Author Topic: Is anyone else reluctant to spend on advertising? (Read 36535 times)

Simon Haynes · « **on:** October 22, 2019, 06:30:06 PM »

I don't know whether it's just me and my frugal ways, but I can't seem to get over the fear of wasting money on ads.

Partly it's because there's no tangible benefit. If I spend on a cover, or an audiobook, or editing, I get something in return. On the other hand, when I put money into advertising there's this nebulous idea that it SHOULD benefit book sales, but the hard data never backs it up. Any extra income will be spread over several days, weeks or months, and I can't point to a bunch of sales and say 'THEY were thanks to the ad'.

It's even trickier now I'm in KU, because page reads aren't shown on the AMS dash.

As an example, I'm running one auto-targeted AMS ad which ran up US$25 in costs yesterday. (I saw the amount rising and for once I decided ... stuff it, let's see what happens.) That generated 43 clicks.

The ad is for a first in a series of ten novels, so it could take a month or more for some of the people who clicked the ad to read their way through the entire series.

And here's the thing: if just 2 of the 43 people who clicked my ad DO read the entire series, that's a $15 profit.

Every business bone in my body is screaming at me to spend that much and more on ads every single day, but my brain just won't let me. I see the amount I owe AMS rising and put the brakes on.

Just to be clear, I've never spent more in ads than my incoming royalties. I'm not talking about putting myself into debt, just an unwillingness to put larger sums into advertising, even though it probably would pay off.

TimothyEllis · « **Reply #1 on:** October 22, 2019, 06:57:23 PM »

I stopped.

AMS has changed dramatically since 2018 when it worked really well, and you only needed to spend mid hundreds a month to get really good results.

For me it isn't a fear of wasting money. I know it's a waste of money. It's not even a choice at the moment.

Back in 2018, I started an ad with a $10 cap, and I could see on that day's money, the ad was working.

Early this year? The ads stopped hitting whatever cap I had in place. I upped the bids, they still didn't hit the cap. I vastly increased the cap, and the bids, and spend $800 in 2 days, and saw f*cking zero extra money.

At that point, I stopped. The next book sold the exact same money without any ads, as have the two after it.

My last freebooksy try a few weeks back was a total failure as well. So much so, they gave me my money back. The promo I did over the weekend, was actually a negative result, even though it didn't cost me anything to do.

The whole advertising scene is totally f*cked now.

I'm waiting for it to just implode, and someone comes up with something new.

In the meantime, I'm still making living money, and not paying out any to make it.

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #2 on:** October 22, 2019, 07:11:30 PM »

My fear is sliding into obscurity if I stop all advertising. Since going into Select my sales ranks and author rank have trended upwards, and now I'm on that path I want to keep the momentum up. Usually I make a brief splash after a bookbub or a big promo, but this time I want to convince the Amazon algos that I'm a safe bet for the longer term.

With the AMS ads earlier this year, how did you know they weren't working? Did you determine it by sales being the same in the following week whether you advertised or not?

Were you running auto ads or manual? Lockscreen or sponsored products?

TimothyEllis · « **Reply #3 on:** October 22, 2019, 07:24:29 PM »

Quote from: Simon Haynes on October 22, 2019, 07:11:30 PM

With the AMS ads earlier this year, how did you know they weren't working? Did you determine it by sales being the same in the following week whether you advertised or not?
Were you running auto ads or manual? Lockscreen or sponsored products?

I tend to look at things on a monthly basis. There is so much sine curve about daily sales over a month, only the end total makes any real sense.

I knew it wasn't working, when a huge amount of money spent in a short time didn't change the daily pattern at all. But I tested it by stopping all ads, and the next monthly was pretty much the same without spending anything. Sometimes you just have to take the risk and stop long enough to make a comparison.

What makes me money is a release every 8 weeks or so. The longer between them, the worse things get as I keep falling off cliffs. But each release pulls me back out again. It's mailing list and followers who keep me ticking over.

All my ads were manual, and I was using 900+ keywords, going for maximum impressions across the genre. But as the bid rates went up, I stopped getting impressions on all the top 100 books in my main categories, even Space Opera. And then the bids kept going up, and the impressions kept going down.

All sponsored. I've not even tried a lockscreen since they came in.

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #4 on:** October 22, 2019, 07:34:40 PM »

I usually go for a few dozen hand-picked keywords, and I sometimes run the auto targeting in the hope that Amazon knows where to display them better than I do.

Gerri Attrick · « **Reply #5 on:** October 22, 2019, 07:50:07 PM »

Yes, me. I’ve only ever run two ads with AMS and lost money on both of them - that is, I didn’t sell any more books above my norm, so had no increase in revenue.

Quite frankly, I don’t understand ads. I’ve been promoting ever since Pixel of Ink was the c*ck-of-the-walk of promo sites. I’ve had some good (and not so good) results with them, but my ageing brain cannot get to grips with all the ad speak, the acronyms, impressions, conversions, and so on. (If a conversion is a sale, why not call it a fricking sale, ffs? Why make things so hard, so obscure?)

There’s a guy around offering to do AMS ads for you. But he wants $1300 a month!! for doing so. My average monthly earnings (without ads) at the time was c£200. Where the hell would I get $1300 a month from?

As Tim says (and Patty J before that) the best promotion is a new book. I’ve just published the first in a new series in a different sub-category than my nom, and seen a huge increase in sales and revenue. The second in the series is due out next weekend and the third is on pre-order for next June. I shall never be a millionaire, but with any luck I shall be able to hit the low 4-figure mark on a more regular basis. If nothing else, I’ve had to pay for Book Report for the last two months.

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #6 on:** October 22, 2019, 08:05:30 PM »

Don't get me wrong, I love creating ads, running them, tracking the results and so on. I'm a huge stats and figures guy, and if it was someone else's money I'd be in my element!

I just have trouble ramping up the spend.

I too am trying a new genre right now, and I have a good feeling about it. I'd still like to get the maximum out of all my other books, and I always have this nagging feeling that they'd be more popular if I could just give them a boost for a few months.

Abderian · « **Reply #7 on:** October 22, 2019, 08:06:22 PM »

It's wise to be frugal about ad spend. I think there are a lot of writers who lose money selling books due to the mistaken belief that if they pay to place their books high enough in the ranking, visibility will ensure ongoing sales that will put them in profit. That's what some ad gurus say, too. But many more aspects of the process need to be right for that tactic to work, not only spending plenty of dosh on ads. The book has to be in a genre that has a big readership and it needs to be written to genre, have an appropriate cover and blurb, and - these days - I think it helps a lot if the author is a familiar name. If one of these things is wrong, the writer spends a ton of money promoting their book only for it to plummet down the rankings once the ad spend is over and the author is in the red.

I stopped using AMS in July when I made the same in the UK as I had spent on AMS UK. What's the point of just giving Amazon money? It hasn't had much of an effect on my book sales as far as I can tell. Having said that, if you know your read through rate for a series it should be possible to calculate how much you can afford to spend on selling book one. For example, if you earn $10 on average for every book one you sell, you know you can afford to spend, say, $8 on selling book one and still be in profit. That's the principal many successful authors follow. Dawson currently spends thousands per month. I am too easily distracted to put in the concentrated effort required but I may get there some day.

Abderian · « **Reply #8 on:** October 22, 2019, 08:09:10 PM »

Quote from: Simon Haynes on October 22, 2019, 08:05:30 PM

Don't get me wrong, I love creating ads, running them, tracking the results and so on. I'm a huge stats and figures guy, and if it was someone else's money I'd be in my element!

I just have trouble ramping up the spend.

I too am trying a new genre right now, and I have a good feeling about it. I'd still like to get the maximum out of all my other books, and I always have this nagging feeling that they'd be more popular if I could just give them a boost for a few months.

Simon, I don't think you're doing anything wrong. I think it's just that comedy science fiction isn't that popular a genre. Hitchhikers Guide was an anomaly compared to most science fiction. I noticed Barry Hutchison has switched to writing thrillers, and his sci fi series was pretty successful.

Just realised my sig gives no indication of who I am. Jenny Green here: https://www.amazon.com/J.J.-Green/e/B00QI0KDSA

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #9 on:** October 22, 2019, 08:25:37 PM »

Thanks Jenny, and good to see you here. Don't forget to add your covers to your signature line ;-)

My primary focus is writing new books, which I agree is the cheapest way to generate sales.

Yesterday I spent US$45 on AMS ads and US$15 on facebook ads. Sounds like a lot if someone's advertising a single series, but I'm advertising 3 different series starters on FB ($5 ea) and five different series starters on AMS ... plus a non-fiction title. (As I already mentioned, most of the spend went into the first Hal book, but that's the one with the longest tail.)

SF humour is definitely small beans, unless you get a break-out hit that crosses genres. But they come along once in a generation, and that's not something you achieve by advertising.

But only 2 of my five series are SF humour. One is fantasy humour which is easy to target at Pratchett fans, another is middle grade (ugh) and the last is pure space opera ... which is a massive category that's almost impossible to make headway in.

Still, there's always the new series!

notthatamanda · « **Reply #10 on:** October 22, 2019, 08:55:43 PM »

It was scary at first, but I'm okay with it now. My goal for this year was to really understand ads, so I spent. I have a hard rule for myself that I can't lose any money on this business, but I'm okay with a very low net profit too. Everyone's circumstances and tolerances will vary. This venture makes me very happy (with the occasional hair pulling frustration) and it allows me to be home for the kids, volunteer at the schools a lot, and a whole lot of flexibility with my time.

Admission - They kind of hooked me when they said my very first click sold a book though.

My new book is in a small sub genre and though I can't seem to get the ad spend up, it's more profitable than the other genres I was in where I was fighting Nekid McChesty for visibility.

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #11 on:** October 22, 2019, 09:21:36 PM »

I live off my royalties, so I have to be cautious not to spend today what I'm going to need in about 60-90 days time.

Hence my reluctance to really giving the advertising lever a yank.

On the other hand, if spend some of my royalties on business expenses they're a legit tax deduction. That's why I've paid to record six audiobooks this year. In theory, the tax office is contributing around 20% of that cost ... and the same with my ad spending.

TimothyEllis · « **Reply #12 on:** October 22, 2019, 09:34:28 PM »

Quote from: Simon Haynes on October 22, 2019, 09:21:36 PM

I live off my royalties, so I have to be cautious not to spend today what I'm going to need in about 60-90 days time.

Hence my reluctance to really giving the advertising lever a yank.

On the other hand, if spend some of my royalties on business expenses they're a legit tax deduction.

Me too.

notthatamanda · « **Reply #13 on:** October 22, 2019, 09:48:02 PM »

Yes totally get that. I should add that I can't produce books at the rate you guys do, so while I do agree that new releases are the best publicity, I can't capitalize on that. If I ever get big enough so all I have to do is release a book, email my followers, and let the organic visibility take it from there, well that would be pretty sweet.

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #14 on:** October 22, 2019, 09:54:36 PM »

That's one of the reasons I like starting a completely new series, preferably in a different genre. More ads to run, more authors and other novels to target with keywords, and another chance of finding a new audience.

(I'm not worried about disappointing fans of the existing series, because I'm still extending those as well.)

cecilia_writer · « **Reply #15 on:** October 22, 2019, 10:20:50 PM »

I only advertise anywhere about once in a blue moon, and I am not nearly confident enough about my grip on statistics to risk AMS ads, and apart from that I just don't have time to work at them. I tend to be of the 'just release a new book' school of thought too, although having said that I probably won't be in a position to release one until next year. I actually made another book in my long, long series permafree just recently to try and get more people started on the series - for some reason it has got about 2,000 downloads in a few weeks, so perhaps that is working!

LilyBLily · « **Reply #16 on:** October 22, 2019, 11:00:02 PM »

To reply to the original question, I can't see any sales ROI to buying newsletter ads for the books I'm releasing shortly. All newsletter ads except BookBub lose money. The only value is visibility.

I run Amazon ads continuously for three different kinds of books. I'm not supposed to publish three kinds of books, but I do, so there it is. I run an ad for my nonfiction title, an ad for my western romance series starter, and an ad for my most recent women's fiction title. That last costs an arm and a leg because the keywords are so expensive, but it does make a slim profit. All the Amazon ads are profitable, but their margins are too small to make me happy.

I haven't published anything in almost a year, so I'm not surprised that my sales have slowly eroded. The books I'm releasing in December and January are the fifth and sixth in a series, which frankly are unlikely to help much. Diehard fans of the series will buy these if I let them know they exist, so I do expect to tell my personal newsletter list and possibly do an AMS ad or two for a short period of time. I might even do a Kindle Countdown on an earlier book in the series, a title that I have never discounted. I am reluctant to waste a ton of cash on paid newsletter ads.

I'm paying most of my profit on visibility ads with Amazon. This is not an ideal situation, but I'd prefer to have some sales rather than none. Since the Amazon ads do generate a small profit, I'll keep doing them.

Vijaya · « **Reply #17 on:** October 22, 2019, 11:07:55 PM »

I experimented with ads but not a single sale was due to them so I stopped. I'm lesser than a prawn...perhaps a snail? Or amoeba? so not worthwhile. Better to write more books. It's great you can live off your royalties--I'd be reluctant to spend tomorrow's too.

dgcasey · « **Reply #18 on:** October 22, 2019, 11:45:28 PM »

Quote from: Simon Haynes on October 22, 2019, 08:05:30 PM

I just have trouble ramping up the spend.

I know what you mean. I took Bryan Cohen's 5-Day Ad Challenge last month and it completely revamped my way of doing AMS ads. I'm getting the same or more numbers of impressions as before, and the same or more in clicks, but my ad spend has dropped significantly. I used to pay around .53 cents per click and now, it's about .22 cents. For the same number of clicks and impressions.

But, like you, something terrifies me about the "possibilities" of what could happen to my ad spend if I don't keep any eye on the spend. With all the different ads I have running now, I could conceivably hit $2200 a month in ad spend, that being $72 a day in spend. That would be if every ad I'm running maxed itself out. I'd have a heart attack if I saw that.

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #19 on:** October 22, 2019, 11:48:31 PM »

Quote from: dgcasey on October 22, 2019, 11:45:28 PM

But, like you, something terrifies me about the "possibilities" of what could happen to my ad spend if I don't keep any eye on the spend. With all the different ads I have running now, I could conceivably hit $2200 a month in ad spend, that being $72 a day in spend. That would be if every ad I'm running maxed itself out. I'd have a heart attack if I saw that.

That's my point exactly. For 18 months now I've been building my ad spend little by little, but I can't seem to take the next step. I'm comfortable with US$100/week for short periods, but there's no way I'm throwing US$500 out there on a chance.

notthatamanda · « **Reply #20 on:** October 22, 2019, 11:53:27 PM »

Oh I actually meant the exact opposite. I want the ads to spend more, but I can't seem to make it happen. My bad.

I'd love to get to Anarchist's level of spending and ROI but I haven't cracked the code yet. And quite possibly it wouldn't work with my inventory.

Simon - why does it have to go from $100 to $500. Why not $150?

dgcasey · « **Reply #21 on:** October 22, 2019, 11:54:14 PM »

Quote from: Abderian on October 22, 2019, 08:06:22 PM

It's wise to be frugal about ad spend. I think there are a lot of writers who lose money selling books due to the mistaken belief that if they pay to place their books high enough in the ranking, visibility will ensure ongoing sales that will put them in profit.

That's the conclusion I came to after last month. With a significant change to the way I do my ads, I saw my impressions and clicks go up, but my spend went down. In July I had 284K impressions, in August 156K and in September 148K. July cost me a lot more than I ever wanted to spend. Now, here in October, I'm on track to see 300K impressions, a slight decrease in clicks over July's numbers, but my spend is a fraction of what July was. That's when I came to the conclusion that paying to see my ads on the first page was a waste of money. I can't point to one single sale resulting from being in on the front page of the search or sponsored ads carousel.

An impression is an impression and it doesn't matter if it happens on page one, page ten or page twenty. It's still an impression and it passed in front of a potential reader's eyeballs. I'd much rather have a person click on my book's ad on page 15 and pay .13 cents for the click than to have them see it on page one, click and buy and have that click cost me .78 cents.

That's why I dropped all dynamic bidding to the upside.

notthatamanda · « **Reply #22 on:** October 23, 2019, 12:15:53 AM »

Yeah, I learned the same lesson back when they switched everything in May (?).

I guess I should clarify. I could spend more, for the "better" placement, but I found that wasn't worth it. I'm not looking to mindless throw money at it. I want the quality of clicks and ROI I'm getting, just more of it. I don't know, it's a smaller genre I'm focusing on now, so there will a limit, I guess. If I could get in AMS UK that would be nice. Still waiting to hear back from them.

DougM · « **Reply #23 on:** October 23, 2019, 12:17:53 AM »

I gave up ads altogether. My sales were equally non-existent with or without ads. The current advertising game is beyond my skill level and financial means.

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #24 on:** October 23, 2019, 12:37:00 AM »

Quote from: notthatamanda on October 22, 2019, 11:53:27 PM

Oh I actually meant the exact opposite. I want the ads to spend more, but I can't seem to make it happen. My bad.

I'd love to get to Anarchist's level of spending and ROI but I haven't cracked the code yet. And quite possibly it wouldn't work with my inventory.

Simon - why does it have to go from $100 to $500. Why not $150?

I found that increasing the amount I'll pay for bids sure manages to spend more ...

$500 was an example. I agree that 100 to 150 to 200 or so is the natural progression. But if I took the brakes off completely across all five series I'm sure I could find a way to spend $500. (Hint - try running auto and manual ads for the same book, include ALL the books in a series in the same ad, and add all your keywords as all three types - phrase, exact and whatever the other one is.)

TimothyEllis · « **Reply #25 on:** October 23, 2019, 12:41:48 AM »

Quote from: Simon Haynes on October 23, 2019, 12:37:00 AM

include ALL the books in a series in the same ad,

How do you do that?

I've not heard of that one before.

Is it limited to a series? Or can you include a whole universe?

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #26 on:** October 23, 2019, 12:51:50 AM »

You have to select the ad type with no custom text/blurb. It doesn't show all the books at once, it just picks random covers and shows one whenever you win the bid. Sometimes that can be ten of your book covers filling a carousel from the same single ad (I've seen that with my books.)

Doesn't have to be the same series.

notthatamanda · « **Reply #27 on:** October 23, 2019, 01:10:31 AM »

I didn't even know you could do that with the multiple books. Not sure it is right for me with my genre hopping/trope breaking catalog, but thanks.

I've never done an auto ad. Too much of a control freak.

I think it's phrase, exact and broad. I usually just do broad. There were some weird titles I wanted to advertise on that I tried exact but got no where.

So I guess I am back at square one, with ads I am happy with, spending sometime every week trying to find more keywords, and hoping to ramp up slowly, like so slowly you barely notice you are moving but someday you get there slowly. Can we have a llama inching along emoji?

TimothyEllis · « **Reply #28 on:** October 23, 2019, 01:22:23 AM »

Quote from: Simon Haynes on October 23, 2019, 12:51:50 AM

You have to select the ad type with no custom text/blurb. It doesn't show all the books at once, it just picks random covers and shows one whenever you win the bid. Sometimes that can be ten of your book covers filling a carousel from the same single ad (I've seen that with my books.)

Doesn't have to be the same series.

Can you show us a screen pic of the setup for that?

That might be what I've needed to get me looking at ads again.

I wonder why this was never part of an Amazon mail out to authors? Or did I miss it?

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #29 on:** October 23, 2019, 01:27:18 AM »

Quote from: TimothyEllis on October 23, 2019, 01:22:23 AM

Quote from: Simon Haynes on October 23, 2019, 12:51:50 AM
You have to select the ad type with no custom text/blurb. It doesn't show all the books at once, it just picks random covers and shows one whenever you win the bid. Sometimes that can be ten of your book covers filling a carousel from the same single ad (I've seen that with my books.)

Doesn't have to be the same series.

Can you show us a screen pic of the setup for that?

That might be what I've needed to get me looking at ads again.

I wonder why this was never part of an Amazon mail out to authors? Or did I miss it?

It was always part of the UK advertising site and I've been using it there for 18 months.

According to this update dated 10 days ago, it's new on the US site:

https://www.kdpcommunity.com/s/article/Promote-multiple-books-in-a-Sponsored-Product-campaign?language=en_US

You can now promote multiple books in a single Sponsored Product campaign with Amazon Advertising. This means you’ll be able to:

• Advertise different formats of the same book
• Promote similar books using the same set of keywords
• Add books to existing campaigns

The last one is really handy.

TimothyEllis · « **Reply #30 on:** October 23, 2019, 01:34:09 AM »

Any practical limit to the number of books you add?

I guess I'll need to try this.

Any idea if you can specify the series page asins?

Marti Talbott · « **Reply #31 on:** October 23, 2019, 01:40:38 AM »

I didn't have any luck with auto ads. I ran one of each at the same time and the one with keywords out sold the auto. Mind you, I'm not a big spender, but I sometimes feel the AMS ads are better than no exposure at all.

notthatamanda · « **Reply #32 on:** October 23, 2019, 01:47:57 AM »

Quote from: Simon Haynes on October 23, 2019, 12:51:50 AM

You have to select the ad type with no custom text/blurb. It doesn't show all the books at once, it just picks random covers and shows one whenever you win the bid. Sometimes that can be ten of your book covers filling a carousel from the same single ad (I've seen that with my books.)

Doesn't have to be the same series.

Huh. Is this how the big name authors fill the carousel with all the copies of their books? I remember Belle Andre having the first couple of pages of the carousel. I just assumed they were running ads on each book. Make that campaigns.

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #33 on:** October 23, 2019, 01:57:03 AM »

It's only been available for a week, so probably not. I'm too lazy to add a blurb to all my ads, which is how I found it.

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #34 on:** October 23, 2019, 01:58:03 AM »

Quote from: TimothyEllis on October 23, 2019, 01:34:09 AM

Any practical limit to the number of books you add?

I guess I'll need to try this.

Any idea if you can specify the series page asins?

I've seen series pages show up in the left-hand list, but they're marked ineligible.

dgcasey · « **Reply #35 on:** October 23, 2019, 05:07:10 AM »

Quote from: Simon Haynes on October 23, 2019, 12:51:50 AM

You have to select the ad type with no custom text/blurb. It doesn't show all the books at once, it just picks random covers and shows one whenever you win the bid. Sometimes that can be ten of your book covers filling a carousel from the same single ad (I've seen that with my books.)

Doesn't have to be the same series.

Holy crap! Ya learn something new every day.

LilyBLily · « **Reply #36 on:** October 23, 2019, 05:13:26 AM »

This is good news for my western series. You DO learn something new every day. Thanks.

Jan Hurst-Nicholson · « **Reply #37 on:** October 23, 2019, 05:17:22 AM »

Ams ads are simply too complicated for me, apart from not being able to afford them. The consensus seems to be that BookBub is the only ad form worth the money. I've only had one BookBub, and it certainly was worth it.

Crystal · « **Reply #38 on:** October 23, 2019, 06:50:40 AM »

At first, I was terrified of PPC ads. It's one thing to spend a few hundred dollars on mailing list ads during a sale. To potentially spend three figures a day? That's a huge jump.

But the month where I started Facebook ads was also the month where my income tripled. It wasn't my first five-figure month. But it was the point where five-figure months became my norm. I still have peaks and valleys, but my "baseline" is higher.

I've built up my ad spend over time.

I'm still apprehensive when I start new ads on backlist books or hard to sell books. But I always view things as a test. I'm going to give this series a week (or two) of Facebook ads at this budget. I might make a profit. Or I might lose all that money. The key is to keep the spend at something you're okay risking and to keep tweaking until you are making a profit.

AMS doesn't work well for me for most things, but it works great for one series.

Facebook works for most of my books, but some of them just don't convert.

And this one book with a tiny audience... it actually does okay with AMS, because I can hyper-target the keywords.

Advertising takes a lot of time, yes, and it takes skill. Which you build via practice and experimentation. You do need to have some money to risk, but it doesn't have to be a lot of money.

Hopscotch · « **Reply #39 on:** October 23, 2019, 07:01:28 AM »

Thanks, Simon, I'm giving it a try - on the day I was about to abandon AMS altogether and go back to sacrificing goats to win sales (at least I get a good meal out of that).

Dormouse · « **Reply #40 on:** October 23, 2019, 08:11:12 AM »

Clarity of purpose and reluctance to spend are appropriate.

You can advertise to build or maintain brand awareness. Or you can advertise to launch an new book/series. Or you can advertise to increase or maintain sales. Etc.
The first two reasons wouldn't necessarily result in immediate sales.

Most writers discussions of advertising seem to revolve around 'I spent x; I received x +/- y; therefore I have made a profit or loss of x+/-y.' Usually there is some opinion about what sales would have been without advertising.
I think this is misconceived as a way of thinking. Sales gains from advertising are uncertain, even if there has been a history of sales gains. Circumstances change, sometimes without you being aware. The actual spend may also be unpredictable. The implication is that you should require a margin (appropriate margin depending on your circumstances) to consider that risk worthwhile - eg a spend of x requires a sales increase of 2x (or I will stop advertising or change strategy).

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #41 on:** October 23, 2019, 02:43:26 PM »

I have a rule of thumb, which is this: I take my average sales per day for the week before I start advertising (let's say $100 per day to make the example nice and neat)

If I'm spending $25 per day on ads, I'd like to see my average sales from that point be around $125 per day. If it's still 100, or worse, even less, then I'll assume the ads aren't working.

That takes calculating the long-term effects of the ads out of the equation, and I can convince myself I'm not losing money.

notthatamanda · « **Reply #42 on:** October 23, 2019, 08:19:13 PM »

With the rule of familiarity, or what ever it is called, I am prepared to wait longer than a week. I calculate my royalties every morning and check it against the ad spend for that book. Royalties > ad spend, I'm happy. I do look at the individual ads and individual keywords and cull things that aren't getting sales after $10 or so spent, or 10 clicks with no sale. I'm not wildly successful by any definition so I'm not preaching this as gospel, just food for thought.

Not saying everyone has to do it this way. But I do suggest looking at your royalties and not the sales they give you on the AMS dashboard, that doesn't take the Amazon cut out of the sale and makes it look better for the author/publisher than it really is.

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #43 on:** October 23, 2019, 10:04:44 PM »

I let my ads run today and they hit $63 USD for the 24-hour period. Five mins ago that dropped to $37 all of a sudden, as Amazon presumably removed bogus clicks.

I've not seen that happen before. Maybe they take out clicks where a reader is just browsing dozens of books using the 'sponsored' carousel without buying anything? Or maybe they're machine-generated clicks, or some author trying to crush all the competition by clicking competing ads whenever they see them.

notthatamanda · « **Reply #44 on:** October 23, 2019, 10:42:53 PM »

I figured I would be called paranoid if I told this story but I was getting very good placement on the overall number one book a month or so ago. I had almost 100 clicks with no sales. This is on an ad/book that I'm doing exceptionally well with (conahura, knock wood). I killed the ad and a similar thing happened with a very popular book in the genre, older book, but very high placed. I killed that ad as well. It really just didn't feel right given what I am seeing with my other ads (I run a lot very small ads, I find it easier to keep tabs on that way.) I thought of competition clicking. I'm keeping a closer watch on things now.

I can't see Amazon giving us back money spent for customer just browsing and not buying, but I'm all for it if they are listening. Fabulous idea!

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #45 on:** October 23, 2019, 10:50:54 PM »

Note that I didn't contact them or complain or anything. I'm just guessing at the way they might have acted based on the help below.

If you hover over the question mark above the Spend column you'll see this:

Spend

The total click charges for a campaign.
Note: Once identified, it may take up to 3 days to remove invalid clicks from your spend statistics. Date ranges that include spend from the last 3 days may be adjusted due to click and spend invalidation.

notthatamanda · « **Reply #46 on:** October 23, 2019, 10:59:41 PM »

Good to know.

I didn't contact them or complain either, it just felt wrong and I didn't like the direction the ad was heading in so I shut it down.

I don't download the data into spreadsheets, and I can't see any easy way to keep track of spends from a couple of days ago, so I guess I will just be happy if I end up more profitable at the end of the month.

I don't click on ads for sponsored books, author courtesy.

I open up a new window and search.

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #47 on:** October 23, 2019, 11:11:26 PM »

Quote from: notthatamanda on October 23, 2019, 10:59:41 PM

I don't click on ads for sponsored books, author courtesy. I open up a new window and search.

Oh yes, same here.

Everywhere else I have adblock, but it's disabled on Amazon so I can see my own ads when necessary.

dgcasey · « **Reply #48 on:** October 24, 2019, 05:24:22 AM »

Quote from: Simon Haynes on October 23, 2019, 01:27:18 AM

You can now promote multiple books in a single Sponsored Product campaign with Amazon Advertising. This means you’ll be able to:

• Advertise different formats of the same book
• Promote similar books using the same set of keywords
• Add books to existing campaigns

I started looking at combining some of my ad campaigns by doing this, until I thought a little more about it. By doing this, you lose the italicized blurb that's part of your ad. Now, the question would be, how much of a difference does that blurb make in your advertising? I would think that someone that leaves that blurb out is relying solely on their cover and title to get a potential reader to click on the ad.

I'm going to have to think about this a little more. Obviously, I could run some A/B tests to see which works better.

Simon Haynes · « **Reply #49 on:** October 24, 2019, 03:17:33 PM »

I've been leaving the blurb out for a while now. The ads activate very quickly if you leave it off (pretty much processed automatically.)

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Author Topic: Is anyone else reluctant to spend on advertising? (Read 36535 times)