Most authors make this book marketing mistake at some point.
And it's a profit-killer.
Getting cheap clicks on book advertisements is actually very easy.
Humans are curious creatures, and it's not hard to find book ad elements that entice a boatload of inexpensive clicks from Facebook and Instagram users.
But this is almost always a mistake.
Because curiosity is not the same as purchase intent.
You don't want people to click on your ad when they're merely curious.
For example, you can paste a cat video in an advertisement and achieve unbelievably inexpensive click costs.
But cat videos don't sell books.
Neither do memes or other fun and funny things that keep us coming back to our newsfeeds.
(Sorry. It would be so much more awesome if they did!)
If you want to sell books, your book ads have to contain the right elements.
So let's talk about what these ad elements are, which will also give you more insight into the book advertisement creation process I teach inside of Click Testing for Authors.
"Stealth ads" were a thing for a hot minute.
They are ads that aren't meant to look like ads. They're contrived to look more like organic social media posts or informational pages.
They worked for a while in many markets, and they still work for some markets. But we haven't seen them working recently, probably because people are tired of bait-and-switch 💩💩💩.
Collectively, authors in our community profitably spend millions of dollars a year on book ads, and our data is crystal clear:
Your book ads need to make it obvious that you're selling books.
This approach permeates every element comprising a successful book ad: image(s), headline, tagline, reviews, descriptions, and primary text −
Each of these elements must individually and clearly communicate your commercial intent.
Because clear almost always beats clever when it comes to advertising.
Historical fiction author (and click testing veteran) Naomi Rawlings has this down to a science, which helped propel her to over $1.3M in book sales. (More here).
Our brains have a massive amount of processing power devoted to understanding visual information.
This is probably why our testing has repeatedly shown that the image is the most important part of our book advertisements.
Over the years, we have developed a number of somewhat nuanced "best practices" for our ad images, which I cover in detail in Lesson 9 of Click Testing for Authors.
But each successful book ad image contains three elements.
1. Background image
If you write novels, your background image should represent something germane your story's world, your protagonist, your antagonist, MacGuffin, or your ideal reader.
If you write nonfiction titles that solve problems, your background image should depict the transformation your book helps facilitate, or the environment to which your book applies (eg, fitness, business, relationships, etc), or your ideal customer.
2. Image overlay
While images are critical, we've found it's essential to provide immediate context by using a text overlay atop the background image, as in this example:
There's no mistaking that this image is about fast-paced thriller novels (as opposed to fast-paced thrillers on Netflix, for example), because of the words I've chosen in the overlay.
3. Product photo
Including an image of your book(s) in your book advertisement will actually REDUCE the number of people who click on your ad.
But it will dramatically increase the percentage of people who click your ad and BUY your books.
It helps ensure that the people who click on your ad aren't merely curious.
They're clicking because they intend to buy your book.
(Intent vs curiosity :)
Our trust in governments, churches, politicians, gurus, preachers, corporations, universities, etc, is at a low point.
Those folks have always lied to us, but we're just now becoming fully aware of the dishonesty.
This is why customer reviews are more critical than ever to your book sales.
But we have a special set of criteria we apply when we select the reviews we include in our advertisements.
I call them "standalone testimonials," and I cover the criteria in detail in Lesson 8 of Click Testing for Authors.
But the upshot is this: the testimonials we test for our ads must paint a complete picture of what's for sale, who might benefit, and what made the reading experience unique, special, or transformational.
As I mention in the Click Testing webinar, and also in my Click Testing overview article, 95% of our marketing ideas fall flat with our market.
(After 21 years in digital commerce, my guesses are usually 2x better than average... but that still makes me wrong 9 times out of 10. :)
And there are probably a hundred true and accurate ways to describe any book or series.
But most of them aren't very compelling to your readers.
The question our testing process answers is this one:
Which true and accurate description(s) resonate best with our readers?
These are obviously the ones we want to use in our ads :).
I've mentioned this already, but there's one more point to make here.
If your advertisement points to an ebook version of your page, the book image in your advertisement should show your book(s) in ebook format.
If you're pointing your ad to a paperback page, you should show a picture of the paperback version.
Same for audiobooks.
Our customers' attention is fragmented by all of the dopamine-inducing posts in their feed, and they're not reading things carefully.
So we need to make things ridiculously clear.
(Again, clear beats clever almost every time :).
Most of us think we know what our readers want, and which marketing messages they're likely to respond to.
But our data show that we're wrong 95% of the time.
The only way to know what resonates best with your readers is to test your ideas.
And you have to test them in a methodical and deliberate manner, so the results provide unambiguous results.
I've described our testing process in detail here, and outlined each of our six click tests here, so feel free to have a look if things are feeling at all fuzzy.
One of the all-time champions of book ad testing is Naomi Rawlings, who powered her way to a $694,000 year (and over $1.3M in book sales and counting). You can hear her story here.
Otherwise, if you don't follow a coherent and exhaustive testing process, it's likely you'll waste weeks of time and thousands of dollars.
And there are two main ways to understand the relevant nuances of how to test properly:
1. Spend a decade learning conversion rate optimization by trial and error, or
2. Let me teach you inside of Click Testing for Authors.
There are three ways you can learn more about how to successfully implement these six critical book advertising principles.
The most thorough way is to watch the brief webinar I put together for you.
I invested over a hundred hours to ensure that this video is fast-paced, entertaining, informative, and full of examples of how authors in many different genres have completely changed their lives and careers using our process.
If webinars aren't your thing (no judgment :), you can also check out the Click Testing for Authors enrollment information page.
You'll see details about the program contents and delivery, customer results, and payment plan options.
We've also put together a page full of unedited, unabridged video interviews and reviews from our authors.
We asked them to help you decide if our program and process are legitimate, professional, useful, and effective.
I've never watched these videos, because they were meant for you. So I don't actually know what advice these authors might have for you, but I am confident that they have your best interest at heart.
