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MaxT

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I use the dynamic bid down option. I tried up and down but the costs became silly quite quickly.
The other option I use is Placement where you can increase your bid to get on the 1st page of search results. I've found this valuable because people are searching for a term directly relating to your book (if you have the right keywords). I'm happy to push these bids up by 100% as I tend to make a sale at least every three clicks in this section. I'm less convinced about the value of increasing bids for product placement searches.

Remember, don't change too many options in one go. You need to change one thing and then see how it works for you. Also, keep a spreadsheet because you will forget what you've done.
I see, thank you very much for your advice it will help me a lot! I will take the time and let the current announcement take effect. In the meantime I will do natural promotion to create backlinks ;)
 
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MaxT

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You won’t know their bids, or CPCs. You can get estimates from the Google Keyword Planner. The best way to find out is to run a test campaign.
Thanks for the info, it might be interesting to follow. :D
 

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Hi guys, I saw on quite a few blogs that Pinterest could be interesting to attract new traffic to your blog/product. What do you think ? Which is better: pin, idea pin, or board? I already tried yesterday to make a post, I only made 4 views haha. But it's a start :)

At the same time I am starting MJ's new book: Unscripted - The Great Rat-Race Escape. Finally, I rather devour it! This one is great and puts a good slap of motivation.
 

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Hi guys, I saw on quite a few blogs that Pinterest could be interesting to attract new traffic to your blog/product. What do you think ? Which is better: pin, idea pin, or board? I already tried yesterday to make a post, I only made 4 views haha. But it's a start :)

At the same time I am starting MJ's new book: Unscripted - The Great Rat-Race Escape. Finally, I rather devour it! This one is great and puts a good slap of motivation.
I had read similar comments (and a lot of hype) about how good Pinterest was, so I decided to test it over a 3 month period. In that time, I pinned several posts a day, a mix of other people's pins and my own. The result was tens of thousands of views each month and 1 - 2 people clicking to visit my site each day.

Now don't get me wrong, people still come to my site, share and save my pins a year on so this is quite useful. It just seemed like a lot of effort for the reward. The other problem is that the makeup of Pinterest doesn't match my target market. I think it's something like 80% women but my target market is 90% male. As I'm sure someone has said before, you need to go fishing in the right pond.

Regarding @MJ DeMarco new book "The Great Rat Race Escape ", I agree that it's brilliant. I've read it twice now and couldn't put it down - even on the second reading. The story that progresses through the book just hooks you in.
 
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MaxT

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I had read similar comments (and a lot of hype) about how good Pinterest was, so I decided to test it over a 3 month period. In that time, I pinned several posts a day, a mix of other people's pins and my own. The result was tens of thousands of views each month and 1 - 2 people clicking to visit my site each day.

Now don't get me wrong, people still come to my site, share and save my pins a year on so this is quite useful. It just seemed like a lot of effort for the reward. The other problem is that the makeup of Pinterest doesn't match my target market. I think it's something like 80% women but my target market is 90% male. As I'm sure someone has said before, you need to go fishing in the right pond.

Regarding @MJ DeMarco new book "The Great Rat Race Escape ", I agree that it's brilliant. I've read it twice now and couldn't put it down - even on the second reading. The story that progresses through the book just hooks you in.
Thank you very much for your feedback on Pinterest. So it's better to do both I guess haha. As far as my market is concerned, for one of my applications (Cardiac Coherence) it is mainly women so it could be interesting to promote this one.

The story is very gripping and you can recognize yourself in the characters, that's what is strong and what motivates.
 

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I wish you all a very good weekend with a little delay, take care of yourselves and your families.
 

MaxT

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Guys I am pleased to announce that I made my 2nd sale with Amazon Ads! It's not much, but it's a good start!
Right now I'm continuing the redesign of my blog in order to promote my apps and my book. The idea is to create one subdomain per project, linked to my company, like this:
project-name.company.xyz.
The subdomains are created but not yet the sites behind. It's coming in a few days!
 
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Guys I am pleased to announce that I made my 2nd sale with Amazon Ads! It's not much, but it's a good start!
Right now I'm continuing the redesign of my blog in order to promote my apps and my book. The idea is to create one subdomain per project, linked to my company, like this:
project-name.company.xyz.
The subdomains are created but not yet the sites behind. It's coming in a few days!
I’m no SEO guy. How does it affect SEO having subdomains instead of subdirectories?
 

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Cameraman

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Guys I am pleased to announce that I made my 2nd sale with Amazon Ads! It's not much, but it's a good start!
Right now I'm continuing the redesign of my blog in order to promote my apps and my book. The idea is to create one subdomain per project, linked to my company, like this:
project-name.company.xyz.
The subdomains are created but not yet the sites behind. It's coming in a few days!
Congratulations. Don't forget, the sales don't always show immediately and can come through up to a few days after they are made.

What sort of daily impressions are you getting with your ads and what is the ACOS looking like?

Now is the time to begin the process of fine-tuning them for improvement. That's when you get them to really pay for themselves.
 
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MaxT

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Thanks very much ! :)

So far, I have these stats: Capture d’écran 2022-05-25 à 18.37.35.png
 

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Thanks very much ! :)

So far, I have these stats: View attachment 43649
Thanks. I have a couple of observations you may want to think about. I'm assuming this is an Auto ad where Amazon controls who sees it rather than you picking the keywords.

1. You only have 1,495 impressions over the period which isn't many. Because you aren't showing the impressions chart I can't see if the daily impressions are stable or if they are mainly recent. Sometimes it takes a week or two before Amazon works out who to show your ad to. This shows up as low impressions initially but then they jump up.

If the impressions are low across the entire period then Amazon either can't figure out who to show the ad to or your target market isn't well represented on Amazon. If it turns out your market isn't well represented on Amazon then it may be best to switch advertising strategy to something like Facebook ads or Google ads. @Andy Black has a lot of knowledge about Google ads and may be able to say if this is a good idea or not.

If Amazon can't figure out who to show the ad to, check the keywords on your book. They may need to be improved as Amazon uses these to help find people to place your ad.

2. Your CPC is very high at $0.70. You are probably giving away most of your profit on the books you've sold. Was $0.70 the default Amazon bid?

If you haven't done so already, I would create a Keyword based ad to run alongside this one. Come up with 10 good search terms for your book and use these initially. You should be able to find what people are searching on from the search History of your current ad.

If you see search terms in the ads search history that you don't want, enter them as negative search terms. It's amazing what people search for to find your book.

Set your initial bid for the 10 keywords at $0.20 for "Broad" search terms. Later when you gather more data about how these perform, you can switch some to be "Exact".

My own experience is the more I can refine the ad to target the ideal person, the more Amazon shows it to people. They also charge me less per click. Once you have an ad performing well, you can begin to creep up the bid amount to buy more impressions.

I hope that all makes sense.
 

MaxT

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Thanks. I have a couple of observations you may want to think about. I'm assuming this is an Auto ad where Amazon controls who sees it rather than you picking the keywords.

1. You only have 1,495 impressions over the period which isn't many. Because you aren't showing the impressions chart I can't see if the daily impressions are stable or if they are mainly recent. Sometimes it takes a week or two before Amazon works out who to show your ad to. This shows up as low impressions initially but then they jump up.

If the impressions are low across the entire period then Amazon either can't figure out who to show the ad to or your target market isn't well represented on Amazon. If it turns out your market isn't well represented on Amazon then it may be best to switch advertising strategy to something like Facebook ads or Google ads. @Andy Black has a lot of knowledge about Google ads and may be able to say if this is a good idea or not.

If Amazon can't figure out who to show the ad to, check the keywords on your book. They may need to be improved as Amazon uses these to help find people to place your ad.

2. Your CPC is very high at $0.70. You are probably giving away most of your profit on the books you've sold. Was $0.70 the default Amazon bid?

If you haven't done so already, I would create a Keyword based ad to run alongside this one. Come up with 10 good search terms for your book and use these initially. You should be able to find what people are searching on from the search History of your current ad.

If you see search terms in the ads search history that you don't want, enter them as negative search terms. It's amazing what people search for to find your book.

Set your initial bid for the 10 keywords at $0.20 for "Broad" search terms. Later when you gather more data about how these perform, you can switch some to be "Exact".

My own experience is the more I can refine the ad to target the ideal person, the more Amazon shows it to people. They also charge me less per click. Once you have an ad performing well, you can begin to creep up the bid amount to buy more impressions.

I hope that all makes sense.
Thank you for your help. No, I chose the keywords myself. Here are some examples (not all of them are there):
Capture d’écran 2022-05-26 à 06.54.32.png
1. Here is a capture for the prints:Capture d’écran 2022-05-26 à 06.56.08.png
Since the beginning I have added several keywords and also adjusted the bids (up and down on certain).
I see for the keywords, I tried to be a bit broader and include keywords like "skateboard magazine" when it's a book, bad idea? The rest of the keywords I think are good, such as: skateboard accessory, skateboard book, skateboard children's book, etc. how to skateboarding book, skateboard gift... if you're interested, I can paste the complete list for you more downstairs.

2. On some keywords yes, on others no, it was me who went up to follow Amazon's recommendations (I shouldn't have, I think haha).
So I create another "manual" type ad with keywords like I currently have but only with the 10 best for example? :)
The rest is noted. Yes I understand, you were very clear.
The best is therefore to start with few keywords and preferably of the "large" type?

Thank you very much for your help, it's very nice of you. Without your help I think I would have already stopped posting on Amazon Ads and I wouldn't even have had my first sale. Now I am very motivated to continue!! :)
 
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Cameraman

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Thank you for your help. No, I chose the keywords myself. Here are some examples (not all of them are there):
View attachment 43667
1. Here is a capture for the prints:View attachment 43666
Since the beginning I have added several keywords and also adjusted the bids (up and down on certain).
I see for the keywords, I tried to be a bit broader and include keywords like "skateboard magazine" when it's a book, bad idea? The rest of the keywords I think are good, such as: skateboard accessory, skateboard book, skateboard children's book, etc. how to skateboarding book, skateboard gift... if you're interested, I can paste the complete list for you more downstairs.

2. On some keywords yes, on others no, it was me who went up to follow Amazon's recommendations (I shouldn't have, I think haha).
So I create another "manual" type ad with keywords like I currently have but only with the 10 best for example? :)
The rest is noted. Yes I understand, you were very clear.
The best is therefore to start with few keywords and preferably of the "large" type?

Thank you very much for your help, it's very nice of you. Without your help I think I would have already stopped posting on Amazon Ads and I wouldn't even have had my first sale. Now I am very motivated to continue!! :)
I'm pleased that I'm helping you and you must not give up. I was looking at my Amazon ads and they currently account for around 60% of my sales each month. It's well worth sticking with this and don't expect to get good results for a few months.

Thanks for the additional information which is helpful.

Create a new ad as you suggest and keep to around 10 keywords that someone searching for a book like yours might use. I'm suggesting 10 keywords because it will help you to learn. Use the Large type which must be the same as the "Broad" type I see on the UK and US sites.

If I was wanting to learn skateboarding (I used to be quite good in the late 70's) I might search for things like "learn skateboarding", "skateboard tricks", "better skateboarding" and even just "skateboarding". Using a keyword like "skateboarding" with the "large" search type should pick up lots of impressions.

I'm assuming your ad is on Amazon France or have you switched the language on the site? If it is in France, why not try creating the new ad on the UK site?

Let your existing ad run as it seems to be picking up impressions at a growing rate.

Have you set up an automated ad yet? These can be gold for helping you find new keywords and understand how customers are searching/finding you because they have a search history. These are the ads where Amazon decides who to show the ads to. Even if you only run one for a month and then pause it, you will have some valuable data.

Don't go with the Amazon recommended bid price. It's usually too high initially and it can change wildly over the course of a few days. Ad's can take a few weeks to get going because Amazon learns from the results. It's a bit like the YouTube algorithm in that respect.

Good luck and keep posting updates.
 

MaxT

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I'm pleased that I'm helping you and you must not give up. I was looking at my Amazon ads and they currently account for around 60% of my sales each month. It's well worth sticking with this and don't expect to get good results for a few months.

Thanks for the additional information which is helpful.

Create a new ad as you suggest and keep to around 10 keywords that someone searching for a book like yours might use. I'm suggesting 10 keywords because it will help you to learn. Use the Large type which must be the same as the "Broad" type I see on the UK and US sites.

If I was wanting to learn skateboarding (I used to be quite good in the late 70's) I might search for things like "learn skateboarding", "skateboard tricks", "better skateboarding" and even just "skateboarding". Using a keyword like "skateboarding" with the "large" search type should pick up lots of impressions.

I'm assuming your ad is on Amazon France or have you switched the language on the site? If it is in France, why not try creating the new ad on the UK site?

Let your existing ad run as it seems to be picking up impressions at a growing rate.

Have you set up an automated ad yet? These can be gold for helping you find new keywords and understand how customers are searching/finding you because they have a search history. These are the ads where Amazon decides who to show the ads to. Even if you only run one for a month and then pause it, you will have some valuable data.

Don't go with the Amazon recommended bid price. It's usually too high initially and it can change wildly over the course of a few days. Ad's can take a few weeks to get going because Amazon learns from the results. It's a bit like the YouTube algorithm in that respect.

Good luck and keep posting updates.
I'm pleased that I'm helping you and you must not give up. I was looking at my Amazon ads and they currently account for around 60% of my sales each month. It's well worth sticking with this and don't expect to get good results for a few months.

Thanks for the additional information which is helpful.

Create a new ad as you suggest and keep to around 10 keywords that someone searching for a book like yours might use. I'm suggesting 10 keywords because it will help you to learn. Use the Large type which must be the same as the "Broad" type I see on the UK and US sites.

If I was wanting to learn skateboarding (I used to be quite good in the late 70's) I might search for things like "learn skateboarding", "skateboard tricks", "better skateboarding" and even just "skateboarding". Using a keyword like "skateboarding" with the "large" search type should pick up lots of impressions.

I'm assuming your ad is on Amazon France or have you switched the language on the site? If it is in France, why not try creating the new ad on the UK site?

Let your existing ad run as it seems to be picking up impressions at a growing rate.

Have you set up an automated ad yet? These can be gold for helping you find new keywords and understand how customers are searching/finding you because they have a search history. These are the ads where Amazon decides who to show the ads to. Even if you only run one for a month and then pause it, you will have some valuable data.

Don't go with the Amazon recommended bid price. It's usually too high initially and it can change wildly over the course of a few days. Ad's can take a few weeks to get going because Amazon learns from the results. It's a bit like the YouTube algorithm in that respect.

Good luck and keep posting updates.
Thank you very much, 60% is really great. I make between 20 and 30 sales per month on a basic basis without any Amazon ads. So if I can do +60% just with Amazon Ads that would be great haha.
Ok I'm going to do that and it's true that just skateboarding I didn't think about it haha.

No, I'm on Amazon Ads US, in France I already make a lot of sales and the problem with Amazon Ads Fr is the 20% French VAT that must be added, so it's difficult to manage. I may resume later on the FR but I already sell well in France :). I will try on the Amazon UK and Australian it is planned.

My very first ad was an automated one, I took the keywords from it ;) .

For the bid prices you recommend me to go down to $0.20 per keyword?

Thanks very much ! :). This morning I updated my site which will be used to promote Skate Tricks (and precisely the book) as well as Cardiac Coherence. I separated each blog into subfolders like this: Cohérence cardiaque - Blog de l'application (here for Cardiac coherence app) and Skate Tricks - Blog de l'application (for Skate Tricks App/The Skateboarding Bible) in order to optimize SEO ;)
 

Cameraman

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Thank you very much, 60% is really great. I make between 20 and 30 sales per month on a basic basis without any Amazon ads. So if I can do +60% just with Amazon Ads that would be great haha.
Ok I'm going to do that and it's true that just skateboarding I didn't think about it haha.

No, I'm on Amazon Ads US, in France I already make a lot of sales and the problem with Amazon Ads Fr is the 20% French VAT that must be added, so it's difficult to manage. I may resume later on the FR but I already sell well in France :). I will try on the Amazon UK and Australian it is planned.

My very first ad was an automated one, I took the keywords from it ;) .

For the bid prices you recommend me to go down to $0.20 per keyword?

Thanks very much ! :). This morning I updated my site which will be used to promote Skate Tricks (and precisely the book) as well as Cardiac Coherence. I separated each blog into subfolders like this: Cohérence cardiaque - Blog de l'application (here for Cardiac coherence app) and Skate Tricks - Blog de l'application (for Skate Tricks App/The Skateboarding Bible) in order to optimize SEO ;)
You see, this is what I like about sharing what (I think) I know with you. You take action, so well done.

Yes, I would start with a bid of only $0.20 and see what this does to your impressions. After a week you can change the bids depending on the results. Remember, judge impressions rather than sales initially. The lag for reporting sales means you need a longer period to judge the results whilst the impressions seem to update reasonably accurately after a day.

Good work also on organising your website. I use a similar approach with my site but I made the mistake of going too deep with the folder structure and to change it again would be difficult. Keep the structure simple. The approach you have taken looks good to me but I'm sure there are better informed SEO people here than me.
 
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MaxT

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You see, this is what I like about sharing what (I think) I know with you. You take action, so well done.

Yes, I would start with a bid of only $0.20 and see what this does to your impressions. After a week you can change the bids depending on the results. Remember, judge impressions rather than sales initially. The lag for reporting sales means you need a longer period to judge the results whilst the impressions seem to update reasonably accurately after a day.

Good work also on organising your website. I use a similar approach with my site but I made the mistake of going too deep with the folder structure and to change it again would be difficult. Keep the structure simple. The approach you have taken looks good to me but I'm sure there are better informed SEO people here than me.
Yes I think it is important to act, and especially quickly. Otherwise I'm not going to move forward haha.
I also really like to help others on the forum whenever I have the opportunity and I plan to do even more soon :).

Ok I will do this for the ad, I have already put all the keywords at 0.20$. This afternoon I will create the auto ad and see to promote on Amazon Uk and Australia too ;) .
In the near future I plan to translate my book into Spanish too, there is a large Hispanic audience on Skate Tricks so I think it could be interesting ;)

Thank you very much, I think that the blog and the creation of article remains a good strategy to put forward a product. SEO is a headache, it changes quite often in terms of Google algorithms etc. Fortunately, natural referencing and what Google appreciates changes very little.
 

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Hey guys, it's been a while since I last updated. Sorry in advance, I've been working a lot on my apps lately. More specifically on my Cardiac Coherence app. I took some inspiration from Duolinguo and added some gamification to my app on Android and iOS.

To do this, I added series: the user earns a lotus flower per session/day, if he does not come back for his session the next day, this will break the series and he will start again at 1.

I also added the objective, the user chooses his objective: one to 3 sessions per day. Ideally it should be done 3/day. So I put this thing forward, and if he did his 3 sessions a day he gets a message congratulating him.

To make it cleaner, I created an end screen too. This includes: a personalized message, a quote related to the world of well-being, the number of lotus flowers won (current series), and the number of leaves won (one per session) and the button to access its trophies and the home of the app.

If you want to watch: Cardiac Coherence | Linktree

That's all, the update is already available on Android and iOS in a few hours ;)
 

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Hi guys, always a pleasure to share my adventure with you. At the moment I still follow the same routine to promote my projects, namely to create two articles on my site.

The first article is used to promote my cardiac coherence application, so the themes covered are broad: good anti-stress habits, meditation...

The second, to promote my Skate Tricks app, the idea is to approach skateboarding in general. In order to attract people quickly, I share trick tips (step-by-step explanation for performing a trick on a skateboard).

Of course, I simplify the process as much as possible to speed it up, and I also improve the SEO as I go along.
At the same time, I improve these two applications as much as possible by adding new features, improving the design, finding new solutions to bring, etc.

I have also started creating Pinterest pins since today (here is my last pin : Pin on Cohérence cardiaque), I will look into the subject to improve my visibility on these networks as much as possible.

I haven't stopped promoting my book on Amazon Ads US/UK, I've readjusted the bids elsewhere because the impressions have dropped drastically and I haven't had a sale since the last time. Don't worry it's only a slight adjustment, not as much as the times before, I won't go over 0.50.

Have a nice day everyone, good luck to you in your projects and don't give up!
 
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Hi guys, always a pleasure to share my adventure with you. At the moment I still follow the same routine to promote my projects, namely to create two articles on my site.

The first article is used to promote my cardiac coherence application, so the themes covered are broad: good anti-stress habits, meditation...

The second, to promote my Skate Tricks app, the idea is to approach skateboarding in general. In order to attract people quickly, I share trick tips (step-by-step explanation for performing a trick on a skateboard).

Of course, I simplify the process as much as possible to speed it up, and I also improve the SEO as I go along.
At the same time, I improve these two applications as much as possible by adding new features, improving the design, finding new solutions to bring, etc.

I have also started creating Pinterest pins since today (here is my last pin : Pin on Cohérence cardiaque), I will look into the subject to improve my visibility on these networks as much as possible.

I haven't stopped promoting my book on Amazon Ads US/UK, I've readjusted the bids elsewhere because the impressions have dropped drastically and I haven't had a sale since the last time. Don't worry it's only a slight adjustment, not as much as the times before, I won't go over 0.50.

Have a nice day everyone, good luck to you in your projects and don't give up!
Good to see that you are still taking action and monitoring progress.
Regarding the Amazon Ads, I've also experienced a drop in the number of books I'm selling with the ads. This has happened around this time of year for the past 4 years so I was expecting it. It may be that you also see the same pattern. It's worth experimenting with increased bids if impressions continue to fall to see if you can reverse the trend.
I'll be interested to hear how Pinterest works out for you.
 

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Good to see that you are still taking action and monitoring progress.
Regarding the Amazon Ads, I've also experienced a drop in the number of books I'm selling with the ads. This has happened around this time of year for the past 4 years so I was expecting it. It may be that you also see the same pattern. It's worth experimenting with increased bids if impressions continue to fall to see if you can reverse the trend.
I'll be interested to hear how Pinterest works out for you.
I will never give up, I've started since 4 years ahah. My go goal is to go further. My different project pays my bills and I can invest some money each months. I'm looking for a mentor, if you are interested. Just exchange some mail each week for give me the good directions etc.

Ok it's good to know that. My prints reduce on Ads Uk but on Us it's stable : US :
Capture d’écran 2022-06-09 à 08.58.07.png
UK :
Capture d’écran 2022-06-09 à 08.58.21.png
For Pinterest, I like the platforms, but I'm not persuaded than everyone can reach a lot of people without pay some ads. If you look at my views stats it's really really bad :
Capture d’écran 2022-06-09 à 08.59.49.png
And I use good description, keywords, hashtag etc. I'm not a pro with the platforms and I will continue to produce some contents on it for see if it's better.
I don't know if it's a good idea, but I will create an account for each category : stress & anxiety for my Cardiac coherence app, and another account for skateboarding and Skate Tricks app.
Have a good day my friend and everyone.
 

Cameraman

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I will never give up, I've started since 4 years ahah. My go goal is to go further. My different project pays my bills and I can invest some money each months. I'm looking for a mentor, if you are interested. Just exchange some mail each week for give me the good directions etc.

Ok it's good to know that. My prints reduce on Ads Uk but on Us it's stable : US :
View attachment 43875
UK :
View attachment 43876
For Pinterest, I like the platforms, but I'm not persuaded than everyone can reach a lot of people without pay some ads. If you look at my views stats it's really really bad :
View attachment 43877
And I use good description, keywords, hashtag etc. I'm not a pro with the platforms and I will continue to produce some contents on it for see if it's better.
I don't know if it's a good idea, but I will create an account for each category : stress & anxiety for my Cardiac coherence app, and another account for skateboarding and Skate Tricks app.
Have a good day my friend and everyone.
I'm flattered but not sure I qualify as a mentor. I'm just old so I've seen a lot.
It would be great to exchange emails and thoughts as I can learn from you. I'll also try to help you with areas that I know about. I'll be going offline after tomorrow for a few weeks as I need to concentrate on writing a new book (I cut myself off to avoid distractions and keep my head clear). After that let's pickup.
 
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I'm flattered but not sure I qualify as a mentor. I'm just old so I've seen a lot.
It would be great to exchange emails and thoughts as I can learn from you. I'll also try to help you with areas that I know about. I'll be going offline after tomorrow for a few weeks as I need to concentrate on writing a new book (I cut myself off to avoid distractions and keep my head clear). After that let's pickup.
Age is just a number. On the contrary if you have more experience it can only be better.
Yes that would be great, I'll send you a private message you can answer it whenever you want ;)
 

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Hello my friends !
Right now I'm working on my apps to install a "gamification": level, experience, trophy etc.
Today I improved the profile of the user by adding the possibility of putting his own profile picture, as well as the date on which he joined us, and retyping all the design of the profile (not finished).
Gamification is very interesting to set up for an app/game or certain type of product, here is an example with the Duolinguo application to learn English: https://raw.studio/blog/how-duolingo-utilisations -gamification/
If you want to read an excellent book that talks about all this (improve retention and conversion in particular), there is Hooked, by Nir Eyal.
The good news of the day: First sale of my book with Amazon Ads UK!
Capture d’écran 2022-06-14 à 16.59.47.png
Very nice day to you my friends.
 

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Hi guys, it's been a while since I posted here.
Don't worry, I haven't given up on my quest for the fastlane and I'm absolutely not counting on it.
The projects are taking their course, and my book is selling more and more in the USA and England, thanks in particular to you and your help on Amazon Ads, so thank you again for that! :)

I haven't been very active lately because I had to translate my blog for my Heart Coherence and Skate Tricks apps (over 80 articles in total!). So I lost a lot of time with that but I'm pretty happy with the result even if I have to go back a little to see if everything is ok!
Once finished it will improve the SEO of the two apps but also of the book (again haha).
I'm also working on a big update on Skate Tricks & Cardiac Coherence for the iOS versions.
Some screenshots of the English Blog (not finish)
 
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MaxT

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Finally, to conclude this update, tomorrow I intend to start creating my "newsletter" part from A to Z. I intend to make a small pop up on my blog which will appear after a certain scroll on the page.
My question is, is it easy to set up?
For the html/css design part I won't have any problem, but let's say the user has entered his email I just have to do the rest of the work with the Amazon Simple Email Service API (like mail chimp).

I imagine that you just have to send the email and amazon takes care of the rest? It would be great if I could automate this whole part!

It's a big part but I know it will help me increase my income, so thank you in advance for your help and sorry for the length of this message haha.

Take care of yourself, stay the course and don't give up ;)
 

Cameraman

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Great to read your update and that the Amazon Ads are working. It can take a while for sales to pick up. Don't forget to keep tweaking the ads to see if you can improve the sales numbers.

I don't think that I can help much with the technical aspects of setting up the newsletter. I use the newsletter plugin for WordPress and have this configured to send email through Amazon SES. It does everything I want, including scheduling, filtering and controlling the send rate for emails to Amazon. It also captures and integrates the bouncebacks from failed messages Amazon SES reports to me so that I can clean my mailing list.

When it comes to capturing emails, I have my plugin configured to show a popup to capture emails every 2 days after a 5-second delay. I could use the scroll method or exit intent but I found the 5-second delay seems to produce the best results. It's with experimenting with this kind of setting if you can. I also have a newsletter signup/free gift notice at the bottom of each article and at the top of some pages.

After collecting stats for a couple of years I can see that the split between the two methods is 50/50. BUT I can also see the majority of signups for the notice (rather than the popup) come from just 4 pages. The signups from the popups seem to happen on any page.
 

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Great to read your update and that the Amazon Ads are working. It can take a while for sales to pick up. Don't forget to keep tweaking the ads to see if you can improve the sales numbers.

I don't think that I can help much with the technical aspects of setting up the newsletter. I use the newsletter plugin for WordPress and have this configured to send email through Amazon SES. It does everything I want, including scheduling, filtering and controlling the send rate for emails to Amazon. It also captures and integrates the bouncebacks from failed messages Amazon SES reports to me so that I can clean my mailing list.

When it comes to capturing emails, I have my plugin configured to show a popup to capture emails every 2 days after a 5-second delay. I could use the scroll method or exit intent but I found the 5-second delay seems to produce the best results. It's with experimenting with this kind of setting if you can. I also have a newsletter signup/free gift notice at the bottom of each article and at the top of some pages.

After collecting stats for a couple of years I can see that the split between the two methods is 50/50. BUT I can also see the majority of signups for the notice (rather than the popup) come from just 4 pages. The signups from the popups seem to happen on any page.
Thank you very much, it is always a pleasure to exchange and share with you all too.
Yes I continue to improve them, in particular by refining the search and by adding negative terms for example and by adding other keywords.
I'm very interested in the price of Amazon SES, but I have two issues:
1 - I don't have a site under wordpress, I coded everything myself so I don't know if it's possible to superimpose the two interfaces, if it is then I'll go for it ;)
2 - It will be the plugin that will collect user emails to send them to Amazon SES where do I have to create a database + a PHP script for example? I feel like this plugin looks really awesome, with Amazon SES costing very little it seems like the best option.

Interesting to position yourself at the bottom of the articles and at the top, it can be discreet and very profitable. With a little pop up from time to time I think we can't do better ;)
Thank you very much for your answer, do not hesitate to tell me a little more about the plugin as in point 2), I am convinced in any case.

Have a nice day and good luck with your projects.
 
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Cameraman

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Thank you very much, it is always a pleasure to exchange and share with you all too.
Yes I continue to improve them, in particular by refining the search and by adding negative terms for example and by adding other keywords.
I'm very interested in the price of Amazon SES, but I have two issues:
1 - I don't have a site under wordpress, I coded everything myself so I don't know if it's possible to superimpose the two interfaces, if it is then I'll go for it ;)
2 - It will be the plugin that will collect user emails to send them to Amazon SES where do I have to create a database + a PHP script for example? I feel like this plugin looks really awesome, with Amazon SES costing very little it seems like the best option.

Interesting to position yourself at the bottom of the articles and at the top, it can be discreet and very profitable. With a little pop up from time to time I think we can't do better ;)
Thank you very much for your answer, do not hesitate to tell me a little more about the plugin as in point 2), I am convinced in any case.

Have a nice day and good luck with your projects.
The newsletter plugin I use does everything for you once installed. It's being able to use plugins like this that convinced me to switch to WordPress back in 2014. Before that, I was spending a lot of time trying to create and maintain my website which was both difficult and time-consuming. It was much better to invest that time in my businesses.

When I installed the newsletter plugin, it created the tables it needed in the WordPress database. All that I needed to do was configure the plugin settings to control the subscription process. This included settings for when to display the popup to visitors and what information to collect from them. I also entered the settings to hook it up to Amazon SES but you can connect it to other email services.

The plugin has a lot of features you can use. For example, the text of the email sent to users on sign up. If you want to use a double opt-in for the signup. Which page to direct users to after they have signed up. Which mailing list they are added to. What auto-responders I use, for example, I can send an automatic series of emails to new subscribers to welcome them and share free gifts.

When it comes to writing my monthly newsletter, there is a drag-and-drop builder in the Plugin. This can save you time by inserting blog posts and images you have already published. I then schedule the newsletter to be sent on the first Saturday of the month starting around 01:00. The software even allows me to control the rate of sending. I limit this to around 800 emails per hour which tends to bring around 120 visitors per hour to my site over the day. I don't want too many visitors at once to avoid slowing the servers.

A WordPress plugin like this has hundreds of features you can use to collect email addresses, build and send newsletters as well as other marketing. You can also track stats like how many people open a newsletter or unsubscribe. You even have the option to see who clicked on a link and then send them a specific follow-up email if you want to. I think it would be very difficult and time-consuming to code something as powerful as this. It's much better to learn how to use the features.

As you don't use WordPress, why not buy some cheap hosting and set up a test domain with WordPress. You could then install the Newsletter plugin to try it out for yourself. 90% of what I've mentioned is included in the free version of the plugin. I just pay the small annual subscription for the extra features like using Amazon SES and in-depth stats. A couple of hours spent with a trial version of WordPress and this plugin will probably be very valuable and you can make a decision about if you want to continue coding.

If you decide moving to WordPress isn't for you, have you checked GitHub for any newsletter code? I seem to remember playing around with a free package once that had some good features but I struggled with the code so gave up.
 

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I really like this project, I definitely would have paid for the book back in my teens when I skateboarded. The QR code on page 10 of the amazon preview links to a video that isn't available. You probably want to fix that, because I wouldn't purchase the book if the preview video is broken
 

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