BookBub Ads is our most flexible marketing tool, offering authors and book marketers the opportunity to tailor their campaigns to reach custom audiences of readers for any title at any time.
While you can promote any book with BookBub Ads, it’s important to set realistic goals and expectations about the results you’re likely to achieve. Here are the best types of books to advertise (in any book format!) and how to set goals and tailor your ad strategy for each one.
1. A free or discounted book
Generating exposure for a discounted book can boost sales, reviews, or sell-through to other titles. Note that it can be trickier to run profitable ad campaigns on a lower-priced book (unless the discounted book is part of a series — we’ll cover that in the next section!), so make sure you know how much you can afford to spend.
Campaign set-up:
- Ad creative: Make sure your image appeals to readers in the book’s genre and highlights the deal price to increase ad clicks.
- Targeting: Your audience should be large enough to get lots of visibility for your deal, but not so large that you’re reaching uninterested readers. Ads using author targeting have 61% higher click-through rates (CTRs) than ads targeting by category interest alone.
- Schedule & budget: If your deal is only available for a limited time, set a start and end date. But if your book is permafree or discounted long-term, try a continuous campaign. Decide how much you’re comfortable spending and set your budget accordingly.
- Bid: To maximize exposure, set a higher bid to increase the chance of your ad winning impressions. CPM bidding is best for guaranteeing impressions, but a high CPC bid can work well too.
- Track your results: Focus on winning lots of impressions (reaching lots of readers!) and driving a high CTR.
Examples and case studies:
- Boosting free books with BookBub Ads
- Boosting $0.99+ discounted books with BookBub Ads
- How to amplify a Featured Deal as a traditionally published author
2. A first-in-series or connected standalone
Hook new readers to a series in order to drive sell-through and profit off sales of related titles. Don’t forget to optimize the back matter of the promoted book to encourage readers to purchase additional books.
Campaign set-up:
- Ad creative: Use strong hooks in your image, like genre tropes or blurbs from other authors. Highlight a low price if you can — you’ll get more clicks and conversions if the book is discounted, which means more readers who might go on to buy your other books.
- Targeting: Take the time to identify highly similar authors in order to reach readers who are likely to click and purchase.
- Schedule & budget: Try a continuous campaign with a low daily budget — you’re playing the long game and aiming to bring a steady stream of new readers to the series.
- Bid: Calculate a profitable cost per click (CPC), including revenue you can expect from sell-through sales. Use CPC bidding to keep your spending at that level, but remember you may need to bid higher than your target CPC in order to win impressions — you’ll always pay less than what you bid!
- Track your results: Keep an eye on your CPC and your sales dashboards on retailers to make sure your campaigns are profitable — remember that it may take some time for the ads to pay off, since the revenue will come from sales of later books in the series. Try to boost CTR by testing images or author targets to drive even more sales.
Examples and case studies:
- How an author doubled first-in-series sales using BookBub Ads
- Getting started with BookBub Ads: Driving series sales
- Using BookBub Ads to generate steady book sales
- Driving series sell-through by discounting the first-in-series to free
3. A new release
The top priority for most new release marketing is to maximize exposure and sales of the new book. Without a deal price, it can be harder to get new readers to take a chance, so a great image and careful targeting are key to driving new release sales.
Campaign set-up:
- Ad creative: Use strong hooks in your image tailored to the readers you’re targeting — consider creating different images for your own fans vs. fans of other authors. Try comparing your release to similar books, movies, or TV shows your target audience might enjoy.
- Targeting: Target yourself to reach existing fans! To reach a larger audience, choose a small group of highly similar authors.
- Schedule & budget: For a new release, anything goes — decide what campaign schedule makes sense for your launch plans, and how much you’re comfortable investing in ads.
- Bid: If you’re confident in your target audience, bid high (either CPM or CPC) to maximize exposure and increase your chances of winning impressions. For a more cost-effective campaign, calculate a profitable cost-per-click based on the price of your new release.
- Track your results: Aim for a high CTR and keep an eye on your sales dashboard to make sure those clicks are converting to sales.
Examples and case studies:
- How authors use BookBub Ads to drive exposure, engagement, or ROI for new releases
- How an author drove 10K new release sales with BookBub Ads
- Getting started with BookBub Ads: Launching a new series
4. A preorder
Preorders can be a tougher sell because they don’t offer instant gratification, but the preorder period is a great opportunity to get critical ad insights that will set you up to run great campaigns once the new book is live.
Campaign set-up:
- Ad creative: The preorder period is a fantastic opportunity to test images — find image design tips and inspiration here. If you have a special or limited-time preorder price, highlight that offer in the ad creative.
- Targeting: Target yourself to boost awareness of the upcoming release among existing fans. Test other author targets to identify the most engaged audiences for this book.
- Schedule & budget: If you’re running test campaigns, make sure to run them simultaneously. Otherwise, use whichever campaign schedule makes sense with your preorder and launch plans.
- Bid: Bid higher for more exposure, and to collect data quickly for test campaigns. Make sure you bid the exact same amount for each test campaign.
- Track your results: Focus on CTR so you know which images and audiences to use to make a splash during launch week.
Examples and case studies:
- Promoting a new sequel with BookBub Ads
- See 2 examples of preorder campaigns among the best BookBub Ads of 2020
5. A box set
Promote a box set to generate profit or sell-through to other books. Box sets are an exciting offer for readers — in our Featured Deal emails, box set deals drive 20% higher average click rates and 29% higher average purchase rates than deals for single titles.
Campaign set-up:
- Ad creative: Make sure it’s clear you’re promoting a box set! Include a 3D box set image or multiple book covers. Include other hooks, like a deal price.
- Targeting: If you’re focused on profiting from box set sales, identify highly similar authors to target. If you’re more interested in sell-through to other books, try a wider audience to increase your reach and maximize sales.
- Schedule & budget: A continuous campaign can be a good choice to drive steady sales over time, unless you’re promoting a limited-time price.
- Bid: Calculate a profitable CPC based on the box set price or sell-through revenue to drive a profit. To maximize exposure, try a higher bid and consider CPM bidding.
- Track your results: Keep on eye on your campaign’s CPC, CTR, and sales dashboard.
Examples and case study:
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Click to tweet: Learn about the best types of books to advertise using @BookBub Ads and how to tailor your ad strategy for each one. #pubtip https://bit.ly/3Md2reO
Click to tweet: Authors, check out this helpful guide on how to promote different types of books using @BookBub Ads!
– A free or discounted book
– A first-in-series
– A new release
– A preorder
– A box set
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