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Hey, I’ve worked with a range of bestselling authors in different genres over the last decade. One common trait is that they will try anything. They might outsource a lot of tasks, and don’t tend to throw good money after bad if something doesn’t show a return, but they’ll give any half-promising marketing wotsit a whirl; they aren’t afraid to try things and are always beating the bushes for new readers. When it comes to something mission critical like growing their mailing lists, people often ask me, what do bestsellers do? And the answer tends to be: a little of everything. They will obviously have a strong focus on organic subscribers, keeping that pipeline flowing with regular launches and backlist promotions, as well as strategic social mentions, promo appearances, maybe also IRL events, and so on. But they will usually have multiple inorganic sources in the mix too. That might be BookSweeps-style listbuilders, home-grown swaps with fellow genre giants, the occasional viral giveaway organized by themselves or a friend, and, almost certainly, Facebook leadgen campaigns - either running constantly in the background, or bigger campaigns they turn on/off periodically. Usually in between launches to keep list growth steady. Every author is different, and plenty get to the top in rather unique ways - writers are a diverse bunch by nature. But I think the above picture is quite representative of those reaching the summit. And something anyone can replicate - at least in part, building it piece-by-piece, and adapting to their own circumstances. Facebook lead generation campaigns are among the more difficult aspects to master but offer some unique advantages, huge audiences, and incredible scale - and can be a nice add-on if you have already invested some time in learning Facebook ads and are getting results with them. There are lots of ways to approach them, and the advice here might be different to what you encounter elsewhere. I'm not making any grand claims for my method being superior, but here’s how I do it. my processThe first way my approach might break from the herd is that I actually don’t use Facebook’s dedicated Lead Ads – with that built in form where readers fill in their details right there on Facebook; I could go into detail here but I just don’t like how they work. I get better results with regular Traffic campaigns – welcome news, if you have experience with those already. (I don’t recommend attempting leadgen campaigns until you are getting good results with regular Facebook ads BTW, so I’ll assume some competence with those.) There are differences when seeking a sign-up over a sale, however. You’re sending people to your own website for starters – an optimized landing page, I sincerely hope! – so targeting is simplified in certain circumstances. You also have the option of installing the Facebook Pixel on your site, and if you can set that up correctly, those Advantage features (which I normally avoid) can actually help instead of hinder you because Facebook will be able to see who completes the sign-up process and adjust its targeting on the fly to reflect that. Whether you are using the Pixel or not, to build an effective leadgen campaign, I recommend the following:
- Target the same road-tested interests that deliver sales for you and hit them in one supergroup.
- I probably still recommend splitting out by territory, though, and monitoring spend/results by country and intervening when necessary. That gets me better results, at least, and allows me to invest more heavily in territories I am prioritizing for whatever reason. Even if you don't do that, do stick to the primary English language markets or you could run into trouble.
- Ad text is very important. Be clear and concise and hooky. Double down on genre and tailor your CTA to set expectations. Prime them for a sign-up. Stress the free reader magnet.
- Ad image is super important, as always. Again, stress the free aspect, and, again, double down on genre. Always be hitting that!
- Landing page is the most important of all, along with your welcome sequence.
Stopping the scroll is always a challenge in the blistering hellscape that is today's social media landscape. Winning the click can be tricky too, what with an eye-catching video of a dog on a trampoline right above your book and someone demolishing some delicious tacos al pastor right below you. Believe it or not, though, some people would rather read. I know, I know the human race is full of surprises! Getting the right readers to your site is a challenge. But keeping them there long enough to input their deets is harder again. Several factors harder. Some people are going to nope out no matter what. Perhaps they thought they were going to Amazon, I dunno. (I’ve probably done it myself.) Sometimes they get cold feet at adding more strain to their inbox when they realize they must give up their email address. But maybe they had one too many Doritos and fat-fingered your book when they meant to tap on that chihuahua in a tutu. (Definitely done that one.) My point is that the big difference maker is not the Facebook campaign itself, but the landing page, the sign-up experience, and the welcome automation. Yeah, the ad campaign poses challenges and you’ll need to run through some testing to nail down your text/image combo. But what will really decide if you can scale these ads will be your conversion rate - i.e. how many clicks turn into sign-ups. Facebook won’t give you that number - you’ll have to calculate it yourself. (Simply take your spend over a given day, divide it up the number of sign-ups, and that’s yer cost-per-subscriber.) It’s also tricky for me to tell you what to shoot for here because it depends. What is the lifetime value of a subscriber, to you? Only you can know. But people hate that answer so let me say - as a super general rule of thumb with a million caveats - that I’m often happy enough when subs are coming in at a cost of around $2 per. It varies a lot, though. Campaigns often start cheaper, delivering a spate of subscribers for under that benchmark, before costs start to climb above it. The rate of that increase will be hugely skewed by the scale of the spend and the size of the audience, but I can tolerate up to $3 per before making changes. I’m confident that will pay out over time. Others might be comfortable with a cost of $5 or more. And then some might never pay more than a dollar. It really depends on how many of the subs survive onboarding/culling, what rate they buy at, the length of your series, the price of your books, and dozens more variables - making it dangerous to generalize. For example, someone might be targeting very broadly and getting more subscribers for a lower cost, but then less of them make it through onboarding and they deliver less value over time. It can be really misleading to compare in a superficial way. Don't get me wrong, it’s good to compare notes with fellow authors – and take advice from multiple sources – but keep these caveats in mind. Ultimately, it’s best to be guided by your own data, not least because you will have a more complete view of your own affairs. It’s also worth noting that those paying more per subscriber almost certainly have a long series with exceptional readthrough and are priced at maybe $4.99 a book. As with conversations around CPC and regular Facebook ads, one stat in isolation can be misleading. However, even if your data (and business model) supports a higher cost-per-subscriber, you should always be focused on keeping that number as low as possible, as well as slowing the pace of cost increase as much as you can. This is what allows you to scale. Moving on, once you have a handle on your target cost-per-sub, and your ad is in good shape, the real difference-makers to a leadgen campaign are on your site - your landing page.
- How quickly does it load? (This is huge.)
- Is it mobile friendly? (This can kill your campaign in 2026.)
- Do you have too many distractions on the landing page? (As these are death to conversion.)
- Is the messaging clear? Is the flow obvious? Is there any friction? Test this with people (and listen to them!)
And then all the standard advice about reader magnets and welcome sequences applies here too. The only extra task being to tag these subscribers so you can monitor them separately over time. (Although I’d recommend tweaking your welcome sequence to reflect the source.) Final tip: because you really do need time to collect that data, don’t go too hard on these Facebook Ads until you are sure those clicks turn into sign-ups, those subscribers stick around, and those addresses become buyers and superfans! Then you can turn up the juice with confidence. Dave P.S. Writing music this week is Bill Callahan with Jim Cain. |
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