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Running an ad on Goodreads
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K.
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Jul 23, 2015 06:17PM
Greg - those are high numbers! Even if people don't click/buy now, those 33,000 impressions are making a lasting impression. Good news - I actually saw your ad! :)
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Wow - really!??!?? You really saw it? Cool!What were you looking at? I paused the ad with no targeting and put together a few other ads. Some targeted at genres, others targeted at authors.
I know!! I saw it while on GoodReads a day or two ago. I was reading comments in the Indie Authors Group and it appeared on the right side of my screen. It was a miracle! :)
Hey everyone I want to add my experience here w/ the GR ads. I put in $100 and haven't had one click. But on my business books I probably get 2-5 "Book Added" a day. And that's w/o spending any $ so that seems good to me. Who knows if that converts to sales? For my fiction book, I changed the link to go to Amazon. I figure if I actually get a click at some point, the purchase might happen there. What's interesting is that you do get Views w/o paying anything so to me there is no reason not to try an ad.
I've finally had enough. Around 39,000 total views, about 5000 after pausing the original non-targeted ad and putting in a bunch of targeted ads. Not one click in those 5000 additional views, and only two total clicks since starting the campaign. Even if I wrote those ads using foreign language swear words, somebody somewhere should have accidentally clicked on them. I requested a refund and Goodreads refunded it right away.
hey Greg, thanks for sharing. I feel your frustration ;) Question, did your book get 'added' to people's tbr list through all of that? Do you know?
Three people added the book, but none from the ad. I think those additions came from other indie authors in this thread.
I'm also trying a Google Adwords ad campaign. I've done a bunch of experimenting with keywords over there, but keywords like "data breach" and "cyber crime" are apparently super popular and other advertisers bid up the cost per click into the stratosphere. But a helpful Google phone rep named Moriah is working with me on that campaign so I'll give it a little time and see if it amounts to anything. On the Google campaign - 14 clicks out of around 2200 or so impressions so far.
Greg, so you've got a free ride on GR in the end-:). Not too helpful, but nothing to regret. At least you've tried.Pls keep us updated about your google campaign. If I were to choose where to advertise, I'd go with google probably. Hope it works much better for you than Gr ads. Which words do you use then?
What free ride? I spent 40 cents! I was also going to gripe about the time I put in, but that's just the cost of education. :)Google keywords - stuff like cyber crime, identity theft, Target breach, data breach, information breach, data security, security breach, and a bunch of others like that.
"Cyber crime" has 1182 impressions and 9 clicks so far. "Identity theft" has 778 impressions and 8 clicks. The clicks all go to my ad landing page.
When I go to Google Analytics looking at the past week, 7/21 through today, 7/28, I see 17 page views for my ad landing page and 6 page views for my Buy page. Just because somebody clicked on that Buy page doesn't mean they actually bought the book - but at least they looked.
Not a runaway viral hit, but more than before.
Greg, take this comment for what you will. From personal past experience with another book we wrote, I would not spend a dime advertising a fictional book to people interested in all those keywords. They want solutions to those issues in the real world, right? You need - specifically - readers who like those types of books, IMHO. Not saying it's easy to find them, just saying don't lose sight of the fiction aspect of your book.
Well...yeah. Bullseye Breach is fiction - that's true - but it's really an education book disguised as fiction. That's why I'm going after all those data breach type of keywords. Ya know.... I was going to put in some other Adwords ads targeted at the Tom Clancy and Vince Flynn audience. Now I don't remember if I ever did that - thanks for the reminder.
Which brings up a fundamental marketing point. When I first pitched this book to Beaver's Pond Press last fall, we talked about whether to market it as a thriller story or a business book. We decided on business book because there's lots of thriller books out there, but none like this one. But maybe it makes sense to revisit that marketing decision.
It's an interesting challenge, I can see that. Makes me think about targeting the conferences where all those security people hand out/ attend. I think it's a fine line and you have to test both ultimately.
I've emailed a few conference contacts but no replies yet. Booths at those conferences cost $thousands. Sometimes there are opportunities to do keynote talks or breakout sessions. But big companies generally pay big bucks for those slots. There is an opportunity in there someplace, I just haven't sniffed it out yet. I was at a Lenovo Partner conference back in April and found out Robert Herjavec (Shark Tank TV show) was speaking. So I finagled a way to get a book in his hands. It worked - I was able to get a copy of the book to him - but it was a waste of time and a book. I'm not chasing any more celebrities like that.
I think GR Giveaways are much more effective than adds. I did two, 15 day, 3 book giveaways about 10 days apart. First one brought me 1150+ entrants and the second just over 1000. Generated 700+ TBRs (down to 670 now).
Hi Maurice,Maybe you can explain the benefit of giveaway. I'm thinking aloud: Few hundred people enroll for a giveaway. They wait for the draw and don't buy a book in hope to win. Then there are draw results - bingo few people win a free book, read it, maybe even write a review. Now, what happens to few hundred that didn't win: do some of them actually buy the book or just wait to win some other free book on another g/a? And more general question: do TBRs translate to sales at any noticeable rate?
Thanks in advance,
Nik
This is only my experience, but I've found that giveaways translate into zero sales for me. Adding a book to a TBR list doesn't do much when the reader has thousands of other books on that list, most of which may never get read.The good thing about giveaways is that you get some exposure, on the first and last day. That may help in the long run.
Thanks, guys, you cast some experience on my doubts-:)I'm not opposed to give books for free and I do so with pleasure, but in the long run, I think all those giveaways probably ruin the market, as the readers get more and more accustomed to free books offered on too many occasions. 2-4 dollars for a book that many charge is almost a giveaway for all I know
Hi Nik,You are right, the TBRs that accumulate thru the giveaway don't really mean that much. The book's name and author get some exposure, but does that translate into sales? There's no real way to tell what % of your sales come from a giveaway promotion, but my guess is not much. I was just saying that I think you get a better bang for your buck with giveaways than click through GR ads.
For me it's kind of the same thing with free downloads, it takes no commitment on the part of the reader to download a free book. So when someone says "I've had 2000 free downloads this week", I wonder how many of those readers would actually read the book over the next 3-6 months, less than 5%? Does it just sit there in the pile of other "free" books that maybe someday they'll get to? I see the biggest benefit of free downloads as pushing your book up the Amazon best seller charts in the Top 100 free for your genre(s) that might lead to some sales later on.
I have just posted a new blog to my web site on Sales, Marketing, and Promotion called "Dead Calm" that you may be interested in: http://www.mauricegmiller.com/#!blog/... . I will be posting same to my blog here on GR in the next few days.
Best of luck to everyone - Maurice
Thanks for the elaborate insight, Maurice!
E.J. wrote: "Maurice wrote: "I have just posted a new blog to my web site on Sales, Marketing, and Promotion called "Dead Calm"Great article. Best line: "It can be quite difficult for newly published authors,..."
You are right much better word. I will update that on the post as I have to make a few changes. I noticed some excruciatingly bad syntax. Haha!!
Thanks guys for checking it out.
I heard this saying a few months ago. It keeps me going:First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Then you win.
I haven't tried it personally, but I've heard of decent success with Goodreads ads. I might have to look into it at some point.
