How Can You Measure if Ads Work?

Sales-Ads.

Today I planned to write an article for my Monday blog about the benefits of writing content and giving readers samples of your work – rather than posting ads for their books.  I was already sitting in front of my laptop, clicking through my Google+ timeline, when I stumbled over a post that made me stop in the tracks:

For the second time this week, I heard from authors that their ads at book promo sites don’t work (anymore).  The first article just made me feel like: He didn’t plan his marketing better.  Not even trade publishers buy ads anymore.  Why did he expect to sell books with ads…  But now there is again an article posted where an author explains a bit more in detail her dismal experiences – and she even has a clue why her ads didn’t work anymore.

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Well, this is Common Sense…
“I scheduled an ad in January of 2015, and this time sold 53.  I scheduled an ad for July of 2015 and sold 12.”

Here the author gives herself the answer: “Once a promo site is used two to three times for the same book, it tends to lose effectiveness.  This is more true for some sites than others, and I imagine that has to do with the rate at which new subscribers sign up to receive promo emails.  If I’m scheduling ads faster than the site is adding new subscribers, I can expect the effectiveness to go down considerably with repeated ads.”

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How Will You Measure the Success?
“I signed up again in March of 2015, but this time I also signed up for ads on ReadCheaply, EbookBooster, and EbookLister at the same time.
I sold 78 books, but there’s no way to tell which sites resulted in sales.”

Never run ads for the same book on several sites on the same day!  Yes, she is right: there is no way to measure which ad was successful and which not.  Maybe none of them – readers might just have ordered by coincidence all at the same day.  Promo sites cannot report the numbers of books sold – even though they are all in affiliate programs and make additionally a couple of cents for each book sold.

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Against All Marketing Rules.
“I don’t necessarily have to make my money back in order to consider an ad a success, but I do need to gain some exposure.  I once ran an ad on seven of the lesser-known sites on the same day and sold zero. And no exposure at all.”

Common Business Sense is to get a return of investment.  Why else would you spend money?  Look at the revenue to cost ratio: incremental revenue driven by an ad campaign divided by the cost.  Rule of thumb for most companies is that 5x is a decent return, and 10x is a home run.
Compare the impact of your ads to the money you invested to evaluate the “return of investment” (ROI). Read also the 10 shocking truth about advertising.

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Write More!
The author concludes: “First and foremost it means we need to keep putting out new books.  New material is the way to go….”.

Absolutely! “New material” – however it must not be necessarily books, use your manuscript and the research for your book to write article after article for more exposure.  Let your potential readers discover you on the internet, in magazines and newspapers.  Every fiction manuscript has at least 50 – 100 keywords and topics one could write about.  Consider writing a prequel for each of your books.  There are thousands of media outlets (print and web) your can write for.  And in each of these articles you are mentioned as an author, who wrote …(title of your latest or most important book) added by a link to your book sales or your author page.
Get lots of addresses in our latest book:  111 Tips on How to Market Your Book for Free. 

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Write More Content, not Only in Book Form.
All the big brands use now content ahead of other marketing forms, and not only communicate, but involve their customers via storytelling. Content offers value, news and appeal, instead of plain promotion.  It is about the consumer (in our case about the readers), not the brand (the author).  These days at least half of the marketing budget is used for content, often re-evaluating their entire advertising strategy – which means also: good writers are on demand.
Make sure that not only your books, blogs and short stories, but also your social media content has substance, and that it adds real value for your audience.  Substance comes from consistent interesting blog content, real-time social media engagement, superb visuals and videos, interesting info-graphics to increase reader loyalty.

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More Ways to Use Your Writing Instead of Ads.
If you have at least half a dozen books, set up one short title permanently for free on Amazon, listing and linking to all your other books. Everything is better than to pay for useless ads.  Get more ideas and detailed explanations in each of our marketing books.

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Sampling is the Best Way to Hook a Reader.
Retail businesses always have known the importance of sampling.  Now, readers can download samples of any book published electronically.  If they like the book, they will most likely buy it.  Some reader communities are even specialist in offering sample chapters (i.g. Wattpad) before the book’s launch.  Equally important is a large following on Goodreads, on Google+ (for a great SEO), Twitter, and in a variety of literary sites and communities.
Why not browse through the blog posts at SavvyBookWriters where I explain in detail, how you can show your future readers, book purchasers and reviewers your writing talent:

https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/how-else-can-you-leverage-your-manuscript/

https://www.savvybookwriters.com/how-to-become-an-aureate-web-content-writer/

https://www.savvybookwriters.com/how-to-create-curated-content/

https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/writing-for-magazines-waste-of-time/

https://www.savvybookwriters.com/why-you-should-split-your-book-apart/

https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/well-paying-markets-you-can-write-for/

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Don’t Throw Money for ads Down the Drain.
I must admit, I am reading very few fiction books, so I have never heard about this very prolific author before, who has written around a dozen fiction books, short stories – and even a how-to-guide book about self-publishing, where she admits on page 107: “….one thing that stood out is the need for continuing crash courses in marketing.”
I hope she convinced lots of writers of her article on TheBookDesigner that advertising is NOT marketing and often not a good idea to sell books via ads – even not to get more exposure.  Browsing through the author’s books, I was pretty impressed with her writing style, and she could for sure get far more exposure (and often well-paid) at magazines, guest blogs, or writing for newspapers – on and off-line.  Better than throwing money for ads down the drain.  If you need more ideas read “How to Organize Your Book Marketing”.

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