Author Topic: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard  (Read 1136 times)

RockWhitehouse

No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« on: August 19, 2022, 05:12:16 AM »
I am kinda sure I'm doing something stupid, but...

I have sales and KENP page reads this month (or any other time period for that matter) but the AMS dashboard shows zero sales and zero KENP.

I emailed AMS support and after three exchanges have decided they're just not going to tell me why that is. They keep saying we can't guarantee sales, please optimize your keywords, yada, yada, and more yada. No help at all.

I have four books in two sponsored products ads.

Anyone else seeing such behavior? Better, anyone seen this before and managed to fix it?

I'm making small profits each month, but I'd really like to do better. I can't tell which ads are working because (duh) I can't link what ad generated what sales.

Thanks in advance.
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
-Thomas Edison

 

alhawke

Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #1 on: August 19, 2022, 05:26:49 AM »
KU reads can be delayed up to three months (I've heard 3 from other writers; typically it was a week when I was in KU). Complete book sales are sometimes delayed up to a week too--if Amazon is changing something with algos. This happened when the KDP interface changed.

The other possibility is it's August and the slowest sales year I've ever had. Particularly, Amazon sales are down. I'm selling a little less wide, but not even close to as poorly as Amazon. So something seems off with Amazon regarding visibility and/or competition--for my books, anyway.

Whatever the case, hope sales picks up for you.
 

notthatamanda

Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #2 on: August 19, 2022, 07:16:56 AM »
KU reads can be delayed up to three months (I've heard 3 from other writers; typically it was a week when I was in KU). Complete book sales are sometimes delayed up to a week too--if Amazon is changing something with algos. This happened when the KDP interface changed.

The other possibility is it's August and the slowest sales year I've ever had. Particularly, Amazon sales are down. I'm selling a little less wide, but not even close to as poorly as Amazon. So something seems off with Amazon regarding visibility and/or competition--for my books, anyway.

Whatever the case, hope sales picks up for you.
My theory is that this is the first summer in two years where just about everybody is doing old normal again. August was always slow with people cramming in extra vacations and getting the kids ready to go back to school but even more so this year because so many more people are very determined not to miss out AGAIN. Just a theory.
 

RockWhitehouse

Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #3 on: August 19, 2022, 08:24:18 AM »

Well, sales have actually been pretty good (for me) this summer. I made some changes back in June that seem to be working.

The problem is really the AMS console where it shows what I spent on ads but can't seem to match up what sales and KENP reads those ads produced.
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
-Thomas Edison

 

TimothyEllis

  • Forum Owner
  • Administrator
  • Series unlocked
  • ******
  • Posts: 6437
  • Thanked: 2511 times
  • Gender: Male
  • Earth Galaxy core, 2618
    • The Hunter Imperium Universe
Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #4 on: August 19, 2022, 10:52:01 AM »

Well, sales have actually been pretty good (for me) this summer. I made some changes back in June that seem to be working.

The problem is really the AMS console where it shows what I spent on ads but can't seem to match up what sales and KENP reads those ads produced.

That console is basically a joke.

Back when I last did ads, I only bothered looking at my Book Report figures. If they were up I knew the ad was working. When they were average, I stopped the ad.

The bottom line on daily income is what you should be looking at.

Genres: Space Opera/Fantasy/Cyberpunk, with elements of LitRPG and GameLit, with a touch of the Supernatural. Also Spiritual and Games.



Timothy Ellis Kindle Author page. | Join the Hunter Legacy mailing list | The Hunter Imperium Universe on Facebook. | Forum Promo Page.
 

RockWhitehouse

Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #5 on: August 23, 2022, 04:13:33 AM »
I dunno. Maybe I'm missing something fundamental.

Everything I read about AMS (now Amazon Ads, or so I hear) is that you need to monitor/tune/trim/add/delete keywords/bids/budget in order to get the best results. I'll soon have five books out there and I'd like to be getting the best possible return on my ad dollars and my investment in writing them. These are fun to write and all that, but if I could pad my AvGas account, that would be sooo much better.  I might even get back in the air.

BUT

If The Zon can only match a small minority (if any) of sales to ads, what data do I have to tune with? I don't see it.
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
-Thomas Edison

 

idontknowyet

Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #6 on: August 23, 2022, 07:56:12 AM »
In general amazon author support says absolutely nothing helpful over and over again until they make you go away. That seems to be their goal the majority of the time. Once in a blue moon you run into a rep that actually helps.
 

j tanner

Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #7 on: August 25, 2022, 07:23:54 AM »
I've seen many authors report that their Amazon Ads dashboard only seems to register a portion of the sales the ads generate.

(This is determined by turning the ads off for a while and comparing the sales/day between the ads on/off periods.)

In short, you need big ad budgets to generate enough data within Amazon Ads to optimize effectively. The authors giving advice about keyword optimization have big budgets. Their advice may not apply to you.
 

RockWhitehouse

Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #8 on: August 25, 2022, 09:31:17 AM »
I get emails every day from helpful author/experts who want me to buy their school/book to better optimize my ads.

Today, I responded to one of those with a description of my problem, and, shockingly, received a helpful response.

Basically, they said the Amazon dashboard is correct, and if it isn't showing many sales (it's now showing about 18% of my sales, up from zero when I started this thread) then I am gaining a lot of sales organically, from previous reads, also-boughts, anything but clicking on an ad.

So, good news, assuming I accept that explanation. Which, I'd like to, but like always, I'm skeptical of good news when it comes to Amazon.

But if I do accept that explanation, we get back to the question of why I'm spending so much on ads that are not producing that much in sales.

Not looking for an answer, just thought I share the experience. Pausing the ads on 9/1 for maybe a week was kicked around the dinner table tonight. Might be an interesting experiment.

Or, a disaster.

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
-Thomas Edison

 

LilyBLily

Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #9 on: August 25, 2022, 09:51:52 AM »
The measure is whether the ads are profitable. Even if you have one that isn't on the face of it profitable but it sells your other titles, it's profitable. 

Ad money will always be partially wasted because some people will see the ad, even click on it, and not buy. 

 

notthatamanda

Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #10 on: August 25, 2022, 12:07:49 PM »
If you aren't getting any clicks this guy used to offer a free course on how to do ads and get organized to see which ones are working.

https://bryancohen.com/

His course was useful for me to getting organized and tracking lots of experimentation to see which tag lines were good for which keywords (basically author names).

If you aren't getting any sales credited to ads, those ads are not working. If Bryan still offers the free course you might want to check it out, I found it useful. He does try to sell you other services, but I got useful tips out of the free content.

In the interest of transparency, I will say I used AMS to get up to 5 figures on Amazon in 2019, then they changed something and I couldn't make it work anymore. I am no longer publishing or doing any marketing on my existing books. Good luck.
 

TimothyEllis

  • Forum Owner
  • Administrator
  • Series unlocked
  • ******
  • Posts: 6437
  • Thanked: 2511 times
  • Gender: Male
  • Earth Galaxy core, 2618
    • The Hunter Imperium Universe
Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #11 on: August 25, 2022, 12:16:11 PM »
In the interest of transparency, I will say I used AMS to get up to 5 figures on Amazon in 2019, then they changed something and I couldn't make it work anymore. I am no longer ... doing any marketing on my existing books. Good luck.

Ditto.

I had a launch in 2019 where I spent $1000 on ads, and the income was exactly the same as I used to have without the ads.

The next launch, without any ads at all, did the exact some income.

I've not used AMS since.

Whatever they changed then totally destroyed its ability to work. And it did work back in 2018.
Genres: Space Opera/Fantasy/Cyberpunk, with elements of LitRPG and GameLit, with a touch of the Supernatural. Also Spiritual and Games.



Timothy Ellis Kindle Author page. | Join the Hunter Legacy mailing list | The Hunter Imperium Universe on Facebook. | Forum Promo Page.
 
The following users thanked this post: LilyBLily

alhawke

Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #12 on: August 25, 2022, 12:22:27 PM »
All I've done is waste money in AMS. I've given up with AMS entirely (after retrying three times with multiple books). But I published after 2019.

BookBub ads are the only ones that work for me.
 

idontknowyet

Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #13 on: August 25, 2022, 12:33:28 PM »
AMS is notoriously inaccurate. The best way to use it is already knowing what your average day sales number is. Then anything over that you know is driven by the new ads.
 

TimothyEllis

  • Forum Owner
  • Administrator
  • Series unlocked
  • ******
  • Posts: 6437
  • Thanked: 2511 times
  • Gender: Male
  • Earth Galaxy core, 2618
    • The Hunter Imperium Universe
Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #14 on: August 25, 2022, 01:19:35 PM »
AMS is notoriously inaccurate. The best way to use it is already knowing what your average day sales number is. Then anything over that you know is driven by the new ads.

That's assuming you have an average daily sales which makes sense.

Mine varies a lot according to how close I am to the last release. Just after to just before is a fairly big difference. And there are random spikes all the time in both directions.

The only way it made sense to me was in day 1/2/3 figures, and then monthly figures.

When you spend a lot on advertising, but your monthly remains about the same, you know the ads are not working.

When you don't do an ad for the next month, and nothing much changes, you know the ads are not working.
Genres: Space Opera/Fantasy/Cyberpunk, with elements of LitRPG and GameLit, with a touch of the Supernatural. Also Spiritual and Games.



Timothy Ellis Kindle Author page. | Join the Hunter Legacy mailing list | The Hunter Imperium Universe on Facebook. | Forum Promo Page.
 

LilyBLily

Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #15 on: August 25, 2022, 10:28:01 PM »
Yes, the Amazon algo change was an ad killer. So disappointing. The ads had worked just fine for three years, and then...nothing.
 

idontknowyet

Re: No Sales or KENP in AMS Ad Dashboard
« Reply #16 on: August 26, 2022, 12:16:44 AM »
AMS is notoriously inaccurate. The best way to use it is already knowing what your average day sales number is. Then anything over that you know is driven by the new ads.

That's assuming you have an average daily sales which makes sense.

Mine varies a lot according to how close I am to the last release. Just after to just before is a fairly big difference. And there are random spikes all the time in both directions.

The only way it made sense to me was in day 1/2/3 figures, and then monthly figures.

When you spend a lot on advertising, but your monthly remains about the same, you know the ads are not working.

When you don't do an ad for the next month, and nothing much changes, you know the ads are not working.

I release monthly and you do to which makes your long-term average pretty stable. Even looking at an every three month release finding a baseline and understanding what overall sales spikes are related to should enable to you to figure out your daily average. Most ads aren't able to be evaluated on day to day basis which is what i first tried to do turning off dozens of profitable ads because i wasn't patient enough to let them pay out.