🎈 What makes readers click on an ad?

Beauty is in the eye of the click-giver. View in browser Hey, It turns out a lot of people are struggling right now – I got so many replies to last week's email. And lots of tips to get me out of my own rut. So, thank you – on both counts. I think it helps everyone to know that others are struggling too. Just wanted to mention that before diving in today. Okay. Let's talk about advertising – the great bugbear of many authors. What's the most important part of an ad campaign? The image. And it's not even close.  Unfortunately, it's also the part that authors tend to screw up the most – and is probably the reason for such widespread unhappiness with the increased importance of advertising these days. Some might argue that targeting is more important, but if your image isn't attractive, you will never even know if your targeting is problematic.  A compelling ad image is the fundamental first step to advertising success – and one that authors frequently get wrong. But hopefully a pair of emails – this week and next – will get you going in the right direction. Before I give you some specific help on that front, I have something non-marketing related to share: Information needed on shady publishers: A group of writers' organizations are gathering information on questionable practices of certain companies who charge authors to publish their books. Call them vanity presses, self-publishing service companies, or hybrid publishers – the label doesn't really matter. To be clear, they are not talking about self-publishing platforms like KDP (or reputable distributors like Draft2Digital), but the kind of third-party companies who charge you a bunch of money for a package to get your book published, or the kind of publisher that asks you to contribute towards publishing costs. The survey runs until 25 April and it's anonymous. If you have had an experience like that, then consider filling out this survey. The importance of a compelling image If you are advertising on BookBub Ads, the image has to do all the work – there is no accompanying ad text. Facebook does have accompanying ad text, but it's the image that will stop people (doom)scrolling; it's the image that will reel them in to read your compelling sales copy… or not.  Even on the one platform which doesn't allow you to upload ad images – Amazon Ads – the system uses your book cover as the ad image, and that is what draws readers in… or not. The quality of your book cover is an important piece of the puzzle, especially if you follow my advice and build out your ad images for Facebook and BookBub from that book cover art – more on that in a moment – so it really is important to make sure that you have a top-quality book cover, one that is nailed on for your niche. To put it bluntly: if you can't afford a good book cover, you definitely can't afford advertising.  Save for the cover first – it's more important, and a necessary first step anyway. (And perhaps explore other marketing paths in the meantime; advertising isn't the only path to readers.) For those who do have their cover in good shape, and some money to spend on ads, let's take a closer look at what makes a compelling image. How To Attract Book Buyers I deliberately use the phrase "book buyers" here because there are lots and lots and lots of ways to get attention on social media, and many types of images that will attract attention and garner clicks, but not all of that is useful traffic which actually converts into book purchases. There is a long-running debate among authors about whether they should use their book covers in ads or not, mostly springing from a couple of people who sell books and courses on Facebook Ads. Unless you personally have solid data which says otherwise, I strongly suggest that you use your book cover in your ad. Let me explain the logic first, and then seal the deal with data. The logic: Facebook Ads in particular are notorious for attracting clickers who don't buy. This is a problem in some genres more than others, but when I'm helping authors diagnose bad ads – and the specific problem is an ad which is getting lots of clicks but few sales – often the issue is that the author is not using their book cover in their image. I don't think authors realize just how ambiguous ad text can be. For example, if you have an ad image depicting a fleet of spaceships engaged in battle, and the ad text reads, "Commandant Spacepecs is humanity's final hope, the last line of defense against The Great Scourge. Download now or else." Well, that ad could conceivably be for a movie or TV show or game or something else altogether.  Even if you are more explicit in the ad text that this is a book, many people will simply click based on the image alone – and those people won't be buyers. (To be more accurate: enough of them won't be buyers to tank your ad.) The data: While I found the argument above compelling enough on its own (especially after learning the hard way - i.e. by torching money), I do still like to test the bejaysus out of everything, even things I'm already quite sure about.  I have run all sorts of ads in all sorts of genres over the last several years, regularly split testing ads with covers, without, and all variations I could gin up. In the past I have tested a flat cover vs. a 3D cover, and then compared those results to a cover on an iPhone or Kindle or tablet, and then again contrasted that with a 3D paperback image or a hardback.  When looking at images without covers, I have tried a design which hews closely to the original cover art, or is explicitly derived from it, and then compared results with something completely different, but which still tries to square the genre.  I have tested all that stuff multiple times because I can get a bit… OCD sometimes. And the data is clear. Well, clear-ish.  If you just look at clicks, sometimes the picture without a book cover gets more, sometimes it doesn't. It would be a huge mistake not to dig deeper than that though because when you do, a different picture emerges. Once you factor in conversion – i.e. how many of these clickers actually buy the bloody book – there's only one winner. Ad images with a book cover are far more effective. There's no comparison. Yes, every so often you will get a rare ad which does the opposite, but off the top of my head, I'd say that in all the tests I have run across a wide range of genres, ad images with a book cover convert better at least 90% of the time. And usually significantly better. Feel free to test it yourself, but in the absence of compelling personal evidence otherwise, I strongly recommend that you use your book cover. Besides, it's already a workshopped, professionally created, reader approved, pictorial representation of your story which has been produced by a trained and qualified graphic designer.  It's already the best visual summary of your story and its respective place in the Genreverse. Why re-invent the wheel? Finally, in case you are reticent about using your cover because you heard Facebook doesn't allow text in ads, please note that is bad information on two counts – first because text on products always had an exemption and second because Facebook abolished this rule completely last year anyway. With that argument settled once and for all – I sincerely hope – let's take a look at what else a winning ad image contains. The Anatomy of a Great Ad Image I usually make three different ad images.  BookBub requires a 300x250 pixel shape - which is a kind of awkward, square-ish shape.  Facebook traditionally wanted something very different, a more letterbox-shaped 1200x628 pixel shape, which is still in use, but... These days Facebook also allows you to use the 1080x1080 shape that Instagram users will be familiar with - which is, quite handily, similar enough to that BookBub image that only very minor adjustments are required. (And I'll explain why I do both on Facebook next week!) While I need three distinct images, I tend to build all of them out from the same original image, because the anatomy of a great ad image is always the same at a fundamental level - for me, at least. I'm sure others have a different take, and a different process, but that's mine. For me though, regardless of exact format, a winning ad image should contain three things. Your book cover which is already awesome. Some nice background art to fill up the rest of the space (usually closely matching that book cover or using the cover art in some way). An enticing offer. Authors can mess up any or all of these steps, and you need to nail all three for a winning ad - competition is fierce in AdWorld. We've already covered the first step above (read this guide if you need to revisit your book cover design), and the second one I'll deal with next week when I show you exactly how to put together an effective ad image yourself (or how you should brief your designer if you are outsourcing). So let's look at that final step now - the offer - as this is a pretty common mistake as well. What is an enticing offer? The offer is a concept which is often misunderstood, leading to authors either cramming in too much information and not having a clear offer, or being a little tepid or unfocused and not having a compelling offer. A classic example of an offer is a restaurant saying kids eat free on Tuesdays. It's a smart way to turn a normally slow day for the restaurant business into a busy one. But it's not everything the restaurant is about - it's merely an angle. And in a Facebook ad pushing that offer, targeting parents living near the restaurant or previous customers in the right age bracket to have young kids, the ad will stress that offer over everything else.  It won't list all 46 dishes, or jam in 5 review quotes, or mention the chef won an award a few years ago, or that the restaurant is situated beside a pleasing park. It focuses on the angle which is most compelling to the people being targeting (parents on a budget): kids eat free. You need to be similarly focused when coming up with the concept for your book ads. Usually the most compelling offer for a book is a discount of some sort - and that's especially true with BookBub Ads where the ads are delivered at the bottom of a deals newsletter, or on a deals site, to an audience which has explicitly signed up to avail of such discounts.  While the Facebook audience is more diverse and less price-sensitive, it's clear from running roughly a billion ad campaigns that price offers are the most compelling of all.  So I usually make my price offer front-and-center. Now let me answer the question you are probably about to ask. What About Full Price Books? Any time I talk about advertising or promo sites or running discounts, someone (everyone?) will ask about full price books.  This is advertising El Dorado.  If it was easy to throw up ads which constantly move full price books while you eat nachos - and do so at a nice profit - then everyone would be doing it... and it would instantly stop working! You can advertise full price books. You can craft a compelling offer which isn't a discount. And you can make a profit while doing it too - and scale it up as well.  But it's hard. It's hard on Facebook and it's harder again on BookBub. And it's not for advertising neophytes. Start with the easier stuff - compelling price offers - and then you can tackle the harder stuff later. Besides, it's one of my fundamental beliefs that full price books are most attractive to existing fans, so the smartest path to selling lots of full price books is to develop a large and happy mailing list - rather than trying to climb the Mount Everest of book advertising when you are still learning the ropes. (And the easiest way to build a large and happy mailing list is to focus on organic subscribers, and the most effective way to do that is to use strategic discounts to engineer a sales spike, and the very best way to do that is to drop your price and advertise it. Then the discount sales roll in, your list grows organically, and then your next launch - at full price - goes much higher in the charts than last time. Phew. We got there in the end but woah I wasn't sure if we would make it guys.) How To Build Your Ad Images Next week we'll look at the nuts-and-bolts: how you can actually put together a winning ad yourself (or how to outsource the task if you prefer).  As a bonus, next week I'll explain why "Free in Kindle Unlimited" is not a compelling offer - but one I see a lot - and when you should use a tagline or review quote in addition to your price offer... and the times when you shouldn't. Dave P.S. Writing music this week is Astrud Gilberto with Agua de Beber. DavidGaughran.com Broomfield Business Park, Malahide, Co. Dublin, Ireland You received this email because you signed up at DavidGaughran.com. Unsubscribe