If you’ve ever sat before a computer screen moaning ‘What did I just do right?’ in despair you’ll understand: you’ve been deep in the wormhole with some software that won’t behave when suddenly a random keystroke makes everything work again and you don’t know why. And so it is with Amazon advertising.
Just when indie publishers thought they had the hang of it Amazon went and changed everything seemingly for the hell of it. They ditched one of the ad product categories, complicated the bidding process, slowed down the reporting process and sequestered the customer service reps. The most aggravating feature of their program, of course, stayed in place: the inability to edit copy on an existing ad campaign.
I was attending a publishing conference when these changes started taking effect and several presenters woke to the unsettling discovery that their PowerPoints had overnight become obsolete. As to remain current, I strive to not understand or apply only the latest in marketing techniques, so I switched seminars to the evergreen Avoid Costly Cover Mistakes. Graphic designers put these talks on; the number one costly mistake to avoid is of course ‘Pinching pennies on your designer’s fee.’
In the weeks after the conference I started tweaking. I put a promotional video on my Author’s Page. Has anyone seen it? I could maybe find out by looking on Google Analytics; that’s still a thing. Then I started adding keywords. I’m not sure that moved the sales needle because they didn’t seem to be getting clicked on. Then I played around with the categories. Travel vs memoir, the book is neither fish nor fowl; the choices are slightly different for print and e-books, they change frequently and the ones you choose from your Book Detail page aren’t what Amazon really calls them anyway.
After all that something weird started happening. I got sales. In 4 weeks I got half as many sales through their ad program as I had in almost the whole year prior. I don’t know why. The only thing I can figure out is the Amazon algorithms like tweakers. It might not even matter what you tweak. Just log on there and change something every day or two. Add a few keywords, say, the name of the author who hit #1 in your category that particular hour. Change a few bids on a few keywords by a few pennies. Upload a new photo on your author page. Take one down. Whatever. Just show Amazon that you like to change things all the time too.
And you shall be rewarded. Maybe.