Anyone seen results for goodreads ads?

[K.A.]

J. Riley wrote: "The best sales I have gotten have been during SIAFBB events. Group promotions have worked the best..."

I agree! My best sales days have been the SIA events as well. Group effort for the win!

[Amie]

It's funny, but I am finally starting to see a wee bit of action from my ad. 4 clicks in the last two weeks resulted in 3 people adding my book.

But it's definitely slower than molasses overall. But hey, the money didn't disappear so I'm okay with slow and steady.

[[deleted user]]

I deposited $200 in 2015. Still have $105 of it. Not much action at all. When the $$ runs out, I will never use GR to advertise again. I get much better results using other venues.

[J.P.]

Very helpful to read! I paid $20 for a GR ad months ago and have only had one click. I’m going to ask for a refund.

I’d love to get my books on “lists" on Goodreads and wondering what the best way to do that is. Do I need to somehow register with Listopia? I know some groups create reading lists/challenges and maybe I could message the admins. Any suggestions on this front would also be incredible. Thanks guys!

[Tate]

Nope. I tried it and saw not a single result. I felt like I just wasted me money!

[Mandy]

I do okay with amazon ads, haven't heard a lot from the GR one.

[Justin]

I don't understand how Goodreads ads work, they look really confusing and I feel a person is better off advertising themselves and using other tools on here over ads.

[Tanner]

Just to test the waters I spent $5 on an ad campaign on Goodreads with a $0.50 cost per click, which makes the book fairly competitive since the average CPC is about $0.25 to $0.30. Even at that, I didn't sell any more books because of the ads. It did get my book exposure, as the ad attained about 50,000 impressions. I'd say the ads are good for exposure but not for selling more books.

[John]

Hi Tanner;
Yes. That was my experience exactly with Goodread ads.
Let me ask you: what has worked best for you?
Thanks!
John

[Tanner]

John,
I found that sometimes metadata and timing can help sell more books. The right keywords can help your book be found easier and if you put it in a genre where it's easier to rank, then more people will find the book (My book is in Children's Weather eBooks, which isn't a competitive chart, so I've been able to reach #12 on the genre's chart). Also, if you release during the first two months of the year you'll usually see more sales (that's what I've read and I launched my first book in mid-February of last year, and the advice seems to be right). I know other authors have had success with ads but I, personally, haven't found ads to work.

[Amie]

Okay, so I have a Goodreads ad and I thought I would try making some edits to see if it improved my click through rate.

Before I had it set to target specific genres like Romance and Women's Fiction. So I thought not only would I try changing my blurb, but I'd try going the route of targeting readers (technically reviewers) of authors that are also writing Victorian Era Historical Romance, a few Women's Fiction authors too.

I chose 35 authors and put them in.

That was yesterday. I look at my stats today (in progress) and they are now zero. Zero as in not clicks, but zero impressions. Completely flatlined.

Is it meant to be just one author? I know the user has to have left a 3 star or higher review to even see my ad, but surely out of 35 popular authors (including Lisa Kleypas) SOMEONE left a review, LOL.

What am I doing wrong? The other way I was getting 60 to 90 views a day at least.

[Tanner]

Amie,

You'll get a larger audience by targeting genres in general because they have a larger following than individual authors.

[Amie]

Hey Tanner! Thank you for the help :)

I guess there was just a delay in my reporting. I got my daily report this morning in my inbox and it actually showed 107 views, no clicks, but one book was added to a person's shelf :) So that 107 is actually my highest view rate in at least a month. The most before was 103 and I think the average is close to 80 or so, with a book added just about every other day.
.
I'm gonna give it a week or so to measure the effectiveness. That book I'm reading, Book Marketing Is Dead, had said to try marketing your book to super targeted groups so that even if you have fewer viewers, they're likely the right kind of viewers. We'll see.

[H.E.]

It's really useful to hear about your experiences with Goodreads ads. In general, the message I'm picking up from you all is this: they're not worth it.

[H.E.]

Mandy wrote: "I do okay with amazon ads, haven't heard a lot from the GR one."

Mandy, what sort of return do you see on your Amazon ads?

[Mike]

I've done GR click-thru ads and included the link to my GR book give-away. I did that with the hope of increasing the number of entries in my GR book give-away. Hard to say how effective that was, but I don't think it helped much b/c very few people clicked on my GR ad even though I changed it up and bid over a dollar per click! I ended up getting a refund of the unused amount after a few months. On the other hand, I've had much better luck with Amazon's click-thru ads (AMS)... but those AMS ads seem to be effective for only a month or so at a time. Then they stop getting clicks for some reason. So I usually terminate the AMS ad and start a new one with different wording and it is usually successful again. My FB ads haven't resulted in a lot of FB page likes, but I was using the general ads that come with basic targeting (age, location, gender). I recently discovered that you can do more detailed targeting on FB with their power editor program (e.g., target fans of a particular author) and I hope to try that in the near future.

[Beverly]

Mike wrote: "I've done GR click-thru ads and included the link to my GR book give-away. I did that with the hope of increasing the number of entries in my GR book give-away. Hard to say how effective that was, ..."
Thanks, Mike. This is very helpful. I am considering ads and your experience will contribute to my decision. Thanks.

[JOQuantaman]

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences.

[Crystal]

I've only gotten four clicks in two months, but about 30 people have added the book to their lists and it's getting over 100 impressions every day so basically I feel like I'm getting some exposure for free by just letting it run. I've bid 25 cents per click and that seems fine. I don't know if there's any value to bidding more than that.

[Beverly]

Naive queston...what do you get for bidding a higher amount per click?

[Ken]

Beverly wrote: "Naive queston...what do you get for bidding a higher amount per click?"

Theoretically, more impressions. Your ad is competing with others in a real-time auction for each impression (that's oversimplifying a bit, but that's the general principle). If your bid is higher, you have a better chance of "winning" the auction.

In practice, raising your bid may not always help, because the ad will plateau after a while.

[Beverly]

Ken wrote: "Beverly wrote: "Naive queston...what do you get for bidding a higher amount per click?"

Theoretically, more impressions. Your ad is competing with others in a real-time auction for each impression..."

Thanks, Ken. That helps.

[[deleted user]]

Dora wrote: "In my opinion a GR ad is a complete waste of money. Organizing a giveaway entire thread ay gives you a much better exposure."

I have read this entire thread and want to thank everyone for their candid comments.
Dale E. Manolakas, Legal Thriller Author

[Pauline]

Thank you to everyone who posted. Your comments are helpful.
And, I want to emphasize what Dora said, goodreads giveaways (paperback) have helped my sales. I ran three giveaways and just listed one more.
Best,
Pauline

[Michael]

Zero Impact. The only ads that actually resulted in sales—and traceably so—were Good AdWords, but you spend a lot more than the royalties bring in.

[Garfield]

Amie wrote: "It's funny, but I am finally starting to see a wee bit of action from my ad. 4 clicks in the last two weeks resulted in 3 people adding my book.

But it's definitely slower than molasses overall. ..."

Based on what most people say goodreads advts do not sell their books. Goodreads seem to give exposure...most non authors seem to go to goodreads to apply for giveaways...some will at least send a PM to say they received the book...some dont...some will review it as a courtesy ....some wont....that contributes to exposure but not sales.

[Blaque]

Thanks so much for all of the comments here. It seems good read ads do no good to sell books. I will try doing a Goodreads giveaway to see if that helps.

[Jenna]

I just finished a Goodreads giveaway and I didn't see a significant increase in sales at all. That said, more than 100 people added my book to their "To Read" shelf. I don't think I'd do another Goodreads giveaway again though.

[Roxanne]

When I do a Goodreads anything, I'm not looking for sales, but exposure. This is what I've learned about Goodreads (the hard way). I agree the ads don't do much, if anything. But I do run giveaways, usually two per book. I boost posts and events on FB. Again, doesn't really result in sales but exposure. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I've yet to find an online ad campaign that really works.

[Mal]

Ken wrote: "A couple of years ago, I did an experiment with Goodreads PPC ads that ran for about 9 months. From my admittedly "quick and dirty" statistical analysis of the results, I found that the ads made no..."

Thank you! I'll be sure to check this out.

[Robin]

I really doubt that ads do anything but introduce your book to an audience. It's really hard to measure their success unless you're looking for new FB friends/followers, newsletter subscribers, or to giveaway books. I'm told that email campaigns are more successful for building sales.

[Mal]

Robin wrote: "I really doubt that ads do anything but introduce your book to an audience. It's really hard to measure their success unless you're looking for new FB friends/followers, newsletter subscribers, or ..."

Thank you. I've found much the same to be true.

[Marc]

i guess I wont use gr ads then

[DJay]

Good reads? Not so much. But fb? Yeah. There’s a slew of books I’ve bought because they’ve been referred to me. But the. Again I use adblocker so I don’t see ads on any sites except fb.

[Ann]

Owen wrote: "We have never tried ads on GR. Our feeling is that ads on Amazon are likely to work better as people are on Amazon to buy, while they are on GR for other reasons. Anecdotal reports suggests that GR..."

I've advertised on Amazon. Amazon makes money. I spent more than I made. Not worth it. At least for me.

[Justin]

I always forget Goodreads has ads and as intimidated as I am about facebook ads I'm terrified about Goodreads ads. I feel like that would be throwing money down the drain.