I’ve only recently committed to using advertising solidly in the past two months;
I’m a bit confused what the schedule is for invoicing?
To explain, in the past month I had a smallish £120 charge at start of October, and a fairly sizable £400 charge on my balance at end of October which made me assume they charge/invoice for advertising monthly. But I’ve just had another charge for £130, a week after the last, so confused how it works timing wise? I’d ideally like to know the frequency at least roughly but it seems random?
Amazon’s invoicing for advertising isn’t strictly monthly; instead, it follows a threshold-based system. Initially, you’ll be charged whenever your ad spend reaches a preset billing threshold (which increases as you spend more on ads) or every 30 days, whichever comes first. This explains why you had smaller, more frequent charges at first, and then a larger charge at the end of October as your ad spend accumulated. After that, any additional charges, like the £130, can occur if you quickly reach the threshold again within a short period. This frequency may feel random, but it’s based on these thresholds and your spending rate.
As @ecomwithumair says, it really works on the threshold basis. This is why you should start slow or have someone who has expertise with Amazon Sponsored Products to assist you.
If things go wrong, you can end up getting charged thousands of pounds in a month (happened to me), without any resulting sales.
In a similar way, Facebook adverts also set an internal threshold allowance and charge you earlier to avoid a situation where you consume your budget, attract additional expenses and then be left unable to pay.
Thanks kika, though that’s alarming! . It’s been advertised for a month so far and I’ve been monitoring my spend, with acos still reasonable at 15 to 20%.is there any other warning signs I should be on the look out? I certainly don’t want any nasty shock in the £1000s!
The first warning sign is the increase in charging frequency. Once you have a higher spending allowance threshold, you can be charged any amount, which is significantly higher than your prior charge.
My recommendation is that you keep checking your spend as frequently as possible.
Thanks Kika. Still a bit confused though. When you say “any amount” surely they can only charge for the views/clicks the ad receives? Or are you saying because the charging frequency increases, they increase the visibility of the ad and thus the click charges? If so can’t I mitigate that somehow? I don’t want to have to pause the ad but feeling a little worried, especially as the frequency has already changed. I can’t yet afford a specialist to help with this so any advice is appreciated.