[markcooper76]

Hi everyone,

Is it just me or is something strange going on with AMS ads and Amazon BSR?

I have been using AMS ads to advertise my books for years and have gotten decent results. I spend a lot of time advertising with AMS ads so I'm familiar with the platform, how it works, what to expect, etc.

However, in the last 10 days something has been way way off. All my winning campaigns stopped getting sales. Whenever I launch a new campaign (with a track record of success with proven keywords or ASINS) it flops.

AMS ads reports I get 2 or 3 sales for a book and I look at the Amazon BSR of that particular book and do not see any change, in fact I see the BSR ranking getting worse not better.

It is just not adding up. I am getting worried. As I never experienced this in years.

Can anyone relate?

Thanks.

Mark

 

[markpauloleksiw]

I was about to post something similar.

My AMS/Book rankings/ and sales reports are all behaving odd and out of synch.  I am fully aware that the three are never in synch but I find over the last two weeks, they are really off.

For days, I was seeing paperback revenue BUT by paperback ranking was dropping. Then the ranking popped up days after the sales were recorded almost as if there was catchup.

My AMS ad results are even wonkier...

Amazon's reporting has always been hard to figure out but, this month it has been extremely lumpy as if the system is only updating twice a day and not all systems at the same time.

Mark

 

[CassieL]

For days, I was seeing paperback revenue BUT by paperback ranking was dropping. Then the ranking popped up days after the sales were recorded almost as if there was catchup

This part could be because of how Amazon handles print books. If you sell a book in print today the rank should reflect that sale today, but you won't see a reported sale on the KDP dashboard until the book actually prints and ships which can be a number of days later. (To see when a particular reported sale actually happened you can download the Excel report from the main reporting page and there's a column there for Order Date.) I've had books print and ship weeks after they were actually purchased and much more of that is happening since March of this year. So a rank change today may not show a reported sale for three or four days or more. And AMS will show the value of that print sale within 24 hours of it happening (usually) but again you won't see that sale reflected on your sales dashboard until the book actually prints and ships.

 

[鬼]

I've had a solid month across all dashboards this month and haven't noticed anything awry.
And yes, in terms of print, Cassie is correct.

 

[markcooper76]

I was about to post something similar.

My AMS/Book rankings/ and sales reports are all behaving odd and out of synch. I am fully aware that the three are never in synch but I find over the last two weeks, they are really off.

For days, I was seeing paperback revenue BUT by paperback ranking was dropping. Then the ranking popped up days after the sales were recorded almost as if there was catchup.

My AMS ad results are even wonkier...

Amazon's reporting has always been hard to figure out but, this month it has been extremely lumpy as if the system is only updating twice a day and not all systems at the same time.

Mark

Thanks for this Mark! This is exactly what I have been experiencing and it has been so frustrating. If anyone can shed light on this issue that would be so helpful and much appreciated.

 

[Jena H]

Hi everyone,

Is it just me or is something strange going on with AMS ads and Amazon BSR?

I have been using AMS ads to advertise my books for years and have gotten decent results. I spend a lot of time advertising with AMS ads so I'm familiar with the platform, how it works, what to expect, etc.

However, in the last 10 days something has been way way off. All my winning campaigns stopped getting sales. Whenever I launch a new campaign (with a track record of success with proven keywords or ASINS) it flops.

AMS ads reports I get 2 or 3 sales for a book and I look at the Amazon BSR of that particular book and do not see any change, in fact I see the BSR ranking getting worse not better.

It is just not adding up. I am getting worried. As I never experienced this in years.

Can anyone relate?

Thanks.

Mark

I paused my long-running ad earlier this month, since sales had fallen off as summer went on. HOWEVER... On two of my books I've noticed the rank sink from under 10k to over 1mil. Pretty much overnight. Both the books are free so I don't know if that means anything, but my free books have never been so high in ranking.

 

[Flying Pizza Pie]

Can't always figure Amazon. I was sticky at 6500 for months and months on one book and then dropped to 25k in a week and now hover there........on Kindle. That was strange.

Right now, a book that has bounced between 125k and 60k in paperback (several years) dropped to 300k and my AMS per-sale just went upside down from 17% for two years to 35% in July to 105% in August - in the negative. I've defended AMS because I've been successful (and lucky). Now, hmmm.

I stand corrected - that 300k is now 412K. This paperback book has been near 100K for years. Bummer.

 

[Indiecognito]

Hi everyone,

Is it just me or is something strange going on with AMS ads and Amazon BSR?

I have been using AMS ads to advertise my books for years and have gotten decent results. I spend a lot of time advertising with AMS ads so I'm familiar with the platform, how it works, what to expect, etc.

However, in the last 10 days something has been way way off. All my winning campaigns stopped getting sales. Whenever I launch a new campaign (with a track record of success with proven keywords or ASINS) it flops.

AMS ads reports I get 2 or 3 sales for a book and I look at the Amazon BSR of that particular book and do not see any change, in fact I see the BSR ranking getting worse not better.

It is just not adding up. I am getting worried. As I never experienced this in years.

Can anyone relate?

Thanks.

Mark

You're not alone. I've been freaked out by the lack of sales in the last few days. Feels like I'm throwing money away, whereas previously my ads always seemed worthwhile. So weird.

 

[claycasey]

I'm still trying to figure things out. But what I've got so far is that back to school purchases are extremely higher than normal. It also seems that Advertising reporting of sales is a bit slower than it's been in the last year or so. Also, all of my KDP print books went from 1-2 days shipping to 5 days over the past week. The same thing happened in March and basically caused a delay in reports. At that point, my BSR was low but my ad numbers were great. So I just had to be patient and then those numbers showed up in April. This time though, it just looks like things are going to be slower than the previous few months.

I'm still working this through, but none of my KDP print books are currently showing "frequently bought together". And my KDP print books are not showing up in "frequently bought together" or "people also buy" for competitor books that they normally featured for. I don't know of any reason that I'd be punished or whether it's happened before. My competitors have both features still.  My books that are sold through Advantage have both features as well.

 

[markpauloleksiw]

Amazon has undergone alot of system changes in the past 30 days and usually quirkiness in reporting is the result of a lot of behind the scenes adjustments.

Don't forget linking KENP reads to AMS is recent as well.

My paperback ranking in Canada has skyrocketed...but,I don't see the sales in my reports...so shipping delays are all over in North America which may be creating system issues.

Mark

 

[Redgum]

Hi everyone,

Is it just me or is something strange going on with AMS ads and Amazon BSR?

I have been using AMS ads to advertise my books for years and have gotten decent results. I spend a lot of time advertising with AMS ads so I'm familiar with the platform, how it works, what to expect, etc.

However, in the last 10 days something has been way way off. All my winning campaigns stopped getting sales. Whenever I launch a new campaign (with a track record of success with proven keywords or ASINS) it flops.

AMS ads reports I get 2 or 3 sales for a book and I look at the Amazon BSR of that particular book and do not see any change, in fact I see the BSR ranking getting worse not better.

It is just not adding up. I am getting worried. As I never experienced this in years.

Can anyone relate?

Thanks.

Mark

I gave up with AMS a long time ago. In the early days I got a reasonable response, i.e., I'd make slightly more money from sales than ad expenses. But since around 2017/2018 it's just a great way to give Amazon some of your sales money back.

 

[markpauloleksiw]

So since yesterday, I an AMS ad I have ongoing for 45+ days (and a succesful one) which was a Sponsored Auto targeting ad for my paperback went totally dead. Not one impression.

Has AMS stopped ads for paperbacks? And if so, why have they not notified anyone? Is it because of shipping delays?

Mark

 

[jb1111]

Probably unrelated, but a few nights back some of the Zon's servers apparently went down, at least some of the ones that are used by other sites, as well as the KDP Dashboard. My KDP dashboard was a plain page with type for a couple hours... I did an online check and found there were others who had issues accessing the Zon, as well as other web pages that use AWS.

The point is that they might have a few server glitches now and then that cause these issues to happen. Obviously, they're not completely bulletproof.

 

[markpauloleksiw]

In the span of 24 hours:

1) My debut novel stopped serving ads on AMS and was shown as out-of-stock
2) 12 hours later, ads still frozen and book shows as in-stock with lead times (Plus a 2nd novel had same issue)
3) Right now...everything is back to normal and all books shown as in-stock with no visible delivery delays.

So something happened across the servers and there was a data disconnect somewhere. My concern is that with ads running...how many potential buyers could not find my book or went to the site and it was screwy.

Mark

 

[markcooper76]

You're not alone. I've been freaked out by the lack of sales in the last few days. Feels like I'm throwing money away, whereas previously my ads always seemed worthwhile. So weird.

This is exactly what I been experiencing for the last 7-10 days! It is has been shocking how the sales and ad performance have dropped significantly. As anyone spoken to AMS ads or KDP to get some insight of what is going on? This is very strange. My business model relies on AMS ads and with it being shaky right now, my business is in shatters.

 

[RockWhitehouse]

Similar stuff here. Nothing in the last 7 days - zero KENP reads.

But looking beyond the last week, my impressions (and KENP) dropped by 50% from July to August with no change in the ad. Not sure what's going on with that.

I had a 1-star review on 7/15 but the average for that book is still 4.4, so I doubt that's the problem.

Hopefully, things will work themselves out. If nothing happens in the next week I'll make some changes in the ad and see if we can get some more attention.

 

[markpauloleksiw]

MY AMS ads for paperbacks show as delivering but have not registered a single impression in 4 days.

So something is wrong somewhere. Book rankings have been horrible volatile as well.

Mark

 

[EmparentingMom]

Same here. Maybe end of summer vacation and back to school prep?

 

[markcooper76]

Same here. Maybe end of summer vacation and back to school prep?

Not sure about back to school prep being an issue. None of my books cater to kids, teens or students. I worry the issue is with Amazon itself, something with the Amazon ad algo and Amazon algo. Something must have changed in the last 10 days that is causing major glitches which is causing us to lose money on ads. I wish someone would be able to confirm this and provide any solutions. Cheers.

 

[H.C.]

MY AMS ad in the Australian marketplace is showing ZERO impressions even after starting it a week ago. My others all have tens of thousands in just a few days. Any insight? My bids are high enough that I should be seeing impressions at the very least.