I have been using AMS Kindle for over two years (both keyword and interest ads). My sales had progressed well during 2018.
I was disappointed by my ability to ramp up the sales beyond a certain level. So, in October 2018, I had the bright idea to use the Amazon Advantage AMS program. My goal would be to use both the AMS Kindle and the AMS Advantage to run parallel campaigns. Why? The AMS Kindle ads are only for ebooks. The AMS Advantage ads would allow me to promote my print books.
Here is what happened:
- In October 2018, I configured the AMS Advantage program to sell both the ebook and the print book.
- Here is what happened:
- I got a HUGE spike in print sales
- my ebook sales died
- my page reads died
Over the last four months, I’ve talked with multiple Amazon support people (both KDP and Amazon Advantage). Only one person seemed to have a clue. He told me it isn’t the first time he’s heard of the problem. We discussed a strategy of removing the ebooks from the AMS Advantage program in the hopes that the AMS Kindle would bounce back. I began this strategy in November/December. As you can see, that didn’t work.
Regarding bidding issues:
During 2018 with my AMS Kindle account, I had worked out a reasonable bidding strategy (bidding high because of my young adult fantasy genre, but still getting reasonable ROI). When I started the AMS Advantage account, I found the recommended bid level and used it 90% of the time. In many cases, these bids were above what I had been using in my AMS Kindle account. There was no real volume of ebook sales in the AMS Advantage account.
Around November, when I stopped using AMS Advantage for ebook sales, AMS Kindle introduced their new format that allowed us to see the recommended bids. I again approved 90% of the recommended bids for my AMS Kindle account. With this change, AMS Advantage was no longer competing for ebooks (because I eliminated all ebooks from my AMS Advantage ads), AND AMS Kindle was offering the top bids. But no improvement, AND my page reads were continuing to die.
Around December/January, I decided to re-do all the ads in both accounts, thinking that perhaps there was some sort of residual element in the AMS Advantage ads that could be interfering with the AMS Kindle ebook ads. But, as you can see, ebook sales and page reads continue to decline.
I have come to believe the AMS System has some sort of code flaw that’s knocking out my AMS Kindle ads. And yet, there has not been any reduced spending in the AMS Kindle area. And, the ROI has gone from reasonable to awful.
I’m out of ideas. And I’m anxious to hear any suggestions you may have.
