There’s a lot that authors can do to promote their books online for free, so you might wonder why you should pay for adverts. Paid ads can be more cost-effective than you’d think, and they work. Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is the most common form of online advertising. You pay when somebody clicks on your ad, are able to limit your spending, and target your ads. This means you can reach a niche audience for niche books without spending a lot of money.
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As books and ebooks are rarely expensive, you should be careful when you set your budgets that you’re not spending more than your sales are worth. However, direct sales aren’t always the real prize. Even a few PPC clicks can boost a book’s sales ranking, which leads to higher visibility and increased organic sales. Ads can also be used to build your social media followings and email lists. A PPC Agency can help you to get started.
Search Marketing
PPC for search is effective because your adverts will only be shown to people who are actively looking for what you have to sell. There are a few options for search marketing.
Google is the largest platform for PPC. Google Ads are triggered by keywords that you choose, and the relevance of your ad. The cost per click is decided by a live auction. The more competitive the keyword you use is, the more expensive it will be. Choose niche keywords for your books. This is both cheaper and more effective.
Amazon
You can also use PPC on Amazon, which is a big platform for books. You can use sponsored products, headline search, and product display. The first two options show up in Amazon search results, targeted by keyword. Product display ads appear on product pages. Identify what books your audience is reading, and place an ad on the product pages of these books.
Social Ads
Social ads are used to target people based on who they are. These ads use demographics and interests. With this microtargeting, you can reach a small number of people cheaply and be confident that they are the right people. On social media, users might not be thinking about buying, so you might need to work to engage them, perhaps with a giveaway.
Ads have become increasingly important on Facebook. You can use Facebook ads to boost a post to reach a wider audience or to create a new ad with a specific offer. Contests and giveaways are ideal for Facebook and can be used to gather data.
Make sure you’re careful about how you handle any data that you do gather about your audience, especially now that the EU’s GDPR came into force in May 2018. If you collect information like email addresses in exchange for a download or send people to a specific web page that has the ‘Facebook pixel’ embedded (a bit of code that tracks visits), you may only use that data with explicit consent to show ‘remarketing’ ads to those users.
This post was a collaborative post and may contain affiliate links
Mocha Girl Alysia
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