Amazon Ad Marketing Services

[garygibsonsf]

I'm curious if anyone has had experience with businesses that run Amazon ad campaigns for a fee.

The only one I've been able to find so far is www.booksgosocial.com (BGS), who get listed on the Alliance of Independent Authors as a trusted business.

The reviews seem pretty mixed, but a lot of the negative reviews either have terrible grammar, or complain they shouldn't need to have a decent cover for the service to work, and so on.

BGS also run a Twitter promo service, which counts against their legitimacy for me, since I was under the impression Twitter and Facebook posts rarely, if ever, result in meaningful sales.

But: they do have two things going for them. They'll run Amazon ads for you for a couple of months for a fee, and if you don't get decent returns or aren't happy, you get a no-quibbles money-back guarantee.

Even the bad reviews admitted this was the case.

Before you ask why I don't just do them myself, I've been doing them, learning about them, studying them and running different versions of them for a year and it feels like running uphill on a sand dune. You feel like you're getting nowhere.

Plus, even thinking about handing off that job to someone else makes me feel like I just got out of jail.

So: have you used booksgosocial.com or any similar site and got good results? Have you used any similar services and got good results? I'd love to hear from you.

[123mlh]

Russell Blake has been recommending AMS Adwerks on his blog:

AMSAdwerks@gmail.com

[Maggie Ann]

I'm guessing I would have to give them access to my dashboard which means my password. If that's the case, I wouldn't even look into it any further.

[Anarchist]

I do everything myself. I've developed a process (keyword research, bidding strategy, campaign maintenance) that's proven to be highly effective for me. So I don't plan to hand things off.

That said, if I were thinking of hiring a company to do it for me, here's what I'd look for...

- the company does ad campaigns exclusively (no social, no email, etc.). No jack-of-all-trades. I'd want a specialist.
- the company can provide past results. Cumulative impressions should exceed 1 billion. Preferably 3 billion.
- the company will detail exactly what they'll do for me each month. (Create 10 campaigns, test 300 new keywords, provide weekly report of actions taken provide monthly report of results from actions taken, etc.) I'd tolerate no ambiguity here.
- the company will explain their long-term strategy for my books. I don't care how they plan to spend $1,000 in ads this month. I want to know how they plan to spend $15,000 a month a year from now, and how it'll affect ROI.

Just some things to think about.

[123mlh]

I'm guessing I would have to give them access to my dashboard which means my password. If that's the case, I wouldn't even look into it any further.

Nope. You can give a separate access to someone for AMS where they can edit your ads but not see your payment information or KDP dashboard. Of course, to me that means working blind because they can't see your KDP dashboard either so can't see the results of their efforts except for what the AMS dash shows.

[garygibsonsf]

That said, if I were thinking of hiring a company to do it for me, here's what I'd look for...

- the company does ad campaigns exclusively (no social, no email, etc.). No jack-of-all-trades. I'd want a specialist.

This in particular. Also, I'm wary of a company that offers Twitter blasts, since I was very much under the impression these do not result in sales. However, they do offer a choice between that and a month in NetGalley, which seems like a better idea.

[garygibsonsf]

Russell Blake has been recommending AMS Adwerks on his blog:

AMSAdwerks@gmail.com

Interesting! Although their graphic shows ten thousand dollars made on an eight thousand dollar ad spend. EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS. That what I've lived on some years. And of course I don't know how much they make in commission.

The invitation only thing, however, makes me think they're much more serious.

[LilyBLily]

Russell Blake has been recommending AMS Adwerks on his blog:

AMSAdwerks@gmail.com

Interesting! Although their graphic shows ten thousand dollars made on an eight thousand dollar ad spend. EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS. That what I've lived on some years. And of course I don't know how much they make in commission.

The invitation only thing, however, makes me think they're much more serious.

Not only do many people live on $8K a year, but also the problem is in fronting the money for 60 days. And is that $10K gross earnings or net profit? Anarchist has the right idea. There should be a snowball effect that makes it worth your while to spend $1K the first month and $2k the second, and so on.

There are less nerve-wracking ways of earning a profit, like actually writing something that lots and lots of people want to buy, so your profitability percentage goes up because you've bought initial visibility but not because you're paying through the nose continuously to get a certain level of visibility that never goes higher organically. Although we all agree these days that you need to advertise to even achieve a baseline of sales (absent other methods such as mailing lists), the big spend should be reserved for the big rewards.

That is, unless you have lots of cash hanging around and want to play with it. In which case, sure, as long as you end up with a profit, because any black ink is good. But it's got to be cash you have no other calls on, not the rent money. Not your 401K or your emergency fund, or your credit card. And ideally, you want fans who will buy all your books, not just one-time buyers who saw your ad everywhere and gave in.

[Felix R. Savage]

Russell Blake has been recommending AMS Adwerks on his blog:

AMSAdwerks@gmail.com

Interesting! Although their graphic shows ten thousand dollars made on an eight thousand dollar ad spend. EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS. That what I've lived on some years. And of course I don't know how much they make in commission.

The invitation only thing, however, makes me think they're much more serious.

AMSAdwerks is very serious about what they do. IMHO they're the best in the business. ("The business" being dedicated AMS ad agencies ... yes it's a small niche at present.)

The point about spending $8K to make $10K is apropos. That's the way you have to look at it these days, unfortunately, in my experience and that of others I've talked with. Publishing is turning into a mature business where you can't just scoop $$ up off the ground, so to speak, anymore. You have to pay to play, and of course you still won't get positive ROI unless you have all the other elements in place (great stories, covers, and blurbs). I think this transformation is what underlies the recent visibility woes and all the  plaintive stories of sales dips and "what used to work, doesn't work anymore." I've been affected too, and my conclusion at the moment is that the business really has changed, and part of how we adapt to these changes should be adopting a ROIC mentality, and possibly using a dedicated ad agency to leverage our investment.

I recommend Russell Blake's latest blog on the topic. https://russellblake.com/state-of-the-ad-union-part-1/ It sure is depressing, especially to those of us who were around for the gold rush years, but it's better to face a depressing reality and figure out adaptive strategies than to live in denial

[garygibsonsf]

That may be the case, but they're not really aiming to work with authors like me who tend to write more stand-alone type books rather than long series. They're niche, but intentionally so. I have a little more respect for a company like that if they focus on one specific type of promotion that they're skilled at, as someone else more or less commented.