As we approach the end of 2023, it’s time for our annual roundup of the best Bookbub Ads campaigns of the year! There are many ways to run successful campaigns on BookBub, and many ways to define what success looks like, so these campaigns represent a wide mix of advertising strategies, book prices, genres, and formats. We hope you find inspiration here to kick off your book promotion in 2024!
Daniel Gibbs, Courage, Commitment, Faith
This advertiser kicked off the new year with the release of a new multi-author anthology and over 20 BookBub Ads campaigns to promote it! These campaigns tested different targeting strategies, including using individual sci-fi authors as targets, and several images, calling out different sci-fi niches in the ad copy to capture specific readers’ attention. All of these campaigns were run with CPM (cost per thousand impressions) bids, which helped ensure that each ad consistently served impressions. While all test campaigns saw strong engagement — we think thanks to the careful targeting and the clear appeal to sci-fi readers’ preferences — the most successful campaign reached a nearly 9% click-through rate (CTR) and cost just $0.22 per click!
Olivia Noble, Snowed in with Grumpy
This advertiser proved that just because the holidays are over, it doesn’t mean romance readers don’t still want to be snowed in! They ran variations of this wintry ad through January with an average CTR of 3.39%, using moderate CPM bids to ensure their ads served regularly and fulfilled the $5 daily budget. Each campaign targeted an individual retailer to hone in on how the ads were serving to readers who buy books from a particular store. The most successful campaign, which targeted Kobo readers across regions, drove 970 clicks for an amazing 11.1% CTR!
Knopf, The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons
To drum up excitement for the launch of the latest installment in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series, Knopf ran this CPC (cost per click) ad in the week ahead of release targeting the authors of the original series. The image draws in audiences who know and love Stieg Larsson’s psychological thrillers by highlighting the familiar cover branding and the well-known name of the main character. In the week before The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons was released, this ad reached more than 50,000 readers and drove over 2,200 clicks with a CTR of over 4.2%. Knopf re-ran the same ad in the month following release, racking up an additional 260,000 impressions and nearly 6,300 clicks.
Michelle Vernal, O’Mara’s
This continuous campaign, which ran for two months starting in mid-August, uses a simple but effective image (built using the creative builder in the BookBub Ads ad creation form) to appeal to its audience: It showcases a cover aligned with genre standards for women’s fiction, calls out a comparable author whose fans would also enjoy the advertised book, and makes it clear this book is the first in a series. Even with a moderate CPC bid, this ad was able to serve close to half a million impressions to Amazon readers in the US and Canada and drive over 5,000 clicks!
A.L. Hawke, Broomstick
This spooky ad for a paranormal fantasy, which has been running continuously since January, entices readers with its atmospheric imagery and intriguing blurb. The advertiser used this and similar images to test several combinations of author targets who write in the supernatural fantasy genre, and targeted readers in all regions across all retailers. This ad has driven over 11,500 clicks to date — just over half of the 20,000 total ad clicks for this book in 2023 — at an average CTR of 3%!
Violet King, Love, Lovecraft and Mr. Darcy
To promote the release of this gothic Pride and Prejudice retelling, this advertiser set up 10 campaigns using mid-range CPM bids and low daily budgets to drive a steady stream of clicks to the new book in the weeks following its launch. Each campaign used the same image, bid, and budget and tested different targeting strategies to reach narrow audiences: either individual authors with smaller audience sizes, two authors if those audiences were very small, or combined author and category targeting for authors with a wider reach. They turned off any campaigns that weren’t delivering quick results, and kept successful campaigns running from the end of May through the end of September. This ad drove nearly 2,000 clicks across all campaigns with an average CTR of 3.2% and cost-per-click of $0.23.
Dreamscape Media, The Secret, Book & Scone Society
Dreamscape created a campaign to supplement a Chirp deal they ran for a three-book cozy mystery audio box set. To increase sell-through, they also discounted book four in the series and used the Chirp bundle page for all four books as the click-through link for this ad. The image makes clear the steal readers were getting by showcasing the four book covers and the steeply discounted price. Over the four days the campaign was live, this ad drove over 300 clicks, translating into more than 250 sales on Chirp. Dreamscape used CPC bidding, and despite bidding above the suggested range, paid only $0.32 per click.
Maggie Cole, The Vow
This campaign for The Vow, the second book in a duet released in Kindle Unlimited in February, prominently includes its bestselling status, the author’s name, and imagery that indicates its genre. Leading up to The Vow‘s release, the advertiser spent two weeks running over 100 campaigns promoting book one to start capturing the attention of relevant audiences. Each ad targeted a single romance author at a time, and collectively they drove more than 5,500 retailer clicks to the first book. Upon release, the campaigns shifted to promoting both the duet and The Vow on its own. The pre-launch efforts paid off by cultivating an audience that had read book one and was hungry for book two: The ad for book two, targeted to the author’s own fans with a competitive CPM bid, drove the highest CTR of any others in this weekslong push at over 9.5%.
Grove Atlantic, Flags on the Bayou
Grove Atlantic ran two campaigns to promote the release of Flags on the Bayou in mid-July. Both campaigns use the same beautiful image highlighting an excellent Booklist review, the author’s New York Times bestselling status, and the book’s cover. Each version also used the same budget and a mid-range CPC bid. Where they differed was the targeting: One campaign targeted comparable authors and relevant categories, and over the course of three weeks drove 414 clicks to the full-priced new release. The other targeted the author himself, and in the same period (for the same budget) drove over 1,000 clicks. This illustrates the power of targeting your existing fans!
Kerk Murray, Pawprints On Our Hearts
Any dog lovers in the audience? This ad certainly caught their attention (the bright FREE label didn’t hurt, either)! This advertiser tested the same image with a couple of different price points — including “Free in KU” and $0.99 — but “free today” won out. Our own analysis has found that ads with the word “free” in the copy generally drive higher CTRs than those showing a higher price or no price at all. This ad targeted the author’s own fans and those of a similar author, whose book covers also prominently feature furry four-legged friends. Based on the nearly 700 clicks at a CTR of over 8%, it seems that their audiences were compatible!
Shane Sawyer, Too Far to Fall
This ad creates a very cozy crossover by calling out two greats of the detective mystery genre and pairing author targeting with Cozy Mystery category targeting! The advertiser used author targets with small audiences to create very narrowly targeted campaigns — we’ve seen that targeting authors with fewer readers on BookBub can often be more effective at driving ad clicks than using the biggest names in the genre. Their most engaging ad, which targeted Kobo readers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, drove an incredible 19% CTR at just $0.05 per click! Targeting readers who prefer non-Amazon retailers can often deliver cheaper clicks due to less competition from other advertisers.
Michael Banner, Ashfall Apocalypse
Chirp listeners love a deal, so the prominent deal price on display in this ad likely played a role in its success. This advertiser set up a short-term discount for their audiobook on Chirp via Findaway and ran a seven-day BookBub Ads campaign targeting Chirp users. To reach the most engaged audience, the ad targeted a comparable author who had recently run a Chirp deal — so readers who had just engaged with a similar book on Chirp were eligible to see this ad. In one week, this ad drove a 3.9% CTR at just $0.08 per click, and the subsequent sales resulted in a 120% ROI!
Blackstone Publishing, Binary
More than 650 Michael Crichton fans wanted to dig into this book enough to click on the ad, which targeted his BookBub audience. Blackstone appealed to readers who know and love Crichton, but hinted at content that is likely new to them — the book is a reissue of a 1972 title published under Crichton’s pseudonym. This ad drove a CTR of over 2%, and even though the CPC bid was well above the suggested range, each click ended up costing just $0.38.
Ariele Sieling, Tentacles and Teeth
If the hook and the tropes in the copy don’t tempt you, the “Free!” price promotion will! This ad, which has been running continuously since April of this year on a low daily budget, does a great job of clearly conveying its selling points to the target audience with the snappy copy and use of the book cover in the image. One variation of the ad used a Payhip link as the click-through URL to drive readers to download the book directly from the author’s store. By targeting existing fans, this advertiser ensured that the readers most likely to buy direct would see this ad — and over the past several months, this version garnered nearly 600 clicks!
Joffe Books, My Husband’s Wife
Joffe Books’ campaign to promote the half-priced launch of My Husband’s Wife is an excellent example of image testing. Over two days, this advertiser ran several short, high-bid CPM campaigns to gain enough impressions to gather data about what image resonated best with different author targets. They began by testing different blurbs, then tested different background images, eventually landing on the creepy, blood-spattered ring box from the book’s cover and a bright banner announcing the discount for launch. The winning campaign ran for two weeks and more than quadrupled the CTR of the first test from .5% to over 2.2%, with an average cost of $0.63 per click.
Freddie Villacci Jr, Black Ghost
We’ve often seen that using comparable authors’ names in ad copy can be a great way to grab the attention of prospective book buyers. This advertiser employed this strategy to promote the first-in-series book Black Ghost in dozens of ads throughout the year, using copy to appeal specifically to fans of a particular author and targeting that author’s fans. This year, these ads have won nearly 2.8 million impressions, and almost 350k of those can be attributed to this version targeting Lee Child fans. And since this advertiser used CPC bidding, they only paid for the readers who clicked on their ads.
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Click to tweet: The top BookBub Ads of the year are here! 🏆 It’s so helpful to see what BookBub readers are responding to #pubtip https://bit.ly/3NbYlWE
Click to tweet: .@BookBubPartners just dropped their Best BookBub Ads of 2023 list — authors and publishers, this is a great roundup of different ad creatives and strategies to use for inspiration! #bookmarketing https://bit.ly/3NbYlWE
