MKTG #13 – BOOKBUB ADS

/ Jan Sikes

Hello, SE’ers!

Jan here with a look at another marketing avenue. I know lots of authors who have had success with BookBub Deals. There are stringent requirements attached to BookBubDeals and they can cost anywhere from $300 upwards to $800. But BookBub ads are something completely separate.

Today, I’m going to share with you my BookBub ads experiment.

Courtesy Pixabay and Canva

Why would you consider a BookBub ad?

Or maybe I should back up a step. Why would you want to have a profile on BookBub?

First of all, it’s free. Secondly, besides Goodreads, it is the largest and most visible place where readers go for the sole purpose of discovering new authors and books. It is also another place readers can post reviews and recommend books.

If you do not have a BookBub profile, I highly encourage you to create one. Then let us know, so we can follow you. If you are already on BookBub, I’d love it if you’d take a minute to follow me and the other authors here at Story Empire. C.S. Boyack Mae Clair Staci Troilo John Howell Harmony Kent Gwen Plano D.L. Finn D. Wallace Peach Beem Weeks Joan Hall

Setting up a profile and adding your books is FREE and painless. Once you have a profile, invite people to follow you on BookBub and start sharing your book reviews there as well as the other platforms where you normally post. When you post a review on BookBub, it automatically shares it to Twitter, so you can see it has the potential to be a vast network.

Now that you have a profile set up, on to the subject of running a BookBub ad.

To begin the process of creating a BookBub ad, you go to a different website – BookBub Partners

Over in the right-hand corner, you’ll see a green button that says, “Create An Ad.”

Once you click on that, the first option will be to select a reader format. The choices are eBook or Audio. Next, you upload your book, then choose whether you want to upload your own creative ad or use their templates. I highly suggest you use their templates the first time around. Once you choose, you will be prompted to enter a retailer link. If you have a Universal Link, that would be excellent. If not, then I’d suggest using the Amazon link.

On to targeting.

This is where I saw the biggest difference between BookBub and other social media ads.

Notice your choices for targeting. You can only add authors and categories. This will require you to do your homework. What authors write books in your genre? Once you get that list, then what authors have the biggest following? For example, I ran an ad for Jagged Feathers. It is romantic suspense, so I searched for the most popular authors writing in that genre. There is a LOT!

But, as I typed authors’ names into the search box within the ad setup, it showed me the number of followers each had on BookBub. That made it easy to choose. I don’t know if there is a limit to the number of authors you can add to your targeting, but I selected 27.

Choosing categories was very simple. For example, I chose Contemporary, Suspense, and Paranormal under the Romance category.

Here is what the ad looked like.

Screenshot – Jan Sikes

The next prompt is to schedule the dates you want the ad to run and set a budget.

You will notice that I set my budget at $50. For me, that is a lot of money to put out, but I really wanted to give this a good shot. I would suggest starting with a $20 budget for your first ad. After a couple of days, take a look and if you aren’t getting any results yet, then tweak your ad. After two days, I made some changes. After a week, I made more changes. In the BookBub tutorials, they recommend tweaking the ad until you do see some results.

Also, related to the budget is the choice of either CPC or CPM.

CPC is ‘cost per click’ and CPM is ‘cost per 1,000 impressions.’ I recommend choosing Cost Per Click. You only want to have to pay if someone clicks on the ad.

The last part of the setup is naming your campaign. Then you are ready to go live with it.

Once the ad is running, you have several options for monitoring the stats.

Daily Stats gives you the total of impressions and or clicks per day. Aggregate Stats gives you an overall picture of where you are getting the most returns. For instance, for the above ad, I got the most impressions through the author, Kristin Hannah. So, you can see that you have the option of constantly changing the categories based on results.

The third monitoring option is Ad Details which shows you everything about your ad (see screenshot above).

I got a lot of impressions on the above ad, but no clicks. So, was it successful?

As far as immediate ROI (return on investment), the answer would be no. As far as exposure, the answer would be yes. With well over 10,000 impressions, I know a lot of folks saw Jagged Feathers. Who knows, if they see it again, they might be prompted to buy it.

I’m not 100% convinced that BookBub ads work, but I do think it’s a platform I want to explore further.

Now, it’s your turn. Have any of you ever tried BookBub Ads? If so, what were your results?

If you missed any of the other segments of this book marketing series, you can catch up below.

#MKTG Part 1 – OVERVIEW – BOOK MARKETING OPTIONS

#MKTG Part 2 – FACEBOOK ADS AND PASSION PAGES

#MKTG Part 3 – FACEBOOK ADS DETAILS

#MKTG Part 4 – TWITTER ADS

#MKTG Part 5 – INSTAGRAM

#MKTG Part 6 – PINTEREST

#MKTG Part 7 – IN-PERSON EVENTS

#MKTG Part 8 – GOODREADS

#MKTG Part 9 – AMAZON

#MKTG Part 10 – More AMAZON ADS

#MKTG Part 11 – AMAZON A+ CONTENT

#MKTG Part 12 – LinkedIn

72 thoughts on “MKTG #13 – BOOKBUB ADS”

  1. Pingback: #MKTG 18 – Building an Email List | Story Empire

  2. Pingback: #MKTG 17 – TikTok | Story Empire

  3. Pingback: #MKTG 16 – Rafflecopter | Story Empire

  4. Pingback: MKTG #15 – Paid Book Blog Tours | Story Empire

  5. Pingback: MKTG #14 – Book Blog Tours | Story Empire

  6. Pingback: Know your audience | Story Empire

  7. Pingback: Writer’s Tips, April Edition – Book Blurbs, Trailers, BookBub, Canva, Formatting, More! – DGKayewriter.com

  9. Thank you a million times over for this very helpful and detailed post on how to do this, Jan. I have been absolutely rotten at marketing, except for building a local readership, which has been easy for me. I’ve sworn that I would really work on learning how to do a better marketing job this year, and yet haven’t truly gotten started yet. BookBub ads sound like an excellent way to go, and I since I need all the help I can get, I’ll definitely be referring to this post to take advantage of your excellent, step-by-step instructions. I’ve been saving all your marketing posts for tips, and this one is going to be one I refer to, for sure! Great post!! 😊 😊😊

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. Pingback: #ReblogAlert- #TwoFer #ThisWeekOnStoryEmpire & #SmorgasbordWeeklyRoundUp | The Write Stuff

  11. Thanks for adding my name to your list, Jan! I’ve tried Bookbub ads a couple of times with little success, but I’m sure it’s more me than anything on their end. I’ve heard some sell thousands of copies that way- now to figure out their secret!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  13. I’ve never tried the ads. I’ve tried Facebook Ads and Amazon Ads with no luck, so sort of gave up on ads altogether. I’m not good at them. But you’re so brave, I might give Bookbub Ads a shot. Thanks for sharing all of these with us.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  16. I haven’t tried Bookbub ads, Jan, so thanks for giving it a go and sharing your experience. I’ve heard that running an ad is a good thing to do if an author lands a promotion, and if that happens again for me, I might give it a try. I’m leery about ads of this sort on Amazon and Bookbub, but this does look a lot easier than the Amazon rigamarole. Thanks for sharing!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  18. I’m fascinated with this whole process. Until I have more books, I don’t think I’d use Bookbub. I’ve heard some say it’s been very successful for them, though I can understand the reluctance to take that giant leap of faith.

    I receive BookBub ads often, and I’ve purchased quite a few books that way, especially in the genre (middle grades) I’m writing for.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  19. Very interesting, Jan. I’ve appreciated your series, especially because you are transparent about the results. I knew nothing of BookBub’s advertising methods, but I’ve seen some of the books pass by. Thank you for this educational post. Very helpful. 😊

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  20. I’ve never tried ads through Bookbub. It is interesting how they are done by researching authors in our own genre. I might have to give this one a try at some point. Thanks for all the great information, Jan 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Thanks, Jacqui. I’m glad you enjoyed the post. As with anything, we have to devote the time and effort to figure it out. I do intend to try more BookBub ads in the future. Thank you for stopping by!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  22. This isn’t something I’d have felt brave enough to try but seeing it all explained so clearly here has given me the confidence to give it a go. Huge thanks, Jan!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  23. Thanks for sharing your experience with BookBub ads, Jan. I have been considering this for a while. One of the Fresh Ink Group authors had big success with his first ad, but nothing with the second. I’m still on the fence, but your post will help me with my decision when that time comes.

    Like

    Reply

  26. Thanks for this great tutorial on BookBub Ads, Jan. I’ve not tried them, but I will definitely give them a go in the future. This is a wonderful post with valuable information that I will be bookmarking. I love BookBub and use it a lot. Ads are the next step for me.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Wonderful to hear, Mae! I’m so glad you found the post helpful. I definitely think BookBub ads are worth a go and especially if you are releasing a new book or putting one from your backlist on sale. I wish you tons of success!

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

    • Exactly, Joan. Those are good points in BookBub’s favor. I get book recommendations all the time and often it prompts me to pick up the book. If you decide to try a BookBub ad, I wish you much success!

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  31. This was a great post, Jan. Because of Bookbub, I’ve stopped running ads on Facebook and Instagram. Bookbub has proven to be a better investment of my money and time. It has given me more exposure than any other social media. Best of all, it’s given me the freedom to walk away from Facebook. Yay! I apologize to those who love FB, but I didn’t have the time or energy to be there. For me, it robbed me of my time to focus on what’s important my family and my writing. Thanks for sharing, Jan!

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Thank you so much, Jill, for adding your thumbs-up for BookBub! I agree 100% that BookBub is a better investment than FB or IG ads. It’s where people go to find books. No apology is necessary for leaving FB. We all have to manage our time and social media presence in the best way possible. I appreciate you stopping by and leaving a comment today!

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  33. I’m about the same as Staci with BookBub ads. I need to do more work, but I hate advertising, lols! 😂 Thanks for sharing the BookBub author links. I only wish they’d allow me to do more from the UK. I cannot even see reviews people leave there let alone write one. Ugh.

    Great post, Jan. Thanks for sharing 💕🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

      • I knew that someone had posted a review on BookBub a few days ago but I couldn’t access it or my books. Someone from BookBub sent me a link – I could see my books but nothing else, and got back to them. Then someone else from there contacted me and told me I need to change my address to the US. I have and suddenly there’s a world I didn’t know existed including comments and reviews from people I’ve never thanked for them. Some of these lovely reviews are from SE’ers and I’m incredibly grateful for them! I’ll be following all the links above!

        Like

  34. I tried a BookBub ad once. The process to set it up was VERY user friendly. I didn’t do enough tweaking to get good results, but it was only my first attempt. I’ll definitely try it again, but probably with a different book. Great post, Jan.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

We'd love to know what you think. Comment below.

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s