A New AMS Thread

[Harald]

I concur with you here. For the CPM option, it says "Other partners are on average bidding $6.00 to $10" per 1000 impressions. I toyed with it by starting with a low bid and raising it until I started getting impressions. I had to go up to $2.51 to get a 1000 impressions. It ended up averaging me $1.50 per click. I walked away from that experiment!

You may be targeting too broadly. I dropped a BB CPM ad today and am currently at $0.35 Effective CPC. On an early ad I had targeted an author with a huge following and I was at $1.20 CPC. Tightening the target made the difference.

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[Harald]

If I bid on the upper end BB suggests, that's 55-60 cents a bid. With CPC, and an average click-to-sale ratio of 10 clicks to one sale, I'd be spending $5.50 to sell one $5.99 book. Bleeding money. Please explain how using CPM is going to beat that. I know others have said it, but I don't really grasp the concept. ...

Cassie, apologize if we're hijacking this AMS thread. Hope it's relevant enough.

LB: Not sure of advantage of BB CPM over CPC, but Gaughran suggested it and so I did. If I drop $10 into a BB CPM ad with a high bid, all I need is 3 sales to break even on a $4.99 book. You only need 2.5 sales for $5.99. If you have a CTR of 3-5%, that seems pretty doable. I just dropped a $10 BB CPM ad and have sold 2 books; 1 to go! ;-). But this is the first time I'm not offering a "deal" and BB is known for its deals. So my 2.45% CTR is a little lower, and probably for that reason. Will see how it ends up at the end of the day.

[BillyDeCarlo]

I think we should have great *separate* threads like this *AMS* one for Facebook Ads, BookBub ads. It tends to get confusing since folks don't always provide the context in their replies about which platform they are referring to, and could cause some to make bad decisions.

[Harald]

I think we should have great *separate* threads like this *AMS* one for Facebook Ads, BookBub ads. It tends to get confusing since folks don't always provide the context in their replies about which platform they are referring to, and could cause some to make bad decisions.

You're probably right. I just edited my posts above to make the BookBub parts clear. This is Cassie's thread so she can advise us.

[Marian]

I'm running a BB ad right now on top of an AMS ad. It seems to be helping, but only with Amazon sales this time around. Topping them off, as it were, whereas scaling up the AMS ad for the same book has not produced additional sales. If I thought I could get steady ad results from running the BB ad continuously, I would drop my daily budget for the AMS ad on that title. But so many BB ads are for discounted books that I'm afraid that audience is getting trained to expect the same level of discount they get in the main BB newsletter featured ads.

 

I've been researching BB ads and have read that the most successful ads are for books that are on sale. BB subscribers want bargains.

[CassieL]

You're probably right. I just edited my posts above to make the BookBub parts clear. This is Cassie's thread so she can advise us.

Not my thread, I just happened to have started it and participate a lot. But Jena H has now started a new thread for Bookbub CPC ads here: https://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,265201.0.html

[Harald]

Not my thread, I just happened to have started it and participate a lot. But Jena H has now started a new thread for Bookbub CPC ads here: https://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,265201.0.html

I still call it "Cassie's Thread" ;-))). Will head over to the new linked thread for BB-specific conversation. Thanks.

[CassieL]

I still call it "Cassie's Thread" ;-))).

Haha!

[Dpock]

Two mornings in a row (and sporadically over the past few weeks) I've woken up to lower spend and click levels than the night before (I take screenshots at 6:00 pm and 7:00 am PT daily). Has anyone else experienced this?

And is there a time of day, every day, when AMS does a major update?

Unrelated: My KDP dashboard KENP seems to freeze at 8:00 pm (ish) every night and come alive again at 11:30 pm. There's also a morning freeze usually between 6:00 am and 8:00 am, then again around 11:00 am to 3:00 pm. Is this everyone's else experience too?

[erikhanberg]

What's the current thinking on multiple sponsored product campaigns for the same book? Am I risking driving up the CPC by doing it? I haven't seen any noticable effect but wanted to make sure I'm not missing something. Thanks!

[TromboneAl]

Added headings ...



For the ad at the top, you got four clicks, and made $19.98.

I'm not criticizing and I appreciate seeing your data ...

My interpretation is that with 1,000+ ads, sorted by ACoS, what we're seeing here is just a fluke. Just by chance, several of the four clicks paid off, but that's not representative of your ads as a whole. Does that sound right?

[TromboneAl]

Don't give up on BB ads yet. The key is to test hard and fast and judge the results. BB are incredibly responsive. I'm following David Gaughran's advice: (1) do CPM vs. CPC; (2) bid on the upper end of the range they suggest; (3) do single-day tests; (4) select "fill as quickly as possible"; (5) put in a small Max Daily Budget (e.g., $10), and then just see what happens. You'll know within hours (sometimes before noon) if you have a winner or loser.

Do you evaluate the success of the ad based on clicks or actual sales?

[Anarchist]

Added headings ...



For the ad at the top, you got four clicks, and made $19.98.

I'm not criticizing and I appreciate seeing your data ...

My interpretation is that with 1,000+ ads, sorted by ACoS, what we're seeing here is just a fluke. Just by chance, several of the four clicks paid off, but that's not representative of your ads as a whole. Does that sound right?

It sounds like you're referring to conversion rate. That particular ad sold two paperbacks with four clicks. I obviously don't get a 50% conversion rate across the board.

I've heard other folks claim CRs in the 1:10 range. Mine tend to be stronger, but I've also got some dogs out there. Ongoing pruning is important to plug the leaks.

Here's my worst-performing ad (long since terminated):





That was a poorly-targeted Product Display - Interest ad from early 2017 (before I knew what I was doing). I created it and unfortunately forgot about it. Obviously, it's an outlier (lol @ 2,000% ACoS), but a good example that some ads are dogs.

These days, my PD ads tend to have ACoS's under 70%, but that's mostly due to a targeting tactic I'm now using. This tactic has dramatically improved CR on these types of ads.

At the end of the day, though, I favor Sponsored Product ads because they kick off sooner and they're far more predictable.

[TromboneAl]

Here's my worst-performing ad (long since terminated) ...

As advertising lessons go, that was pretty cheap way to learn ($22.27).

[MichaelRyan]

These days, my PD ads tend to have ACoS's under 70%, but that's mostly due to a targeting tactic I'm now using. This tactic has dramatically improved CR on these types of ads.

I'm sure you have some hard to obtain secrets in this, but do you mind elaborating just a bit?

I'm most curious about whether I can actually successfully run a PD ad with only a few targets.

I'd like to tailor an ad to a writer, for instance, to be able to write ad copy that references Dan Brown or Nelson DeMille, for instance.

However it seems that my PD ads with small targets don't generate any impressions (granted I've only been at this a couple months, but I have SP ads with hundreds of thousands of impressions and PD ads with like 114 impressions....)

[Jena H]

Do we know how retroactive are the fees that we're charged for AMS?  I paused my most active ad around the first of July (or maybe the second, I don't recall).  With that ad paused, my only other two active ads aren't very profitable, and in fact my ad spend for July has been laughably low.  (Which is fine; I was busy in July and didn't have time to spend with tweaking keywords or bids, etc.)

Anyway, today was the day for payments to AMS and guess what??  The draft from my account is more in line with my prior months' amounts, rather than the piddly charge that I actually ran up during July.

So my question is, is the payment they take in August for the activity in July, or is it retroactive a month, and today's amount is really for the month of June?  Because I can tell you for a fact, my ad activity in July does NOT match the amount that is reflected in my bank account.

[CassieL]

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.

[Jena H]

Yeah, I can see the breakdown of the monthly charge, but I still have trouble believing that an ad that only ran for half of the month (or thereabouts) would be almost as much as full months' charge.  I'm sure their info is correct, but somehow it doesn't make sense to me.

[NerdyWriter]

For Sponsor Ads, what are the grammar/punctuation guidelines for adding keywords in manually? Can I add periods in author names, apostrophes, and ampersand in titles used as keywords? Are there any frown upon symbols?

Thanks for reading!

[CassieL]

Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.

[Nobody222]

Does anyone advertise on ams Canada or ams Australia in here? (or any other besides usa/uk).

[Marian]

(The quote function is broken.)   I didn't like what was going on with one ad (41 cents a click, arrgh) and slashed its budget--and now it's selling more and I'm paying less.

Did you lower your keywords or just your budget?

[NerdyWriter]

Thank you for such a fast response, Cassie! Loved your book and this thread (read it all in one day . . . not too sure if I'm ready for that 70-something page behemoth of a thread)

[CassieL]

Glad you liked the book. And I think you can probably skip that other thread at this point if you've read this one.

[Anna Drake]

I am an AMS failure. I ran a display ad, not long after AMS started up, I think. It did okay. I don't think I lost money, or if so, not much. I currently have two AMS sponsored ads running. I haven't lost money on them, but that's only because they aren't being displayed much nor clicked on in any meaningful way. The bids are low, the daily spend is practically nothing.

Plus, I came upon a book the other day that had 166 pages of sponsored ads featured beneath it. I ask you, who scrolls past the first 5 to 10 pages? I mean if you are displayed on page 144, who cares?

So tell me, are AMS ads still worth it? And if so, how deep does one's pockets need to be?

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