BookBub Ads is a powerful tool for promoting books with a flexible budget to targeted audiences of BookBub readers. While many authors choose to design custom ad images, the BookBub Ads set-up form includes an ad creative builder, which offers a quick and easy way to design simple ad images that feature the advertised book’s cover and a short blurb. One of the biggest mistakes advertisers make with their ad designs is cramming in too many design elements, so using a simple template can ensure the important parts stand out.
Today, we’re sharing examples of engaging images made using the BookBub Ads creative builder — these advertisers took varied approaches to designing their ad creatives, but all earned higher-than-average click-through rates of up to 10%!
As a reminder, your creative image is a key part of your ad campaign, but it’s not the only important element: your target audience, bid strategy, and budget all factor into how your ad performs. We hope these examples provide you with inspiration for the copy, calls-to-action, and layouts of your BookBub Ad designs!
The Cowboy and His Runaway, Kaci M. Rose
The BookBub Ads creative builder offers five templates with different layouts and background options. This ad uses a new template designed to highlight the book’s price — especially when it’s $0.99 or below. In addition to promoting the free price point, this advertiser communicates that the series is complete (a draw for readers who don’t want to have to wait for the next book!).
The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights, William L. Tabac
This intriguing quote is a great hook for this true crime book. The advertiser also names a genre-specific award the book won, tailoring the ad specifically to fans of true crime who were most likely to be in the target audience. The ad packs a lot of great copy into a small space, but it’s easy to read against the plain white background.
Tip: BookBub Ads templates include a call-to-action (CTA) button as a visual cue for readers to click, but the entire ad is clickable! If you’re designing your own creative, you don’t need to worry about including a clickable button in the image file.
Dragonsphere, Richard Fierce
This campaign for the audiobook of epic fantasy adventure Dragonsphere leverages the punchy first sentence of the book’s description for the ad’s headline. Using the tagline in the main copy to hint at the story’s stakes is a great way to further intrigue readers. And if they weren’t already convinced to click through, the bright red button seals the deal, highlighting the discounted price against the dark background.
The Crimson Deathbringer Series Box Set (Books 1-3), Sean Robins
This advertiser tested posing an intriguing question against using shorter, larger text, which we’ve found can be more effective — too much text can come across as busy and cumbersome, while keeping the text concise can pique readers’ interest. Between the “Bestseller” headline, bright red button accentuating the low price, and 3D box set cover, this ad cleverly conveys the value readers will get from this epic space opera!
VanOps: The Lost Power, Avanti Centrae
This ad for the audiobook of The Lost Power uses the blurb space to compare the book to two popular franchises. This template also includes a space for headline copy, which the advertiser used to emphasize the book’s award-winning status in bold text. They also call attention to the book’s discounted price by featuring it in the large, contrasting CTA button.
Tip: Although we’ve found that readers click at higher rates on ads for books at $0.99 and free, conversion rates for ads promoting audiobooks at $2.99+ are 4x higher than those with no price information.
Drinks and Sinkholes, S. Usher Evans
This ad makes effective use of negative space by featuring just two elements: the advertised book’s cover and a snappy blurb. The text succinctly communicates the genre of the book while also promoting that it’s the first in a series — both great pieces of information to convince new or existing fans of this author to click, even without an explicit call to action.
Ally, C.A. Gleason
Great narration can add an excellent dimension to an audiobook. By choosing a reader review that praises this book’s narrator for the ad copy, the advertiser both communicates the book’s format and highlights an element that listeners may care a lot about. The $0.99 discount is the cherry on top!
Kiss and Cry, Keira Andrews
Defining a book’s key tropes can be a great way to solidify your marketing message and create great fodder for your marketing materials, like this advertiser did to highlight a popular romance trope in their ad copy. By including “KU” in the CTA button, they also communicate to any readers who use Kindle Unlimited that they can get the book for free as part of their subscription.
Not Dark Yet, T. Blake Braddy
In this ad, the advertiser draws readers’ attention to the special sale pricing and calls out that the advertised book is available for preorder. Promoting a sale on a preorder can be an excellent way to drive pre-release sales, especially from existing readers. This ad also drops the name of a comparable author to capture new readers who are interested in similar books (and might be interested in this one, too!).
San Diego Dead, Mark Nolan
This ad emphasizes its enticing price point: free! BookBub readers love a deal, so putting a discount front and center can help entice readers to click. The advertiser ensured the discount stood out by making the blurb super short and bold. Including the word “Today” also introduces a sense of urgency by suggesting the great offer might not last long.
The Mastery of Self, don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
In addition to the discounted price point, this advertiser called out the thousands of five-star reviews the book has (a tactic that BookBub editors use to write Featured Deal blurbs!) to lend credibility to the book and pique readers’ interest. Including copy about the 14 other books on sale also incentivizes curious readers to click through and find out more.
Don’t Go Knotting My Heart, Ava Ross
This ad appeals directly to the author’s ideal readers by naming the book’s niche subgenre. Clearly communicating what kind of book you’re advertising is an important part of convincing the right readers to click. And the “read now” CTA pairs well with the blurb: Since the book is free in Kindle Unlimited, this call-to-action underscores that KU subscribers can dive right into the book.
Tips for using the BookBub Ads creative builder
The BookBub Ads in-form creative builder is a great option if you’re new to ads, unsure about how to design your own image, or want to quickly test variations on ad copy with a target audience. Remember to avoid including too much information — pick just a few elements to focus on in each ad, and if you’re testing, focus on one element at a time. Here are some examples of information you should consider including in your ads:
- An enticing price point (our analysis has shown that BookBub ads for free and $0.99 books drive more clicks than ads for books at higher price points)
- Words like “now,” “today,” or “limited time,” to create a sense of urgency if you’re running a short-term sale
- Noting that the book is a new release or available for preorder to drive early buzz
- Comparisons to similar authors, books, movies, or other popular media
- Communicating the value of your offer (for example, by the number of books included or audio length)
- Mentioning if the book is a first-in-series or part of a complete series to hook new readers
- Enticing tropes or themes readers look for in the promoted book’s genre
- Quotes from reader reviews or blurbs from fellow authors or review publications
- The author’s accolades, including awards the book has won or its bestseller status
- An indication of the book’s format (for example, for an audiobook, you can use phrases like “Listen now” or credit the narrator)
- Specifying which retailer or subscription service the book is available on when targeting your ads by retailer preference — BookBub Ads is one of the only advertising platforms that lets you target readers by the retailer where they prefer to buy books!
Ready to put these ideas to use? Create a BookBub Ads campaign today! Use our video tutorial to walk step-by-step through how to complete the campaign set-up form, and refer to BookBub advertisers’ most commonly asked questions if you need help.
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Click to tweet: .@BookBubPartners dropped another list of top ads for design inspiration! These ads used the BookBub Ads creative builder, a handy way to quickly set up ads without having to design custom images. https://bit.ly/495gmOI #amwriting
Click to tweet: If you’re using BookBub Ads to promote your books, have you tried designing your ads with the creative builder? The ads in this list earned CTRs of up to 10% and provide great design inspiration: https://bit.ly/495gmOI #bookmarketing
