C. M. Skiera's Blog

Wishing everyone a peaceful and joyous holiday season! I hope 2020 ushers in a wonderful year for us all. I look forward to sharing during the upcoming year, including more humorous tales about interacting with Amazon. And if you're looking for a last-minute gift, or a magical adventure to distract you from the cold, all my e-books are on sale for 99 cents from now until Christmas Eve. And remember--there's no better gift for an author than leaving a book review on Amazon or Goodreads--even milk & cookies!

As promised, here's the conclusion to my Amazon Ads overcharging dilemma . As usual, the Corporate Behemoth crushed the little indie, as they have sapped me of any motivation to dig deeper, and I'm throwing up my hands in disgust. Just for laughs, here are the e-mails where Amazon tries to explain how their dynamic bidding works. If you can make any sense of their math, I would love to hear it. As it is, I'm done with dynamic bidding. If I'm going to gamble, I'll stick to something simpler, like Exacta Box Bets at the horse track. Me (11/22/2019):  "I am running an Amazon Ad campaign where I have the maximum bid set at $0.57 and the dynamic bid up set at 14%, which should make my maximum bid $0.57 x 1.14 = $0.65. However, on 11/21/2019, I recorded 5 clicks at an average of $0.85 per click. How is this possible?" Amazon (11/23/2019):   "Please give us some time, I'll get back to you with an update by the end of November 26 , 2019." Ama...