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Self-Serve Advertising - Q&A
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I'll be checking this thread for questions about advertising after the webinar today at 11 am PST!
Hi Cynthia, tx so much for the informative webinar. Liked your comment about romance being frightening. :-)Question on the Engagement module in the self serves. When is it recommended, does it cost extra, what are best practices for using it/not?
Many thanks
Birgitte
Cynthia, two questions from your Self-Serve webinar:1. Do higher bids equate to higher views ?
2. From a creative standpoint, do you have any tips on how to write an attention-grabbing self-serve ad?
Hope the webinar was useful and that the folks who had trouble with the sound were able to call in and hear me in time. I saw the chat question about the URL and why it's not clickable.
To clarify: the parts of the ad that are underlined are clickable, the green part is just to give the viewer a preview of where they will get directed if they click on the ad.
That's simply how the ads were originally designed. I think most people are used to clicking on the underlined part to click, hence the headline being clickable and the engagement stat, if applicable.
Cynthia wrote: "I saw the chat question about the URL and why it's not clickable."Cynthia, would it be possible to change the phrasing of the non clickable URL, to prevent confusion? For example instead of www.goodreads.com, it can say simply "GoodReads".
Birgitte wrote: "Hi Cynthia, tx so much for the informative webinar. Liked your comment about romance being frightening. :-)Question on the Engagement module in the self serves. When is it recommended, does it cost extra, what are best practices for using it/not?"
Thanks, Birgitte! Engagement module does not cost extra, it's an optional part of the platform. I've seen the engagement stat show either the number of reviews, the number of 5 star reviews, the number of ratings. It's there to enhance' the ad, give the viewer another motivation to click.
I recommend using it when you have several ratings already so that it has something significant to display.
The engagement stat also gives the option to link to a giveaway if there is one currently running (you cannot add this option if your giveaway is scheduled, unfortunately; the giveaway must be open for entries), and also if you have an excerpt on your book page. Note this is NOT linked to the 'preview' feature. You should see "view excerpt" on the book page to include this.
With the option of creating so many ads in a campaign, test out whether your ads with engagement stat get more clicks or not. Personally, I think they are valuable to add since they tell me (the viewer) that there is engagement around the book on Goodreads.
Tom wrote: "Cynthia, two questions from your Self-Serve webinar:1. Do higher bids equate to higher views ?
2. From a creative standpoint, do you have any tips on how to write an attention-grabbing self-serve ad? "
Hi Tom!
1. Short answer, no. Higher bids tell the algorithm to select your ad to get shown first in your selected targeting. Consider how many advertisers include "horror" around Halloween. Those who bid a little higher than the average 50 cents will be selected first. However, the initial click through rate is then also taken into consideration. If the ad targeted to 'horror' at $1 is not getting clicked on within the first several thousand impressions of the day, the algorithm will stop running it and take the next highest bidding ad in hopes that it will get clicked on. This is to show viewers to most relevant ads.
I would stick to bidding a little higher than average first (like, 55 or 60 cents), seeing which ads get clicked on, then increasing the bid again slightly to ensure they keep running.
Also, bidding too high for a click is not a good return on investment! Your daily cap will be met really fast and then your ads will stop showing completely.
Tom wrote: "2. From a creative standpoint, do you have any tips on how to write an attention-grabbing self-serve ad? Keep it short. Keep it simple. Be creative.
Get inspiration here: https://www.goodreads.com/advertisers...
Consider which ads jump out at you.
If you can write a tweet that gets retweeted, you can write an ad.
I see a lot of advertisers waste the bold headline with the title of the book. Why not use the 40 characters for something else? I love Halloween so Horror titles are on my mind - why not use the headline to "Too scared to click?" or something like that.
Test things out, too!
Thanks Cynthia, that is helpful to know.Can you tackle my 2nd question, too? : )
Birgitte wrote: "Cynthia wrote: "I saw the chat question about the URL and why it's not clickable."Cynthia, would it be possible to change the phrasing of the non clickable URL, to prevent confusion? "
Oh yes! I forgot to mention, that part is totally editable. You can for all intents and purposes even make the green part "DareToClick."
I recommend using it to show the first part of the URL, so NYTimes.com if you're linking to an article there, or your personal website. Or Facebook.com. It serves to tell the user where you're sending them via the links in your ad, but totally customizable. It's not a reason we'd reject an ad, so go for what you think is best.
Tom wrote: "Thanks Cynthia, that is helpful to know.Can you tackle my 2nd question, too? : )"
Hehe, I did. Clicked 'post' too fast, sorry about that!
Cynthia wrote: "Tom wrote: "2. From a creative standpoint, do you have any tips on how to write an attention-grabbing self-serve ad? Keep it short. Keep it simple. Be creative.
Get inspiration here: https://www..."
Got it, thank you!!
Here's the info on the webinar in case you'd like to join me tomorrow and learn about the advertising options on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/event/show/...