BookBub Ads lets you reach a huge audience of power readers who love a deal, so it’s a great tool for boosting the results of a limited-time discount. In May 2024, traditionally published author Miquel Reina ran ads to promote a monthlong $1.99 discount of his debut novel, Lights on the Sea — and then when his book was discounted again in August, he applied what he learned from his earlier campaigns to improve his results.
Below, we break down how Miquel refined his ad image and targeting to drive thousands of clicks to his book — and the second time, at both a higher click-through rate (CTR) and lower cost per click than before!
Background
Each time his publisher plans a discount on Lights on the Sea, Miquel supports the promotion with his own marketing on Instagram and BookBub Ads, with the goals of increasing his visibility as an author, getting more eyes on his book, and boosting sales.
To optimize for these goals, Miquel starts by running lots of test ads at the beginning of the discount period to quickly drive engagement that can carry through the rest of the sale. Having run BookBub Ads for Lights on the Sea in the past, he always uses previously successful ad images as a starting point. Yet he treats each promotion as a fresh start, continually refining his campaigns throughout the discount period, knowing that the ad marketplace is always changing.
With each campaign, I continue learning more about my audience and the platform. I strive to create fresh, engaging visuals for each new campaign to avoid becoming repetitive.”
Last year’s two $1.99 price promotions ran for the entire month of May and for most of August, during which time Miquel ran several small but mighty experiments to maximize clicks on his ads. Let’s take a look at his process for each promotion.
Testing process
Phase 1: Finding an engaged audience
For the discount in May, Miquel first tested a format he’d proved out in the past, featuring a quote from a well-known author (who also happens to be a BookBub reader favorite!) and a prominent discount banner — a strategy known to increase clicks.
He ran three initial tests with this image consecutively in the first half of May to find an engaged audience — first casting his net wide with a combination of category targets and multiple author targets, choosing authors whose writing is stylistically similar to his own. From there, he narrowed down his targeting to the authors whose audiences were most likely to click on his ads, thereby increasing his CTR each time.
Miquel then set the campaign with the winning targeting to run for the rest of the promotional period. In the final few days of the promotion, he simultaneously ran additional campaigns testing a few more authors to continue expanding his reach to as many readers as possible, using different versions of the image tailored to the audiences of similar books.
Through this process, Miquel discovered author targets that would perform well right out of the gate when Lights on the Sea was discounted again several months later.
I learned to refine my author targeting. My writing style, which lies between realism and fantasy, can be challenging to categorize. Identifying other authors with similar styles was key to improving my targeting for the August campaigns.
Phase 2: Playing with imagery
In August, Miquel kept the copy from his most engaging campaigns in May, and this time, tested new background imagery.
He launched this promotion and targeted the most engaged audience from May. These readers responded well to this ad design, too, so Miquel kept the ad running continuously for the remaining three weeks of the discount with a larger budget to ensure the campaign kept serving impressions.
While this first ad racked up hundreds of clicks, Miquel also tested new variations, playing with different copy, design elements, and background images. He targeted copies of these ads to one author target each, in order to isolate his results.
I typically create multiple copies of the same campaign, altering just one element in each to determine which performs best. It’s fascinating how small changes can lead to significant differences in results — a warmer or cooler color palette, a modern or classic typeface, for example.
Because Miquel aims to start driving engagement as quickly as possible at the beginning of the discount period, he uses CPM bidding, a common strategy for getting test results fast — a high CPM bid guarantees you’ll win impressions quickly.
During these tests, I adopt an aggressive bidding strategy, spending a few dollars per test to run as many variations as possible. This helps me optimize the final campaign.
After just a couple of days of this aggressive testing, Miquel was able to isolate the creative that generated the most clicks (the left-hand image above). He then tested this ad image to a few more individual author targets and different categories, continually pruning any low-performing ads and keeping the rest ticking along.
Finally, in the last few weeks of August, Miquel experimented with new combinations of the author targets that had performed well that month and in May, as well as one final new image. This final push alone garnered an extra 1,000 clicks!
Results
More clicks mean more readers landing on a retailer product page to potentially convert into sales, which is why CTR is the primary metric Miquel uses to evaluate his campaigns’ success.
I always aim to optimize my ads to achieve a minimum CTR of 1.4% to 2%. When I hit those numbers, I notice a substantial increase in sales. If I fail to reach that CTR, I analyze the potential issues and test new targets or creative elements to improve the performance. Then, I compare the sales revenue with the budget allocated to that campaign to ensure it was profitable. I’d be lying if I said every campaign has been profitable, but in most cases, using BookBub Ads has yielded significant returns, often surpassing expectations.
The first set of campaigns in May collectively drove over 2,350 clicks at a CTR of just over 1%. And thanks to his earlier experimentation and honing in on effective author targets, Miquel’s second round of campaigns in August drove over 4,000 clicks at both a slightly higher CTR and lower cost per click than before! His highest-clicked ad reached nearly 100,000 readers and cost just $0.56 per click.
Overall, I’m pleased with the results. Book sales during the promotions significantly increased, and my exposure as an author improved as well.
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Impressive results from this author! This case study is well worth a read for tips on refining your BookBub Ads images: https://bit.ly/4jKmemG #BookBubAds #writingcommunity
So interesting to see how this author’s process drove better and better results over time 👏 A testament to the power of testing your ads! https://bit.ly/4jKmemG #bookmarketing #writingcommunity
