Goodreads Ads: Need your thoughts on strategy

[Carrie]

I've had a Goodreads ad running for about 3 weeks with zero clicks. I started with a review excerpt from a fellow author, then I changed it to showing the hook, and now I've changed it again to show a few reviews excerpt and the price.

If this latest change doesn't generate any clicks or (gasp!) a sale, I was thinking of doing something a little different (at least, different for me anyway).

"If you liked Practical Magic (the movie) and did NOT like Discovery of Witches, give this book a try. Free on KU or 3.99"

Part of me thinks this is kind of crass and I don't want it taken as if I'm disparaging DoW. What do you think?

Or, is it really just a fact that ads on Goodreads just don't work?

[Marie Silk]

I follow a lot of threads on marketing but have yet to read about an author seeing sales from a goodreads ad. It seems that the best results authors see from them are books getting added to members' "to read" lists. If you are only paying per click, then technically you are getting free exposure when you don't have clicks. I think that the same or better results can come from running a Goodreads Giveaway.

[Thomas]

My first reaction is that you shouldn't compare it to movies or other titles, unless specifically asked by someone what it is like. Putting that info out there generates ideas of "Well I didn't like X, so this isn't for me" and you could be alienating readers who might actually like the book otherwise despite not liking whatever else. And on that same note, I would definitely not put the "if you did not" part for the very reason you said. Someone may take it as an attack on something they love and best case not purchase your book. Worst case...well you don't want to know.

Second is: What is your bid-per-click set at and how many people are being shown the current ad? I can't say I had much success in the way of sales through clicks, but I did eventually have my $50 spent by people clicking. If your bid-per-click isn't competitive with other bids, your ad may not be showing up too much for people.

[Carrie]

Marie - that's a good way to look at it as I am paying per click. No clicks, no cost = free advertising! LOL. But I am getting lots of views.

Thomas - thanks for confirming my suspicions. I knew it was wrong but I needed some validation. :-) My cpc is .75 but I plan to increase that once the paperback is available. I think I'm getting a good amount of views but I have nothing to compare that to.

[Thomas]

Talking metrics:

Lots of views is good, but remember that though they're being "viewed" that only means they loaded onto someone's page. Whether they're looking or not is something we just don't know. 0.75 per click is actually quite high for what I had done in my run.

My campaign started in 04/2014
It ended in 11/2016

My bid-per-click averaged about 0.40, though when I saw lulls in views I played with the price a little and I did bump it up as high as 0.80, but not for long. It was a very short run at 0.80 because I didn't see much of a difference in clicks for the extra 0.40.

My CTR was only 0.02% of views though, and that's because though Goodreads was showing it, people clicking was fairly rare.

Still it took a long time to use $56.00, so in my opinion, it was worth it.

[Mary Ellen]

I like the way you are thinking on this. I think the standard is people have to see an item 5 to 7 times before they do something. So, if you look at your ad as visibility rather than sales that makes it a positive.