Candidates running for office have campaign managers. I have no idea what campaign managers do other than managing a campaign, but I think I want one. (joke)
After enjoying very decent sales, Members of the Cast apparently made a New Year’s resolution. “I’m not going to be purchased very often in the new year.” Perhaps the book quit taking care of personal hygiene and began making disheveled public appearances. Or, it may be that Members of the Cast developed a fear of Omicron and didn’t want to leave the safety of Amazon.
I feel better about myself as a writer when MOTC is jumping out of the Amazon presses or flooding the Internet with Kindle copies. I decided to restart an ad campaign. I have tried a couple of campaigns and had mild success other than financial. Yes, I sell books, but it costs more to sell a book than the book is worth.
Undaunted, I activated my campaign and was happy to see that it was “delivering.” When a campaign is delivering, I look at impressions and clicks. I like to run campaigns on holiday weekends and was disappointed that there was not a single impression. This happened for several weekends, and I wondered if my search words were no longer popular. Historical Fiction is a popular keyword and has fostered the most sales.
Finding it hard to believe that not one American had searched for Historical Fiction, I decided to raise the amount I would pay. This rendered nothing. I paused and reactivated the campaign and even upped Historical Fiction to $5, hoping to see an impression. My efforts resulted in dashed hopes. I needed a campaign manager.
I decided to write to KDP. While looking for an email address, I found a campaign Diagnostics tool . I can tell you; this new tool isn’t easy to find, so you might want to bookmark the site.
You will need to know your campaign name or ID. When I use the tool, my campaigns are automatically listed. I assume this is because I was looking at my campaigns before activating the tool.
When I ran a diagnostic on my ad, I wasn’t prepared for the rude shock I received:
At this point, amazement would no longer suffice, and I had to resort to astonishment! The campaign said, “Delivering,” but diagnostics said it was paused.
It would be handy for me to tell you how to fix this non-sequitur nonsense, but I don’t know what I did to get my campaign running again. I paused and activated it a few times, checking with the diagnostic tool.
Once KDP Campaigns decided the ad was working, I was told I was missing keywords that Amazon thought would garner more clicks. Having nothing to lose, I let the diagnostic tool add the missing words. I also let the tool adjust the amount I was willing to pay for a click. Interestingly enough, the tool lowered the cost in most instances.
The good news is that immediately my campaign began reporting impressions and clicks. Within a day, a sale was attributed to the ad campaign.
I have said before, editing and promoting a book takes way longer than writing the manuscript. I believe I need a campaign manager who would—well, you know, manage my campaign. Talking heads could blather on and on, saying, “the campaign is in trouble,” without me being bothered with the mundane.
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