my overnight increase of 600 clicks on a particular keyword. The erroneous clicks have since been removed, although the person who responded didn't seem to be in the loop about that. In any case, the following comments were enlightening: 

This activity may be tied to click invalidation. Our ad products use advanced click-validation and impression-validation software to determine whether each impression and click on your ad is invalid. Invalid impressions and clicks (if any) are generally removed from your impression and click statistics the same day they occur.

However, some identified invalid impressions and clicks may take up to three days to get removed as additional impression and click validation is completed. As a result, you might see your impression and click statistics fluctuate slightly from day to day. The most accurate impression and click data will be available after at least three days have passed. 

While we do not disclose specifics on what we filter out, we do filter out known bots, and we are constantly looking for new ones. Beyond the blocking on the front end, we review impressions and clicks for up to three days after for additional validation.

I hope this clarifies your issue. If you have any other concern regarding this issue, please write  back to us, we will be happy to help you.


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## Rising Sun

Kay7979 ...Thanks for sharing your follow through message from Amazon. This last week I have had dozens of ads with negative clic balances for the day. Unfortunately they also show a positive spend amount. It might be possible that the spend adjustments are being made, just not in a transparent manner, or possibly they will come through on the invoice...I will know better in a month….but one thing is for sure, bots are real. They might be related to other authors, folks that don’t like Amazon or they might be targeted on political or subject matter but they are part of our environment.
Thanks again.


----------



## Rising Sun

I got a generic announcement from AMS calling out various strategies for keyword list creation. One of them was the use of ASINs as keywords. I am creating new lists right now but have not started adding ASINs as it is more cumbersome than just adding book names. I am concerned that I may have actually tried this sometime ago and eventually figured out that the feature was on AMS for Advantage and other page stores and not for KDP AMS users. 
Anyone have any experience in using ASINs as keywords? Did you use a format like ASIN B06ZYPFG7 or drop the ASIN and just use the number? The advantage is great as it precisely names the edition of the book I want to draw consumers from. Readers attracted to a 9.99 ebook edition may be differently motivated than 99 cent book buyers.


----------



## amdonehere

Rising Sun said:


> I got a generic announcement from AMS calling out various strategies for keyword list creation. One of them was the use of ASINs as keywords. I am creating new lists right now but have not started adding ASINs as it is more cumbersome than just adding book names. I am concerned that I may have actually tried this sometime ago and eventually figured out that the feature was on AMS for Advantage and other page stores and not for KDP AMS users.
> Anyone have any experience in using ASINs as keywords? Did you use a format like ASIN B06ZYPFG7 or drop the ASIN and just use the number? The advantage is great as it precisely names the edition of the book I want to draw consumers from. Readers attracted to a 9.99 ebook edition may be differently motivated than 99 cent book buyers.


As always Amazon is unclear as hell whenever they say anything. Do NOT use ASIN for Sponsored Products ads. What they meant was you should use ASINs for Product Display Ads-Products (as distinguished from Product Display Ads-Interests). In PD Ads-Products, you can use ASINS to identify the PRODUCT where to show your ad.

ASINs as keywords in Sponsored Products ads DO NOT WORK. I've tested this several times. If you scroll back to old pages in this thread you'll see others saying the same thing.


----------



## Rising Sun

Weigle 1234 ...Thanks for your experimentation.  Have you considered doing a tightly targeted low price campaign?  Thinking through to your likely buyer...older car buff, mechanic?, nostalgia, carburation specialists maybe… I am thinking that a very tightly designed list could result in high click rates that would allow keeping bid rates low. Same concept as a tightly targeted direct mail ad.

BTW… Keep in mind that the Amazon buy/sell experience is contingent on the buyers wants/needs as expressed in part by her browser history. One reason we all tend to see our own ads early in carousels is simply that Amazon knows we are interested in our books and books like ours. My sense is that extends to the also boughts and also viewed books shown to us too.  Websites like yasiv.com are good as they show also boughts free of the selection made for our particular browser history 

Thanks for your efforts and the benefit of your experience.


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## Rising Sun

Thanks AlexaKang...That is what I was thinking too. In this case the AMS sheet was very clear to say these were strategies for keyword lists for sponsored product ads. I knew it was too cool to be true...Thanks.


----------



## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> How does this square with the assertion that Algo screens out ads that compete or cannibalize each other? An experiment might be to run two identical ads - identical in every way - and see if they get reasonably equal impression counts in their early days before CTR can become a complicating factor.
> 
> Click count differences might then be explained by the different viewers. CTR, I am still unsure how this is measured. First, someone embarks on a search and clicks on the impression of my ad. Is CTR the ratio of those clicks to impressions? Second, he likes my product page and buys. Is CTR the ratio of sales to product page views, or sales to impressions?
> 
> Either way, CTR for a new ad must be zero until the first magic click appears. So it cannot reasonably be used as a parameter for Algo until some stabilizing quantity of both clicks and impressions has been established. If you get lucky and have a large initial cluster of clicks, then Algo will favor you with both quantity and quality of future impressions: the rich get richer? Then if you hit a dry patch, Algo will cut you off with no possibility of reprieve? This model seems to agree with reported experiences.
> 
> As an aside, there is a vital difference between AMS ads and trad media ads. In a mag or newspaper or radio spot, you buy an ad space, submit copy, the ad runs for as long as you paid up-front for it. With AMS, the media [Amazon itself] decides how well it works for them in generating sales/income, then chooses how intensively to show it, finally bills you for the outcome in clicks. I'm not sure whether that is to my benefit or not, but it merits discussion.
> 
> Bottom lines: AMS offers initial exposure at a low cost. The author has almost total control over the effectiveness of her ad and the attractiveness of her product page; but little to no control over the actual ad placement, where 'little' means choosing keywords and bids, which might be viewed either as black magic or individualized topics for micromanagement. What happens after that initial exposure is that Algo tends to favor the successful; not too different from the rest of the real world?


Is this an example of what you refer to as Cannibalizing?

An ad for my best selling book started Running on August 3. Within 4 days its CTR had stabilized at a fairly high level of ~.09%, with Average Daily Impressions stabilizing at ~12,000. This ad has 262 Keywords - distilled (using Cassie's terminology) from ~1,000 Keyword-Stuffed test ads - with Bid set at 10-Cents, and aCPC of 4-Cents.

On August 5 (2 days later) I started an A/B test by Running the identical ad - with a 25-Cent Bid (the AMS default value). As of today (August 11) it appears to have stabilized with Average Daily Impressions of ~15,000, aCPC of 10-Cents, and CTR of ~.07%.

However, within the last 5 days, the stats for the older 10-Cent ad have changed dramatically. Its Average Daily Impressions have fallen from ~12,000 down to ~5. For whatever reason, its aCPC remains at 4-Cents, and CTR remains stable at ~.09%.

If this is Cannibalizing, is the overall change good or bad? Obviously the older ad is history, unless something equally dramatic happen to change it back to its previous levels. Since the aCPC of the new ad is now stable at 10-Cents, is it operating at higher efficiency than the old ad, thus making up for the increased aCPC to 10-Cents, or am I experiencing a net loss with new ad?

For the moment, I will allow both ads to continue Running - the new ad for sure since the old ad is not likely to recover, and will eventually be Terminated.

Any thoughts on this will be appreciated.


----------



## Decon

This is crazy. I have Lethal Trade on the first page of Gone Girl. I can't see a keyword that I have to get it on there and don't really want it on there as it isn't a good fit. The one book I have that I want on there, In Search of Jessica, has that title as a keyword but it is on page ten, even though I have it as 1 cent more than any keyword that I have on Lethal Trade. 

It's exactly the same with Girl on a Train. Lethal Trade is on the first page and In Search of Jessica is on the 16th page.

So much for the bidding process.


----------



## weigle1234

Rising Sun said:


> Weigle 1234 ...Thanks for your experimentation. Have you considered doing a tightly targeted low price campaign? Thinking through to your likely buyer...older car buff, mechanic?, nostalgia, carburation specialists maybe&#8230; I am thinking that a very tightly designed list could result in high click rates that would allow keeping bid rates low. Same concept as a tightly targeted direct mail ad.
> 
> BTW&#8230; Keep in mind that the Amazon buy/sell experience is contingent on the buyers wants/needs as expressed in part by her browser history. One reason we all tend to see our own ads early in carousels is simply that Amazon knows we are interested in our books and books like ours. My sense is that extends to the also boughts and also viewed books shown to us too. Websites like yasiv.com are good as they show also boughts free of the selection made for our particular browser history
> 
> Thanks for your efforts and the benefit of your experience.


I am a newbie to AMS advertising and do not want to mislead other newbies. I have very limited experience compared to most authors on this forum. That, plus the fact that my DIY genre is very small means, IMHO, that I am facing relatively light competition within the AMS universe - especially compared to Romance Novel writers, whose Genre may well be 1,000 times larger than mine. As evidence of that, my ads often appear on Carousel pages 1 or 2.

My VapoKarb ad is strictly for test purposes. I have no intention of ever using it for other than that. Money-wise, it is a sure loser, since the VapoKarb employs long outdated technology. It was designed about 30 years ago to appeal to car enthusiasts, and did a great job way back then. I got lucky and spotted an ad for The Alan Wallace book "Secrets of the 200MPG Carburetor" - which still appears in both Amazon and eBay offerings.

I got in contact with the company selling publishing rights (Roadrunner Publications, Ft. Worth, TX) to that book. One of the company owners, Neal Michaels, offered to sell me his entire list of customers - giving me unrestricted use of that list. Eventually I bought close to 140,000 names from him (all legitimate - in contrast to almost all lists - which are bogus). The list was a gold mine for me - so good that I made over 4 passes through the entire list (mailing at least 600,000 envelopes with my VapoKarb offer) before it eventually ran out of steam. I ended up selling about 40,000+ copies of the VapoKarb book at $10 a shot, which got me into the mail order business in short order. Neal became so overwhelmed with the 200MPG Wallace book orders that he ultimately sold publishing rights to Moneysworth magazine, founded by Ralph Ginzburg.

At this point, I have 5 books with 25-Cent Bids, all using distilled lists (265 - 271 Keywords) - all Running as A/B tests with their otherwise identical Low-Bid counterparts. It is much to early to make predictions since the ads have only been Running since the first few days of this month.

I still have a few "tightly-targeted, distilled" ads Running with low Bids (2-Cents, 3-Cents, even 10-Cents) primarily as test ads, using the same line of reasoning as that for my VapoKarb book.

I jut checked my charts, and I have attempted to place a total of 160 ads since starting on December 18, 2016. Of those, only 41 ads are now Running - the rest have been either Terminated or Rejected early on. Only 1 ad was ever Paused and placed back into Running - which created havoc - and never intend to do that again.

I plan to check yasiv.com again - I only looked at it briefly a couple months ago, and do not recall much about it.

Good luck with your Kindle venture - have a pleasant, and prosperous weekend.


----------



## NicoleSmith

Are there any tools to make the AMS dashboard less ugly/easier to navigate among older terminated/failed ads?

(And before I put much more brain power into this--are there any authors in this thread *with only a few novels* who are actually earning more than they are spending via ams?)


----------



## CassieL

NicoleSmith said:


> Are there any tools to make the AMS dashboard less ugly/easier to navigate among older terminated/failed ads?
> 
> (And before I put much more brain power into this--are there any authors in this thread *with only a few novels* who are actually earning more than they are spending via ams?)


If you search by "Running" that will narrow it down to just your active ads.

I have a number of ads I run across multiple pen names. My most successful ad is for a romance pen name with only two books out and I make a profit on that one.


----------



## NicoleSmith

Cassie Leigh said:


> If you search by "Running" that will narrow it down to just your active ads.
> 
> I have a number of ads I run across multiple pen names. My most successful ad is for a romance pen name with only two books out and I make a profit on that one.


Thank you for both answers.


----------



## EmparentingMom

What is the consensus these days on whether kdp paperbacks are counted towards sales on the ams dashboard?


----------



## Decon

Decon said:


> This is crazy. I have Lethal Trade on the first page of Gone Girl. I can't see a keyword that I have to get it on there and don't really want it on there as it isn't a good fit. The one book I have that I want on there, In Search of Jessica, has that title as a keyword but it is on page ten, even though I have it as 1 cent more than any keyword that I have on Lethal Trade.
> 
> It's exactly the same with Girl on a Train. Lethal Trade is on the first page and In Search of Jessica is on the 16th page.
> 
> So much for the bidding process.


Okay, something is going wrong. For the first time ever I've had an email telling me to increase my daily limit, but they don't say for which ad. I think it relates to what I have said above as Lethal Trade's Acos has just gone through the roof, yet most bids are nowhere near what I have on In Search of jessica, but it is landing on first pages and Jessica more than 10 pages back. The other thing is that between 5 ads, My billing has only increased by around $1 for the day. ( Edited. My daily spend has increased $4 for yesterday 99% on Lethal Trade with has a limit of $5)

I've contacted them, and I'll see what they say.

@ParentinMom Yes, print book sales count to the ACOS and sales are included with eBooks on your dashboard.


----------



## EmparentingMom

Strange. My ebook and print sales have increased dramatically with ams ads, but I am getting very few reported sales on the ams dashboard. Not quite sure what to make of it.


----------



## Allyson J.

NicoleSmith said:


> And before I put much more brain power into this--are there any authors in this thread *with only a few novels* who are actually earning more than they are spending via ams?)


Sadly, AMS ads on my permafree first in series are never profitable. I have 2 series, one with four novels, another with three. I consistently reach my daily budget max about halfway through the day. But whenever I increase my spend, I just don't see the sales increase to support the cost.

Whenever I run newsletter ads (ENT, RR, BB, and even the smaller ones) I see a decent sell-through. Running AMS ads eats up any profit, but I still do them because visibility. If I don't run AMS ads, I don't sell on amazon. They are a loss for me.


----------



## khotisarque

A thought or two on the Great God Algo.  Amazon is quite up-front that your bid amount in itself does not guarantee you entry to an auction, nor that your bid will be accepted.  Other Factors are considered by Algo.  These Factors might include your ctr history, your ranking in sales, your competitors' situations, your perceived interests and the potential searcher's perceived tastes, book price, royalty rate, the current weather in Olympia and Algo-knows what else.  Factors are a proprietary mystery; but they do exist.

Algo combines these Factors with your bid to make an estimate of your overall sales and profit potential for Amazon.  And then acts accordingly.

In the absence of Factors, in a straight auction with unlimited ad slots, Algo would do what was needed to take all your money – bid your maximum in every auction, make space for you on the last page if you were lowest bidder, ensure your daily maximum was always spent.  The difference between this and real world experience is the net effect of all Algo's Factors.  The Factors always work to reduce your spending.

Why does Algo use these Factors?  Because Algo has an opinion on which books, if pushed to page one every time, will actually sell.  So Algo prefers those books, based on his Factors, and nudges the others below their maximum ad-revenue potential.  Which may actually be beneficial to you and me; Algo limits the amount of our money we can waste on hopeless causes.  Algo knows best ;-)

So if you want to know what Algo in his wisdom thinks of your sales potential, look at the differences between a) your bid and your acpc and b) your max and actual daily spend.  Humbling, is it not?  For most of us, that is; best-selling authors are probably different.

Now, the Hidden Heresy: Algo's Factors are probably quite screwed up.  Coding errors, design errors, inbuilt cognitive biases, time delays, patches and fixes, mis-perceptions, hastiness to meet deadlines, misunderstandings and all the other human imperfections shared by IT-crats conspire to produce flaws.  Which we duly note, and scratch our heads in bafflement.

Our role in the Universe is not to second-guess or strive to understand Algo.  Her ways are mysterious and not for disclosure to the likes of us.  Our role is to live within the messy environment that Algo creates.  So suck it up, guys and gals.  Sometimes, on balance, it helps us.


----------



## NicoleSmith

I'm sure no one wants to share their specific keyword strategy, but would people be willing to speak in generalities?

Do you use other author's names or book titles? Bestsellers or indies or both?
Do you target other media besides books? (Tv shows movies etc?)
Do you bother with top level genre names like urban fantasy, romance, thriller?
How many keywords per campaign do you have?

I'm currently stuck in the "Amazon won't spend my money" black hole so trying to think creatively.


----------



## khotisarque

Authors' names can be very effective.  They are always in the metadata, and people do tend to search for authors more than specific book titles.  However book titles can also be productive, especially if you can identify titles of books by well-known auhors that carry fewer SP pages.  I tried in-genre movie titles; complete flop in my case.

The conflict often is, that keywords that generate lots of views tend to be highly-popular, so you end up bidding very high or else appearing very far down the pages.  Getting a lot of unseen views hurts your ctr and the ad slowly fades away.  Going for a high ctr ratio, in other words very selective targeting, can be rather expensive but might pay off if you have written a clone of a best-seller.  The other possible approach, kws so selective that they get few views but good clicks, takes a lot of research and patience.  And there may not be many of those in the first place; cherish any that you discover.

The generic kws like "book" get lots of views but few clicks - they are what AMS suggests and most people have tried and rejected.

Most of us co-habit that black hole.  Throwing money into it does not help, as AMS does not accept it! Perseverance and luck both help, trying to second-guess the AMS conundrum is not very productive.  Good ad copy - whatever "good" may mean - is the best bet for climbing out if it raises your click rate.  AMS rewards success but penalizes lack of success.

It may help if you can visualize your readership and try to mind-read the language and kws they might use?  Arthurian?  Medieval?  Native as in American, with tribal names?  Gather some friends and brainstorm, then try the kws out at very low bids to see which ones show promise?


----------



## NicoleSmith

khotisarque said:


> Authors' names can be very effective. They are always in the metadata, and people do tend to search for authors more than specific book titles. However book titles can also be productive, especially if you can identify titles of books by well-known auhors that carry fewer SP pages. I tried in-genre movie titles; complete flop in my case.
> 
> The conflict often is, that keywords that generate lots of views tend to be highly-popular, so you end up bidding very high or else appearing very far down the pages. Getting a lot of unseen views hurts your ctr and the ad slowly fades away. Going for a high ctr ratio, in other words very selective targeting, can be rather expensive but might pay off if you have written a clone of a best-seller. The other possible approach, kws so selective that they get few views but good clicks, takes a lot of research and patience. And there may not be many of those in the first place; cherish any that you discover.
> 
> The generic kws like "book" get lots of views but few clicks - they are what AMS suggests and most people have tried and rejected.
> 
> Most of us co-habit that black hole. Throwing money into it does not help, as AMS does not accept it! Perseverance and luck both help, trying to second-guess the AMS conundrum is not very productive. Good ad copy - whatever "good" may mean - is the best bet for climbing out if it raises your click rate. AMS rewards success but penalizes lack of success.
> 
> It may help if you can visualize your readership and try to mind-read the language and kws they might use? Arthurian? Medieval? Native as in American, with tribal names? Gather some friends and brainstorm, then try the kws out at very low bids to see which ones show promise?


I really appreciate you taking the time to type this all out, and it was very helpful.

I'm in a weird spot in that I've written two books of a trilogy that was 50% done before I knew anything about indie book marketing. As such, there is basically no "look alike" audience or author and they don't even fit in top-tier genre concepts well. (In other words, mashups. I sort of ended up writing quasi-literary-fiction in the paranormal space.) But they get good reviews, and some of the more heartfelt ones are enough for me to want to complete the series.

... and I have a well-paying day job that enables me to blow money on ads, so I can't resist the puzzle of trying to market them. And AMS has the same lure as a slot machine.


----------



## CassieL

NicoleSmith said:


> I'm in a weird spot in that I've written two books of a trilogy that was 50% done before I knew anything about indie book marketing. As such, there is basically no "look alike" audience or author and they don't even fit in top-tier genre concepts well. (In other words, mashups. I sort of ended up writing quasi-literary-fiction in the paranormal space.)


Look at your also-boughts. That will give you an idea of what other authors people who buy your books like. Also, I tried yasiv.com the other day and it gives an interesting map to other books that you could possibly use. Just be sure if you have a paperback version that it's capturing your ebook. For a couple of my titles I had to put in the ASIN to get it to map the ebook instead of the paperback.

Different people do well with different approaches, but I've done well mostly with generic genre keywords and author names.


----------



## NicoleSmith

Cassie Leigh said:


> Look at your also-boughts. That will give you an idea of what other authors people who buy your books like. Also, I tried yasiv.com the other day and it gives an interesting map to other books that you could possibly use. Just be sure if you have a paperback version that it's capturing your ebook. For a couple of my titles I had to put in the ASIN to get it to map the ebook instead of the paperback.
> 
> Different people do well with different approaches, but I've done well mostly with generic genre keywords and author names.


Unfortunately I almost always end up with the "BBW bear shifter" or "sassy female chosen-one demon slayer" (with extremely glowy cover) in my also boughts, which are nowhere close. :/ I assume it's because that's what most people are buying in the paranormal space of the promo sites I use (most recently ENT and Book Barbarian). Needless to say, once I wrap up the trilogy I'll be getting out of that corner of Dodge.

I do appreciate you taking the time to respond, though, and the work you've put into this thread.


----------



## khotisarque

NicoleSmith said:


> ...there is basically no "look alike" audience or author and they don't even fit in top-tier genre concepts well...


That sounds like original creative writing..what a quaintly old-fashioned concept  Keep up the good work!


----------



## NicoleSmith

khotisarque said:


> That sounds like original creative writing..what a quaintly old-fashioned concept  Keep up the good work!


Yes, I had no idea that "trope" was the target to aim for. Oops. :/


----------



## P.T. Phronk

NicoleSmith said:


> As such, there is basically no "look alike" audience or author and they don't even fit in top-tier genre concepts well. (In other words, mashups. I sort of ended up writing quasi-literary-fiction in the paranormal space.) But they get good reviews, and some of the more heartfelt ones are enough for me to want to complete the series.
> 
> ... and I have a well-paying day job that enables me to blow money on ads, so I can't resist the puzzle of trying to market them. And AMS has the same lure as a slot machine.


I'm right there with you! I have 2 books in a series that is some weird mashup of urban fantasy, horror, and satire. People like it when they read it, but finding its audience is tough, especially when it comes to writing a description and ad copy to grab their attention in a few seconds.

I haven't found anything that works yet, so this post is pretty useless other than saying I feel your pain.

The next thing I may try is using the specific tropes of ONE genre in the mashup, even if they make me cringe, so that at least readers of that genre can get an idea of some of what's in there, and click to learn more. Fingers crossed.


----------



## weigle1234

EmparentingMom said:


> What is the consensus these days on whether kdp paperbacks are counted towards sales on the ams dashboard?


If we are to believe the AMS folks (as directly stated by them in response to my recent inquiry) paperbacks ARE NOT included on the KDP Dashboard. Some authors believe otherwise. I have never seen any evidence of any of my paperback sales being included there for any of my 12 books (3 of which are eBooks only).

Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but there seems to be general confusion between the KDP Dashboard and the AMS Advertising Campaign chart - there is no such thing as an AMS Dashboard.

A good example of the difference with stats between the two. For all my VapoKarb (99-Cent eBook only) test ads (4 Total), the KDP Dashboard shows 14 sales and 190 pages read.

The AMS Advertising Campaign chart shows, for the 4 ads:

Total Clicks - 624
Total Impressions - 1,470,171
CTR - 624 / 1,470,171 = .04%

That CTR has held steady for at least 8 weeks even though the Average Daily Impressions have varied from a low of ~7,00 to a high of ~22,000 - which leads me to conclude that the AMS chart stats are reliable.

However, the most puzzling stat is the fact that the AMS chart shows no Est. Total Sales (as in $0.00) whatsoever for any of the 4 ads. Assuming that stat is correct, I have to conclude that the puny sales total of 14 eBooks (from the KDP Dashboard) had to have all been organic sales. Sure makes me question the effectiveness of my VapoKarb test ads.

For the other 2 eBooks only ads, I am showing the same odd ad stats - i.e., the AMS chart shows Est. Total Sales of $0.00 for each of the 2 ads - even though the KDP Dashboard shows 11 sales of one eBook, and 39 sales for the other eBook.

For the remaining 9 books (offered as both eBooks and paperbacks) accurate stats are reflected - i.e., eBook sales on the KDP Dashboard reflect the same Est. Total Sales as those given in the AMS Advertising Campaign charts.

Anybody else show the same strange results for eBook offers only stats vs. combined eBook, paperback offer stats?


----------



## Accord64

weigle1234 said:


> If we are to believe the AMS folks (as directly stated by them in response to my recent inquiry) paperbacks ARE NOT included on the KDP Dashboard. Some authors believe otherwise. I have never seen any evidence of any of my paperback sales being included there for any of my 12 books (3 of which are eBooks only).


I don't think the question was asking if paperback sales (in general) are counted, but specifically if _KDP Paperbacks_ are counted.

I've seen my Createspace paperback sales reported on AMS campaigns. Many others have reported that they've seen their CS sales on AMS as well. However, since KDP paperbacks are a relatively new production avenue being pushed by Amazon, I don't think it's been confirmed that they've been linked to AMS reporting.


----------



## Decon

*Am I missing something in the bidding process for placement?

I've just sent this off to Amazon Sponsored ads*

I received an email to say that Lethal Trade was close to my daily limit which I don't wish to alter. This prompted me to go and look at my dashboard. What I found was that if I went to the sales page of Gone Girl, I found Lethal Trade was on the first page of the sponsored ads carousel. I checked other books and found this was also the case and that it explained the sudden increase in clicks.

At the same time, I knew that I had the same book title as a keyword title of Gone Girl.(Assin 4267311691) for my book, In Search of Jessica at a higher bid. but was not on the first page of Gone Girl, and when I scrolled through the sponsored ads, it was on page 12.

This is still the case, only today, Lethal trade is on the 2nd page with a bid of 51c and In Search of Jessica at a higher bid of 53 cents is still on page 12. There are other instances where this is the case, but I am quoting this example to keep it simple for you to look at.

Though both books are a match for the genre, In Search of Jessica, is nearer in tone, and that is why I bid higher.

Don't get me wrong, I am pleased that Lethal Trade is in a good position for visibility, but what I want to know is why In Search of Jessica is lower down the pecking order with a higher bid. It sort of defeats what is said about the bidding process if other books with more visibility are bidding less.

I would appreciate an explanation.


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## khotisarque

Decon, there are at least two partial explanations for your experience.  First is the 'garbage' theory - the famed Algos are defective and producing erratic results.  The second is the 'Other Factors' which contaminate, perhaps dominate, the bidding process.  Amazon does not run a straightforward auction based solely on bids.  It is up-front about this.  It does run a process in which bidders are allowed to underwrite Amazon's opinion on which books merit exposure and publicity.

This process is vastly different both from established media advertizing norms and from established auction procedures.  Whether or not it is to the ultimate benefit of the advertizer, the buyer, or even Amazon is unclear; it might be.  Someone will write a PhD thesis on the experiment one day.  

My opinion FWIW is that it somewhat benefits me as an author.  I consider AMS as a fellow-traveler who is friendly enough, but not to be trusted too much.


----------



## CassieL

Accord64 said:


> I've seen my Createspace paperback sales reported on AMS campaigns.


So have I.


----------



## Eugene Kirk

Ok AMS Gurus, I have a question.

I have an ad running right now which has 200 keywords, mostly targeting Sci-fi authors. I think my ad copy is not bad. I tend to be getting a click every 200 impressions for the very targeted keywords. 

I've only had 1 sale. This was on a very first click of a keyword. Since then I haven't gotten more then 3 clicks per keyword. Impressions still coming however, as I have my bid rates set at somewhat low rates as to not go broke. 

I'm still getting sales however. But they dont 'appear' to be from the AMS ads. (note I'm not in KU so i'm not including borrows)

I have two possibilities for this. 

1) The sales are coming from an instafreebie sample i have and people are reading the sample and then buying the book.

2) People are viewing the Ad, buying it, but the purchase is not showing up. (or perhaps they view but don't buy right away)

3) People are just finding it organically.


No 1 is probable, No. 3 less so, but my question is, is #2 even possible?

I'm not spending a whole lot of money on the add as the impressions are slow going, but it'd be nice to know if it's actually doing anything or not.

Thanks!


----------



## weigle1234

Accord64 said:


> I don't think the question was asking if paperback sales (in general) are counted, but specifically if _KDP Paperbacks_ are counted.
> 
> I've seen my Createspace paperback sales reported on AMS campaigns. Many others have reported that they've seen their CS sales on AMS as well. However, since KDP paperbacks are a relatively new production avenue being pushed by Amazon, I don't think it's been confirmed that they've been linked to AMS reporting.


All my paperbacks are KDP sales. Thanks for your reply - that explains why I have never seen any evidence of paperback sales appearing on my AMS Advertising Campaigns chart.

My very first paperback sale was on April 28, 2016. Obviously I am relatively new to Amazon, and have no idea when they started KDP paperback sales.

I also have no idea how the pricing structure works for CS paperbacks, but here is what I am looking at with my KDP sales:

All my paperbacks are priced the same, $9.49. Amazon also charges my buyers $3.99 shipping - so, they pay Amazon $13.48.

Amazon pays me $9.72 - so they gross $3.76.

For my $9.72 gross sale, I net $5.97.

Here is the breakdown of my direct costs:

Shipping - $2.63 (Media Mail)
Shipping Envelope - $0.12
Paperback - ~$1.00

Total - $3.75

Thus, for a typical order, my Net (Profit) is $5.97. Which translate into 63% of sale price - not the 70% we usually consider as Breakeven.

Actually, my profit is slightly less than $5.97 (closer to $5.87) since I always include at least two Freebies with each order; a Special Report and copy of a DIY booklet that I sell for 99-Cents (something I always do in mail order - keeps buyers happy, and reduces refunds to practically zero).

Also, my paperbacks were all printed at least 3 years ago, when I was paying 99-Cents per copy. I always had them printed, bound, and trimmed in lots of 5,000 to 6,000. I shudder to think what I will be paying now, when my inventory is deleted (if ever, considering my puny sales volume).

I love multiple orders. I can ship 3 paperbacks via Media Mail for the same price ($2.63) as a single paperback. That is an extra $5.26 to take to the bank compared to single orders. I have even had a few orders for 6 paperbacks. I believe Media Mail cost for those is $3.12 - which pays an extra $12.66 compared to single orders ($2.63 x 6 - $3.12).

I sold these same paperbacks via mail order for $39.98. Breakeven was a response rate of 1.3% (13 orders per 1,000 envelopes mailed). Above 1.3%, my profit was slightly over $36 per sale, compared to ~$6 via Amazon. My best selling book in mail order (also via Amazon) has sold well over 30,000 copies - not exactly a fortune, but a good start for just one book. But, that is all history - mail order started a steady decline about 10 years ago. Today, even the best mailing lists are basically garbage - not even worth the high risk of testing for a small operator such as myself.

As with any business, high volume sales is where the real (and most efficient) profits are made. Obviously, some Amazon folks are making the BIG bucks - it sure is not me!


----------



## Accord64

weigle1234 said:


> Also, my paperbacks were all printed at least 3 years ago, when I was paying 99-Cents per copy. I always had them printed, bound, and trimmed in lots of 5,000 to 6,000. I shudder to think what I will be paying now, when my inventory is deleted (if ever, considering my puny sales volume).


I think you're in a whole different category. KDP and CS paperbacks are a POD (Print On Demand) service. Once someone purchases a paperback, let's say one of mine, Amazon will notify CS. CS will then print the book and send it to the customer, using whatever shipping method Amazon requests. I then get a royalty from CS based on a preset rate through the Amazon retail channel (CS has several retail channels, and royalties vary depending on which channel).

CS is owned by Amazon. KDP paperbacks is also owned Amazon, but it's a much newer offering. Many think it's going to eventually replace CS as Amazon consolidates their POD business.

Because you've already had your paperbacks printed, you're essentially the publisher and thus under a whole different type of agreement. I have no idea if AMS would pick up this type of sales activity, and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.

AMS picks up CS orders because it's all Amazon. The unanswered question is if the KDP printed product sales are hooked into the AMS reporting system.


----------



## CassieL

Eugene Kirk said:


> I'm still getting sales however. But they dont 'appear' to be from the AMS ads. (note I'm not in KU so i'm not including borrows)
> 
> I have two possibilities for this.
> 
> 1) The sales are coming from an instafreebie sample i have and people are reading the sample and then buying the book.
> 
> 2) People are viewing the Ad, buying it, but the purchase is not showing up. (or perhaps they view but don't buy right away)
> 
> 3) People are just finding it organically.
> 
> No 1 is probable, No. 3 less so, but my question is, is #2 even possible?


How long ago did the sales occur? There is some delay in reporting sales. At least 3 days if not more.

At least for me, I attribute sales to AMS ads because I was flatlined before I started using them and don't have any other ads running that could be driving those sales.


----------



## weigle1234

Accord64 said:


> I think you're in a whole different category. KDP and CS paperbacks are a POD (Print On Demand) service. Once someone purchases a paperback, let's say one of mine, Amazon will notify CS. CS will then print the book and send it to the customer, using whatever shipping method Amazon requests. I then get a royalty from CS based on a preset rate through the Amazon retail channel (CS has several retail channels, and royalties vary depending on which channel).
> 
> CS is owned by Amazon. KDP paperbacks is also owned Amazon, but it's a much newer offering. Many think it's going to eventually replace CS as Amazon consolidates their POD business.
> 
> Because you've already had your paperbacks printed, you're essentially the publisher and thus under a whole different type of agreement. I have no idea if AMS would pick up this type of sales activity, and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.
> 
> AMS picks up CS orders because it's all Amazon. The unanswered question is if the KDP printed product sales are hooked into the AMS reporting system.


Things were a bit confusing when I first got involved with Amazon (mail order is about as uncomplicated as anything can possibly be). I do remember finally deciding that being a self-publisher was the way to go.

In fact, I keep detailed records of each and every Amazon paperback purchase, a habit from my mail order days - I always know where and why each and every penny is spent.

When I first started selling on Amazon I had visions of grandeur - thought I would be selling books by the thousands. My plan was to make follow-up mail order offers of other books to my Amazon customers. But my Amazon list is so small that it would be more trouble than it is worth. Anyone who has been in the mail order business knows the best earnings, by far, come from in-house follow-up offers of other products - the profits can be insane.

Which reminds me, because I am a self-publisher, I can send emails to my customers (via Amazon, since they do not provide actual email addresses). What I have in mind is to remind my customers that since I am involved in the Matchbook program for each book, they can download the equivalent eBook version for FREE (I set my Matchbook prices at $0.00).

My feeling is that very few folks are aware of the Matchbook program, much less how to take advantage of it, Amazon gives very little detail about using Matchbook. I contacted them for explicit details, and got their typically foggy response (what else is new?). So, I hope I can clarify things with my customers - I am still trying to come up with the best way to compose a fathomable email. Anyone with a brainstorm as to how best to do that - I would love to hear from you (even a sample copy of an email you would compose).

AMS definitely does not pick up any of my self-publisher sales - but, knowing Amazon, there is always a first time!

Thanks for your reply.


----------



## weigle1234

A bit of good news.  Data in the Historical area of the KDP Sales Dashboard is now available for the month of July.  I have found that data to be very useful - especially since it is at least 15 days old - thus, likely to be accurate.

I was hoping it would pop up about mid-month, and so it has.  It breaks down monthly Sales data and Pages Read (KU/KOLL) for each eBook - into 4 categories:

- Life to Date
- Year to Date
- Last 12 Months
- Last Year

Get yours while it's hot - the price is right!


----------



## Eugene Kirk

Cassie Leigh said:


> How long ago did the sales occur? There is some delay in reporting sales. At least 3 days if not more.
> 
> At least for me, I attribute sales to AMS ads because I was flatlined before I started using them and don't have any other ads running that could be driving those sales.


It's been at least 3 days now. Still no sales showing up on the AMS report but I have gotten more sales.


----------



## weigle1234

In line with my last posting, here is the blurb I just started adding to my typical cover letter which letter has always been included with each paperback order:

"P.S.  Don’t forget to download your FREE Kindle eBook - (For every Paperback purchased from Kustom Power you are qualified to receive the equivalent eBook copy Absolutely Free!)

Check it out on the Product Page: "Matchbook Price: $0.00" - That's $0.00
.......... as in FREE!

Just Click on the eBook order window NOW - your Free eBook Copy will be downloaded immediately - It's easy!"

Anywho, I put a lot of time and thought into this, but still feel it is somewhat clumsy (maybe a whole lot clumsy).  Any ideas, or edits, will be appreciated.

I intend to start emailing the equivalent blurb to all my customers via Amazon - with hope, of course, that not only will they take advantage of my Matchbook offers - but will also feel that I'm the most thoughtful guy on the plant, and may even consider sending more orders my way.

Been a long day as usual - and also, as usual, time to meet friends to quaff a beer, or two, in hope of coming up with a brainstorm, or two.

Happy writing, and selling!


----------



## novelist11

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that cpc's are going up? I'm in mystery I used to be able to only set my cpc to 20 cents now I don't even get a bite if I set it to 25 cents. Maybe it's all these people getting that $100 in free clicks that amazon is still running. I wish I would have gotten it oh well.


----------



## Accord64

novelist11 said:


> Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that cpc's are going up? I'm in mystery I used to be able to only set my cpc to 20 cents now I don't even get a bite if I set it to 25 cents. Maybe it's all these people getting that $100 in free clicks that amazon is still running. I wish I would have gotten it oh well.


I missed out the on $100 in free clicks, too. 

I have a mystery novel that I've run a few campaigns for. Every campaign had the same pattern (regardless of CPC) - lots of impressions/clicks and a few sales in the first 48 hours, and then the whole thing falls off a cliff. Mystery seems to be a highly competitive genre. I haven't been able to gauge nearly as well as the other genres I advertise in.


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## Rising Sun

Cassie Leigh said:


> So have I.


I have also seen our books printed at both CreateSpace and Lightning Source (Ingrahm) and sold through third party vendors, credited as sales due to AMS ads. Some months ago our title movement through Ingrahm to other store vendors on Amazon made it also clear that the ads were cross-selling titles. On the AMS reports a sale is ..."A sale is attributed to a campaign whenever a shopper that clicked on an ad purchases your brand's products at Amazon. The Total Sales metric is the total dollar value of your brand's products sold to shoppers within 14 days of them clicking on your ad." A "Brand" is a big word relating to all the goods linked to you, book titles, new or used, t-shirts, etc. and it pertains to all stores on Amazon...ie KDP, Amazon and all the bunches of booksellers of new and used books. Sales attributed to an ad could be for another of your titles sold at a used or discounted book store on Amazon.


----------



## Rising Sun

weigle1234 said:


> Things were a bit confusing when I first got involved with Amazon (mail order is about as uncomplicated as anything can possibly be). I do remember finally deciding that being a self-publisher was the way to go.
> 
> In fact, I keep detailed records of each and every Amazon paperback purchase, a habit from my mail order days - I always know where and why each and every penny is spent.
> 
> When I first started selling on Amazon I had visions of grandeur - thought I would be selling books by the thousands. My plan was to make follow-up mail order offers of other books to my Amazon customers. But my Amazon list is so small that it would be more trouble than it is worth. Anyone who has been in the mail order business knows the best earnings, by far, come from in-house follow-up offers of other products - the profits can be insane.
> 
> Which reminds me, because I am a self-publisher, I can send emails to my customers (via Amazon, since they do not provide actual email addresses). What I have in mind is to remind my customers that since I am involved in the Matchbook program for each book, they can download the equivalent eBook version for FREE (I set my Matchbook prices at $0.00).
> 
> My feeling is that very few folks are aware of the Matchbook program, much less how to take advantage of it, Amazon gives very little detail about using Matchbook. I contacted them for explicit details, and got their typically foggy response (what else is new?). So, I hope I can clarify things with my customers - I am still trying to come up with the best way to compose a fathomable email. Anyone with a brainstorm as to how best to do that - I would love to hear from you (even a sample copy of an email you would compose).
> 
> AMS definitely does not pick up any of my self-publisher sales - but, knowing Amazon, there is always a first time!
> 
> Thanks for your reply.


I am very intrigued by your experiments and have started thinking of this whole process of AMS ads as a derivation of direct mail. 
Only it is a whole lot cheaper... and incurs cost only if the sales message is opened and viewed.

I have noticed that some of your book descriptions are written in a classic direct mail story-telling format while other deccriptions are written more in a headline grabber format. have you seen any difference in close rates on these?

Have you cross-sold your titles as keywords?

As you seem to be a publisher...Are you in the Advantahge program or are you seen as Amezon as a store and if so...Can you direct advertise print books?

Thanks mucho


----------



## Rising Sun

For the last two weeks I have been experimenting with kick re-starting some stalled sponsored keyword ads by raising bid prices, pausing unproductive keywords and adding new higher priced keywords. The ads seemed to respond in about 24 hours to 2 days. I monitored the accounts two or more times per day at set times. Seemed to work great! Impressions up 30-40%, clicks up 50%, spend up, cost per click up, sales not up as much (both estimated and royalty paid sales) but still all profitable even though the slaes per click were down and the price per click was up
I modified about 20% of the ads running for each of our 5 titles, over 50 ads were modified, making changes or additions to at least 15% of the keywords in each ad.

AND... I was going to have a bunch of conclusions ready soonest until today i realized that daily analysis of clicks and spend is barely even indicative of the real situation. In this last week the weekly summary of total clicks/spend is fully 30% lower than the total of the daily calculated click/spends added together. It is a big difference, probably related to difficulties in accounting and in correcting for bot activity...Which means I have to do a whole lot of different analysis to make any conclusions sufficient to test further.  Maybe in another week


----------



## weigle1234

Rising Sun said:


> I have noticed that some of your book descriptions are written in a classic direct mail story-telling format while other deccriptions are written more in a headline grabber format. have you seen any difference in close rates on these?
> 
> Have you cross-sold your titles as keywords?
> 
> As you seem to be a publisher...Are you in the Advantahge program or are you seen as Amezon as a store and if so...Can you direct advertise print books?
> 
> Thanks mucho


The advertising tactics that worked best for me in mail order correlate with the same tactics that work with Amazon - which is what I expected from the very start with Amazon. All advertising is based on emotional response; whether one is selling hamburgers or airplanes, the same emotional approaches are always the most effective.

A good example, IMHO, is old-time newspaper ads. I am a western history buff, and amateur collector. I have a small collection of original copies of the Tombstone Epitaph (published since 1879 - beginning in Tombstone, AZ - and now by the University of AZ). The Huntington, CA library had hundreds of originals, and decided to convert them to digital about 15 years ago. A friend owns a museum in Tombstone and bought most (if not all) of those and I, in turn, bought about a dozen from him.

I have spent a lot of time studying the Epitaph ads. All those ads are at least 130 years old. The fascinating thing, at least to me, is the similarities to present-day newspaper ads. The use of hard-hitting bold headlines, even smaller bold sub-headlines, emotional appeals (money, sex, smartest-guy-on-the-block, etc.) - all of it is, basically, a rehash of the same old B.S. - just presented in fancier formats (especially color) today.

My major complaint with AMS ad blurb rules is their restriction on caps and unconventional characters. Those are the things that capture reader attention (if not used to extreme). In short, hype works. IMO, AMS should judge ad blurbs on their individual merits.

Concerning my Headline Grabber Format with some descriptions, that definitely ties in with my mail order approach. All my best selling books, and physical products (fuel savers, vaporizers, oil & gas additives), border on being Gimmicky (some a whole lot Gimmicky). Folk love Gimmicks, and lots of advertising hype does a great job of selling them. One never has to be concerned with going to extremes when it comes to Dumbing-Down gimmicky ads - often the craziest ads work the most effectively.

I never use any ad media outside of Amazon - guess I am too lazy - at least for now, Amazon seems to be the best bang for the buck. Several years ago I cooked up an Internet double-opt-in blog offering a free report on gasoline saving tips (for high MPGs) - in hope of capturing email addresses. With the same visions of grandeur I once had for Amazon, I even set up an account with MailChimp to forward the report to my thousands of captured addresses. If I remember correctly, after 3 or 4 months I had captured a grand total of something like 3 or 4 email addresses, along with lots of scathing complaints about how I was trying to peddle Gimmicks (which I was). As I mentioned in previous posts, Internet folks are fairly sophisticated, while mail order folks, in general, are not exactly Mensa candidates.

Apparently Amazon provides a means for direct advertising of print books. I intend to investigate that; from what I gather via Amazon gibberish, it is handled by a separate division. Looks like I will have to do some initial investigating via Google, and then get back with Amazon to get things rolling.

I am not sure what you mean by Cross-Sold Titles as keywords. I never used titles as keywords, although I did a few tests with author names - none of which attracted but a few Clicks.


----------



## weigle1234

Strange things happen at times.  Just after posting to this forum I went downstairs to throw on some coffee.  Sue had placed an order envelope on my recliner - I recognized it as being from an in-house mailing list customer to whom I had not made any mailings for at least 2 years.  Here is the direct copy of his enclosed note:

Please send me a copy of your up to date info on the Billion Dollar Engine so I can order it.

My first thought was to advise him to go to Amazon.com, where he could buy the same manual for $9.49 (plus $3.99 shipping), instead of $39.98 from me via mail order.  But I soon realized that Amazon lists my Billion Dollar Engine manual as Currently Unavailable.

Being that I am Mr. Wonderful (Sue‘s words), I am just now mailing him a freebie Billion Dollar Engine manual.

Amazon made me take the Billion Dollar Engine manual off market because of possible copyright problems.  The manual contains copies of various newspaper articles pertaining to their subject (the Pogue so-called 200 MPG carburetor).  I have written permission from the newspapers to reproduce their articles - but, they are hidden somewhere in my archives.  Some fine day I will resurrect them in hopes of getting that manual back on Amazon.

In my last post, I addressed my opinion that Gimmicky things sell.  The Billion Dollar Engine manual was the Granddaddy of my Gimmicky stuff in mail order.  Typically, my mail order responses go flat after about the third mailing of the same product to previous customers of different products.  But the Billion Dollar Engine was the exception.  It never came close to being my best seller, but it seemed I could make infinite offers to my customer list, and the goofy thing would always turn a few bucks.

As I often mention, IMHO, when it comes to advertising, just about anything goes (especially Goofy).  You never know what will, or will not, sell unless you test it.


----------



## Rising Sun

weigle1234 said:


> I am not sure what you mean by Cross-Sold Titles as keywords. I never used titles as keywords, although I did a few tests with author names - none of which attracted but a few Clicks.


I use titles of other books as keywords... extensively. They are east to find on Amazon best seller lists, by target genre and sub-genre, by author, by subject, also-boughts and even in sponsored ads that Amazon shows in target book/genres. etc.

I also target my partners author page and all her titles to make a cross-sell possible. ...If the prospect likes or is intrigued by one of her books they might like another. The algo will give some preference to the other ads as the prospect customer has already clicked on a related ad.

Product ads have not been as productive for me as sponsored ads but I do use them to cross-sell my partners books on her own titles. It is not super effective as some folks bid very high and the keyword algorithm is broad so that ads on one of her titles like Dandelion Insurrection will apply to some extent to her book and to other books about dandelions and insurrections in general...so we can end up getting outbid on her own books or risk going too broad and getting a high cost low return ad.

But my sense is that the cross sell ads do help create a follow through sale.


----------



## weigle1234

Is Brittaney J for real? (Or anyone else in their group.)

Following is my "Contact Us" inquiry, sent today.

My first very sentence states "Amazon provides an explanation of the Matchbook program, in which all my paperbacks are enrolled."

I just submitted another inquiry repeating the same inquiry - but, written in VERY PLAIN ENGLISH (broken down into single sentences) which, hopefully, someone in their group is capable of translating.

Some of their "Contact Us" replies must be their idea of a joke - or am I missing something here?

Hello Gordon,

Thank you for contacting KDP about making sure your titles are enrolled in MatchBook. I am happy to assist you with this.

To enroll your title into MatchBook these are the requirements listed below:
● You must have both print and Kindle editions of your book.
● The editions must link to one another on their detail pages. We can link them for you if needed.
● Your discount price must be at least 50% lower than the regular digital list price.
● You can choose from these prices: $2.99, $1.99, $0.99, or free.

To enroll in MatchBook:

1. Sign in to your Bookshelf: https://kdp.amazon.com/bookshelf
2. Click the ellipsis button ("&#8230;") under the Book Actions menu next to the book you want to enroll and select "Enroll in MatchBook."
3. Under the MatchBook header, check the box next to "Enroll my book in Kindle MatchBook." Then, choose your discounted price from the dropdown menu.
4. Scroll down and accept the Terms & Conditions.
5. Click the publish button at the bottom of the page to save your changes.

Enrollment takes effect once the book is available for sale on Amazon.com.

Thanks for using Amazon KDP and have a great weekend.

...............................................................
Did I solve your problem?

If yes, please click here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/survey?p=A1RCKTW67MLUNM&k=hy

If no, please click here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/survey?p=A1RCKTW67MLUNM&k=hn
...............................................................

Regards,

Brittaney J 
Kindle Direct Publishing
http://kdp.amazon.com
=============================
Connect with KDP and other Authors and Publishers:
Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/KindleDirectPublishing
Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/AmazonKDP 
Community: https://kdp.amazon.com/community/forum.jspa?forumID=9
Resources: https://kdp.amazon.com/help

---- Original message: ----

Subject: Where is Matchbook icon?

Amazon provides an explanation of the Matchbook program, in which all my paperbacks are enrolled. Stated within that explanation is the following:

Look for the Kindle Matchbook icon on print and Kindle book detail pages of qualifying books.

I am unable to locate that icon on any of my print detail pages. Please advise me as to where that is located.

Thanks for your anticipated reply.


----------



## BillyDeCarlo

Things were kind of flatlining for me, steady in terms of sales and page reads, and I didn't want to do any more promos until next month when I publish the third book in the trilogy and finish the audiobooks. So I decided to try Google Adwords. I selected the beta interface and set up a campaign for the three-book series for $2/day and .27/CPC. 

I'm blown away by the data this is showing me, even if I lost money on the ad I'd pay for this data! I can view who is clicking based on tons of stuff like demographics, interests, what kind of device, etc. You can set the ad up by choosing or excluding all kinds of stuff, such as "book lovers" and their hobbies/interests, like people who like edgy stuff.

Pretty fabulous, but I'm early in my evaluation of it, it just went live a few hours ago. It really blows the AMS info away, even with book reports, unless I'm missing something. But then again, Google knows pretty much everything about everybody


----------



## Rising Sun

weigle1234 said:


> Is Brittaney J for real? (Or anyone else in their group.)
> 
> Following is my "Contact Us" inquiry, sent today.
> 
> My first very sentence states "Amazon provides an explanation of the Matchbook program, in which all my paperbacks are enrolled."


i have never seen an icon nor have I seen matchbook mentioned on the printbook page. The mention on the Kindle page is directly below the book blurb description., in the fine print details. On your Solar Wizard book it is as follows,,,
Length: 94 pages Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled Page Flip: Enabled 
Matchbook Price: $0.00 What's this? 
Due to its large file size, this book may take longer to download...

You could make it an extra giveaway close in your description maybe as a PS: Act now and get a FREE Kindle enook version of this printed book with every purchase. See the details on the Kindle page under "Matchbook"... But they might get lost looking instead of buying...or send details with the book


----------



## weigle1234

Rising Sun said:


> For the last two weeks I have been experimenting with kick re-starting some stalled sponsored keyword ads by raising bid prices, pausing unproductive keywords and adding new higher priced keywords. The ads seemed to respond in about 24 hours to 2 days. I monitored the accounts two or more times per day at set times. Seemed to work great! Impressions up 30-40%, clicks up 50%, spend up, cost per click up, sales not up as much (both estimated and royalty paid sales) but still all profitable even though the slaes per click were down and the price per click was up
> I modified about 20% of the ads running for each of our 5 titles, over 50 ads were modified, making changes or additions to at least 15% of the keywords in each ad.
> 
> AND... I was going to have a bunch of conclusions ready soonest until today i realized that daily analysis of clicks and spend is barely even indicative of the real situation. In this last week the weekly summary of total clicks/spend is fully 30% lower than the total of the daily calculated click/spends added together. It is a big difference, probably related to difficulties in accounting and in correcting for bot activity...Which means I have to do a whole lot of different analysis to make any conclusions sufficient to test further. Maybe in another week


I am closely following your posts with interest - for meaningful and accurate analysis, testing is the name of the game.

I have been running extensive tests (160 so far) - making absolutely NO CHANGES whatsoever while any test ad is Running.

It is the only Proven method accepted within the scientific community, universally referred to as Controlled Testing. If we are to expect accurate ad analysis after making changes within Running ads we are only kidding ourselves.

At best, the only results we will get are based on guesswork. If guesswork results in improved results, our tendency is to attribute such to accurate analysis - whereas, in reality, all it amounts to is Wishful Thinking. However, as we well know, Blind Luck sometimes has a way of working in our favor - but, is not especially reliable!

With all my testing, so far the only solid conclusion I have arrived at is:

- The AMS Holy Algorithm establishes a firm (i.e., extremely consistent) CTR within a few days after any ad is placed into Running.

The only exceptions I have ever noted are with ads Running in Automatic mode. Even their CTRs are consistent, but not to the extreme. I attribute those minor CTR fluctuations to the Algo testing minor Keyword changes. I have no way of proving that since, as we all know, the Algo is shrouded in mystery (for good reason).

Hope you have a fun, and productive, weekend. Keep on Testin'!


----------



## Decon

Im not sure if I should keep going with my latest experiment.

I increased all my prices to $4.99 and bids to over 50c. The clicks have been coming, but even so, my click to buy ratio has proved to be 30% worse  than it was. Bidding just over 50c doesn't get me on many first pages of books that have a lot of traffic and are priced at $4.99+, but at least I'm on early pages. I've been spending more than my sales royalties, but page reads have picked up damatically with 12,000 so far this month, so that's around $48 against a spend of $17.

So basically, my sales have dropped as I expected with the higher prices, but the page reads are coming along nicely.

I think I'm going to set a budget next month of a $100 loss against  sales royalties, and increase my bids to whatever it takes to get on the first page of high traffic books and to see if page reads increase further to cover the extra cost. Failing that, I'll have to lower my prices to $3.99 and drop my bids again.


----------



## weigle1234

Rising Sun said:


> i have never seen an icon nor have I seen matchbook mentioned on the printbook page. The mention on the Kindle page is directly below the book blurb description., in the fine print details. On your Solar Wizard book it is as follows,,,
> Length: 94 pages Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled Page Flip: Enabled
> Matchbook Price: $0.00 What's this?
> Due to its large file size, this book may take longer to download...
> 
> You could make it an extra giveaway close in your description maybe as a PS: Act now and get a FREE Kindle enook version of this printed book with every purchase. See the details on the Kindle page under "Matchbook"... But they might get lost looking instead of buying...or send details with the book


That is the only place where I have also seen it.

Thanks for your posting. Your suggestion sounds good - I will be giving it a lot of thought, and will keep my thoughts posted.

Obviously something has to be changed if the Matchbook option is to be of any benefit; other than just to Amazon (for whatever may be their motivation). It makes no sense at all not to have mentioned Matchbook on the printed book page, even as useless as it presentation may have been.

It seems strange that Matchbook is only mentioned when the eBook version is accessed. Even there, it is meaningless, obscure, confusing - in other words, presented in typically convoluted fashion.

Even their response to my Contact Us inquiry raises doubt - are they incapable of giving straight answers? Or, are they being deliberately obscure? As I mentioned earlier, I just sent them a slightly rephrased inquiry, written in single sentences even they should understand, and am anxiously awaiting their response. (Hope it is not presented in Chinese.)

It has always appeared to me, almost from Day One within the few Forums I have visited, that a minor level of Paranoia exists. Are some of us a bit Whacko, or is just me? Or is it something else?

Just sayin'.


----------



## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> How does this square with the assertion that Algo screens out ads that compete or cannibalize each other? An experiment might be to run two identical ads - identical in every way - and see if they get reasonably equal impression counts in their early days before CTR can become a complicating factor.


Here is a bit of info, perhaps related to your questioning.

My best selling book seems to always provide the most meaningful info. Lately that info has been unsettling.

Until recently all my test ads (lots of them) had been set at very low Bid level (2-Cents) - lots of Keywords (Stuffed, as in ~1,000) - always in Manual mode. I have gained lots of meaningful info (IMHO) from those test ads.

I distilled those ~1,000 Keywords down to 192, and changed my Bid level to 10-Cents.

On August 2 I submitted my first "Real" ad using those parameters. The ad got off to a glorious start - within 3 days it yielded 17,020 Impressions - Average Daily Impressions were 12,151 - along with 13 Clicks - for a CTR of .08% (13 / 17,020). Eventually, after about 2 weeks, the CTR stabilized at .09%.

On August 4 I submitted my second "Real" ad, identical to the first ad in every respect (Keywords, even the Blurb). The only exception was Bid level, now upped to 25-Cents.

Soon things changed dramatically. Within 2 days the second ad started attacking the first ad with a vengeance.

Within the next 2 days the first ad Daily Average Impressions dropped from 12,151 to 8! (as in EIGHT!). That is what I consider Dramatic.

As of today (August 1, its Average Daily Impressions are sitting at 3 (as in THREE).

Immediately following its murder by the second ad, the first ad Clicks are stuck at 16. They have remained there ever since (for about 2 weeks). I do not anticipate a glorious resurrection of the first ad, but I intend to keep it running for awhile since it costs me nothing (being stuck in death mode at 16 Clicks).

Another ad, slightly different with a 5-Cent Bid and 240 Keywords, has also been similarly attacked. But not quite as dramatically. Its Average Daily Impressions dropped from 3,127 down to ~200. Its Clicks are stuck at 13. It appears this ad is basically on life support, so its Clicks are likely stuck at 13.

Other ads where I upped the Bids are showing similar patterns of demise. So far, not as dramatically as the ads described - but they certainly deserve close monitoring.

Have a pleasant weekend.


----------



## weigle1234

Here is a copy of the latest response from the Contact Us clowns.

Do you thinks they are being deliberately evasive? And, if so, why.

Or, are they simply trained to plug in a standard response upon seeing a Triggering Word such as Matchbook?

Or, are they, and coworkers, not especially bright?

Or, is Srini jerking me around?

Or, whatever?

Hello,

I understand that you'd like to know how to see the Matchbook icon for your books on Amazon detail page.

I've checked our previous correspondence and found that, we've already replied to this question.

However, please find the below on how to see the match book icon as well as the eligibility for the matchbook.

To enroll your title into MatchBook these are the requirements listed below:
● You must have both print and Kindle editions of your book.
● The editions must link to one another on their detail pages. We can link them for you if needed.
● Your discount price must be at least 50% lower than the regular digital list price.
● You can choose from these prices: $2.99, $1.99, $0.99, or free.

To enroll in MatchBook:

1. Sign in to your Bookshelf: https://kdp.amazon.com/bookshelf
2. Click the ellipsis button ("&#8230;") under the Book Actions menu next to the book you want to enroll and select "Enroll in MatchBook."
3. Under the MatchBook header, check the box next to "Enroll my book in Kindle MatchBook." Then, choose your discounted price from the dropdown menu.
4. Scroll down and accept the Terms & Conditions.
5. Click the publish button at the bottom of the page to save your changes.

Enrollment takes effect once the book is available for sale on Amazon.com.

If you still have any issues on locating the match book icon, kindly write back to us.

Thanks for using Amazon KDP

...............................................................
Did I solve your problem?

If yes, please click here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/survey?p=A2NK88R3JTCE9&k=hy

If no, please click here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/survey?p=A2NK88R3JTCE9&k=hn
...............................................................

Regards,

Srini 
Kindle Direct Publishing
http://kdp.amazon.com
=============================
Connect with KDP and other Authors and Publishers:
Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/KindleDirectPublishing
Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/AmazonKDP 
Community: https://kdp.amazon.com/community/forum.jspa?forumID=9
Resources: https://kdp.amazon.com/help

---- Original message: ----

Subject: Where is my Matchbook ICON?

All my paperbacks are enrolled in Matchbook.

Amazon provides an explanation of the Matchbook program. Stated within that explanation is the following:

Look for the Kindle Matchbook icon on print and Kindle book detail pages of qualifying books.

However, I am unable to locate that ICON on any of my print detail pages. Please advise me as to where my ICON is located.

Thanks for your anticipated reply.


----------



## Rising Sun

weigle1234 said:


> Here is a bit of info, perhaps related to your questioning.
> 
> My best selling book seems to always provide the most meaningful info. Lately that info has been unsettling.
> 
> Until recently all my test ads (lots of them) had been set at very low Bid level (2-Cents) - lots of Keywords (Stuffed, as in ~1,000) - always in Manual mode. I have gained lots of meaningful info (IMHO) from those test ads.
> 
> I distilled those ~1,000 Keywords down to 192, and changed my Bid level to 10-Cents.
> 
> On August 2 I submitted my first "Real" ad using those parameters. The ad got off to a glorious start - within 3 days it yielded 17,020 Impressions - Average Daily Impressions were 12,151 - along with 13 Clicks - for a CTR of .08% (13 / 17,020). Eventually, after about 2 weeks, the CTR stabilized at .09%.
> 
> On August 4 I submitted my second "Real" ad, identical to the first ad in every respect (Keywords, even the Blurb). The only exception was Bid level, now upped to 25-Cents.
> 
> Soon things changed dramatically. Within 2 days the second ad started attacking the first ad with a vengeance.
> 
> Within the next 2 days the first ad Daily Average Impressions dropped from 12,151 to 8! (as in EIGHT!). That is what I consider Dramatic.
> 
> As of today (August 1, its Average Daily Impressions are sitting at 3 (as in THREE).
> 
> Immediately following its murder by the second ad, the first ad Clicks are stuck at 16. They have remained there ever since (for about 2 weeks). I do not anticipate a glorious resurrection of the first ad, but I intend to keep it running for awhile since it costs me nothing (being stuck in death mode at 16 Clicks).
> 
> Another ad, slightly different with a 5-Cent Bid and 240 Keywords, has also been similarly attacked. But not quite as dramatically. Its Average Daily Impressions dropped from 3,127 down to ~200. Its Clicks are stuck at 13. It appears this ad is basically on life support, so its Clicks are likely stuck at 13.
> 
> Other ads where I upped the Bids are showing similar patterns of demise. So far, not as dramatically as the ads described - but they certainly deserve close monitoring.
> 
> Have a pleasant weekend.


My sense is that the ads do not compete directly, rather that your higher bid level ad is winning the auction for "more favorable" location from other titles and once it has won, your lower bid ad is never made, as your higher priced book ad is already in place.

In a similar vein, I was never able to use the ad system to test ad copy with two ads running simultaneously with identical bids and keywords and only text different, as the system would always favor the first ad established as having prefrence and the second ad would not compete and would languish. That was 7 months ago, it might have changed.


----------



## Jena H

I have totally given up in trying to figure out how the AMS ads work.  

Case in point:  I recently resumed one of my ads.  Keywords include author names, including one author whose books have hundreds and even thousands of reviews.  I just looked at three of this author's books, and each of them has only 4-5 pages in the carousel.  That's a LOT fewer pages than other books, which have 40, 50, 80, even 100 pages.  What's up with that??  Anyway, this author's measly five-page carousel doesn't even include my ad, even though his name and series title are in my keywords.    

So yeah, I can't figure it out.


----------



## Alvina

Jena H said:


> I have totally given up in trying to figure out how the AMS ads work.
> 
> Case in point: I recently resumed one of my ads. Keywords include author names, including one author whose books have hundreds and even thousands of reviews. I just looked at three of this author's books, and each of them has only 4-5 pages in the carousel. That's a LOT fewer pages than other books, which have 40, 50, 80, even 100 pages. What's up with that?? Anyway, this author's measly five-page carousel doesn't even include my ad, even though his name and series title are in my keywords.
> 
> So yeah, I can't figure it out.


I also can't figure it out why some books (mostly bestsellers) don't even have any sponsored ads, even though their author names and series title are in my keywords.


----------



## Jena H

Alvina said:


> I'm also can't figure it out why some books (mostly bestsellers) don't even have any sponsored ads, even though their author names and series title are in my keywords.


I know, it makes ZERO sense. There are very "mid-list" books that have almost 100 pages in their carousels, and yet other, bigger-selling books, have very few carousel pages, and some don't have any at all. Yeah, makes no sense at all....



Jena H said:


> I have totally given up in trying to figure out how the AMS ads work.
> 
> Case in point: I recently resumed one of my ads. Keywords include author names, including one author whose books have hundreds and even thousands of reviews. I just looked at three of this author's books, and each of them has only 4-5 pages in the carousel. That's a LOT fewer pages than other books, which have 40, 50, 80, even 100 pages. What's up with that?? Anyway, this author's measly five-page carousel doesn't even include my ad, even though his name and series title are in my keywords.
> 
> So yeah, I can't figure it out.


I did make a discovery this morning, which I hadn't thought of when I typed the above post. I had been looking at the big author's ebook versions, which indeed do have only 5 pages--and which indeed do NOT include my ad. But in the big author's paperback pages, I do see my ad, in some cases on the first page. I didn't knowingly do anything to differentiate or specify which version my ad should appear on, but it is in fact very fortuitous that the ad is on the paperback's carousel. So I guess there is some 'good luck' that accompanies my complete bafflement and exasperation about how the ads work.


----------



## weigle1234

Rising Sun said:


> My sense is that the ads do not compete directly, rather that your higher bid level ad is winning the auction for "more favorable" location from other titles and once it has won, your lower bid ad is never made, as your higher priced book ad is already in place.
> 
> In a similar vein, I was never able to use the ad system to test ad copy with two ads running simultaneously with identical bids and keywords and only text different, as the system would always favor the first ad established as having prefrence and the second ad would not compete and would languish. That was 7 months ago, it might have changed.


For the past few months I had been experimenting with low Bid (2-Cents), Keyword-Stuffed (~1,000) test ads (total of ~160). Within the past few weeks I have begun experimenting with higher Bid (mostly 25-Cent), distilled Keyword (~300) ads.

Some test ads were conducted in Automatic mode and seem to have little influence on stats of ads in Manual mode. Stats of ads in Automatic mode often varied slightly, presumably the results of minor Algorithm changes to their Keywords.

For meaningful results, tests have been conducted under Controlled Conditions; i.e., no change whatsoever to any Blurbs, Keywords, or Bids occurred within any individual ad during testing.

My genre (DIY manuals) is relatively small compared to the apparently large genres (Romance novels) of most members of this forum. Obviously, I can only address the results of my own ad testing experiences. Test results for your genre may be entirely different.

The following stats apply only to each ad for a unique book. As such, ad changes to any unique book do not impact ad stats for another unique book.

- Within a few days of being submitted, the Algorithm begins to establish a stable, extremely consistent CTR (but only for ads Running in Manual mode).

- Varying ad Bids (e.g., between 2-Cents & 25-Cents) has no affect on CTR. In other words, CTR will ultimately stabilize at any unpredictable level regardless of Bid. (The Algorithm establishes and stabilizes it, in its own mysterious way).

- As expected, high Bid ads soon (within a few days) begin to rapidly reduce the Average Daily Impressions of low Bid ads until Impressions of the low Bid ads approach zero.

- The CTR for high Bid ads has no correlation with the CTR of low Bid ads (and vice versa). CTR varies from ad to ad and, as such, is unpredictable.

- If ads with different Blurbs, but identical Keywords and Bid levels, are submitted simultaneously, one ad will dominate the others by rapidly reducing the Average Daily Impressions of the others. However, the CTR of the surviving ad has no bearing on its survival; i.e., even a lower CTR ad may ultimately be the sole survivor.

- Keywords are the determining survival factor among ads. Even though ads have varying combinations of Blurbs and Bids, if their Keywords are significantly different, they will have little, to no, affect on one another.


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## Rising Sun

weigle1234 said:


> - Keywords are the determining survival factor among ads. Even though ads have varying combinations of Blurbs and Bids, if their Keywords are significantly different, they will have little, to no, affect on one another.


I find this to be true also.

It leads me to suspect that an effective strategy would be to start with low priced bids on sub-sub-genre keywords tightly chosen. Then add in separate adverts on successively higher level genre, without duplication with the other ads.

My reasoning is that acceptance of keywords (which will influence CTR on adverts), at least initially, is influenced by genre fit and genre rank and at all times this strategy would influence ranking better than others. Ranking so far as we now is one of the factors in the A9 algorithm and will influence showing in also boughts, recommended for you, emails, etc.

My reasoning for low priced bids is simply that I I have several campaigns and many keywords that perform extremely well on a net sales basis at low bid levels.


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## Decon

This is why you are wasting your time stopping and starting ads and bidding high expecting first page visibility.

I terminated a long running ad by mistake with an excellent impression to click and to buy ratio. Anyway, I set up another ad.

As I said in an earlier post, I had  the book's new ad on page 12 or so of a few top selling books. One of my other ads with a lower bid ended up on the 1st page of the same books.

In reply to my query they said that just as important as the bid is the impression to click rate. When you have a new ad, it has no or little history, so that in effect, your higher bid doesn't count against bids that are lower but with a better impression to click ratio until you build up data?

So much for the bidding process. In view of this I have asked if their technical team can restore the original ad with considerable data. I'll see what they say.


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## A past poster

I want to give you a heads up about the keywords you use for your AMS ads. A Reader interest box appeared on the detail page of one of my books giving it a low rating as literary fiction and an even lower rating as a romance.  But the book isn't literary fiction, and it isn't a romance. 

The low Reader interest rating box, which is directly under the graph for the star ratings, really hurt the book even though the categories were incorrect for my book. Someone on another thread observed that something must be sending romance readers to my book. Then I was able to figure it out. I have author names in AMS campaigns as keywords for the book who write Literary Women's Fiction and Romance. My book is Contemporary Women's Fiction and Divorce. I am now removing their names as keywords. If you find that the Reader interest box has the incorrect categories for your book, some of your AMS keywords could be the reason.


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## going going gone

Wanted to say, I paused all my ads and saw no drop in sales. Probably am done with this experiment. Too bad it didn't work better.


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## daveconifer

cadle-sparks said:


> Wanted to say, I paused all my ads and saw no drop in sales.


Which is rather impressive, as an aside, because your sales are strong. I know, because I'm on the same charts a few gazillion slots below you.

I also paused the ad on book 1 of my dystopian series. Unfortunately all three fell from 10-20k to 60-80k. So I guess they were working for me. Shrug, it's still just a hobby for me, I can live with those rankings until I have a little more energy to work on promo...


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## Eugene Kirk

It's very hard to tell if my Ads are doing anything much at all. I can't seem to land more than 2~3 sales of a book 1 on average. My sell through seems fairly good, so I tend to make back on what I sell, but I just can't seem to ramp things up. I'd love to be sitting at the 15k ~ 20k range for my book 1, but I just seem to hover around 50k~200k. If anyone has any tips, I'm all ears.


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## weigle1234

Rising Sun said:


> My reasoning for low priced bids is simply that I I have several campaigns and many keywords that perform extremely well on a net sales basis at low bid levels.


I have decided to do additional testing of low-price Bids - mainly because I find they garner lots of Clicks / Impressions (CTR) - and appear early in related product carousels (often on page 1, very often on pages 1 or 2, almost always within the first few pages).

In fact, I am dumping most of my high-price Bids (25-Cents to me). They are not very productive for their related costs, chewing up dollars in a hurry. Every time I run such ads, they soon become losers (within a few weeks, if not sooner). If I knew for a fact that they were encouraging paperback sales, I would keep them Running longer, but I have no way of verifying that.

I still maintain that "A Bid is a Bid" - while low-Bid Clicks may not be as apt to create sales, they yield much greater numbers, face less competition - thus, seem to be a better bang for the buck.

Another factor to consider is ad time-span. Any advertising, whether it be with Amazon, magazines, tv, etc. has a constantly changing audience. Low-Bid Impressions can be economically spread over much longer time-spans, thus yielding more exposure to the changing audience.


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## Saint Ignifer

Is there a consensus that an ad serves as long as it sells books? I can imagine this would be in Amazon's interest. I had one new ad for a book I've never put on AMS before plow through $15 in three days, along with an email from Amazon to up the budget, which I did. 

Then crickets - back to the usual 30c per day spend. It was such a great impact, so what changed? My only guess is that it sold one or two copies very early, juicing an algorithm to reward sales, then stopped selling. In other words, I had a bit of good luck early on, which faded. 

I've also got a book on free with AMS ads, and that too hardly serves. In that case, there is never any chance of sales, so perhaps it will never serve much above a few cents a day. 

Am I on the right track?


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## H.C.

I was seeing almost no movement so I decided to try "big" on some heavy seller keywords and the impressions rolled in right away. I bid anywhere from .35 to .50 on a couple of my genres big name titles and authors and the impressions shot up immediately even though the click cost me far less.

For example, I went from .15-.20 zero movement over many days to .35 and hundreds of impressions in a matter of hours with an average click price at .21

So my click price was not much more than the initial bid but for whatever reason it wasn't winning.


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## amdonehere

I haven't been contributing to the conversation because I'm at this point totally lost and I don't know really how to make sense or make use of all the data/info everyone is offering.

I had a long running ad that ran almost a year but I stopped it because I think it has "died" as defined by Brian Meeks. My sales began to trickle. So what I did was paused that ad and segregated the keywords into 4 new ads (Same ad copy) as follows:

1. High performing Keywords with high impressions and high click rates
2. Medium performing keywords with ok impressions and not great click rates
3. Low performing keywords with low impressions (500 and under) plus click rates in single digits
4. Non performing keywords with no impressions. - I've always wondered if I could get those keywords working by setting them in a new ad anyway.

During the first week, I really panicked because I didn't know if the ads would work or if I might lose some effective keywords. That has happened before where I use a high performing keyword in a new ad and the algo decides not to show it. I was ready to cut and run and un-pause my old ad even knowing it had "died", just because it was "safe".

I held out for a week. And results are:

1. The ad with the High performing keywords is still the one with highest impressions and clicks. So I've now confirmed that for whatever reason, the algo has decided those are the best matched keywords. Also, I did lose a few keywords in the sense that they performed very well, but no longer. But that's ok. The overall result is the same.

2. The mid performing ad is mediocre, and the low performing ad is still the low. So whether all the keywords are in one ad or in separate ads, the algo determines which onese are best match and you can change it.

3. The non-performing ad was interesting. Some keywords did finally started to get impressions, but nothing to write home about. Pretty low performing. 

4. I have new keywords to add each week and am kind of confused as to which ad to put them into. Finally, I decided to put them all into the non-performing ad as then I can see easily if any of these keywords start to work. I also bid low (mostly because weigle's posts) 5c to 15c depending on how many ads are showing on the keyword's carousel. (Yeah that's an unreliable stragegy as the carousel changes).

5. Exception: If I see a book that I think is one where I really must have my ad on, I put it in the high performing ad with a 25c or 35c bid. Not sure why that makes any difference. Pretty irrational on my part. More like what I want vs. what actually happens.

6. Last thing: in my old long running ad, I was breaking even. It's my 1st and series so that was my goal. My ad spend to sales ratio as reported on the AMS sales report was 65% spent to amount of sales. Now, my ad spent exceeds my sales for all the ads. I'm not liking this. Did the spending for clicks go up? I don't know. I'll keep it going for now since the total spend isn't breaking my bank or anything, but I don't like seeing spend exceed sales. If this keeps up, I will have to consider other options.

Beyond that, I have no idea.


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## PearlEarringLady

AlexaKang said:


> 6. Last thing: in my old long running ad, I was breaking even. It's my 1st and series so that was my goal. My ad spend to sales ratio as reported on the AMS sales report was 65% spent to amount of sales. Now, my ad spent exceeds my sales for all the ads. I'm not liking this. Did the spending for clicks go up? I don't know. I'll keep it going for now since the total spend isn't breaking my bank or anything, but I don't like seeing spend exceed sales. If this keeps up, I will have to consider other options.


That 65% is a meaningless statistic for an ad that's been running for a year. In the early days of AMS ads, it was easy to bid low and sell tons, so ACOS was really low. I saw 16% on one or two early ads. But over time the cost drifted up, the sales drifted down and ACOS stabilised around 33%. Still good, right? But no, because that number is heavily weighted by the early good returns. It's an average over the whole time of the ad. To get an idea of whether the ad is still cost-effective, you need to work out the ACOS over a shorter time - the last month, say. If you did that with your long-running ad, you'd undoubtedly see numbers like those you're getting for the new ads.


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## JTriptych

Well this is strange...

The first AMS ads I did  seemed to be doing well at a 45% ACOS- this was done via a manual ad with around 50 keywords. So I figured to do the exact same thing but include the keywords that AMS initially recommended but I didnt include the first time. 

I then terminated the first ad and just copied the old one which now included the recommended keywords from AMS. 

The results? Zilch.

WTH is going on?


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


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## rikatz

I have an ad going on my first mystery, Surgical Risk. Over the first few weeks, it had a decent response. Then I had a new, much better cover put in place and the sales more than doubled.

I then put an ad up for the second book in the series, The Anatomy Lesson. On the first full day, I had 66,000 impressions, 38 clicks and 11 sales, but 7 of the sales were for the first book in the series. It occurred to me that I do the same thing; when I see an ad that looks interesting for the second or third book in a series, I don't buy that book, I buy the first one in the series. My ACOS for this book looks terrible, but the sales of the series has gone way up, and I've had over 15,000 pages read from the library in the past two weeks, most of it since this second ad was up, and again, most of it for the first book.


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## Eugene Kirk

rikatz said:


> I have an ad going on my first mystery, Surgical Risk. Over the first few weeks, it had a decent response. Then I had a new, much better cover put in place and the sales more than doubled.
> 
> I then put an ad up for the second book in the series, The Anatomy Lesson. On the first full day, I had 66,000 impressions, 38 clicks and 11 sales, but 7 of the sales were for the first book in the series. It occurred to me that I do the same thing; when I see an ad that looks interesting for the second or third book in a series, I don't buy that book, I buy the first one in the series. My ACOS for this book looks terrible, but the sales of the series has gone way up, and I've had over 15,000 pages read from the library in the past two weeks, most of it since this second ad was up, and again, most of it for the first book.


Accord to the policy, the sale will show up for that Ad up to 14 days after the person looked at it. So if they bought number 1 and then buy #2 within that two weeks, that Ad will record it as a sale that it produced.


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## rikatz

The ad for the first book resulted in decent sales for the first book but only a few copies sold for the second and third. The ad for the second one resulted in a lot more sales for all three, but still, more than half the sales were for the first. Of course, it could be coincidence. Maybe the sales bump of the first one is a result of the ad for the first one, which is still ongoing, but the biggest bump for the first one started the day the ad came online for the second.


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## PearlEarringLady

LilyBLily said:


> We're all wandering around in the dark, bumping into sheet-covered objects and trying to guess what lies beneath.


Perfect description of it!


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## khotisarque

LilyBLily said:


> We're all wandering around in the dark, bumping into sheet-covered objects and trying to guess what lies beneath.


Grotesquely Gothic group grope?


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## EmparentingMom

I just wish AMS included paperback sales as sales. My (kdp) paperback sales have increased dramatically with AMS, but I have no way of being sure which ones can be directly attributed to the ads, or which keywords are really performing well. Bummer.


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## JTriptych

Cassie Leigh said:


> My advice is to never ever terminate an ad. Pause it if you don't want it to run anymore, but always leave that option to go back to it. Because, as you just learned, each ad seems to behave independently, so even though your first ad did well it doesn't mean a second will even with the same keywords and bids.


Thanks, I shall heed that advice.

But the whole thing just doesn't make sense to me- its the exact same ad, but with more keywords... shouldn't it do better?


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## PearlEarringLady

JTriptych said:


> But the whole thing just doesn't make sense to me- its the exact same ad, but with more keywords... shouldn't it do better?


You're working on the (misguided) assumption that there's logic in this.  Trouble is, there's a huge randomising element that affects new ads in particular. If you started 100 ads, identical in every way, you'd get 100 different outcomes, varying from wildly successful to a complete waste of time. You're putting the ad into a black box, and there's just no knowing what will come out of the other end of it.


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## Accord64

LilyBLily said:


> We're all wandering around in the dark, bumping into sheet-covered objects and trying to guess what lies beneath.


   I'm giving a presentation on AMS to my authors group. Can I use that?

Overall, I wouldn't try to read too much into AMS results for this month. I suspended all ad activity because August started as a dead zone (particularity for sales). My impression is that far fewer people are looking to buy books this month, while overall AMS ad activity has stayed at a consistent level. Has anyone else noticed the same?


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## Author A.C. Salter

August has been my best month by far and there's still a few days left. That said, I'm based in the UK and the vast majority of sales and page reads have been in the UK. For some reason, I can't get much traction in the US.


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


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## weigle1234

Rising Sun said:


> You could make it an extra giveaway close in your description maybe as a PS: Act now and get a FREE Kindle enook version of this printed book with every purchase. See the details on the Kindle page under "Matchbook"... But they might get lost looking instead of buying...or send details with the book


Thanks for your suggestion of including Matchbook info in the description. But, I share your concern as to getting lost looking. I went to the Kindle section referred in the eBook Matchbook blurb and, as expected, found it to be confusing (typical Amazon gibberish). So, no way will I make any reference in the description, nor any other location for fear of killing potential sales.

I intend to make contact by phone with other than the Contact US clowns in hope of getting a straight answer. Several months ago (before I became involved with Kindle) I was able to get some straight answers after getting the old runaround from a few "Help" folks. I finally told them that I needed to talk directly with a supervisor; otherwise we would all be spending the next few days playing phone tag - that got their attention. Looks like i will be repeating that process.


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## H.C.

Curious about this. I have a keyword showing one click for 0.93 but the highest bid that keyword has ever had was .50.

How can they charge me so much higher than I've actually bid?


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## P.T. Phronk

Herefortheride said:


> Curious about this. I have a keyword showing one click for 0.93 but the highest bid that keyword has ever had was .50.
> 
> How can they charge me so much higher than I've actually bid?


This could be because their servers are apparently some kind of Rube Goldberg machine that takes a week to register a mouse click. Sometimes charges show up before clicks or vice versa, so that could be a charge for two or more clicks that haven't shown up in your reporting. I wouldn't worry unless it's been a week or two and you're still getting overcharged.


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## JTriptych

What I'm finding strange is none of my sales are shown on the dashboard until I either pause or terminate the ad.


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## H.C.

LilyBLily said:


> Not a good idea to terminate an ad. Pause for various reasons. Are you waiting up to 14 days to see results posted? AMS says it can take that long.


Why would it take 14 days? Either they have a way to track it or they don't? Are the results sent in by pony express?


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## Jena H

Herefortheride said:


> Why would it take 14 days? Either they have a way to track it or they don't? Are the results sent in by pony express?


It's a big mystery why, in this age of advanced technology and instant digital communication, it takes so #$%^ long to register that a sale is attributed to a particular ad.


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## Accord64

LilyBLily said:


> Are you waiting up to 14 days to see results posted? AMS says it can take that long.


Curious, where did you see that? I've only seen the "up to three days" disclaimer (which is bad enough).


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## BillyDeCarlo

I think it's three days and probably so that the credit card transaction can fully process or whatever. I still love the Google Adwords interface and app. It's amazing how much information you can glean from it. Makes AMS look like the stone age. Why can't I even rename my campaign in AMS or delete keywords/campaigns!? I accidentally copied a slew of keywords to the ad for the wrong book, so that's a mess. Surprising from Amazon.


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## khotisarque

Now, ;-), if a viewer sees and clicks on an ad for your book seven times while searching for something else, but fails to find the something else, so decides two weeks later to buy your book.......which of your seven ads gets the credit?  And the ACoS calculation?

KISS, Mamazon, KISS!


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## Jena H

I just paused my most recent ad.  The text was originally geared for the 4th of July celebration (time travel to 1777).  I might have to start a new ad later in the year so I can change the text.


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## Rising Sun

khotisarque said:


> Now, ;-), if a viewer sees and clicks on an ad for your book seven times while searching for something else, but fails to find the something else, so decides two weeks later to buy your book.......which of your seven ads gets the credit? And the ACoS calculation?
> 
> KISS, Mamazon, KISS!


The last ad clicked on prior to the sale gets the credit


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## Rising Sun

Has anyone seen a definitive answer as to whether impressions on sponsored products ads are counted if an ad is in a multi page carousel, even if the ad is not clicked into view?

This is a very important piece of information to derive best strategy for ad pricing.

I have seen arguments and opinions for both impressions being counted anytime an ad is in a carousel or that the ad has to be viewed to be counted as an impression.

help please.


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## NatPane

So I was showing a friend my book on Amazon, typed in the name of my book and came across my novel, as well as the sponsored ad I did for the same novel (directly under my novel on the same page). I honestly don't know what to make of this. I know I did not write down my own name or the name of my own book as one of my keywords so I am completely baffled as to why they would show my sponsored ad this way. Obviously, if people know the name of my novel and type this in the Amazon search engine, it means they are already familiar with the novel so the need to put my sponsored ad there makes absolutely no sense. I thought one of the main reasons for a sponsored ad is to get people to know about your novel. I wouldn't really care, if I didn't have to pay for this ad and the unnecessary clicks they generate. So I am now paying for an ad which is in the same place as my novel? How crazy is that?


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## khotisarque

LilyBLily said:


> I have no proof, but I have always understood that impressions only count if your ad is viewed. If it's on a carousel on a page not viewed, it doesn't count. But I could be wrong. Does it matter?


I believe that it does matter. Let's assume for a moment that every carousel was limited to two pages of ads. If I bid low and never make it onto those two pages, I would see zero reported impressions and know I was bidding too low. If up to two hundred pages are generated and the same ad appears on the last page every time, this could be reported as either a large number of impressions {counting every successful bid} or as zero impressions {counting only visible impressions, since nobody clicks through to page 200}. First case suggests the blurb or relevance is awful, second case says to bid higher.

There are two bottom lines. One is the overall AcoS; am I making or losing money on the campaign/s? Second is exposure; it may be pure chaos, but some unpredictable visibility is better than none. Bringing some order into the chaos would be nice, but for now appears to be beyond the capabilities of both us as unskilled advertizers and Amazon's IT workforce.


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## Rising Sun

NatPane said:


> So I was showing a friend my book on Amazon, typed in the name of my book and came across my novel, as well as the sponsored ad I did for the same novel (directly under my novel on the same page). I honestly don't know what to make of this. I know I did not write down my own name or the name of my own book as one of my keywords so I am completely baffled as to why they would show my sponsored ad this way. Obviously, if people know the name of my novel and type this in the Amazon search engine, it means they are already familiar with the novel so the need to put my sponsored ad there makes absolutely no sense. I thought one of the main reasons for a sponsored ad is to get people to know about your novel. I wouldn't really care, if I didn't have to pay for this ad and the unnecessary clicks they generate. So I am now paying for an ad which is in the same place as my novel? How crazy is that?


Not crazy at all...I routinely advertise my titles on the pages of the same book, my other titles and even my author page. The concept is simply to allow the potential buyer to be reinforced in the image and have repeated opportunities to click on my titles. When it works super well there may be 5 or 6 opportunities on a page...Also boughts, buy withs, sponsored ads and product ads all add to the effect. The cool thing about our own ads is that we control the adcopy hopefully making them more effective.

Would you rather see someone elses ad on your search page?


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## Rising Sun

khotisarque said:


> I believe that it does matter. Let's assume for a moment that every carousel was limited to two pages of ads. If I bid low and never make it onto those two pages, I would see zero reported impressions and know I was bidding too low. If up to two hundred pages are generated and the same ad appears on the last page every time, this could be reported as either a large number of impressions {counting every successful bid} or as zero impressions {counting only visible impressions, since nobody clicks through to page 200}. First case suggests the blurb or relevance is awful, second case says to bid higher.
> 
> There are two bottom lines. One is the overall AcoS; am I making or losing money on the campaign/s? Second is exposure; it may be pure chaos, but some unpredictable visibility is better than none. Bringing some order into the chaos would be nice, but for now appears to be beyond the capabilities of both us as unskilled advertizers and Amazon's IT workforce.


T agree with both you and LilyBLilly that for most of us, the key to measuring effectiveness of the ads is simply ACoS... do the ads make a positive return?... which must also be looked at through the lens of overall unit sales objectives and sell through of other titles.

Understanding how the impressions number is derived greatly influences our ability to control the factors that create a positive return and more rapidly expand our advertising programs. My experience has always been that 1.) knowing that something is possible makes it easier to achieve and 2.) knowing how the system works makes the process a done deal.

Knowing how impressions are calculated could dictate using wide or narrow keywords and definitely influence the bid, as profitability, impressions and click through rates are so highly influenced by bid. I have successful ads that are very low bid, high impression, high impressions per click ads and I have others that are high bid, low impression per click ads...I would like to know what makes them work so that I can create more of the winners.

Unfortunately there is apparently a difference between the use of the words views and impressions. Views are views, impressions in the case of AMS might appear to mean simply that the ad is served to the browser. I need some technical advice from someone as to whether the whole carousel is served to the browser initially or is it only served when each page of the carousel is clicked? The difference is huge.

Right now about the only thing we know for sure are our book sales and the ACoS. I have to agree with LilyBLliy and Khotisarque that maximizing that number is a primary goal. I just want to do a bit less stumbling in the dark.


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## NatPane

Rising Sun said:


> Not crazy at all...I routinely advertise my titles on the pages of the same book, my other titles and even my author page. The concept is simply to allow the potential buyer to be reinforced in the image and have repeated opportunities to click on my titles. When it works super well there may be 5 or 6 opportunities on a page...Also boughts, buy withs, sponsored ads and product ads all add to the effect. The cool thing about our own ads is that we control the adcopy hopefully making them more effective.
> 
> Would you rather see someone elses ad on your search page?


I'm so confused. I fail to see how this is a benefit to me. My e-book has disappeared and in its place is my sponsored ad. I paid nothing for readers to look inside my e-book. Now if they want to look inside, I have to pay for this. And do we really control anything? I could tell you stories that will prove you wrong. At least I don't.


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## A past poster

LilyBLily said:


> So far, my first Product Display ad has run for five days and had 21 impressions and 0 clicks, thus costing me 0 also. I set it at $200 max budget and to run as quickly as possible, and it has a two-month time limit. I haven't seen my ad, and most Product Display ads I do see are not relevant to the book I'm looking at.


It can take a long time for Product Display Interest ads to run, and some of them never run. I don't know why.


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## Philip Gibson

Do higher Product Display budgets (like 1,000 (produce more impressions more rapidly?  Brian Meeks seems to think they do.

Philip


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


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## Rising Sun

LilyBLily said:


> It's my belief--perhaps mistaken--that if my cover, title, and blurb do not excite a huge number of buys and reads after 2.8 million impressions, throwing more money at AMS is not going to make a big difference. I've got a decent payout on these ads, but they're not catapulting my books into bestsellerdom. I'm running a modest Product Display ad test, but I don't expect miracles from it.
> 
> And by the way, I've just discovered that authors listed in my also boughts on my book's product page show up in my AMS keywords list as having produced zero sales. The only way this makes sense to me is if the also boughts list includes "also reads." Interesting thought.


Could be the "also boughts" occurred prior to or separate from your ad.

I have a bunch of sponsored product ads running on also boughts lists as keywords. They have been derived both from the lists presented to me when I browse and from also bought lists from yasiv.com. There are interesting differences between the two and also differences between Kindle and printbook also boughts. The Yasiv lists are broader and include a few cookbooks, Christian, travel books etc., that are seemingly far afield from my political based protest novels or my browsing habits.

My sense is that the ad display algorithm weighs genre/subgenre more strongly than also boughts and other keyword choices. For instance I have difficulty getting ad traction on several subject related authors and their books as their publishers have placed them in categories where I have no impact at all.


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


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## 39416

AMS has suddenly rejected ad copy I've used many times before, saying it has grammatical errors. Can anyone give me their idea of what it is that the algo is now getting hung up on? Thanks:

Remy's been kidnapped and man is she ticked. So she's coming out swinging!


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## Philip Gibson

loraininflorida said:


> AMS has suddenly rejected ad copy I've used many times before, saying it has grammatical errors. Can anyone give me their idea of what it is that the algo is now getting hung up on? Thanks:
> 
> Remy's been kidnapped and man is she ticked. So she's coming out swinging!


Most likely they think you are incorrectly using a possessive apostrophe, although you are correctly using a present perfect contraction.

So submit it again with "Remy has been kidnapped.. " and see if they accept it.

Philip


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## weigle1234

loraininflorida said:


> AMS has suddenly rejected ad copy I've used many times before, saying it has grammatical errors. Can anyone give me their idea of what it is that the algo is now getting hung up on? Thanks:
> 
> Remy's been kidnapped and man is she ticked. So she's coming out swinging!


I had a new ad Rejected (grammatical error) the other day. Sometimes it takes a bit of guesswork to resolve glitches. I believe new ads get a cursory human scanning and, depending upon who does the scanning, they are either Approved or Rejected.

Here is my Rejected ad:

Go green the E-Z way! - These easy, simple, and fascinating DIY projects save energy - Save big dollars - Don't wait - Do it your way - Starting now.

That ad is for my E-Z Wizards book. This ad had been submitted at least 5 times previously without rejection. (I do lots of ad testing - over 200 to date.) I surmised that E-Z was the culprit, not DIY (Do It Yourself). I guessed right - here is the Approved version:

Save big money! These simple and fascinating projects will save you huge energy dollars - Do it the easy way, the DIY way - Go green - Do it now.

Sometimes a Rejected ad can be resubmitted awhile later with no changes whatsoever, and will be Approved. That is why I feel humans intervene at some point. Although within the last month I have had a couple ads immediately placed into Running - apparently bypassing intervention for whatever reason (computer glitch?).


----------



## smw

Philip Gibson said:


> Most likely they think you are incorrectly using a possessive apostrophe, although you are correctly using a present perfect contraction.
> 
> So submit it again with "Remy has been kidnapped.. " and see if they accept it.
> 
> Philip


Also consider that while we as humans understand "man is she ticked" to mean that she's really angry, it is very slang-y. If Philip's suggestion doesn't help, try "and man, is she ticked" or even rephrasing that part entirely.


----------



## Rivera Sun

Cassie Leigh said:


> I blogged about this weirdness on Friday because I have trouble getting impressions from AMS on authors I see in my also-boughts even when I bid high. You'd think those would be good matches that Amazon would approve of and let me on those pages, but not so much.
> 
> One thought I had about how they got there in the first place is because I use a lot of general keywords ("romance", "fantasy") so people who came to my books through those might also be buying these other books. Either that or we have an author in common who is/is not also showing on the also-boughts and is a keyword I get impressions and clicks on.


I enjoyed reading your blog. I noticed you were maximizing and streamling some ads that had redundant or unproductive keywords...Any hints on how to do that easily?

Coiunt me in as a buyer for your Excel guide to AMS ads!

Thanks for all your input here.


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## 39416

Thanks. Turns out it was 'ticked.' I substituted 'galled' and it went through. I like 'ticked' better, but the campaign has been running for two days now and it's sold five books which, for my prawnie self, is okay.


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## Decon

I paused all my ads for a good while when they stopped being profitable.

Putting my toes under the water with AMS again for my new release, Girl at the Window, but not expecting to make money this time for now
.

So far I'm concentrating on only 50 keywords for exact sub genre matches and tweeking the bids until I get onto first pages, then I'll increase the amount of keywords if my daily $5 max isn't exceeded. Managed quite a lot of placements so far on the 1st or 2nd pages during the time when Amazon allows some leeway in the early stages when it doesn't have data. I've also picked out one generic keyword which is an exact match for the main sub genre to make up for the lack of numbers.

It's only been one day but impressions have been reasonable and with 9 clicks. Problem is at 99c and with no reviews, and a poor starting rank, no one is biting yet. Still, early days and I've set a budget I'm prepared to lose for the month just for the visiblility and hopefully to get some sales and reviews off the ground, then when I have enough reviews I can increase my retail price. If I can't get onto a first page, or I get no clicks over time, I'll pause that particular keyword.

I know it takes while for sales to come through, but none are showing as pending on my dashbord which is why I know I haven't sold any from the clicks yet.

Note, I've tried the 500/1000 keywords route and with varying bids from low to high, and found that with 6 ads, there just wasn't the time to tweak them for them to work. I'll see if how I am doing it know is better with fewer productive keywords. With only 50 keywords, I can spend an hour per day for the next few days copy and pasting the titles onto the Amazon site until I can see I've hit the sweet spot on the carousel, without overdoing the bids.

What I'm also trying to do is to build up a good impression to click ratio with a low retail price, which is so far 350-1, so when it comes time for Amazon to set a pause while they re-assess, I should still get good placement by the time I increase my prices.

Edited: Now on 11 clicks for the day and only 5 of the keywords hasn't had impressions. I've increased my daily to $7 There is no reason for me not to be on the carousels of those 5 books apart from one has no carousel and Amazon has deemed the others not an exact match because the bids are fine, but the sub genres are not exactly the same as mine, so those will go to pause and I'll add five more.


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


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## Michael Sussman

Just wondering what you folks tend to set for CPC bids. I was setting it at 25 cents and doing okay for a week or so and then suddenly I stopped getting impressions or clicks. I assume I need to increase the bids, but how much higher makes sense when the eBook costs 99 cents?

Also, I don't really understand how people are tweaking their campaigns. Does it pay to start a new campaign which only includes keywords that have received clicks?


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## Decon

Decon said:


> I paused all my ads for a good while when they stopped being profitable.
> 
> Putting my toes under the water with AMS again for my new release, Girl at the Window, but not expecting to make money this time for now
> .
> 
> So far I'm concentrating on only 50 keywords for exact sub genre matches and tweeking the bids until I get onto first pages, then I'll increase the amount of keywords if my daily $5 max isn't exceeded. Managed quite a lot of placements so far on the 1st or 2nd pages during the time when Amazon allows some leeway in the early stages when it doesn't have data. I've also picked out one generic keyword which is an exact match for the main sub genre to make up for the lack of numbers.
> 
> It's only been one day but impressions have been reasonable and with 9 clicks. Problem is at 99c and with no reviews, and a poor starting rank, no one is biting yet. Still, early days and I've set a budget I'm prepared to lose for the month just for the visiblility and hopefully to get some sales and reviews off the ground, then when I have enough reviews I can increase my retail price. If I can't get onto a first page, or I get no clicks over time, I'll pause that particular keyword.
> 
> I know it takes while for sales to come through, but none are showing as pending on my dashbord which is why I know I haven't sold any from the clicks yet.
> 
> Note, I've tried the 500/1000 keywords route and with varying bids from low to high, and found that with 6 ads, there just wasn't the time to tweak them for them to work. I'll see if how I am doing it know is better with fewer productive keywords. With only 50 keywords, I can spend an hour per day for the next few days copy and pasting the titles onto the Amazon site until I can see I've hit the sweet spot on the carousel, without overdoing the bids.
> 
> What I'm also trying to do is to build up a good impression to click ratio with a low retail price, which is so far 350-1, so when it comes time for Amazon to set a pause while they re-assess, I should still get good placement by the time I increase my prices.
> 
> Edited: Now on 11 clicks for the day and only 5 of the keywords hasn't had impressions. I've increased my daily to $7 There is no reason for me not to be on the carousels of those 5 books apart from one has no carousel and Amazon has deemed the others not an exact match because the bids are fine, but the sub genres are not exactly the same as mine, so those will go to pause and I'll add five more.


Here's an update. In 24 hrs I have 31 clicks, and sales are coming though on my dashboard. I've reduced my keywords down to to 46 from 50 and every one is getting impressions. I've had to increase my daily spend to $9.

To Answer the post above mine, my book is 99c and like it says in the quoted post, I know I won't make a profit. As a new release, I'm only interested in garnering keyword books that are very specific to my sub genre and top rankers so they'll populate my also boughts when they eventually arrive. I also need sales to get reviews. Once that's done, Ill increase my price.


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## Michael Sussman

Thanks for all the feedback!

Regarding text for the ads, do you think it's better to stick with a single punchy sentence?


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## A past poster

I have 10 product interest ads for a book that have gotten few impressions or none. Do I assume they are dead?


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## A past poster

LilyBLily said:


> How long have they been running? According to the Meeks book, they can take weeks just to get going. I'm running a couple right now and the number of impressions is underwhelming. No click action yet. OTOH, it costs nothing if nothing happens.


Some have been running since Aug. 7.


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## Bob Stewart

Often, I see more actual sales than AMS reports. (Many of my books sell so slowly it's obvious what generated the sale.)

The ad I'm running right now is just the opposite, AMS indicates MORE sales than I've had according to the KDP sales report.

In searching, I found this post:

https://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,240368.0.html

Is what Tali reports there about sales of other books getting reported as mine still true?

I'm guessing it is, because I also have an anomalous $ amount listed with one of my keywords, i.e., not a multiple of my books sales price.

This strikes me as really amazing. How can Amazon NOT be able to track the actions of a user in their closed system?


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## 75845

Not sure if this has been mentioned before (I have read all 69 pages, but also have a dodgy memory).

I had an advert rejected for disallowed alphanumeric characters and so submitted a copied ad without a forward slash and it was rejected. Forward slash is a basic component of the internet so it seems crazy to omit it, although I suspect it is a draconian attempt to prevent links in the ad text, even though with only 250 characters (or whatever) who would add the https:// that is unnecessary in most modern browsers.

PS thanks to all for the thread as it helped me to decide to go to AMS after getting an email from KDP reminding me that it was open to wide users. Then after using it for a while it inspired me to go back to KU despite my frustration at Amazon over the poorly implemented Page Flip.


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## Jena H

Michael Sussman said:


> Just wondering what you folks tend to set for CPC bids. I was setting it at 25 cents and doing okay for a week or so and then suddenly I stopped getting impressions or clicks. I assume I need to increase the bids, but how much higher makes sense when the eBook costs 99 cents?
> 
> Also, I don't really understand how people are tweaking their campaigns. Does it pay to start a new campaign which only includes keywords that have received clicks?


Keywords that I think are very generic ("mystery" or "action" or "love," etc.) I use lower bids, like 10 cents. They're so general that they'll pick up a LOT of impressions, and rack up the costs. For more specific keywords I use higher bids, usually 25 cents or maybe even 30. For example, if you think readers of The Hunger Games would like your book, I'd use "Hunger Games," "Katniss," and "Suzanne Collins" as keywords with high bids. That will ensure (?) that readers who are interested in the HG books will see your ad.

I have no idea why campaigns sometimes seem to stall out... that's one of those mysteries that if anyone solves, we'd all love to know! 

Also, as to the last part of your question... I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to that, either. Over the course of this whole thread I think it's been posited (or 'determined') that A) pausing and re-starting an ad is better than creating one from scratch, and B) starting a brand new ad from scratch is more effective than enabling one that's been paused. So... there ya go.


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


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## Paul_Curtin

I hope this is the right place for this post. This threads has been super helpful and confusing at the same time! I am dipping my toes in AMS Ads. I have tried to soak in as much from this forum as I can, but I'm still a bit perplexed. Seems I'm in good company.

After two campaigns that lasted a few days (too narrow in their keywords), I launched a revamped campaign on 9/8. Here are the results so far:










I know the impressions look ridiculous, but 34,302 have come from a single keyword. It has netted me 3 clicks, but I am thinking it is way too broad.

I understand that this may be way too early in the campaign to judge its performance, and the losses so far are only a few bucks, but I'm wondering why the clicks are not translating into sales. I know from reading this thread that the clicks could be going to paperback sales or Kindle Unlimited reads (I did see a spike in pages read yesterday but not a lot), but I am also running other promotional efforts that might account for those prawny sales.

I am trying to gauge whether there is something wrong with the campaign or whether it's too early to tell. If I take away the one keyword, that's still 7 clicks for 2,940 impressions--which i understand is pretty good! But if this continues at this rate, every sale will be at or close to a loss.

Again, I understand this is early and I am sounding no alarms about this quite yet. But I want to understand how i can improve this so that clicks translate into sales.

Any tips or resources on this would be great. I can post a screenshot of the actual ad if that will help.

Thanks!


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


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## Decon

Looks good doesn't it. Those are the sort of figures we strive for. Well it isn't good. Okay so this ad has beeen running 3 days. As I said before, I started with 50 keywords, and now I have 59. That's as much as I can cope with from a spend POV as I'm bound to lose money. I'm also checking every single keyword for it's position on the carousel every day for bid maintenence to ensure early pages. (1hr 20 minutes per day) Every single keyword has had impressions. Daily limit now $9. Ratio 595 imp - 1 click

Why isn't it good? Well for a start it's a new release with no reviews, so even at 99c it a tough consideration for a buy considering competing books with reviews at that price. And secondly, it's priced at 99c, worth ony 35c royalty. It is also a standalone, so no benefit from a series. It's hard to get a handle on the sales because of the delay, but it certainly won't be a sale per click that I'd need to make a profit. I'm guessing at 10 clicks per sale which will be $10 retail and $3.50 royalty. Page reads are 1500, so that's around another $6 (If they can be attributed to AMS)

What are your thoughts?


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## Decon

LilyBLily said:


> I could be completely wrong, but I don't see any great reason you have to be at 99 cents. AMS gives you good positioning on the regular Amazon pages--where you can safely assume not all buyers are bargain hunters.
> 
> If your book has a secure sub-subgenre to sit in, you should be okay at full price. However, if it's like one of mine, lost in the sea of similar romances yet without a sub-subgenre where it can make an impact because it's what people are looking for in that niche, I think you may want to employ some additional tactic, like a newsletter ad. There are some available to new books without reviews, and many available to discounted books.
> 
> Your bid cost is really high, too, which suggests you're in a very competitive genre. I can see why you're concerned. If that's the cost of every keyword in the ad, you've got to come up with a way to save yourself. My vote would be to raise the price while you investigate some other promotions, or else pause the ad.


I tried to do a mailchimp ad yesterday, but it's that long since I sent one out, I couldn't work out how to send it, lol. I'm looking at it again today. I
I hear you about pricing. Everything is going according to plan with my also boughts and my rank, but the also boughts have a way to go yet to get the books on it I really need. The main thing is reviews for me to be confident to increase my price. I'm also going to go through a list of people that signed up for reviews on a site for a different book of mine, and I'll send out some ARCs to them.

I've set an advertising budget for Sept of $150 I'm prepared to lose to get things off the ground, so I'm okay so far. I'm also bidding on this book via AMS for my other titles which have reviews and are priced at $4.99 which should show readers I'm not a newbie. How I have it is from a plan I set, so I'm not too worried, but you are right, I couldn't go on at that price if it wasn't it was part of a short term strategy I'm trying out.

I'm also mindful of building data with AMS for the time when Amazon pause to assess if they should downgrade you regardless of bid. *(Amazon told me this is what they do when I wrote to them about two of my books and the one with a lower bid was on page 1 and the higher bid was on page 4, so impression to click ratio figures in their placement algorythms.)* Once I get past that point and get some reviews, then my price will increase.

If I don't get the reviews I need then I'll reluctantly have to go for a free day with say freebooksy and pause the ad, but that will likely mess up my also boughts genre wise. You are also right that mine is a specific sub genre of the thriller genre as a dark psychological thriller.


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## PearlEarringLady

Paul_Curtin said:


> This threads has been super helpful and confusing at the same time!


Perfect summary of it, actually, and of AMS ads in general. I agree with Cassie that you need to shut down the 34K impressions keyword, pronto. Taking that out, you got 7 clicks for 3K impressions, which is a good ratio, but 7 clicks isn't enough to start seeing sales (you might, but it's unlikely).

In very broad terms, you'd want to see several thousand impressions per day, at least one click per thousand impressions, and one sale per 10 clicks or so, taking into account that if you're in KU you'll also get borrows which won't show up, and also the delay in reporting sales (the KDP dashboard is a better guide than the AMS one). I'd give it a few more days before trying to work out whether it counts as successful or not.


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## Jena H

Dumb question. Or maybe not so dumb.....

On the campaign dashboard for our ads, where it shows us the keywords, impressions, clicks, etc., there's a column labelled Match. Default in that column is "broad." My assumption is that a "broad" keyword is very generic-- for example using the word _love_ or _romance_ for a werewolf-shifter urban fantasy book. Yes, those keywords do fit, but they're very, well, broad, and may attract lots and lots of impressions but they won't be applicable for this particular book.

So I try to get specific for keywords-- using names of other authors, other books in same genre, movies/TV shows that are similar to my story, etc. No matter what keyword I put in, though, it's still listed as a "broad" match. Anyone know why? Anyone have a keyword that's other than "broad"? What are the other alternatives?


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


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## Philip Gibson

PaulineMRoss said:


> In very broad terms, you'd want to see several thousand impressions per day, at least one click per thousand impressions...


I just went into my ads with the most clicks and removed those keywords with very high impressions to clicks ratios - like only 1 click per 3,000+ impressions. They were keywords like: edition, education, a things, introduction, etc. They weren't keywords I had deliberately selected, but rather scooped up by various means. I felt good about removing them because, while they were getting substantial numbers of clicks, I didn't imagine people searching by keywords like those would be interested in my books (graded readers for children).

After removing those keywords, I looked at the sales column and saw that the keyword "a things" had in fact sold a $9.99 paperback with 8 clicks at $0.14 per click, but 27,800 impressions.

How such a keyword actually produces a sale is beyond my ability to figure out. Did 8 people actually type "a things" into the Amazon search box, one of whom went on to buy my paperback? Or have 27,800 people typed "a things" into the search box? Surely not.

I do not understand how a sale like this happens. Not at all.

Philip


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


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## Jena H

Cassie Leigh said:


> AMS for self-publishers only allow a broad match type. If you have a different type of ad account you can choose to make the match exact so that "writer" for example will only match on "writer" and nothing else such as "writing" "how to write" "what to write", etc. etc.


Oh, I see, they mean "broad" in a different sense. So if I use "historical" as a keyword, maybe I don't also have to use "historical romance" or "historical fiction" also. Maybe even the word "history." Good to know, and thanks for the clarification.


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## Gregg Bell

This image is a relatively new campaign I'm running. As you can see I have no sales. But since I've added "Free with Kindle Unlimited" to my AMS blurb for this campaign, I'm wondering if I shouldn't be alarmed that I'm getting no sales with (at least the vj chambers entry) a fair amount of clicks (and no sales) because the people that might be clicking on the ad might be getting the book through KU. Make sense? But if that is indeed the case, it would mean I would _really_ have to rely on my KU page reads to determine if the ad is working out. Right? I know that 10 clicks with no sales isn't that many clicks but even if it were to continue, would the same sort of thinking apply? Thanks.


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


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## Rivera Sun

Deep Bow to ML Humphrey (Cassie Leigh) for your new Excel for Self Publishers. I was deeply amazed and delighted that you were able to make  sophisticated analysis of advertising and publishing, approachable from every experience level. I got the book a couple of days ago, scanned through it and am already using bunches of your techniques already. I am looking forward to a close read and taking it even further...Thanks many times over.

BTW, as I have mentioned before, Rivera's postings on advertising are by her partner Dariel...That's me   I  am a retired serial entrepreneur that started over 40 businesses in my career and by my estimation your explanations of how to look at profitability are flawless. Personally I would never have imagined a Stanford econ, Wharton MBA could have done that.  

You have even inspired me to get your basic book on Excel so I can up my game even more. So Thanks bunches more.


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## Gregg Bell

LilyBLily said:


> Is your book a good match for VJ Chambers? If not, that's why the clicks and no sales--but remember, there's a delay in reporting. You might have sales. Are you seeing any bump in sales on your KDP dashboard?
> 
> You definitely want to watch your KU reads daily for a bump. The bigger problem is there's no way to know which keyword garners you KU reads. You have to assume they all might.


Thanks Lily. No, I don't think my book (_Saving Baby_) is a good match for VJ Chambers. It's a sweet kind of thriller and VJ's books seem pretty hard. And yet, it's getting all the clicks. No real sales bump but the ad is new (9/7/16). And I guess it will always be a guessing game with the page reads, but my sales were kind of dying out there, and now they're showing signs of life, so there must be something to the AMS ads. Plus they're not costing me that much.


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## Gregg Bell

Cassie Leigh said:


> If you're pushing people to borrow your book through KU then you need to be paying attention to how your book's rank is performing on a daily basis to judge if it's resulting in borrows or not. (Page reads don't necessarily show up on the day a book is borrowed.)


Thanks Cassie. Yes, I was after the page reads. And they do seem to have picked up a bit, so I'll keep watching. And yeah, I do need to get into the daily habit of that.


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


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## amdonehere

A couple of random things to report:

1. So in his book Brian Meeks recommended that we should try to keep our bids very low because his tests showed that the bid price makes no difference as to whether your ad gets shown. I've decided that is not true at all. I'd been bidding quite high on Book 1 of my series, to the point where I make zero ROI with the plan to use it as a loss leader to push for sell-thrus. Recently I tried his advice and bid very low with new keywords I added. Nope. Low bids absolutely was not getting the impressions. I've abandoned the low bid strategy and am returning to a higher bid now.

Same with Product Display ads. I started out very low like he suggested. After about 6 weeks it was getting only single digit impressions. I started increasing the bid price incrementally and finally, the impressions started to burst. I'm not sure if the impressions will go higher if I continue to increase the bid price, but I think I'll let it sit where it's at for a while and see.

2. Amazon doesn't make it easy for us to organized that ads and I really hate that. It's annoying enough that we can't ever delete a terminated ad. But I had an ad campaign where I had initially mixed keywords from three different genres (by accident when I uploaded keywords from a wrong Excel file). By the time I realized that, the ad had run for a couple of weeks. So I paused it and started 2 new campaigns where I segregated the keywords by genres. But those new ad campaigns are slow going and hardly deliver whether it's impressions or clicks. So just to see what would happen, I set that older mixed genre ad to run again and paused the new campaigns. Of course it's getting a lot more impressions than the new, more organized ones. Anyhow, it's not a big deal I guess, just makes it hard for me to mentally organize.


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


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## PearlEarringLady

AlexaKang said:


> 1. So in his book Brian Meeks recommended that we should try to keep our bids very low because his tests showed that the bid price makes no difference as to whether your ad gets shown. I've decided that is not true at all.


It may be true for Brian and his particular books/genres/strategy, I dunno. But it doesn't work for me at all. I once experimented with a Product-type ad, starting bidding at 6c and increasing by 5c per day. I didn't get any impressions at all until I hit 21c. At 56c the impressions tipped into 4-figures a day. The first sale showed up on day 13, but given the delays, that probably relates to a bid of 51c or so. I abandoned the experiment at 81c when it was clear things were not improving. I never did get more than the one sale. I also started some low-bid product-type ads after reading his book, and have just abandoned them after 3 weeks with precisely 12 impressions on 1 of the 4 ads.

On the other hand, I know someone who threw a $10 bid at an ad, and still got virtually no impressions, so a high bid is no guarantee of anything.

My current strategy is: 1) Use sponsored ads; 2) bid middling high but not silly-high; 3) run ads only on new releases, first in series, box sets; 4) judge effectiveness by rank, not reported sales and definitely not by reported ACOS (which is wildly misleading).


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## Decon

These are my results for a new ad for a new release at 99c. I set a budget to lose $150 for the month.

Number of keywords started with 50. Now have 90.


$35.84 total sales 7 days possible 8 pending sales @ 99c
13.99 = 1 print book      =      $3.90
21.85 = 22 @ 99c x35% =        $7.70
Page reads 5,337 @.0042 =    $22.41
Total                                      $34.01 royalties
132544 impressions =  18934 per day
241 clicks              = 55O impressions per click = 10.5 clicks per sale.
Cost of click at 24c  = $58.67 Mostly 1st page to the 4th page.
Less all royalties        $34.01
Loss for 7 days      =( $24.57)

What I take from this.  

1, You don't need masses of keywords which makes it easier for bid maintenance to get on early pages.
2,  I suspect from looking at other ads over this last year that at a higher retail price of $2.99, the impression to click ratio would increase to 1000 to one, so it would still be difficult to make a profit. At $3.99 I would expect  1500 -1 and at $4.99 2000-1. Also, I would expect to see click to buy ratio increased to 20-1 at the higher end of pricing.

Not sure what you would take from these figures?


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## Philip Gibson

About bidding high/low and effect on number of impressions.

I recently started 4 Sponsored Product ads at the same time where everything (ad copy, keywords, etc) was identical except bid price.  The bids were: $0.11, $0.16, $0.21 and $0.26.  Resulting impressions so far are:

$0.11 - zero impressions

$0.16 - one impression

$0.21 - 522 impressions

$0.26 - 12,273 impressions

So yes, higher bid price does result in more impressions.  At least for me in this campaign.

Philip


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


----------



## khotisarque

Philip Gibson said:


> About bidding high/low and effect on number of impressions.
> 
> I recently started 4 Sponsored Product ads at the same time where everything (ad copy, keywords, etc) was identical except bid price. The bids were: $0.11, $0.16, $0.21 and $0.26. Resulting impressions so far are:
> 
> $0.11 - zero impressions
> 
> $0.16 - one impression
> 
> $0.21 - 522 impressions
> 
> $0.26 - 12,273 impressions
> 
> So yes, higher bid price does result in more impressions. At least for me in this campaign.
> 
> Philip


I'm ignorant, but I would guess that you are bidding against yourself. With truly identical ads at differing bids, the auction should always accept your top bid and only the top bid. So I would expect to see about 12800 impressions at 0.26 [bid, not actual] and no others at all. The fact that some of your impressions were achieved by identical but lower-ranking bids suggests [cough, cough] that the auction algo is not infallible. So burn me at the stake.


----------



## PearlEarringLady

LilyBLily said:


> Meeks uses this method, and so does our retired print magazine mail order advertiser who often posts on this thread. It's possible it may be a case of too many statistics and not enough actual information.


Meeks uses almost exclusively Product Display ads, where you can run as many as you like in parallel and they work (or not) independently. With Sponsored Product ads, which is what Philip said he was using, they do compete against each other and the algos tend to pick just one to run, usually the most expensive.


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## Philip Gibson

As well as the Sponsored Products ads above (in which the highest bid gets the most traction by a long way), I also have 12 Product Display ads.  Those 12 ads have been running for 3 weeks with nearly zero impressions so far.  Brian Meeks says those ads can take 2-5 weeks to get going, and some will never kick in at all.

After seeing the effect of higher bids on my Sponsored Products ads, I increased bids on 4 of my Product Display ads (from $0.08, $0.10, $0.12, $0.14) to $0.26 to see if the higher bid would get those ads to kick in and start getting impressions compared to the remaining low bid ads.

It did - those 4 ads at $0.26 are now accumulating impressions. The remaining 8 low-bid ads have remained static.


Philip


----------



## JTriptych

Has anyone tried running several identical ads with identical bids at the same time? What was the result?


----------



## khotisarque

LilyBLily said:


> I doubled the bid on one PD ad last night to 22 cents. It's up a whopping 5 impressions this morning, for a total of 134 after three weeks. And 0 clicks, of course. We'll see if the rest of the day the increase is exponential.


It seems to be one thing that we can all agree on, the Product Display ads are rarely shown. Might I hypothesize that the available slots for those ads are much less than for SP [where the number of sub-pages is apparently unlimited], and that the sausage is simply sliced too thin to give many slices to anyone, too competitive for low bids to appear when the moon is not blue?


----------



## weigle1234

JTriptych said:


> Has anyone tried running several identical ads with identical bids at the same time? What was the result?


I have been there, done that, many times. However, all my manuals fall within a DIY genre - while most in this forum appear to be within romance genres.

But, I never run Identical ads simultaneously. I will run an ad at, for example, a 2-Cents Bid level for at least a month - to obtain accurate stats. I will then run the identical ad at the default bid of 25-Cents. As expected, within a few days the 25-Cents ad KILLS the 2-Cents ad. With KILL meaning the 2-Cents ad daily Impressions drop from, for example, 3,000 down to 150. For whatever reason, the 2-Cent ad will continue producing very low Impression counts - for how long I have no idea since I soon Terminate that ad. Such two-identical-ads testing yields very consistent results - I have never seen an exception.

Within the past few months I decided to do LOTS of testing - a fallback to my mail order years, where early-on I discovered that just about any concept is worth testing - some of the craziest ideas end up making the most money.

IMHO, most folks are DREAMERS - professional television watchers, so to speak - those content to simply watch life pass them by. I know for a fact that of the many thousands of DIY manuals I peddled via mail order, not even one guy in a thousand (I mail only to males) actually completed any specific DIY project.

A few months ago I decided to test my theory that Dreamers will buy just about anything, often simply out of curiosity. They may dream about completing DIY projects, but rarely follow through.

However, in general, Internet folks are younger and much more sophisticated than mail order buyers; they occasionally leave the house; to become involved in activities other than watching TV or reading books.

So, I theorized that I might find audiences in genres far removed from my very limited DIY genre; but genres populated by other than mere Dreamers - genres such as sports, traveling, hunting, fishing, camping, etc.

I discovered that most such genres carry very few sponsored ads; thus, light competition. I am running low-bid (2-Cents) ads for 10 of my DIY manuals in such genres - a total of 154 ads at present. The Keywords selected in each ad are specific only to the selected genre. In other words, 10 groups of totally diverse Keywords - each group unique to a specific genre.

So far, the concept is working; but, as expected, the results from among the varied genres differ greatly. All ads create at least a few average daily impressions; varying from around 100 to as high as 3,000. However, in general, the CTR is relatively low for most such ads (in the neighborhood of .03 - .07). My ad philosophy in regard to sales is: "A Click is a Click" no matter where it may be generated. Overall, my 2-Cents ads are profitable, but nothing to write home about.

It is just about impossible to determine which ads are the most effective. AMS enters sales data erratically (none, or greatly delayed) in just about all my charts. Also, since I am a self-publisher, nowhere do they note paperback sales. I am certain at least some paperback sales result from 2-Cents ads since such sales usually peak within a few days of running new groups of ads.

When I first got involved with AMS ads, I always went with their default Bid of 25-Cents. However, for my DIY manuals, all such ads start losing money after runs of about 2-3 months; at which point I terminate them. I do not believe in temporarily Pausing ads, doing that usually turns out to be a disaster for me. I am aware that some authors will Pause an ad, and find they get improved results after placing it back to Running. (Perhaps worse results - for those willing to admit such.) However, I suspect they likely made Keyword changes before the ad ran again - which makes accurate analysis impossible.

Now, my overall plans is to run only 2-Cents ads in off-genre domains - gradually increasing Bid levels, at least for those genres showing decent results. I will still test high Bids (anything over 25-Cents to me) within my genre.

Of course, only long-term testing of any ad, at any Bid level, within any genre, will tell the whole story (assuming that is even possible).


----------



## khotisarque

weigle1234 said:


> So, I theorized that I might find audiences in genres far removed from my very limited DIY genre; but genres populated by other than mere Dreamers - genres such as sports, traveling, hunting, fishing, camping, etc.
> 
> I discovered that most such genres carry very few sponsored ads; thus, light competition. I am running low-bid (2-Cents) ads for 10 of my DIY manuals in such genres - a total of 154 ads at present. The Keywords selected in each ad are specific only to the selected genre. In other words, 10 groups of totally diverse Keywords - each group unique to a specific genre.
> 
> So far, the concept is working; but, as expected, the results from among the varied genres differ greatly. All ads create at least a few average daily impressions; varying from around 100 to as high as 3,000. However, in general, the CTR is relatively low for most such ads (in the neighborhood of .03 - .07). My ad philosophy in regard to sales is: "A Click is a Click" no matter where it may be generated. Overall, my 2-Cents ads are profitable, but nothing to write home about.


Interesting concept, but what about Ammy's relevance testing? Will the avid NFL addict click on 'War and Peace'? Perhaps, from idle curiosity. But will he then buy? Even at 0.02c per click, you can lose money with a 1000:1 clicks-per-sale ratio. Or die of old age before your first sale with 100 impressions per day. :-(


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## Philip Gibson

weigle1234 said:


> I will run an ad at, for example, a 2-Cents Bid level for at least a month - to obtain accurate stats.


I'm curious as to what kind of accurate stats your 2-cent bid ads give you and how they help you.

Philip


----------



## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> Interesting concept, but what about Ammy's relevance testing? Will the avid NFL addict click on 'War and Peace'? Perhaps, from idle curiosity. But will he then buy? Even at 0.02c per click, you can lose money with a 1000:1 clicks-per-sale ratio. Or die of old age before your first sale with 100 impressions per day. :-(


Obviously 100 Impression per day will likely yield nothing. I'll let the goofy thing run for a another week or two just to see if a miracle occurs - then most likely delete it (no sense in tying up AMS computer space). One of my latest 2-Cents ads is averaging 60 Impressions per day. But, at other extreme, another 2-Cent ad is averaging close to 9,000 average Impressions per day (and produces sales).

It's all about testing - you never know what will (or won't) work unless you give it a shot. It helps to make "educated?" guesses - but an least in my case, that doesn't always work out.

I'm out for a beer or two with friends - that may inspire another guess or two. I'll provide some solid stats on a few of my 2-Cents ads later this evening, or early tomorrow.


----------



## weigle1234

Philip Gibson said:


> I'm curious as to what kind of accurate stats your 2-cent bid ads give you and how they help you.
> 
> Philip


Here are the stats for 5 of my 2-Cents Bid test ads. (Total of over 150.)

Following is the "best" ad so far, but not quite the oldest. (The oldest goes back to June 21.) I submitted this ad on July 8, and it started Running on July 9. As of today (September 21) the ad has been Running for 74 days.

I have often used Keyword-stuffed ads; this ad contains 961 Keywords, including those few suggested by AMS. I never make any changes to any Keywords while an ad is Running; otherwise the stats would be inaccurate (worthless, IMHO).

All this data comes from my AMS Dashboard. Clicks and Impressions generally appear to be consistent, and accurate, within a day or two. Est. Total Sales is an entirely different matter - it rarely correlates with data from other areas (including Royalty payments to my bank account) - the payments are always in my favor; it appears they often pay me for books I have not even sold if I am to believe all their data. So, I have no complaints there - just that missing sales data confuses the issue. My most "reliable?" sales data seems to be on the Historical data chart (which is always at least 15 days old - thus more likely to be accurate).

Sample Ad #1: (Started Running July 9 - 74 days ago)

Total Impressions: 918,704
Average Impressions/day: 918,704/74 = 12,414

Total Clicks: 397
CTR: 397/918,704 = .043%

Ad cost so far: $6.63

Here is the tricky part - trying to determine ad profit (if any). According to AMS, this ad produced 4 sales; $21.96 ($5.49 x 4).

AMS royalty is based on 70%, but in reality (with ad transmission costs factored in for this book) is only 63%.

Net Royalty is: $13.93 ($21.96 x .63)
Net profit is $7.30 ($13.93 - $6.63) WOW - Party Time!.

Chump change for sure! But, as already mentioned, I feel some sales are not being credited (at least according to my charts). Also, I have far more paperback sales ($9.49/book - Net profit of ~$7.00/book); for which I have accurate counts since I am a self-publisher (all manuals produced and shipped by myself - actually by my wife or son).

An important factor here is the impact of ads on paperback sales. That could vary from 0% to 100%, since AMS provides no paperback sales data for self-publishers. Some paperback sales are probably organic - but, no sales from AMS ads is also possible. It sure is great fun playing the "AMS Guessing Game!"

Sample Ad #2: My oldest 2-Cents ad (Started Running June 22 - 91 days ago) (984 Keywords-stuffed ad)

Total Impressions: 228,550
Average Impressions/day: 228,550/91 = 2,511

Total Clicks: 145
CTR: 145/228,550 = .063%

Ad cost so far: $2.36

According to AMS, this ad produced 5 sales: $27.45 ($5.49 x 5).

AMS royalty is based on 70%, but in reality (with ad transmission costs factored in for this book) is only 63%.

Net Royalty is: $17.29 ($27.45 x .63)
Net profit is: $14.93 ($17.29 - $2.36) WOW - Even Better Party Time!.

Sample Ad #3: (Started Running August 22 - 30 days ago) (926 Keywords-stuffed ad)

This ad is totally different in that all 926 Keywords are related to a unique "Off" genre - UFOs. All these ads are for my Weird Wizards manual. While it is not my best selling manual by far, it sells more copies than I anticipated (both eBooks and paperbacks). I was always puzzled as to why that is, thinking it might have to do with its title. So, just for kicks, I decided to go with Keywords related to something WEIRD - thus choosing Keywords correlating with UFOs.

I spent a few months Air Force temporary duty at a missile tech school (changes were made to missile guidance systems) in the early 1960s at Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico (now Roswell Industrial Air Center - I flew in there for refueling stops at least 10 times over the years). I became fascinated with UFOs while in Roswell - did a lot of research, including Air Force investigations described in their official Blue Book report. IMHO, nothing is more WEIRD than UFOs - thus, the basis for my very first 2-Cents test ad using UFO-related Keywords.

Total Impressions: 298,928
Average Impressions/day: 298,928/30 = 9,964

Total Clicks: 108
CTR: 108/298,928 = .036%

Ad cost so far: $2.16

According to AMS, this ad produced 2 sales: $10.98 ($5.49 x 2).

AMS royalty is based on 70%, but in reality (with ad transmission costs factored in for this book) is only 63%.

Net Royalty is: $6.91 ($10.98 x .63)
Net profit is: $4.75 ($6.91 - $2.16)

Here is a brief rundown on a few other 2-Cents (off genre) test ads. Almost all are much too new to analyze with any real level of confidence.

Sample Ad #4: (Started Running September 5 - 16 days ago) (86 Keywords)

Total Impressions: 965
Average Impressions/day: 965/16 = 60

Total Clicks: 2
CTR: 2/965 = .207%

According to AMS, this ad has produced no sales.

Sample Ad #5: (Started Running September 3 - 18 days ago) (468 Keywords)

Total Impressions: 103,625
Average Impressions/day: 103,625/18 = 5,756

Total Clicks: 45
CTR: 45/103,625 = .043%

According to AMS, this ad produced 1 sale: $5.49

Net Royalty is: $3.45 ($5.49 x .63)
Net profit is: $2.55 ($3.45 - $0.90)

Sample Ad #6: (Started Running September 1 - 21 days ago) (711 Keywords)

Total Impressions: 81,188
Average Impressions/day: 81,188/21 = 3,866

Total Clicks: 24
CTR: 24/81,188 = .029%

According to AMS, this ad has produced no sales.

The preceding are all sample test ads, and there are many, many more. None are intended to make a meaningful profit - but none lost much money either (other than a few too new to yet be effective). IMHO, they have served their purpose. My intention is to gradually increase Bids for those ads that demonstrate profit potential, and see what falls out. As a dear departed friend often advised; Go for it - Ride the River!


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## Philip Gibson

weigle1234 said:


> My intention is to gradually increase Bids for those ads that demonstrate profit potential, and see what falls out. As a dear departed friend often advised; Go for it - Ride the River!


Thanks for providing the breakdown of your 2-cent ads. It was most informative. I understand your method now - using 2-cent ads to find those with the most potential and then gradually upping the bids on just those ads. For the method to work, it would seem to need AMS algorithms to perform consistently, not randomly as is so often the case. I mean if an ad performed well in August at a bid of 2 cents, then it goes on to perform well in August at a higher bid.

Have you found such consistency?

Philip


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## Philip Gibson

I often hear that the AMS dashboard does not record paperback sales.  Yet mine does.  I write children's books so a lot of my sales are in paperback.  I check the Createspace dashboard to record sales, but I see the sales also showing up on my AMS dashboard - delayed by several days, but they do show up.

Philip


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


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## Paul_Curtin

Here's an update on my numbers:



















Good news: getting clicks. Getting multiple clicks on the same keywords. It is drumming up some kind of interest. Removing the 35k and 9k impression keyword yields me 18 clicks for 10,170 impressions.

Bad news: no sales. Since the campaign launch on 9/8, I have the equivalent of two full reads via Kindle Unlimited. It is definitely possible that the ad drove those readers to my book. I've had four paperback sales, and I'm pretty sure not all of them would be ads. None of the ebook sales are due to the ads per AMS Reporting (I know there can be a delay--but the data should be caught up by now). So, 22 clicks and maybe 2-6 of those clicks resulted, maybe, in any "sales."

So I'm trying to think through what is the stumbling block on the last mile that is preventing the sale.

- Cover? Probably not. That is in the ad itself.
- Lack of reviews? Hard to tell. I'm hoping to grow review numbers organically. But the number of reviews is in the ad itself, so I don't know why it would be a factor AFTER a click.
- They read inside and it just isn't for them? 
- In the same vein as above, the keywords, while getting clicks, are not actually matching very well with the reader who might buy _my_ book.

I'm curious people's thoughts on what I should do as a next actionable item (if anything), or if they've encountered a campaign similar to mine. All and all this is still a fairly cheap learning experience. But I want to get better.


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## amdonehere

How do you guys do all this?

I honestly can't keep up. I used to be vigilant checking my ad performances. The SP ads take regular tweaking -- I mean at least once a week. And it usually takes me several hours to add new KWs, change bids, etc to keep the ads effective (barely -- the A-Zon algo has definitely make it harder and less profitable than a year ago.)

I can't find enough time. I have books to write, and other promo stuff. And all the ancillary stuff like dealing with cover designers, editors, etc. Not to mention research (but I guess most of you usually can skip that part.) And God forbid I do other usual promos like submitting for ENT, Booksends, etc which takes up yet another chuck of time. Then the occasional necessary social media stuff, responding to readers and other authors, coordinating with other authors. Plus I've got books I want to read too, and all those books get put to the back burner.

I can't find enough time to keep working the AMS ads. I feel like I'm drowning and barely keeping my head above water every time I finally check in on my ad performances.

And I find it extremely boring!! Spending hours looking for new KWs, checking to see which KWs I need to increase bids. It's SOOOO boring.

I wish I can pay somebody to manage my ads and do FB ads in top. (Yeah. FB ads. That's another can of worms. . . . )


----------



## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


----------



## Decon

OMG. I reduced all my bids on one book to 26c, or so I thought. One slipped through at $26.00 on The girl on a train. It cost me $20 for 4 clicks at $5.00 per click before I found it. Either others have made the same mistake and bid $5 instead of 5 cents, or there are some really stupid bids. I had a limit of $12 per day, but I can't tell if it was over 2 days.

More fool me. Double check when you change bids that you have it right.


----------



## A past poster

Decon said:


> OMG. I reduced all my bids on one book to 26c, or so I thought. One slipped through at $26.00 on The girl on a train. It cost me $20 for 4 clicks at $5.00 per click before I found it. Either others have made the same mistake and bid $5 instead of 5 cents, or there are some really stupid bids. I had a limit of $12 per day, but I can tell if it was over 2 days.
> 
> More fool me. Double check when you change bids that you have it right.


It's happened to me, also. Now I try not to change bids if I'm tired or in a hurry.


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## rikatz

A few points (and some questions):

I've used KDP to make the paperback of my latest book. The paperback has had one sale and it is listed on the the Amazon dashboard (a tiny gray bar, as opposed to the tiny yellow-orange bars). It is also listed under "Royalties Earned" but not listed under "Month-to-Date."

When I started this, a mere three months or so ago, I read M. L. Humphrey's book on AMS ads (Thank you, Cassie). I didn't know what I was doing and started a Product Display ad with bids of 40 cents. Within a week, I had over 6000 impressions and 12 clicks, but no sales. The Sponsored Product ad that I started at the same time was getting sales, so I let the PD ad expire. It is certainly my experience that higher bids will produce both impressions and clicks.

Recently, I made another classic mistake. I meant to up a bid to 45 cents. Instead, I upped it to 45 dollars. My first clue was an email from Amazon suggesting that I increase my daily budget to $13 dollars. Since the ad had spent a total of 6 bucks in the previous 2 weeks, this was hard to figure out. My second clue was noticing that I had spent 87 cents for a click (keyword: Agatha Christie). I'm more careful about that now. I lowered the bids and the ad almost immediately went dead, a couple of hundred impressions and virtually no clicks since then.

The Questions: I recently read Brian Meeks book and I am bewildered by two things. First, he says that he spends literally hours each day "working on his ads." He says that he never changes bids. Since the only things that you can change are bids and keywords, what exactly is he doing? Second, he runs multiple ads, mostly Product Display-Interest ads at the same time on the same books. He does state that the bids on these ads are different but the interests are usually the same. I can only surmise that the text of the ads is different, but it seems unclear. Many of you on this thread seem to also be running multiple ads. Aside from the bids, do you often post identical ads or do you vary the ad copy?

Thanks.


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## Gregg Bell

Decon said:


> OMG. I reduced all my bids on one book to 26c, or so I thought. One slipped through at $26.00 on The girl on a train. It cost me $20 for 4 clicks at $5.00 per click before I found it. Either others have made the same mistake and bid $5 instead of 5 cents, or there are some really stupid bids. I had a limit of $12 per day, but I can't tell if it was over 2 days.
> 
> More fool me. Double check when you change bids that you have it right.


Don't feel bad. I've had it happen to me too. Five clicks at $1.51 each. It made me extra careful to check from then on. (Now I regularly double click the top of the bid column--to bring up the max bids--on every ad I'm running to make sure my top bid is what it should be.)


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## A past poster

Gregg Bell said:


> Don't feel bad. I've had it happen to me too. Five clicks at $1.51 each. It made me extra careful to check from then on. (Now I regularly double click the top of the bid column--to bring up the max bids--on every ad I'm running to make sure my top bid is what it should be.)


Good idea! I should have paid attention to the bid column.


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## Gregg Bell

Philip Gibson said:


> About bidding high/low and effect on number of impressions.
> 
> I recently started 4 Sponsored Product ads at the same time where everything (ad copy, keywords, etc) was identical except bid price. The bids were: $0.11, $0.16, $0.21 and $0.26. Resulting impressions so far are:
> 
> $0.11 - zero impressions
> 
> $0.16 - one impression
> 
> $0.21 - 522 impressions
> 
> $0.26 - 12,273 impressions
> 
> So yes, higher bid price does result in more impressions. At least for me in this campaign.
> 
> Philip


Thanks Phillip. That was helpful.


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## weigle1234

Philip Gibson said:


> About bidding high/low and effect on number of impressions.
> 
> I recently started 4 Sponsored Product ads at the same time where everything (ad copy, keywords, etc) was identical except bid price. The bids were: $0.11, $0.16, $0.21 and $0.26. Resulting impressions so far are:
> 
> $0.11 - zero impressions
> 
> $0.16 - one impression
> 
> $0.21 - 522 impressions
> 
> $0.26 - 12,273 impressions
> 
> So yes, higher bid price does result in more impressions. At least for me in this campaign.
> 
> Philip


My experiences with simultaneously testing identical ads (regardless of Bid levels) is that the resulting data is worthless.

Low Bid ad data will be destroyed by higher Bids; I have never seen a single exception. It takes patience to accurately track ad data. The only way to gather meaningful data is to allow an ad to run until its data stabilizes; which usually requires about 3 weeks.

Keep track of average daily impressions and CTR (Clicks / Impressions). At about the 2-week point, it is surprising how stable the stats will have become (both average daily Impressions and day-to-day CTR). The greater the number of Impressions (and corresponding Clicks), the more stable the data will become - which is to be expected. Folks involved with statistical analysis are aware of the fact that the greater the numbers become, the more accurate are the resultant stats.

A good example of a high Bid ad killing a low Bid ad is with one of my latest tests:

That ad (5-Cents Bid - Automatic mode) started Running on August 3. As of September 14 the ad had been Running for 42 days. During that time, it garnered 76,415 Impressions and 69 Clicks - for average daily Impressions of 1,819, and CTR of .09%.

On September 16 the identical ad started Running, with a 25-Cents Bid. By September 18 (2 days later) Impressions for the 5-Cents ad had only increased to 78,455 (from 76,415).

As of today, September 24, Impressions are 78,565 (1 Daily Impression Increase). The 5-Cents ad has garnered 2 sales ($12.78 x .63 = $8.05), with $1.95 spent - for a net profit of $6.10.

All this data comes from my Advertising Campaign Chart, which seems to be fairly accurate for both Impressions and Clicks. However, accuracy of the Est. Total Sales data is nebulous at best. I depend more on the Historical data chart since that info is at least 15 days old.

Since my books all fall into the DIY genre, folks are very likely to prefer paperback versions, but I have no way of verifying that - paperback sales far exceed my Kindle sales. Also, I self-publish - so paperback sales are not included anywhere in any AMS charts. In short, a lot of guesswork is involved in trying to get a decent overall picture.

Stats for the 5-Cents ad are easy to follow:

September 14: 76,415 Impressions (1,819 Daily Average) - 69 Clicks (CTR .090%)

September 18: 78,455 Impressions (510 Daily Increase) - 71 Clicks (CTR .090%)

September 21: 78,561 Impressions (35 Daily Increase) - 72 Clicks (CTR .092%)

September 24: 78,565 Impressions (1 Daily Increase) - 72 Clicks (CTR .092%)

Obviously, the 25-Cents ad is KILLING the 3-Cents ad. Had I run both ads simultaneously, there would be NO WAY of knowing what was actually happening!

As of today, September 24, the 25-Cents ad has garnered 23,010 Impressions (2,876 Daily Average) and 28 Clicks (CTR .122%) - no sales so far (after 8 days). These stats look decent for this early in the game, but I can already see where the ad is heading with $2.98 already spent. Past experiences with 25-Cents ads show that such ads (at least for me) start losing big money after about 1-month - whereas the 3-Cents ad is still in profit after its 1-1/2 month run (a piddling profit, but a profit no less).


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## Alvina

Look! My ACoS is exactly 10% now! (At $0.11 bid & average of $0.05 per click)

Daily: $1	146,042	174	$0.05	$7.98	$79.80	10.00%


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## 75845

Mine is at 118%, but only because it takes AMS so long to recognise that sales have taken place.


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## weigle1234

Looks like the AMS "Grammar Police" have awaken from their slumber.  My last 2-Cents Bid (Sponsored Product) ad was deemed "Rejected."

Even though that was its 23rd identical appearance, someone in the AMS hierarchy suddenly decided it does not meet with their "rules."  I received their canned "..The ad copy contains grammatical errors." response.

Let the guesswork begin!  Apparently AMS is opposed to any form of blurb wording that possibly smacks of resembling typical (but effective) ad Headlines.  Guess they are looking for bland and boring everyday ad blurb sentence structures.

Of course it is their game; so I just resubmitted my revised (boring IMHO) ads - with hope that makes them happy.  The only good part - I long ago discovered that AMS ad blurbs play a very minor part in overall ad effectiveness (although, in the mail order business, just the opposite is true).

All this reminds me of conversations I have with a family friend employed as a patrolman with a local police department.  At the beginning of each month they are directed to concentrate on a single element of possible driving violations.  DUI violations are always the Biggie - and receive the most attention (for good reason).  But, for example, they might be advised during the month of June to be on the lookout for drivers crossing the centerline.  For July, folks driving at varying speeds may label them "Suspect of the Month."  For August, not using turn signals may be the Biggie.

It seems AMS has a similar way of judging violations.  During July and August, they Rejected my ads containing - "Excess capitalization" even though they had no objections for several prior months.  So, apparently September is - "Grammar Month."

To me, it looks like the AMS ad folks have nothing better to do; with excess time on their hands - all falling under the category of “Job Security.”  Hopefully, come October, they will concentrate on violations with less criminal intent; such as omitting commas (,) - periods (.) - or other such dastardly offenses.


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> Yep, the AMS grammar police got me today, too. I forgot all I'd learned and submitted ad copy with double hyphens instead of pasted in em dashes. Rejected! And, bizarrely, those guys must go home early, because the revised ad is still under consideration.
> 
> What's annoying is that apparently the rejected ad stays on my AMS dashboard forever. Sigh.


One of my revisions has been to eliminate hyphens - which are very effective in all forms of advertising - in hope of pleasing AMS. Many things with Amazon are a Guessing Game. So, what else is new?


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## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> And, bizarrely, those guys must go home early, because the revised ad is still under consideration.


I never revise Rejected ads - I always delete them and submit an entirely new ad with an alphabetic suffix. That way it will be apparent which new ad was rejected, and how often. I suppose I am a bit paranoid when it comes to revising, editing, or pausing any ad - having had regretful past experiences with doing so.

For example (Rejected ad title #1): A great Romance!

New ad title becomes: A great Romance!-A

If that is rejected, the next new ad title becomes: A great Romance!-B

If each new ad is continually rejected, I may eventually submit: A great Romance!-X


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## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> I asked Amazon to delete my rejected ad from my AMS dashboard and they said they don't/can't/only do it under the light of a full moon in October/whatever.


Don't feel bad. I just checked, and so far I've accumulated 45 rejected ads. Even though an ad is rejected, AMS likely retains the ads' keywords, and factors them into the Algo. The retained keywords probably play a relatively minor role in the overall scheme of things, but nevertheless AMS somehow finds that data to be useful. Otherwise, why would they refuse to delete the ad?


----------



## weigle1234

LilyBLily said:


> I asked Amazon to delete my rejected ad from my AMS dashboard and they said they don't/can't/only do it under the light of a full moon in October/whatever.


Along the same line of thinking, even with ads which we have been purposely deleted (thus, no longer appear on any AMS charts); my guess is that AMS also retains that data. There is always a reason why we would delete an ad, and analyzing such data may well be to their benefit.


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## CassieL

As a comparison (since one of the arguments mentioned in this thread re: PD ads has been that bid doesn't matter), the Product Display ad I set up in late May when I was working on my book where I kept boosting the bid until it started to move ran for two days max and had these results:

Impressions 30511
Clicks 57
CPC: 63 cents
Spend: $35.91
Sales: $10.66
Budget: $100

It was set to spend as quickly as possible with targeted categories. I obviously shut it down because it wasn't profitable.


----------



## 39416

Man, they are getting picky. I just had this ad rejected, one I've used plenty of times before, for the capitalization.

After tearing a hole in Time & Space (never a good thing) Becca has a bedmonster with attitude to show for it. So her week is pretty much shot.


----------



## PiscaPress

Got a bunch of Product Display ads started 4 weeks ago, some have impressions trickling in, others still showing zero.  This is painfully slow...


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## Alvina

Is there something wrong now? I didn't even have a single click on my AMS ads for the past few days!


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## Jena H

Speaking of the AMS dashboard (and BOO that we can't delete rejected ads   ) I noticed there's no way to see when ads were paused or restarted, paused again, etc.  At least, I didn't see it.  I wondered because I paused an ad weeks ago, and yet today I was charged $2.82.  I don't recall which ad it was or when I paused it, so it's hard to check whether the billing is correct.


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## Jena H

LilyBLily said:


> I keep running notes on what I do with AMS because it's got so many moving parts. I don't think there's any way to find out on the dashboard when we paused something.


At this point I only run about one ad at a time. But still, it probably wouldn't hurt to keep some sort of list or spreadsheet.

Considering all the data the AMS dashboard _does_ give us, it's a little frustrating that basic info such as _date paused,_ and/or _date unpaused_ isn't available.


----------



## CassieL

LilyBLily's right. No way to see when an ad was active vs. paused. (Of course if there was, that would probably get overwhelming quick. I have some ads I pause for part of a day almost every day.)

My non-fiction ads for my newer books have been doing really well (mostly in paperback), but I rolled all of my fiction out of KU so have paused all of those ads for now. (They stopped working well about a week before the books were due to roll out. I had unchecked the boxes for renewal, which makes me want to put on my tinfoil hat and wonder if they were punishing me for leaving KU, but whatever. I never expect consistency from my Amazon sales. I'll have ten sales, eleven sales, nine sales, and then one, two, then ten again.)


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## A past poster

Something is wacky with my AMS figures. Below are the dates and number of impressions for one of my campaigns. Instead of showing more impressions,  there are over 800 fewer impressions.

October 5:  19,843 impressions

October 6:  19,064 impressions


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## Anthony James

Does anyone have suggestions as to why I might be having problems with getting an advert for my latest book to produce a high number of impressions?

The first campaign had 150-ish keywords, a decent bid of 25c, and makes about 4k impressions per day (tailing off now). When I had enough sales to produce a list of auto-bought keywords (about 250-ish keywords) I set up a second campaign with a 25c bid. This campaign got zero impressions (yes, none at all). I tried setting it up again with a different tagline and it's had 173 impressions in 2 days. I'm not best pleased, especially since it's taking Amazon over 24 hours to approve each campaign.

Any ideas about what's wrong?


----------



## PearlEarringLady

Max Anthony said:


> Does anyone have suggestions as to why I might be having problems with getting an advert for my latest book to produce a high number of impressions?
> 
> The first campaign had 150-ish keywords, a decent bid of 25c, and makes about 4k impressions per day (tailing off now). When I had enough sales to produce a list of auto-bought keywords (about 250-ish keywords) I set up a second campaign with a 25c bid. This campaign got zero impressions (yes, none at all). I tried setting it up again with a different tagline and it's had 173 impressions in 2 days. I'm not best pleased, especially since it's taking Amazon over 24 hours to approve each campaign.
> 
> Any ideas about what's wrong?


I'm not an expert by any means, but here are some thoughts. Firstly, it's not a tagline problem. If you were getting impressions but no clicks, it might be a cover/tagline problem, but if you're not getting impressions, it's a problem with keywords/bidding/some ineffable aspect of Amazon's algos. Sometimes Amazon just refuses to show an ad no matter how high the bid, and there isn't much you can do about it.

I'd try a couple of things. The first option (which is free!) is to increase the number of keywords. Experience seems to suggest that results improve with lots of keywords. People who've tried cutting out non-performing keywords find their ads do a lot worse. So throw in as many keywords as you can. Trawl the bestseller and HNR lists for your top sub-cats and pull out author names (I find they work better than book or series names). Try to get to 700+.

The second option is to increase the bids. If you're aiming at fantasy, you may find that 25c is a bit low. I go with 30-50c. If you're targeting the humour categories, I can't help you there, but you might want to try upping the bid anyway.

If none of this works, pause everything on this book, and rest it for a while. There's evidence that a break resets something and gets the thing firing on all cylinders again. Or try ads for a different book, or try product ads for a change (which apparently work well on lower bids, but are s-l-o-w to show any effect).

I hear you on the approval time - my last ad took 48 hours to be approved!


----------



## Anthony James

PaulineMRoss said:


> If you were getting impressions but no clicks, it might be a cover/tagline problem, but if you're not getting impressions, it's a problem with keywords/bidding/some ineffable aspect of Amazon's algos. Sometimes Amazon just refuses to show an ad no matter how high the bid, and there isn't much you can do about it.


Cheers - I was beginning to come to the conclusion that there are parts of the AMS system that are just a teeny bit pap. I've got up to 370 keywords now and submitted yet another campaign for their long-and-drawn-out approval. The strides to reach 700 might take a bit more time, since I'm hard at work writing the sequel to this same book at the moment and I don't want to get distracted during working hours (aside from the time it takes to vent here, of course).

This book is my new foray into sci-fi and I'm desperate to throw money at it to get it up the ranking. There are times when you can't even give it away.


----------



## PearlEarringLady

Max Anthony said:


> This book is my new foray into sci-fi and I'm desperate to throw money at it to get it up the ranking. There are times when you can't even give it away.


Facebook will take all the money you want to give it.  With AMS, the only time I've hit my budget limit is on a new book with a stupidly high bid.


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## weigle1234

Marian said:


> Something is wacky with my AMS figures. Below are the dates and number of impressions for one of my campaigns. Instead of showing more impressions, there are over 800 fewer impressions.
> 
> October 5: 19,843 impressions
> 
> October 6: 19,064 impressions


I would advise not to rely on any data much less than a week old. AMS does very sporadic short-term updates, and it generally takes at least a few days for any numbers to stabilize.

Good examples are my last 6 ads, submitted on October 4. I have been running gobs of test ads (like 300+) for the last few months - testing various bid levels amongst identical ads for 9 books.

Of the 6 ads mentioned, they were each bid at 2-Cents and their stats had stabilized. On October 4 I submitted the identical ads with 5-Cent bids,and the ads started Running on October 5. Today (October 10) I checked the impact of the 5-Cent ads upon the 2-Cent ads. (High bid ads kill lower bid ads in short order.) As expected, the results are dramatic. The daily impressions for all the 2-Cent ads dropped from averages of about 3,000 into negative numbers (like -81).

For example, a 2-Cent ad which had garnered 31,730 total impressions by October 5 had dropped down to 31,321 total impressions within 5 days of being attacked by its corresponding 5-Cent ad. That is an average daily loss of 81 impressions. It is impossible, of course, for total impressions to be less after 5 additional days of Running. But, according to my AMS Dashboard, the impossible has occurred; and for each and every one of the 6 ads no less. So much for the folly of relying on short-term AMS stats.


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## Jena H

Weird.  In my most recent ad (a new one) the first paperback sale is credited to a keyword as follows:


Bid      Impr    Clicks      ACPC    Spend    Sales
$0.15    385      0            –        $0.00	  $7.99	0.00%


Soooo.....  a keyword with NO clicks (0) is credited for selling a book.


----------



## Paul_Curtin

I am putting pause on my campaign. Here's the deets:



















Again, 35k and 9k from two keywords. Both paused. I have no idea what went wrong with the remaining or why none of the clicks translated into sales. KU reads and paperback sales don't come even close to accounting for all the clicks. At this point, I have no idea what to make of this data. Some of these keywords have a great click to impression ratios. But none of them are becoming sales.

Anyone have a campaign like this? What did you fix to make it successful?


----------



## A past poster

Jena H said:


> Weird. In my most recent ad (a new one) the first paperback sale is credited to a keyword as follows:
> 
> Bid Impr Clicks ACPC Spend Sales
> $0.15 385 0 - $0.00 $7.99	0.00%
> 
> Soooo..... a keyword with NO clicks (0) is credited for selling a book.


I had the same thing happen, a paperback sale without any clicks. BUT according to Create Space, a paperback of that book wasn't sold.


----------



## Jena H

Marian said:


> I had the same thing happen, a paperback sale without any clicks. BUT according to Create Space, a paperback of that book wasn't sold.


I did have a paperback sale at about the right time, so it very likely did come from the ad, but regardless... why is there a sale credited with no clicks??


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## khotisarque

Did we all give up and go home?


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## BillyDeCarlo

khotisarque said:


> Did we all give up and go home?


Cassie started a new thread on the topic since this one was becoming unmanageable due to size.


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## weigle1234

I have been submitting tons of ads lately (like 5 - 10 each day) - testing various Keyword and bid combinations.  For whatever reason, within the last few days most of my ads are placed into Running within a few hours!

I never make corrections or edits of any kind.  I simply delete any rejected ads, and start anew.  Doing otherwise usually leads to problems and/or confusion for myself and/or AMS.


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## weigle1234

Ever since getting involved with AMS about 6 months ago, I have done extensive ad testing (literally hundreds of unique ads).  It is a habit from my 30+ years in the mail order business, where testing of everything (from ads to promotional copy) is the name of the game for making serious money.

Early on, I discovered that using the AMS default bid level of 25-Cents led to disaster.  Usually within a month or two all 25-Cents ads lost money.

After that, my first test ads (about 200+) where set at a bid level of 2-Cents (the minimum).  With very few exceptions, all such ads have been profitable, although piddling profits.  Almost without exception I am charged a flat 2-Cents per Click.

However, I am now testing the identical ads at a bid level of 5-Cents.  The average charge is now only 3-Cents per Click; sometimes 2-Cents, and rarely 4-Cents.  However, the number of Impressions and CTR have increased significantly (sometimes dramatically) with 5-Cents bids.  It is still too early to make any permanent ad changes since I intend to continue such testing with gradually increasing bid levels.

Since my books are all in a relatively small genre (DIY), my ads seem to be effective in even loosely related sub-genres; which allows much opportunity for testing.  How everything works out long-term remains to be seen.

To garner accurate stats, each unique test ad has to remain identical, with the exception of increased bids.  Also, each 2-Cents ad must be Terminated before the corresponding 5-Cents ad is placed into Running.  Otherwise, the new 5-Cents ad immediately destroys the effectiveness of the corresponding 2-Cents ad; thus rendering all testing stats useless.


----------



## khotisarque

So today I tried a little experiment, mainly to find out what constitutes an 'impression'.  Is it a presence somewhere - perhaps page 99 - on the carousel-as-displayed, or does it require the searcher to scroll through to page 99 and actually eyeball the ad?  I chose a keyword currently showing dash-dash-dash for impressions/clicks/sales.  I searched using that keyword.  I found my ad on page 30.  I clicked it.  Then I went back to the original search page - not a new search, a continuation of the first one - and this time my ad was on page 6.  A third look, back to page 30.  OK, so the carousel gets re-shuffled each look.

Now I go back to AMS ads, about half an hour has passed.  The campaign total impressions have gone up by 13 - whoopee - but that keyword still shows dashes.  I scratch my head and try again, still dashes for the keyword but the campaign total has now DECREASED by 9.  OK, so there is a time-lag in the count, but DECREASING?

Looks like a random number generator.

Using another keyword, I got 18 pages of wildly irrelevant books - coloring books and life advice among others for 'Balthazar' - but my somewhat relevant ad was not there at all.  I guess 'relevance' is highly subjective.

Chaos is fun to explore.


----------



## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> Another of life's little mysteries is how the average cost per click can be 1.46 cents when the minimum is supposedly set at 2.00 cents.


If I am to actually believe the Dashboard - until a month or so ago such stats were the norm for my 2-Cents Bids

For example, the Dashboard shows 30 Clicks and and 44-Cents Spent - for a CPC of 1.4666 Cents.

However, within the last month the CPC has basically held steady at a flat CPC of 2.00 Cents. But now and then AMS throws a curve with CPCs at 1.74 Cents, 1.87 Cents, etc. Just to keep me on my toes, I suppose.

After all, AMS seems to have a penchant for maintaining confusion factors - apparently at what they consider to be reasonable levels.


----------



## Philip Gibson

khotisarque said:


> So today I tried a little experiment, mainly to find out what constitutes an 'impression'.


I'm surprised that after all this time, and so many people looking at impressions in their campaigns, that we still don't have a definitive answer as to what constitutes and impression.

At least not one that I've seen. Does anyone have a proven answer to this question?

Philip


----------



## khotisarque

Philip Gibson said:


> I'm surprised that after all this time, and so many people looking at impressions in their campaigns, that we still don't have a definitive answer as to what constitutes and impression.
> 
> At least not one that I've seen. Does anyone have a proven answer to this question?
> 
> Philip


It's dogmatic - an impression is whatever AMS in its whimsy currently recognizes as an impression!

More seriously, an impression 'should' be a count of the number of times an ad is downloaded to a searching customer. There may be restrictions and exceptions to this: ads beyond the first five 'might' not be counted unless the customer scrolls through the carousel; own-book searches might be discounted; robo-searches might be deducted. The robots probably account for some of the noise in the count; I have no idea on own-book tactics; following scrolls is probably feasible but I doubt that it would be worth the added processing time and download bandwidth it would need. So imho we are given a gross count, and the number of eyeballs seeing the lower pages is considerably fewer than these counts would suggest. This would explain the high impressions per click we often see.

Since AMS chooses not to limit the number of ads per carousel, we have little or poor information on how competitive any individual bid may be. Since the 'relevance' decision is another AMS whimsy, keyword selection is unpredictable.

I look at the ridiculous keywords offered by AMS for their pre-selected option; I look at the ridiculous ads that do appear, gloriously out of context; I conclude that AMS is simply out of its depth, and probably the algos themselves are overwhelmed by the quantity of data they are fed. But then, I'm not a true believer in the infallibility of Mamazon. And I do make a tiny profit through AMS; if only it were scaleable.


----------



## Rivera Sun

khotisarque said:


> So today I tried a little experiment, mainly to find out what constitutes an 'impression'. Is it a presence somewhere - perhaps page 99 - on the carousel-as-displayed, or does it require the searcher to scroll through to page 99 and actually eyeball the ad? I chose a keyword currently showing dash-dash-dash for impressions/clicks/sales. I searched using that keyword. I found my ad on page 30. I clicked it. Then I went back to the original search page - not a new search, a continuation of the first one - and this time my ad was on page 6. A third look, back to page 30. OK, so the carousel gets re-shuffled each look.
> 
> Now I go back to AMS ads, about half an hour has passed. The campaign total impressions have gone up by 13 - whoopee - but that keyword still shows dashes. I scratch my head and try again, still dashes for the keyword but the campaign total has now DECREASED by 9. OK, so there is a time-lag in the count, but DECREASING?


Fantastic. Such a strightforward test...awesome. i have been trying to come uo with all sorts of cpmplicated methodologies.
Two probelem...1.) Click coumts are delayed often for a day and may be revised over several more days.2.) the worse problem is that all KDP keywords are broad so the ad you see may not be from your suspected dash-dash keyword from some other closely related keyword in one of your ads. But some additional testing might discover the truth AND you willl have solved the problem that stumps many. Huzzah, great bows!


----------



## Rivera Sun

Reporting how it is going…
I run a few dozen product, lockscreen and other ads primarily on a research basis. All except the Kindle lockscreen ads are profitable but are low volume. Most of my advertising is in sponsored ads.

Note that results vary substantially by genre, subgenre, ad, description, cover, outside marketing etc.

To date these are the results and my summations from 275 sponsored ads on 4 separate novels and one related study guide. Novels are classed as political fiction with various subgenres and metadata keywords. Few oldest ads are ten months, 80% of ads are over 6 months running. Keywords are generally unique in each ad by type (ie also-boughts, genre/subgenre best-sellers, authors, specific titles by search related words, etc,). Keyword sets are most often repeated over all books. Novels priced 19.99 print, 8.99 KDP, study guide 14.99 print, 2.99 KDP, KU revenue is minimal). Where keywords are repeated in the same title, the bid pricing is generally the same over the various ads.

Results 71 million impressions, 42,800 clics, average cost per clic 6.4 cents, range 2 cents to 27 cents, applying the 60% click through rate indicates an effective offered bid rate of 10.5 cents. Actual bid rates varied widely per ad and in many ads over time. All ads initially started at 11 cents bid. Very highest bids were at 27 cents for selected strong sales result keywords Amazon gross sales generated by ads (includes KDP and printbooks) 26.9 cents per clic. Total Amazon revenue just over 33 cents per clic. Some of the book sales are printbooks.

50 ads, 10 million impressions, 4000 clics have produced zero sales. With the exception of a half dozen experimental ads the other 220 ads each produced profit based on attributed KDP and printbook net royalties.  All ads continue even the zero sales ads simply as I have been giving little attention to the program for the last few months…gotta get a new book out!

My observations:
Some ads have stalled at various times and generally have responded by paring out un/under- performing words and raising performing words bid prices dramatically (at least 25%).

Some ads have been at various times subject to bot attack causing eventual big relative deducts in clics etc.
Capturing of print book sales as being attributed to ads is seemingly erratic, especially some months ago. Current tests during first 2 weeks of October showed much more accuracy.

New ads definitely have a grace period where bid price and CTR (click thru rate) seem to be secondary to Amazon searching to make the ad successful. One ad seemed to get a CTR preference 4X what it later earned on its own merit. (The effective bid rate is bid times CTR)
AMS sales attribution and revenue to Amazon from sales seems inconsequential to the ad placement algorithm. Click through ad revenue seems to be a more important driver.

Overall ranking of the title also helps drive sales although this must be viewed in relation to the cost of creating that ranking. My ad campaigns create substantially more revenue when the title is at 20K versus 250K but I have only reached the better seller ratings through organic reach and not through sales giveaways. My priority has centered on weekly profit and I have not experimented with KDP or printbook pricing strategies

There is value to daily tweeking and additions to keyword lists. Best-selling titles/authors are constantly changing. My sense is that Amazon also tends to accept the big publishing house concept of a limited title life of 30, 90, 180 days, necessitating maintenance of existing ads and creation of new ones. Several times I have been unable to give the program adequate support and sales have faltered. 

I was long under the assumption that lower priced ads were out-performing higher priced ads. At average winning bid price ranges 2 cents to 6 cents the ACoS is virtually identical to higher average bid  price ads 6 to 11 cents.

And as of right now I still have no idea if impressions are counted as when loaded on the carousel or if actually keyed on the carousel page. I have a hunch that the answer is “when loaded on the carousel” as Amazon is clear an impression is counted when shared to a browser and I am pretty sure that the browser is loaded all at once.

All in all I consider it a tremendous success and look forward to continuation and expansion of the programs.

Ciao...From Dariel for Rivera


----------



## weigle1234

Philip Gibson said:


> I'm surprised that after all this time, and so many people looking at impressions in their campaigns, that we still don't have a definitive answer as to what constitutes and impression.
> 
> At least not one that I've seen. Does anyone have a proven answer to this question?
> 
> Philip


It seems most folks on this forum gather at least some data from our Advertising Campaign chart. I have tested literally hundreds of AMS ads, and find short-term data (that less than about 2 weeks old) from that chart to be unreliable. In fact, I am skeptical about the accuracy of almost all stats from that chart - even long-term data. I envision our Advertising Campaign chart as merely an approximation of advertising trends.

The only reliable stats come from my Sales Dashboard - and even those stats less than a few days old are unreliable. In their defense, AMS does caution that those updates may lag by a few days.

But, IMHO, all is not lost! I find the Historical chart data (accessed via the upper left of the Sales Dashboard) to be fairly accurate. That data in always at least 2 weeks old since it is updated on the 15th of each month - the latest stats being for the month of September.

By cross-referencing Historical chart data with Sales Dashboard chart data for specific time frames you should find closely matching stats - which, at least for me, lends credibility to the long-term data of both charts. Also, the Historical chart has several neat options which I find to be helpful. I highly recommend checking it out.

Speaking for myself, having to wait for reliable data from AMS takes patience, but is the only way to go for hope of keeping up with their game.


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## weigle1234

In a previous post, I stated; "I envision our Advertising Campaign chart as merely an approximation of advertising trends."

The reason I made that statement is because I have encountered many instances of glaring errors with that chart data - much of which may send the unwary in wrong directions.

An example is an ad I started earlier today.  The Advertising Campaign chart indicated that a Click had occurred within minutes of the ad being placed into Running, and after it had garnered but few Impressions - which is possible, but highly unlikely.

A more glaring example is an ad which was about 2 weeks old.  According to the Advertising Campaign chart, that ad had garnered a sale.  I then checked my Keywords to ascertain which Keyword was responsible for my good fortune.  Turns out it is a Keyword with few Impressions.  That is fine - the only problem being it is a Keyword that received no Clicks but, for an unknown reason, has produced a sale.  I have come across many such instances.

Of my hundreds of test ads, almost all were initially placed in Manual mode with 2-Cents bids.  My Advertising Campaign chart never indicated even a single sale for any of those ads.  Yet AMS faithfully transferred royalties to my bank account for sales which, according to the chart, had never occurred.  However, both my Historical chart and Sales Dashboard chart indicate those sales as having occurred.

The BIG problem being, I have no reliable way of knowing which ad(s) produced which sale(s).  Pretty hard to get a sense of direction here.  Guesswork does not sit well with me when it comes to making (or losing) money.

Lately, I started placing test ads with 5-Cents bids.  At least some sales from those ads are actually showing up on my Advertising Campaign chart, but sporadically, and definitely not for all of them.  Same old same old!

Much of this leads me to question the wisdom of testing individual Keywords - Adding, Pausing, changing Bids, whatever.  Is it pure happenstance that any such changes actually affect ad response?  Or, is it mere wishful thinking when any Keyword change actually produces more Impressions, Clicks, or Sales?

Along that line of thinking, can anyone on this forum explain how AMS can possibly determine which individual Keyword(s) receive Impressions, Clicks, and Sales - let alone how many of each?  To me it seems a near mathematical impossibility to do so with any level of confidence.  As a physicist I know how to work numbers, and do statistical analysis.  It sure would be gratifying if someone could give me even a hint as to how AMS is able to perform such miracles.

Happy AMSing!


----------



## khotisarque

I totally agree with weigle1234 that the data as presented is chaotic and unreliable.  Which fact biases my opinion on the other algorithms used by AMS, but then defective and inconsistent software is just a fact of life nowadays.

As to how impressions, clicks and sales might be associated with keywords, how about this.  A customer starts a search on book A.  AMS looks at one of the carousels associated with book A because at least one of book A's keywords also occurs in each of the carousel books.  Now book A has about a dozen max keywords - title, ASIN, author, seven author-selected terms, maybe a few more.  More than one might also exist in a carousel book's keyword list, but only one association will be made.  As the keyword comparisons are made in some fixed order, probably title and author first because they are always present in book A, the titles and authors will tend to be the ones identified as associating.  So AMS 'kinda knows' which keyword got the impression; but the 'kinda knows' is biased towards keywords high on the fixed order, and biased against the others.  So 'jkrowling' gets a lot more credit than 'magic' even when both match.

Having made this imprecise association, AMS certainly knows if the searcher clicks on it.  There is no theoretical reason why this knowledge should not be immediately logged and displayed; but processing resources are finite and backlogs will occur in an overloaded system.  Then possibly-defective software has to store and recall the data, and this may be in a different computer in the cloud working to its own priorities and timelines.  Stuff gets mislaid, retreved more than once, shit happens.  Thus we get our multi-day delays, belated corrections, and so on as noted.

The next step, clicks to sales, is based on the reasonable assumption that a sale to a customer who clicked on an ad is the result of that ad.  Often true, but not always.  A customer can forget he saw the ad, but his wife or her husband raves about the book so a sale is made.  Or the sale is the result of an ad, but made on a different computer or account.  So the sales count is loosely connected to the clicks count, and the delay there can be weeks long.

All this in the context, for most of us, of very few clicks and fewer sales.  So an error of one digit in the sales or clicks can create huge percentage jumps in the imps/clicks or clicks/sales ratios.

Embrace the chaos, it appears to be the way of the future.


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## khotisarque

LilyBLily said:


> *sound of brain exploding*
> 
> Nothing makes sense--and yet, my AMS ads are profitable.


"So we took three wheels off the wagon and a leg off the horse and blew potholes in the road and put a curse on the whole shebang - but it still keeps moving along. Amazonazing, we must be a genius!"


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## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> "So we took three wheels off the wagon and a leg off the horse and blew potholes in the road and put a curse on the whole shebang - but it still keeps moving along. Amazonazing, we must be a genius!"


To make serious money in any business one has to understand their potential market and, most importantly, how to work (i.e., manipulate) that market. To do that efficiently one has to have close control of all the many factors which affect profit potential - which is much easier said than done.

I have spent most of my adult life hanging out with successful business people and they all have two things in common; a willingness to take risks, and the ability to closely control every aspect of their business. Also, it does not hurt to be fairly intelligent - dumb business folks do not last long - there are plenty of others anxious to grab business away from them (competition).

It is obvious, at least to me, that most folks on this forum are both intelligent and motivated - otherwise they would not be here in the first place. When it comes down to making serious money in any business, marketing is the name of the game - if folks do not know about it, they will not buy it.

What we all lack here is the ability to closely control the marketing aspects of our products (books). In reality, we have very little control. This AMS thing is an example of mass confusion (purposely so on the part of AMS, IMHO) - it is basically a crap shoot. Amazon (AMS) runs the game, and we either do our best to work in our tiny corner of that world, or get out of the game entirely. I guess it boils down to what one considers their time and efforts to be worth.


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## Rivera Sun

LilyBLily said:


> Here's another little bit of the chaos: There are more also-boughts for one of my books than sales on that title so far. It's quite possible that the entire list of also-boughts has been generated from just one Amazon customer's purchases. Probably not, but it could be.


I have noticed this same effect sufficiently that I think the also boughts do get created from as fewor as many buyers as there may be...notice also that it may not say "also bought" but "also viewed"



> And here's why: The sponsored products when I call up that book on Amazon have zip to do with that title and are strictly a result of the category research I was doing a few weeks ago without deleting my cookies.


I utilize this concept in planning my advertising....Very important to recognize that each browsing experience is unique to each viewer each time. The also boughts and sponsored books will be different when I look at a book page than when someone else looks at the same page. Amazon is creating a unique advertising experience for each of us....which means that the books I am interested in (including primarily my own) will appear higher in the sales carousels than in someone elses carousel for the same book.
We could all test this some day by going to the same books, say one in a romance genre, and recording what books have precedence in advertising slots.



> *sound of brain exploding*
> 
> Nothing makes sense--and yet, my AMS ads are profitable.


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## weigle1234

In a previous post I stated:  This AMS thing is an example of mass confusion (purposely so on the part of AMS, IMHO) - it is basically a crap shoot.

Here is a perfect (but unfortunately, typical) example of such.  I just checked the ad responses for one of my 9 books.  I am Running 14 test ads for that book; with unique Keywords for each ad geared to appropriate sub-genres.  According to my Sales Dashboard, the book has sold 68 copies since mid September.  I ran many other test ads for that book prior to mid September, but eventually Terminated them all because I never received reliable sales feedback from AMS.

As a result, I am now forced to place some level of confidence in my Sales Dashboard graphs - they appear to correspond with my royalty payments, along with the stats shown on my Historical chart (which are always at least 15 days old).

However, according to my Advertising Campaign chart NO BOOKS have sold from any of those 14 new test ads.  My sole purpose of all those test ads (also for the other 8 books) is to determine individual ad performance; increasing Bids on performing ads, Terminating those with poor performance.  Having no reliable sales feedback makes that impossible.

What a way to run a business - everybody usually loses - both ourselves and AMS!

As part of my campaign logic I have gradually increased ad Bids on my best selling books.  As a result, sales data for those ads has magically started appearing on my Advertising Campaign chart.  But it seems to be sporadic - so, is it reliable?  Not likely.

One can easily become paranoid since AMS always wins.  Do they provide firm data only to those making a few bucks for themselves, along with AMS?  Or, do they keep losers (especially hopeful newbies) in the dark as long as possible; draining their bank accounts for as long as possible?

Any productive ad obviously makes money for ourselves, along with AMS.  But AMS can potentially (and probably does) make even more from the unwary (and newbies) - who naively keep feeding AMS via dead ads.

I recently increased my Bids to 25-Cents on a few test ads (in reality, all my ads are test ads).  I will be keeping a close eye on those; checking them daily in hope of gathering at least some useful data.  As many on this forum have discovered to their dismay (including myself); AMS tends to initiate an immediate and intense money grab when Bids are significantly increased.  I suspect those few 25-Cents ads will soon go the way of all my previous such ads - that is, to the Termination cemetery.


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## weigle1234

Things sure have been quiet here for the past few days.

In my last post, I aired my primary complaint with AMS; their basically non-existent, or at least somewhat timely, reporting of sales data in the "Est. Total Sales" column of our Advertising Campaigns chart.

Without at least estimated sales data for individual ads, it is impossible to determine ad performance.  That all-important data rarely appears on my chart.  Is anyone else having that problem, or is it just me?

The primary purpose of any business it to turn a profit - to make money.  I assume most folks on this forum share that opinion.  Amazon exists solely for that reason - to make money.  They know precisely where each and every dollar is invested.  Why are we not given that same consideration - or, is it just me?


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## PearlEarringLady

weigle1234 said:


> Without at least estimated sales data for individual ads, it is impossible to determine ad performance. That all-important data rarely appears on my chart. Is anyone else having that problem, or is it just me?


But you don't get any sales data at all with FB ads. I actually think we're quite fortunate with Amazon ads in having any sales data at all. It would be lovely if they'd include KU borrows too, but still.

The best guide, in my view, is rank. If an ad results in a rise in sales rank, then it's achieving some desirable effect.


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## GrandFenwick

Hi all,

I've been gone for awhile, so I'm sure this has been covered already, so apologies. I recently tried to start a new AMS ad which was rejected for:

*- The Call to Action (CTA) does not clearly explain the action the customer is taking or the experience on the landing page. Non-specific calls to action (for example, "Click here") are not allowed. Acceptable CTAs include, "Shop now" or "Buy now".*

None of my other ads which are still running have a CTA so I have no idea what that is? I also tried to find "buy now" on currently running ads on Amazon and couldn't see any.

What am I missing? Here is the ad that was rejected:

"The best-selling classic political satire is now available in a 5-book set. 'As funny as it is charming-The New York Times'"


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## GrandFenwick

Ah, I get it now. I never did that before, but I guess my old ads are grandfathered in.

Thanks!!!


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## khotisarque

"Maybe they're all bots."

All bots are equal, but maybe some are more equal than others.

Click here to raise specific red flags.


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## GrandFenwick

Nothing is working. Buy now... Read now... 

AMS is so different (less helpful) than it was only 6 months go.

Same goes for the KDP support people. I have never had a problem getting an issue resolved and yet I have been dealing with an issue since JUNE that no one can seem to fix after repeated emails and phone calls, after which I'm always assured my issue will be resolved within a couple days.

It's a really simple thing. I uploaded a new cover, and the new "edition" has been stuck in "LIVE with unpublished changes" since June.

Which means I can't change the price or do anything since the book is frozen.


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## weigle1234

Our AMS "Historical" data chart (accessed via our "Sales Dashboard") has just been updated with stats for the month of October.

For AMS newbies; "Historical" data is at least 14 days old - which I have found to be very accurate when cross-referenced with the constantly updated Sales Dashboard stats (which are of the same vintage).

Following is a copy of my recent inquiry to Amazon - in reference to what I consider to be crucial information:

When referring to my AMS "Advertising Campaigns" chart, the "Est. Total Sales" data is seldom provided for my "Sponsored Product" ads.  In fact, it is never provided for any of my "Sponsored Product" ads submitted with minimum bids.

Why is that "All-Important" information usually missing?

Does AMS intend to correct that situation?

Thanks for your anticipated response.

Gordy Weigle, Kustom Power


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## khotisarque

Any response?


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## Wired

GrandFenwick said:


> I uploaded a new cover, and the new "edition" has been stuck in "LIVE with unpublished changes" ... which means I can't change the price or do anything since the book is frozen.


I had the same problem. I had to unpublish completely -- then republish.


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## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> Any response?


AMS did respond, advising me to contact, via email, one of their so-called "Help" departments; which I perceive as a brush-off. I insisted that I speak with a living person, and received the following reply:

"I totally understand your concern and hence I have temporarily enabled your account for phone support. So you can initiate a call from your end and we would be able to replicate this issue over the phone and take the necessary actions to resolve."

I am now in the process of documenting specific information for each and every ad - a lengthy process since I've submitted over 500. I'm pretty tenacious; if I don't get straight answers via phone contact (assuming that's even possible) I'll keep on their case as long as required.

My many years in the mail order business taught me that running productive ads is of utmost importance. It's both art and science, but is the only way to maximize profits (or even make any money at all). Why AMS seems so flippant in that regard is puzzling. They certainly have the resources for nailing down even the smallest detail of each and every ad.

I plan to talk with their rep later today - and will post the results.


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## weigle1234

khotisarque said:


> Any response?


Regarding my last posting, I was on the phone with a KDP agent for nearly 1-1/2 hours this afternoon.

As usual very non-productive. Also, as usual, the primary hindrance is getting past the first levels of folks with little to no technical knowledge of either Amazon or AMS.

After making phone contact, I was on hold for 15 minutes. Three more minutes were required to convince the agent that I needed to speak with someone with technical knowledge. I was then informed that I would be connected with a "Senior Support Specialist."

After being on hold for 20 more minutes, I was disconnected - in the meantime, listening to the old stalling routine of "Thank you for holding."

I waited another 30 minutes before calling back. To my surprise I was was granted the supreme privilege of actually speaking with a "semi-knowledgeable" agent. After complying with their required questioning, I insisted upon being connected with the promised "Senior Support Specialist."

Their agent (Amy) is supposedly opening a "Case" on my behalf, specifically honoring my request for contact with the "Specialist," after which I will be contacted by both herself and email conformation.

I will post again as soon as I hear back from anyone. For whatever it may be worth, the folks I talked with are from their "CreateSpace" division (determined via a Google search on their phone number).


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## GrandFenwick

Wired said:


> I had the same problem. I had to unpublish completely -- then republish.


I was just about to do that, then the techs finally fixed the problem. There was no email from them telling me they'd fixed it. I just noticed it.

It's like their tech support team is spread super thin.


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## wren14

I'm running my first AMS test ad today, but I'm still not clear on how impressions are calculated. The ad is pretty sparse (only 63 keywords) so I'm assuming my impressions are low because of that. My question is are impressions calculated as an hourly average? It can't be cumulative since the ad started running, because they have been up and down all morning. 

First reported impressions = 79
an hour later = 123
later = 103
etc...

After ten pages of this tread, I couldn't find an answer. Can someone explain how they are calculated? 

Thanks.


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## wren14

wren14 said:


> I'm running my first AMS test ad today, but I'm still not clear on how impressions are calculated. The ad is pretty sparse (only 63 keywords) so I'm assuming my impressions are low because of that. My question is are impressions calculated as an hourly average? It can't be cumulative since the ad started running, because they have been up and down all morning.
> 
> First reported impressions = 79
> an hour later = 123
> later = 103
> etc...
> 
> After ten pages of this tread, I couldn't find an answer. Can someone explain how they are calculated?
> 
> Thanks.


Looks like the impressions are heading in one direction now (up), so I'll assume I just had some strange up and down fluctuation in the beginning.


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## Harald

Yeah, Impressions are cumulative. AMZN defines it so: "An impression is generated every time your ad is displayed."

BTW, there's a newer, updated version of this thread started by Cassie Leigh. Don't recall thread name but maybe someone will chime in.


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## CassieL

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.


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## Harald

Cassie Leigh said:


> It has the very original title of "A New AMS Thread". Hopefully this link will work: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,256104.0.html


Link works. Sorry about misspelling your last name, Cassie  I bet it happens, eh?


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## CassieL

Harald said:


> Sorry about misspelling your last name, Cassie  I bet it happens, eh?


I didn't even notice, so no worries!


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