I hope you will never have any use for today’s post, but it could be a lifesaver if you are hit by the so-called “clicking disaster.” If you’re using Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), you will have noticed that the reporting system is somewhat… unreliable. However, there are times when the AMS reporting goes completely bonkers. This has been reported by a number of authors who use AMS, and who notice huge spikes (up to 1,000%) in their campaign clicks.
Now, you may think that this is a good thing. And it would be if there was a corresponding increase in sales. Alas, that is not the case: clicking disasters mean that the AMS reporting vastly overrepresents clicks, but the actual sales (as reported by KDP) are not affected by this.
Why Is This Bad?
Well, there are two reasons why this should worry you. First, since you pay for clicks, you waste money without generating any sales. In marketing terms, your Return On Investment (ROI) suddenly becomes wildly negative.
The second reason is that it becomes nearly impossible to estimate which campaign is actually working out and which is not, especially if you have multiple campaigns running for the same books.
What Can You Do?
Author Michal Stawicki had this happen to him in August. He successfully got Amazon to not only fix the problem but also to correct the invoice amount. He recently posted on a Facebook group the ticket he sent KDP Support as a template for other authors. As it’s a Closed Group, I have edited it and I’m sharing here my own, cut-down version:
Subject: Inflated clicks and costs
Dear Sirs,
My AMS dashboard reported today X% more clicks on my campaigns than my daily average with no change whatsoever in my setup. KDP sales didn’t reflect this. Please use your “advanced click-validation and impression-validation software” to clear our data and modify the current invoice amount.
Respectfully,
As always, be polite in all your communications and remember it’s not the fault of the person on the other end of the line, and that you depend on them to fix the problem!
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I’ve not had this problem but thank you for the eye-opening information on this. My clicks are actually kind of low but I’m getting high impressions (600 to 900 more impressions every day) so exposure and discoverability are pretty good. I’m only spending about $10 a month (not bad to get you book cover in front of hundreds of readers every day). What’s odd for me is that even though my sales are low on my AMS campaigns report for my mystery novels, my ‘regular report’ sales are increasing. And I’m selling books not on the AMS campaign. Honestly, the whole AMS is a mystery in itself.
Its reporting sucks, but it’s a great sales platform. It is, by far, the most successful medium I’ve used.
Hi Nicholas,
I’m going to drop my pants and admit I haven’t been watching my AMS project. I know — stupid. I ‘ve been a little busy. Yet, I looked today and things haven’t changed significantly. I am either lucky, or the ‘click monster’ has left my projects alone. With this information, I will be watching more frequently. I also need to get back in and make adjustments. Thanks for the information.
I once spent $200 with no sales because I had mistakenly typed a bid of $20 instead of 20c, so it’s a good idea to check regularly! Having said that, it’s likely you’ll never need the info here 🙂
Is this a ‘click con’? Or am I just being cynical? 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
It would make perfect sense, but I suspect it’s just software glitches: did you know it’s expected that there are 10-15 software errors in every 1000 lines of code? To put this in perspective, an electric razor has some 14,000 lines of code. Amazon’s must be in the millions.
I do have an electric razor, which I use rarely. I will never look at it in the same way again, now I know it is concealing 14,000 lines of code! 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
Lol – I know what you mean 😀
Handy to know! Thanks, buddy 🙂
I hope you don’t need it, but it’s good to know.