AMS advice for the comically inept

[notthatamanda]

Something I should have figured out 2 years ago--

Wanted to advertise on a particular author and their titles, more than 30 of them. (I know about the data scraper but I don't have Chrome on my laptop) Googled for a list of of the author's books. Cut and pasted that into an excel worksheet. Cut and pasted from excel into the AMS keyword field. This is going to make creating ads a lot faster so I ramp up the rate at which I get frustrated that nothing I do with AMS seems to work.

[LilyBLily]

This is fascinating. I'm still running my new ad for my western romance series starter, an ad that according to Amazon has resulted in 602 page reads and zero sales. I started it a month ago. Tonight Amazon emailed me saying it's out of budget and I should boost the budget. Okaaaay...But I started the ad at $10 and finally lowered it to $2 because it wasn't doing anything and now Amazon says it ought to be $15 a day. On the basis of...???   

Meanwhile, the other ad for that title is also out of budget, and Amazon thinks that daily amount should be $3. 

[notthatamanda]

So for the YTD I'm about -$5 on ads, if you consider the books I am advertising on. No sales credited to ads. Books 2 and 3 of my first trilogy are propping up my bottom line. I let a bunch of ads expire on March 1st. Got 3 decent clicks on relevant books for less than the 50 cent bid yesterday. I'll start new ads with those. Hopefully since the algos think those books are relevant they'll want to give the books a good chance with decent placement.

[Anarchist]

This is fascinating. I'm still running my new ad for my western romance series starter, an ad that according to Amazon has resulted in 602 page reads and zero sales. I started it a month ago. Tonight Amazon emailed me saying it's out of budget and I should boost the budget. Okaaaay...But I started the ad at $10 and finally lowered it to $2 because it wasn't doing anything and now Amazon says it ought to be $15 a day. On the basis of...???   

Meanwhile, the other ad for that title is also out of budget, and Amazon thinks that daily amount should be $3. 

I take all AMS recommendations with a grain of salt.

"You should bid $4.52 to win auctions for this keyword." - Haha. Nice try, but I'm doing great at $0.XX.

"Your campaign exceeded its daily budget and it's only 3:30. You should increase it to $XXX." - Nah, the campaign is doing its job as is.

"You should schedule a meeting with one of our experts. We can help you with your ads." - LOL, pass. I'm more experienced than your "experts." And judging from past conversations, more knowledgeable, too.

Ignore all AMS recommendations. They might one day be worth considering. But right now, nope.

Nothing trumps my own data.

[Hopscotch]

With AMS, some things work until they stop working, some things never work and then suddenly do, it's impossible to copy someone else's success, and I'm beginning to feel as I felt when a frantic new parent - no one has ever been on this frontier before and we're all pioneers.  There's no science to any of this (short of mind-reading AMS) but it's just so much fun, isn't it? 

[LilyBLily]

With AMS, some things work until they stop working, some things never work and then suddenly do, it's impossible to copy someone else's success, and I'm beginning to feel as I felt when a frantic new parent - no one has ever been on this frontier before and we're all pioneers.  There's no science to any of this (short of mind-reading AMS) but it's just so much fun, isn't it?

It can take up your whole day, every day, if you let it. And the ad seminars! At least the ones hawking expensive hand-holding courses have some content. Amazon's were garbage.

[notthatamanda]

Oh that reminds me, is anyone doing Bryan's course on Bookbub ads today at 3? We have an orthodontist appoinment to go to and I'm not changing that (speaking of doing everything wrong).

[LilyBLily]

I listened to only some of it.

Put the discount price on the ad image.
99 cents is the best price compared to other discount prices.
Target authors rather than categories.
Add categories to narrow the audience.
People counted as fans of an author include anyone who clicked through their newsletter ad.
Test platform by platform.
Use the Related Authors tool, one author per ad.
Target your fans, then the fans of similar authors. Avoid targeting big name authors. Look for similar tropes and themes.
Use author targets whose books are wide if yours are or in KU if yours are.


Any of this sound new? It doesn't to me. I may have missed something thrilling. If you registered you can certainly listen to the rebroadcast.

[idontknowyet]

I finally have an ad thats getting traction.

It's still losing a ridiculous amount of money not sure i believe that or not but here is the stats.

4.7k impressions
15 clicks
1 purchase
47 page reads.
Im rolling in it now 
Though seriously this is good right? It might take a while to built up but its going somewhere ... ish.

[Hopscotch]

Actually, your stats sound pretty good.  Applying the standards I've seen used most frequently of 1K impressions should produce 1 click and 10 clicks should win 1 sale (or page equiv), you've made a good start w/this ad !

[notthatamanda]

I listened to only some of it.

Put the discount price on the ad image.
99 cents is the best price compared to other discount prices.
Target authors rather than categories.
Add categories to narrow the audience.
People counted as fans of an author include anyone who clicked through their newsletter ad.
Test platform by platform.
Use the Related Authors tool, one author per ad.
Target your fans, then the fans of similar authors. Avoid targeting big name authors. Look for similar tropes and themes.
Use author targets whose books are wide if yours are or in KU if yours are.


Any of this sound new? It doesn't to me. I may have missed something thrilling. If you registered you can certainly listen to the rebroadcast.

I'm not familiar with the related authors tool. Thanks for writing this up.

[Hopscotch]

As I against the AMS wall, curious to find that a book of general (post-Vietnam war) fiction I never thought would sell has begun to Bryan a copy or two a day.  Nothing goes right for me w/AMS and then this freak jumps up.  If only I could bottle freak.

[idontknowyet]

As I against the AMS wall, curious to find that a book of general (post-Vietnam war) fiction I never thought would sell has begun to Bryan a copy or two a day.  Nothing goes right for me w/AMS and then this freak jumps up.  If only I could bottle freak.

I'm seeing the same thing. It's like a roller coaster.

[Simon Haynes]

Warning - late last year I was trying to set up the new Sponsored Brands campaigns, and I created about two dozen of the things because Amazon kept rejecting them.

Yesterday they approved ALL of them (I received about 35 emails). All of the campaigns have expired (show Ended) BUT they're displaying and costing me money.

I can't pause them, change the bids or do anything to stop them, so I've emailed support. Every option on the ads is greyed out. But they're running.

Just letting everyone know, because if you set up a Sponsored Brand ad any time since they made them available, and it wasn't approved, it might be running now.

[Simon Haynes]

I selected all the active, ended ads and archived them, which was the only bulk option available.  When I look at the Archived Ads list, they're all stopped now. So, that seems to have fixed it.

Gonna be a lot of upset people though.

[notthatamanda]

Warning - late last year I was trying to set up the new Sponsored Brands campaigns, and I created about two dozen of the things because Amazon kept rejecting them.

Yesterday they approved ALL of them (I received about 35 emails). All of the campaigns have expired (show Ended) BUT they're displaying and costing me money.

I can't pause them, change the bids or do anything to stop them, so I've emailed support. Every option on the ads is greyed out. But they're running.

Just letting everyone know, because if you set up a Sponsored Brand ad any time since they made them available, and it wasn't approved, it might be running now.

WHAAAATTTTT?????? What a bleeping scam. Thanks for posting this. Off to check now.

Edit - I only found 4 brand ads and none of them were delivering. Thanks again. I don't open those emails but now I guess I'm going to have to.

Edit 2 - Went in and archived all my ads that ended in December. They won't let you restart an ad that has ended but will do this. Enfuriating.

[notthatamanda]

As I against the AMS wall, curious to find that a book of general (post-Vietnam war) fiction I never thought would sell has begun to Bryan a copy or two a day.  Nothing goes right for me w/AMS and then this freak jumps up.  If only I could bottle freak.

Well, congratulations. Once the book starts selling my experience is the clicks get cheaper. You may want to add more ads. YMMV etc...

My stats for the year - 200K impressions for the year - 132 clicks - no sales attributed to ads. 5 sales of my psych thriller this year, none of the WWII book which is what I am focusing on.

Category ads are yielding some good keywords for me but are expensive. I think Powerball is a better option and bought the next 7 draws last week.

[Simon Haynes]

These were specifically Brand Ad campaigns which were originally rejected because of my brand logo. (They wanted an author photo. I used my imprint logo.)

All of those were suddenly accepted a few days ago, so unless you had that same experience I doubt the ads will have magically reactivated like mine did.

Incidentally, the original rejection said 'no logo uploaded'.  What it meant was 'you uploaded a logo but we didn't like it.'  Hence me trying 30+ times.

[idontknowyet]

Weird question. Does a person reading the next book in the series count towards pg reads for your click?

[Simon Haynes]

No. Once it was 'all sales resulting from the click over a 3 week period' but now it's the click and nothing else.

[notthatamanda]

What if it's a brand ad and it's the first three books in a series? And if someone buys or reads all three books within two weeks? Are you saying they don't attribute sales unless they result in a sale immediately? Just curious.

[LilyBLily]

Just stopped by to say that I accidentally did a tiny promo stack and that's why Amazon is finally spending my ad budget. Two ad newsletters in a row, plus my own newsletter. A tiny trickle and then a nice chunk of sales. Now Amazon intends to wipe out my profit by spending all my ad budget for the month as quickly as possible (which they say they can do, so $5 a day is $150 they can spend however they please). That is why they've been pestering me to add to my budget. Mystery solved.

[notthatamanda]

Category - American Fiction Anthologies

Got impressions and a click(50 cents) for a book that has copies of the Declaration of Independence and other historical documents. Pretty steamed. Went through and reduced my bids on all the anthology categories to 5 cents.

Despite my attempts to reduce my bids on all anthology categories I got one yesterday at 50 cents. Looked at that ad and turned out the specific category had a suggested bid of 13 cents. Going to check all my ads for anthology categories again and will probably do another sweep to make sure all ads that I started before this year are archived.

[Wonder]

I'm new to AMS and I finally made a profitable ad. Whee! A few notes in case it's helpful:

1. ACOS isn't a great metric because it gives credit for the full sales price when Amazon is only paying 70% of the sales price. So you need to cut that number down to actually assess ROI. But then you need to imaginatively add in potential read through? The numbers help but the math still feels fuzzy.

2. My ad that targets specific ASINs of very similar ebooks is running profitably, even though click-through % is tiny.

3. My keyword ad for my subgenre is running at a loss. I've cut my bid amount to stop it from burning down my daily budget, and I'll be working on my blurb to see if I can improve things there.

[idontknowyet]

So I started a new ad targeting a big author in a genre similar to mine but not the same.

The clicks are horrifically expensive. Like mind numbing, but i'm getting a click for ever 125 impressions i cant math.

Would it be a good idea to develop relevance with this author. Because there is no way the cpc will be worth it even if i sell every 4th click.

[notthatamanda]

I think you have to reduce the bid. If the algos think it is relevant they will give you the placement at the lower price.

[Simon Haynes]

You could also try halving the bid but using bid+ (or whatever it's called now) with a 100% boost.  The net effect ought to be the same.

I tend to bid lower and use 20-50% in the 'overbid' setting.

[Hopscotch]

Simon made me do it.  He goes big w/AMS bids and I copied.  Big CPC bid up/down, big daily budget, no ad text, chose several dozen of the AMS-recommended search terms w/full three-spread.  Did that last nite, woke up this AM to find 627 impressions (yes, peanuts) for 1 click (even peanutier) @ 25 cents (hmmm) for 1 sale of a paperback at $15.95 (yay!).  Of course, this one freak sale could be AMS's devilish trick to get more of my ad $$ but one can dream.  

[idontknowyet]

Odd note i'm still seeing a click for ever 125 impressions for this author. But zero sales. Yet her name is now showing up in my also boughts and my also viewed. Is it lag?

[Simon Haynes]

Blame me if it doesn't work but praise your advertising acumen if it does ;-)

[notthatamanda]

Odd note i'm still seeing a click for ever 125 impressions for this author. But zero sales. Yet her name is now showing up in my also boughts and my also viewed. Is it lag?

You don't need to get a sale for it to be in the also viewed. And you don't need a sale credited to ads to show up in someone else's also boughts. So it could be a lag, or not.

[idontknowyet]

Ok this is odd. So one of the authors books i'm targeting has resulted in 3 sales and like 6-7 borrows maybe more, but they don't show in my also boughts or in my also viewed. I have many pages of them an not one of this authors boo. is that normal or does that just mean its not enough sales in comparison to show up?

[idontknowyet]

ok weird question. i set a daily cap on spending for one campaign at $10 but it spent $20 can it do that? can i file a complaint or something?

[notthatamanda]

ok weird question. i set a daily cap on spending for one campaign at $10 but it spent $20 can it do that? can i file a complaint or something?

I think because it is based on the monthly average total. So if it was running for 5 days and you spent only $5 per day the next day it could add the 25 you didn't spend to the 10 you have for that day.

From : https://advertising.amazon.com/help?ref_=AAC_gnav_support_center&entityId=ENTITY3H6KGJ2W0IEU1#GTGPQGUXNCTHE2DS

The daily budget amount is averaged over the course of a calendar month. On any given day you could spend less than your daily budget, or up to 10% more than your average daily budget. This system allows you to benefit from high traffic days.

At the end of the month you will not spend more than the daily budget you’ve set, multiplied by the number of days in that month. Your invoice will be adjusted for any over-delivery, so that you will not be charged for any amount in excess of your monthly charging limit.

We'll notify you when your campaign reaches its daily budget.

For example, if your budget is $100 and you receive $90 worth of clicks on the first day, you could receive up to $110 worth of clicks on the second day. This would bring your total spend over two days to $200, which averages to $100 per day.

[idontknowyet]

ok weird question. i set a daily cap on spending for one campaign at $10 but it spent $20 can it do that? can i file a complaint or something?

I think because it is based on the monthly average total. So if it was running for 5 days and you spent only $5 per day the next day it could add the 25 you didn't spend to the 10 you have for that day.

From : https://advertising.amazon.com/help?ref_=AAC_gnav_support_center&entityId=ENTITY3H6KGJ2W0IEU1#GTGPQGUXNCTHE2DS

The daily budget amount is averaged over the course of a calendar month. On any given day you could spend less than your daily budget, or up to 10% more than your average daily budget. This system allows you to benefit from high traffic days.

At the end of the month you will not spend more than the daily budget you’ve set, multiplied by the number of days in that month. Your invoice will be adjusted for any over-delivery, so that you will not be charged for any amount in excess of your monthly charging limit.

We'll notify you when your campaign reaches its daily budget.

For example, if your budget is $100 and you receive $90 worth of clicks on the first day, you could receive up to $110 worth of clicks on the second day. This would bring your total spend over two days to $200, which averages to $100 per day.

Thank you!!!

It was seriously scary

[Hopscotch]

Bryan Says if you only advertise on AMS (as I do), then attribute all sales / reads to AMS to measure cost vs profit.  On the billboard theory that if a buyer sees your book mentioned often enough and buys it, then the billboard probably made him/her buy.  Which suggests that ads producing tons of impressions, even those not resulting in clicks, are doing you some good.  And means I dare not suspend any ad w/high impressions but low sales b/c I can't know if it's working billboard magic on bookbuyers' brains?

[idontknowyet]

How can they be charging me  $4 $8 $11 for a click? I have dynamic down only selected and no front of the page % set. My max bid for each is less than a $2. Most are less than $1. Can they just charge whatever they want for a click cause this is ridiculous. One click is costing more than my daily budget.

[notthatamanda]

You have to check your custom and default bid. Something isn't right there. You have to check both.

[notthatamanda]

Got my first order credited to a sale for the year. 200K impressions, 133 clicks, $30 spend. Which is the meh emoji?

[LilyBLily]

I believe this one would do: 

[Hopscotch]

If an AMS ad starts to die, what's a cure?  Raise/lower budget or CPC?  Or kill it and replace it?  The Bryan ads I've run seem to fade (in clicks and sales) about the 45 day mark despite my feeding in fresh search terms/targets.

[notthatamanda]

I vote kill. Instead of adding keywords to existing ads you can start new ads when you have enough keywords. That way you'll always have something that is fresh for the algos to chomp on. YMMV, etc etc and so forth.

[RPatton]

If an AMS ad starts to die, what's a cure?  Raise/lower budget or CPC?  Or kill it and replace it?  The Bryan ads I've run seem to fade (in clicks and sales) about the 45 day mark despite my feeding in fresh search terms/targets.

You can also try to lower your daily budget to see if Amazon will bite.

I would also considering looking at the targeting and seeing if maybe there's a keyword in there that isn't as relevant as you think it is.

I don't recommend killing any ad because you never know if it might start serving again. However, you could probably try to pause the ad for a few days, take some time to look at its targeting and any search terms from readers, and see if maybe you can tweak it. (I wouldn't recommend adding new terms, but pausing some terms might help.)

[notthatamanda]

My one sale for the year lists the actual royalty, not the sale price. That's new, right? It used to be the sales price which was misleading because it made your ads look more profitable. Or am I remembering it wrong?

[LilyBLily]

I've discovered why Amazon has been spending my entire ad budget day after day on one title yet there are no sales. The search terms for bdsm, erotic, and others of that ilk that include the word "romance" have been matched by Amazon with my keyword "romance" and the same for those that include "western."

This I think is the result of a change in algorithm. The title of my first in series is somewhat provocative in an old school way, but the previous 90 negative target terms I had were enough to prevent the kink audience from clicking and spending my budget. Now I've had to go back and add several dozen new "negative phrase" and "negative exact" terms to the list. Plus bdsm, which is a huge stretch for the algorithm when all my descriptive keywords are sweet, clean, mild, etc.

Meanwhile, a Fussy Librarian ad for that same title during a Kindle Countdown has resulted in extremely pitiful sales--a mere four so far. The Fussy ads don't cost much but for my books they also don't do much.     

[notthatamanda]

Ninety negative words! Wow that stinks Lily.

Did you get any sales off the BSDM & erotic keywords? If you were getting sales I would think that would increase the algos confidence that they knew what they were doing.

[LilyBLily]

No, because it's a closed door romance with only a tiny bit of panting here and there prior to the very end. I'm not even sure I mentioned a tongue when they kissed. After people click on the book they realize it's not the "nasty" "spanking" "steamy" book they're looking for. Sheesh!


Edited to add: I don't see how I can escape all these erroneous matches Amazon is making. I've long since put "historical" and "mail order bride" in negative targeting but Amazon has been leading people to my book because the word "romance" matches. There simply are too many combinations for me to list since apparently Amazon will not eliminate a match despite it having a word in my list of negative targets. For instance, "audiobooks." It's not good enough that I've listed it as a negative; if the word "romance" is in the search term Amazon will direct people to my book despite there being no audiobook.

I think this situation calls for: 

[notthatamanda]

I use audio and audible for my negative words and I do negative phrase. I don't get any impressions for people searching for audiobooks even when I was actually doing well on AMS, but maybe the algos have changed a lot since then.

Sorry for your woes.

[notthatamanda]

Setting up lots of ads for my WWII book in anticipation of book 2's release. Amazon has the price reduced on book 1. Maybe it will help, but it still annoys the heck out of me.

[notthatamanda]

I'm running ads with high bids and a total budget over 500 a day. Started April 1st, so far not even 10,000 impressions and ten clicks, no sales. I signed up for Bryan Cohen's "Are your Amazon ads not working" class next week. It will probably be too little too late to launch the new book but I'll see what he has to say.