WTF AMS ads?

[TimothyEllis]

I just did a new AMS ad, first time for several months.

First I get an email saying the ad was not approved, headed as having been moderated.

Then the email says all 5 books were eligible. Huh? 

So I go to the ad itself, and find that it's not only live, but it's already used more than the daily maximum I set.

I set a maximum bid of 20 cents on all keywords, and I set it to exactly that bid.

Instead, 4 of the 7 clicks cost more than a dollar each, and the other 3 cost more than $2 each.

Serious WTF?

Needless to say, I turned the ad off immediately.

Where the f*** does Amazon get off totally ignoring what you specify for bids?

And especially after telling me the ad wasn't approved in the first place?

That's a very strange way of encouraging people to use their ad system.

Since KU has tanked at the moment due to me being late with the next book, and being my not as popular series, and world events, I thought I'd pump some advertising in.

So much for that idea!

Sorry, just venting. 

[R. C.]

I just did a new AMS ad, first time for several months.

First I get an email saying the ad was not approved, headed as having been moderated.

Then the email says all 5 books were eligible. Huh? 

So I go to the ad itself, and find that it's not only live, but it's already used more than the daily maximum I set.

I set a maximum bid of 20 cents on all keywords, and I set it to exactly that bid.

Instead, 4 of the 7 clicks cost more than a dollar each, and the other 3 cost more than $2 each.

Serious WTF?

Needless to say, I turned the ad off immediately.

Where the f*** does Amazon get off totally ignoring what you specify for bids?

And especially after telling me the ad wasn't approved in the first place?

That's a very strange way of encouraging people to use their ad system.

Since KU has tanked at the moment due to me being late with the next book, and being my not as popular series, and world events, I thought I'd pump some advertising in.

So much for that idea!

Sorry, just venting. 

Uh... Yeah... Been there... Done that.   I watch AMS like a hawk eyeing a titmouse.

In my current experiment, I have a target CPC not to exceed goal of $0.29-0.31 USD.  I set up 19 ADs running with a MAXIMUM CPC of $0.21 USD across hundreds of keywords.  The current CPC summary is $0.24.

So far so, so good. Like a hawk...

Cheers,
R.C.

P.S. For those questioning the tortured metaphor, hawks are cannibalistic.

Edited: Erg... typos.

[notthatamanda]

Assuming you were bids down only, you have to set both the custom bid and the default bid to what you want or it will f you.

[TimothyEllis]

Assuming you were bids down only, you have to set both the custom bid and the default bid to what you want or it will f you.

No, I used bids exact. It didn't ask me for anything other than the actual bid for all the keywords.

[notthatamanda]

So under campaign bidding strategy you did fixed bids?

[TimothyEllis]

So under campaign bidding strategy you did fixed bids?

Yes.

[notthatamanda]

I'm guessing it's still you have to set the custom bid and default bid. Bryan Cohen warned us about this in his webinar course. We were using bids down only, but since when you do fixed bid it still gives you the option to set those so I think there is a chance that is the problem.

I agree it's awful. Sorry you got burned.

[TimothyEllis]

I'm guessing it's still you have to set the custom bid and default bid. Bryan Cohen warned us about this in his webinar course. We were using bids down only, but since when you do fixed bid it still gives you the option to set those so I think there is a chance that is the problem.

I agree it's awful. Sorry you got burned.

It was a bit over $10, but I'm glad I checked it when I did.

If there is custom bid and default bid settings, they were not obvious. Where are they?

[notthatamanda]

It's only when you are doing manual targeting which I assume you were doing because you mentioned keywords.

Under keyword targeting you pick "enter list"

Under that there is bid with suggested bid with the down carrot.

Down carrot brings up default and custom bid and you have to change both.

AND if you change them under suggested bid it does not work.

May I ask what your strategy is in choosing fixed bid rather than down?

[TimothyEllis]

May I ask what your strategy is in choosing fixed bid rather than down?

When you want a 20c bid, down doesn't make much sense.

[notthatamanda]

Thanks

[Simon Haynes]

If you go into the campaign and then the ad group, select targeting from the left, then click the Bid heading until the arrow is pointing downwards (small circle), what's the highest value in the box? (larger circle)

[LilyBLily]

My bids are always a cent or so off a round number, too. A cheap thrill to win a placement war for a cent.

[TimothyEllis]

If you go into the campaign and then the ad group, select targeting from the left, then click the Bid heading until the arrow is pointing downwards (small circle), what's the highest value in the box? (larger circle)

The one at the top is $6.30.

The average on the first page is about $1.30.

I specified 20c on all of them.

[Simon Haynes]

If you click the checkbox to the left of Active, it will select all lines. (If you have a lot of lines, expand the list to show 300, the maximum, at bottom-right.)

Once they're all selected, see the first pic. You can set the bid for all *displayed* rows at once. See pic 2.

Now for the gotcha: if you're displaying 50 rows (the default) and have 75 targets in your ad, the last 25 won't be updated by this method. Be sure to resort the list from high to low bid and repeat the process until the highest bid in the entire list is set to your target amount. (It helps if you expand the list to always show 300, which is the max. But I have ads with 700 targets, and those have to be updated, sorted, updated three times.)

[TimothyEllis]

By targets do you mean keywords? I have 993 of those.

[Simon Haynes]

PS I do this immediately after creating any new ad, and I frequently update bids on all my ads this way.

[Simon Haynes]

By targets do you mean keywords? I have 993 of those.

Yes - I used 'targets' because you might have been using asins, categories, etc.

[Simon Haynes]

So you'll need to view the 300 for sure, and then re-sort 4 times until you're absolutely certain there are no bids above 20c in that list. Obviously, you'll need to select all, then set the bid, before resorting each time.

[TimothyEllis]

Made some changes, set it down to $5 a day just in case, and set it going again.

Thanks for the help.

The select all seems to have done all of them the first time, regardless of what was being viewed.

[notthatamanda]

Simon, I'm curious, when you are setting up the ad do you change the default and custom bid on the original ad set up page and still have to do this?

[Simon Haynes]

Simon, I'm curious, when you are setting up the ad do you change the default and custom bid on the original ad set up page and still have to do this?

I always change custom bid (if you mean the drop-down above the spot where you select the targets) and when I add all the targets they're all set to my price. Therefore I never have to go through this procedure when first setting up an ad.

I rarely change the default bid.

[notthatamanda]

Yep that's what I meant. I got into the habit of changing both custom and default. Thanks.