# Facebook advertising for paid items -- it really, really works...



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

This post is reasonably long. Might be an idea to get a drink and put your feet up.

*Advertising for subs*

As I described in a previous post, I've been experimenting with Facebook ads for most of the year. The first campaign was designed to drive signups, and it worked. I added 3,500 new subscribers at a cost of around $1,500. I'm in the process of testing that new audience for responsiveness and will report on that later; the short answer is that they are less responsive than a typical signup -- not surprising -- but that they buy enough books to make it a wash against the cost of acquisition. So I'm still doing that.

*Advertising for sales*

And then I changed tack. Two weeks ago, I started to advertise my paid books rather than my reader magnets. And the results have been amazing. So good, in fact, that I am going to get someone to check them to make sure I haven't made a monumental cock-up. Because, as my wife told me last night, when something is too good to be true it probably is. Although, in this instance, I can't see it (and, believe me, I've looked).

I used my mailing list to create a custom audience. I paid for a nice image and drafted some strong sales copy, and then I started to serve the mirror audience with the ad. What follows are my most recent numbers:

3/20

Ad Spend: 53.26
Revenue: 142.30

3/21

Ad Spend: 72.01
Revenue: 163.50

3/22

Ad Spend: 79.12
Revenue: 219.82

3/23

Ad Spend: 74.47
Revenue: 161.35

The average ROI over the course of the campaign is 124% - in other words, for every dollar I invest I get over two in return.

Conversion is around 10%.

Both of those numbers are crazy.

Here's the dash:










The campaign started on the 13th.

And it isn't just royalties on the advertised item that I'm getting. I'm using affiliate links, and so I'm getting a commission on every sale, too. Because I'm selling a lot of items, the ratchet has gone up to 9%, effectively giving me around 79% of the cover price, rather than 70%.

And I get affiliate commission on any other item bought during the life of the cookie.

And I'm seeing follow-up purchases on my either books, too.

And, finally, every sale of the box set lifts it in the rankings. It started around 15k and is around 2k now -- and that means more organic sales on top of those from the advert.

This isn't easy to pull off, and it took a lot of trial and error. I sucked up as much knowledge as I could from the internet and podcasts (Amy Porterfield, Rick Mulready, etc). I'm thinking about putting together a video that sets out how to do this, including a screencast showing how to use the Power Editor (which is powerful, but not intuitive). If you would like to see the video, let me have your deets at the link below and I'll email when it is done. (Full disclosure: I've been approached about putting together a course and there's one question for which I'd appreciate an answer; the FB video that I'll prepare will be independent of that).

I'd be happy to answers questions here, as always, if only to stress test my logic! I'm going to keep increasing the ad spend because this looks to be scalable and, without wishing to resort to hyperbole, it's kind of like free money at this point.

EDITED: I was running a survey on this, but it is closed now after a lot of great responses. If you would like to be added to my list - and get the videos that are now finished - go to www,selfpublishingformula.com.


----------



## ufwriter (Jan 12, 2015)

These are incredible results. I tested out a FB ad for one day, but I put it on hold because I don't really know what I'm doing. If you make a video, I'd definitely be interested in seeing what you did.


----------



## KaiW (Mar 11, 2014)

Mark this looks fascinating, congrats! What do you mean by 'the mirror audience' though? Not sure I understand that part


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

CadyVance said:


> These are incredible results. I tested out a FB ad for one day, but I put it on hold because I don't really know what I'm doing. If you make a video, I'd definitely be interested in seeing what you did.


Sure thing, Cady. It does take some testing, and I lost a little cash in getting it right, but it is massively powerful when used properly. Will be happy to share the vid - leave me your deets and I'll let you know when it is done (next couple of weeks).


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

KaiW said:


> Mark this looks fascinating, congrats! What do you mean by 'the mirror audience' though? Not sure I understand that part


Facebook can take your mailing list (and other things), take those members who are also on FB, analyse what they like, and then create a mirror audience of people who share the same likes and interests as those people. In theory, you are advertising to a warmer audience; they may be predisposed towards you, certainly moreso than a "cold" audience. It's working for me, certainly.


----------



## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

I've been playing with Facebook ads, too. My results haven't been as good as yours (although I'm not spending as much a day) but they have been encouraging. I have two right now and I will probably add a third in the fall. I'm debating how I want to tackle my pen name.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

YodaRead said:


> I've been playing with Facebook ads, too. My results haven't been as good as yours (although I'm not spending as much a day) but they have been encouraging. I have two right now and I will probably add a third in the fall. I'm debating how I want to tackle my pen name.


Create a new fan page?


----------



## AJStewart (May 10, 2014)

Mark, did you promote one book, or a box set? (ie was a higher value pitch?)


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

AJStewart said:


> Mark, did you promote one book, or a box set? (ie was a higher value pitch?)


A box set. That is KEY. I don't think this works for lower priced items.

For example... if your cost-per-click is 33c - which mine is right now - you have 20 clicks before someone needs to buy in order to break even. If it's 3.99, you have 12 clicks before you need a buy and that is clearly more difficult.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

shimmering said:


> Looks v impressive ---- is the ad pointing to your book's page on amazon?


Yes - directly to it, although there is some ninja magic that I am considering through a redirect that might add in some extra benefits.


----------



## AJStewart (May 10, 2014)

Mark Dawson said:


> A box set. That is KEY. I don't think this works for lower priced items.
> 
> For example... if your cost-per-click is 33c - which mine is right now - you have 20 clicks before someone needs to buy in order to break even. If it's 3.99, you have 12 clicks before you need a buy and that is clearly more difficult.


I agree that seems to be the key. The CPA on a cheaper book didn't work for me so I stayed with using Website Conversions for emails. I have seen consistent buy through on those signups as well. I recall from you earlier thread that Clicks worked better for you as the chosen metric. Oddly it was the other way around for me.

Thanks, this is very useful to know.


----------



## AnonWriter (Dec 12, 2013)

Is it possible to see what your ad looks like? I've been playing with FB ads without much luck.


----------



## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

Mark Dawson said:


> Create a new fan page?


I have a fan page, although I think I need to give it a quick spruce. I'm listening to an audio book to approve today so I can easily work on photoshop while I'm doing that.


----------



## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

Mark Dawson said:


> A box set. That is KEY. I don't think this works for lower priced items.
> 
> For example... if your cost-per-click is 33c - which mine is right now - you have 20 clicks before someone needs to buy in order to break even. If it's 3.99, you have 12 clicks before you need a buy and that is clearly more difficult.


I actually broke mine down and sent them to series pages. I created two different ads (for two different series) and then sent them to my series pages. Ironically, my paperbacks have seen an uptick, too.


----------



## RomanceAuthor (Aug 18, 2014)

Mark Dawson said:


> A box set. That is KEY. I don't think this works for lower priced items.
> 
> For example... if your cost-per-click is 33c - which mine is right now - you have 20 clicks before someone needs to buy in order to break even. If it's 3.99, you have 12 clicks before you need a buy and that is clearly more difficult.


I think you are right. I tried for a $3.99 product, but there is just no break even. I had a 25c per website click, but the conversion rate was something like 4% so. . .and it was for a popular book. lots of people commented that they bought it & loved it or that they had read it before and loved it, and still. . .

Mark would it be possible for you to post a screenshot of your ad?

Thanks for all the great info!

Any romance writer with a boxed set willing to test this? I don't have a boxed set unfortunately. Will only be able to make one after the next book is out (so in 6 months the earliest).


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

AJStewart said:


> I recall from you earlier thread that Clicks worked better for you as the chosen metric. Oddly it was the other way around for me.


Yep - much better. It varies - trial and error is the best medicine.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Emily Wibberley said:


> Is it possible to see what your ad looks like? I've been playing with FB ads without much luck.


Yes, of course - I'll include it in the video runthrough.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

RomanceAuthor said:


> Any romance writer with a boxed set willing to test this? I don't have a boxed set unfortunately. Will only be able to make one after the next book is out (so in 6 months the earliest).


Box sets are the best, I think. I'll grab a copy of the ad and put it in the video. It is probably useful to see the image and copy (and you cannot afford to be bashful about the latter).


----------



## RomanceAuthor (Aug 18, 2014)

Mark Dawson said:


> Box sets are the best, I think. I'll grab a copy of the ad and put it in the video. It is probably useful to see the image and copy (and you cannot afford to be bashful about the latter).


I know. Copy is very, very important!!!

the ad did great, had about 5% CTR, i just think that the ROI will only be here for boxed sets like you say.


----------



## Guest (Mar 24, 2015)

I'm just wondering if Amazon have tinkered with the algorithms - cos I've also had a massive uprise in sales this week.


----------



## nonbreaking space (Dec 11, 2014)

> Facebook can take your mailing list (and other things), take those members who are also on FB, analyse what they like, and then create a mirror audience of people who share the same likes and interests as those people.


link to instructions on how do to this?

many thanks, mark.


----------



## coolpixel (Sep 17, 2012)

Mark,

i remember asking you about this sometime last year. 

some questions.

how do you know who has signed up via FB?

echo the previous poster - more detailed how-to guide on the mirrored list audience will be great.

i get creating a separate mailing list but are you serving the ad to them via your Mailchimp mailing list or via FB? if the latter, how do you target them specifically?

thks.

p.s. - that link seems to go to a survey not to your ad?


----------



## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Excellent post! Thanks for sharing your process. I have been considering using my mailing list to create a mirror audience on FB but have put it off. Your positive results makes me want to give it a try. I have three boxed sets I could do this for. Look forward to your video explaining everything!


----------



## Nick Endi Webb (Mar 25, 2012)

I did the mailing list campaign, but only managed to get the $/signup down to around $1.25 or so. Still worth it to me. Thanks for all your tips!

Are any of your direct sales ads video posts? When I tried a video ad, I managed to get the cost per view down to between 1-2 cents, but conversion was just awful.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

nonbreaking space said:


> link to instructions on how do to this?


I'll put it in the runthrough - it's easier to show rather than tell.



coolpixel said:


> how do you know who has signed up via FB?


I have a separate MailChimp list - that signup URL is only used for those FB ads.



coolpixel said:


> i get creating a separate mailing list but are you serving the ad to them via your Mailchimp mailing list or via FB? if the latter, how do you target them specifically?


I'm not sure I understand that question. FB ads are served via FB.



coolpixel said:


> p.s. - that link seems to go to a survey not to your ad?


I think I laid that out in the OP - if you leave me your details, I'll send you the video when I've done it. Next couple of weeks.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Sela said:


> Excellent post! Thanks for sharing your process. I have been considering using my mailing list to create a mirror audience on FB but have put it off. Your positive results makes me want to give it a try. I have three boxed sets I could do this for. Look forward to your video explaining everything!


My pleasure. It's a little fiddly at first, but well worth perservering with.


----------



## AJStewart (May 10, 2014)

coolpixel said:


> Mark,
> 
> i remember asking you about this sometime last year.
> 
> ...


To know who signed up via FB you can set up specific signup forms for FB (or I do it for each campaign). Note I use Aweber, not mailchimp, so I'm not sure how mailchimp handles it, but Aweber has adtracking for each form so I can see/segment/target email subscribers by which campaign they signed up for. You can then track click through rates etc from your newsletters and see how responsive each group is.

For a primer on creating mirrored/custom audiences in facebook:

http://www.jonloomer.com/2013/10/29/facebook-custom-audiences-target-email-list/


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Well done, Mark! If you do a video or a course on this sort of deal, count me in. One question: Did you use website clicks and auto optimization in the end? I remember some discussions about the benefits of those over the normal bid for clicks (with the bleeding of budget from likes).


----------



## nonbreaking space (Dec 11, 2014)

> I'll put it in the runthrough - it's easier to show rather than tell.


can you provide the runthrough without collecting my contact info?


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> Well done, Mark! If you do a video or a course on this sort of deal, count me in. One question: Did you use website clicks and auto optimization in the end? I remember some discussions about the benefits of those over the normal bid for clicks (with the bleeding of budget from likes).


Leave your email, Mark, and of course. I optimise for clicks. I have always had great results with that, so that I haven't bothered to experiment with anything else.


----------



## chrisanthropic (May 28, 2011)

Mark, this sounds great. I'd be interested in the video as well.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

chrisanthropic said:


> Mark, this sounds great. I'd be interested in the video as well.


Cool. I better make it a good one. No pressure...


----------



## chrisanthropic (May 28, 2011)

Mark Dawson said:


> Cool. I better make it a good one. No pressure...


We know where you hang out - better watch yourself... 

Seriously though, I've been keeping up with most of the process but I'm super interested in seeing your ad and pitch.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

chrisanthropic said:


> We know where you hang out - better watch yourself...
> 
> Seriously though, I've been keeping up with most of the process but I'm super interested in seeing your ad and pitch.


Yikes. I write spy thrillers, though. You should *see* my tradecraft.

I'll be happy to share them both.


----------



## ufwriter (Jan 12, 2015)

Mark Dawson said:


> Sure thing, Cady. It does take some testing, and I lost a little cash in getting it right, but it is massively powerful when used properly. Will be happy to share the vid - leave me your deets and I'll let you know when it is done (next couple of weeks).


Thanks, all signed up through your link!


----------



## Douglas E Wright (Mar 11, 2011)

chrisanthropic said:


> Mark, this sounds great. I'd be interested in the video as well.


I would to, Mark. I'm kind of getting lost in all of this.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Douglas E Wright said:


> I would to, Mark. I'm kind of getting lost in all of this.


It's not easy, Douglas, but then - in my experience - the best things seldom are. I might fall flat on my face on this, but it's working very well at the moment. Remember to leave your deets.


----------



## nonbreaking space (Dec 11, 2014)

a link on how to import email addresses and create custom audiences in facebook (for the impatient like me):
http://www.jonloomer.com/2012/09/24/facebook-custom-audiences/

you can create what they call 'lookalike' audiences that i assume match the profile of your email import. it take a bit of time.

thanks again for clueing me into this, mark.


----------



## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

Sent an email  Have been wanting to do the facebook thing - have done a little and have been happy with some of the results, but not all. Between the kids and writing and work, am scrambling to find time to study facebook.


----------



## Chris Fox (Oct 3, 2014)

This is encouraging to see, Mark. I've had good luck on Facebook in the past, but haven't run an ad since release. Time to create another one, I think.


----------



## Megan D (Feb 3, 2015)

Really finding your posts useful. Would love to see a video as I'm struggling to find how to get to granular detail for FB ads. Have created my 1st video today after your previous post and will be going back to FB tomorrow to try again on figuring out the targeting. However, I have applied the same principals to some Twitter campaigns and once I'd capped my cost per acquisition after a very scary day 1, I'm getting some good results there too.

Although it is a bore to do, I create a different subscriber cell for each form of recruitment, it is the only way to work out life time value. I use MPZmail, which is UK-based (as am I) and this means you do not have to supply a mailing address required by the U.S. company.


----------



## nico (Jan 17, 2013)

One thing that differs between many of us and Mark is that he has a pretty big email list from which to create a custom mirror audience. I don't know how this would work for someone with a much smaller list. Thoughts, anyone?


----------



## Jnassise (Mar 22, 2010)

Nico - size of the initial email list isn't as important as how targeted it is.  Facebook is doing the heavy listing by comparing the likes and actions of those in your list and then generating a list of the top 5% of other users who match that profile, so to speak.  A 5000 member list of loosely targeted users is going to be less beneficial to you than a list of 500 super-targeted users.

-Joe


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Megan D said:


> Really finding your posts useful. Would love to see a video as I'm struggling to find how to get to granular detail for FB ads. Have created my 1st video today after your previous post and will be going back to FB tomorrow to try again on figuring out the targeting.


What are you advertising with the vid? Good luck...


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Jnassise said:


> Nico - size of the initial email list isn't as important as how targeted it is. Facebook is doing the heavy listing by comparing the likes and actions of those in your list and then generating a list of the top 5% of other users who match that profile, so to speak. A 5000 member list of loosely targeted users is going to be less beneficial to you than a list of 500 super-targeted users.
> -Joe


What he said! And, of course, you can then slice and dice that targetted list with their interests. So, for me, I might reduce the 2.2m that I get on the 1% mirror audience by adding in that they must also like Lee Child. That means I end up with a pool of people who should bear some likeness to my subscribers, with the qualification that they must also like the big gun in my genre.

And that's medium level targetting. Re-targetting website or page visitors is another way to produce eyeballs for your ads more likely to be conducive to what you are selling than someone completely random.


----------



## nico (Jan 17, 2013)

Jnassise said:


> Nico - size of the initial email list isn't as important as how targeted it is. ... A 5000 member list of loosely targeted users is going to be less beneficial to you than a list of 500 super-targeted users.


I understand and agree with the logic, but i would like to see evidence that this indeed works for others with smaller seed lists. Perhaps it is time to experiment with Facebook again...


----------



## sarahdalton (Mar 15, 2011)

I've tried Facebook ads in the past and not had much of a result, but I wonder if the image and the copy wasn't good enough. Also, I tried 'scraping' IDs from Facebook fan pages for similar authors (it sounds dodgy, but it's perfectly legitimate - it basically weeds out inactive accounts on fan pages so you only advertise to active members) but again, if the image and copy wasn't eye catching enough it might not have worked. Also, I used this on a low-priced multi-author boxed set. Maybe my higher priced series boxed set would be better. 

Looking forward to viewing your video and the ad you ran. Thanks for sharing!


----------



## coolpixel (Sep 17, 2012)

This is all good stuff.

I am on another forum and I keep telling the authors there to come over here, but they are well entrenched in the idea that all you need to do is write a good book.

In my opinion, writing is only 1/3rd of it. The rest of it is all the mechanics that Mark focuses so well on.


----------



## coolpixel (Sep 17, 2012)

nico said:


> One thing that differs between many of us and Mark is that he has a pretty big email list from which to create a custom mirror audience. I don't know how this would work for someone with a much smaller list. Thoughts, anyone?


I think an FB sign up campaign could be run prior to running the ads. I have had decent success with such campaigns in the past, with nothing fancy but my signup link.


----------



## Jnassise (Mar 22, 2010)

SarahDalton - scraping IDs and audience from other fan pages is no longer legitimate.  Facebook made several changes this past fall and cracked down very hard on that process.  I would avoid it if I were you moving forward.  Use LookAlike Audiences or audiences generated from your own web tracking pixels (essentially retargeted audiences) instead.


----------



## Chrisbwritin (Jan 28, 2014)

nico said:


> I understand and agree with the logic, but i would like to see evidence that this indeed works for others with smaller seed lists. Perhaps it is time to experiment with Facebook again...


It's a fact. I'm not sure how small you're talking, but I've tried it with a list as small as 400.


----------



## Kate. (Oct 7, 2014)

What about a very small list - under 50? Is it worth trying with just that, or should I focus on building my list more first?

Thanks for the very exciting and helpful post, Mark! I'm looking forward to the video.


----------



## Jnassise (Mar 22, 2010)

Darcy - I don't think the audience would be very effective with a sample of that size.  In fact, I'm not even sure Facebook will process a lookalike audience from such a sample.  The lowest I've ever worked with (and still gained some benefit from using) was an audience of 350 members.  

That's not to say you can't try lower, just what my own personal experience has been.

-Joe


----------



## Chrisbwritin (Jan 28, 2014)

Jnassise said:


> Darcy - I don't think the audience would be very effective with a sample of that size. In fact, I'm not even sure Facebook will process a lookalike audience from such a sample. The lowest I've ever worked with (and still gained some benefit from using) was an audience of 350 members.
> 
> That's not to say you can't try lower, just what my own personal experience has been.
> 
> -Joe


I believe 200 or 250 is the min. That doesn't mean you can't do ads. You just have to choose audiences thru interests rather than a custom or LAL audience.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

nico said:


> I understand and agree with the logic, but i would like to see evidence that this indeed works for others with smaller seed lists. Perhaps it is time to experiment with Facebook again...


Nico - my list is really a series of lists. I have one per book. Some have 400-500 on them, others more. I have experimented with one of the smaller lists and produced comparable results as when I import and mirror the aggregate.


----------



## Megan D (Feb 3, 2015)

Mark Dawson said:


> What are you advertising with the vid? Good luck...


Thanks Mark, I'm starting with my best-selling title, which is on a specific health matter (I write non-fiction). In real life, I've been in direct marketing of consumer goods for nearly 20 years, and in my experience you're better off targeting (at least initially) a small increase of your best-selling line rather than a bigger increase in a poorer selling line. Of course, it's not mutually exclusive, but the idea is to start with product that already has traction and then move onto the rest. The upside for me is that my work is already content-rich with images so I'm hoping that I can leverage that in more visual ways of advertising.


----------



## Kate. (Oct 7, 2014)

Thanks, Joseph and Chris! I'll choose the audiences through interest instead, then.


----------



## Megan D (Feb 3, 2015)

I hope Mark doesn't mind me adding to this thread but I've had a couple of PMs about what I've done in Twitter and I hope it's relevant as it was entirely Mark's original FB thread that gave me the idea of testing what I'm now doing on Twitter. 

First of all, I should make a few things clear. I write non-fiction not fiction and my books have visual content which I leverage in my marketing.  However, I took Mark's concept of targeting similar authors using follower targeting. I've tested using business cards vs website click throughs to a squeeze page, and for my advertising the latter worked significantly better (like 10 times more cost-effective). I always, always use pictures, often in the form of a bespoke creative, on Twitter, it's so worth the loss of 26 characters (I create my own "artwork" which is a very posh term for what is often just a picture with a caption or call to action). I manually cap my bids. Other authors may not find this necessary, but I suspect that my target list is highly commercial (ie the big FMCG brands are also targeting the same peeps albeit for different products) and when I left it on automatic, the cost per action was ridiculous. I ignore the fact that Twitter severely warns me that my bid is too low, carry on regardless, and still get conversions at a cost that is acceptable to me. I always start a campaign with at least 3 different variations, and then add new variants on the best performing ones to hopefully get to the optimum performance. 
The last thing that I would say, though, is that whilst it is always really useful to learn what has worked for someone else, you must test, analyse, retest, reanalyse, repeat as no-one else is marketing your range of books, so what works for one may not work for another.  I have a marketing budget and I allocate about 25% of that to testing new things in the knowledge that some (which can sometimes be a lot) won't work. HTH!


----------



## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Mark,

You may have already done this, but I've had some luck getting my cost per click way down by running a bunch of test ads before I roll out a campaign. It makes a huge difference. I set up 6 or so ads, each identical but running to different author pages. I set them up for about $2, optimize for clicks and then watch what happens over the next 5-6 hours. Usually one or two will emerge as a clear winner....and under .10 per click. Depends on the genre, my romance seems to get lower clicks, mystery runs higher for me, but still under .20.


----------



## Guest (Mar 25, 2015)

1) Thanks for sharing this. Found both this and your earlier post on email signups via FB very helpful.

2) What's your take on the value of Likes. I found a book online that talked about getting Likes via ads. I just don't know if it's worth it to get Likes versus Email Subscribers.

3) THIS: A box set. That is KEY. I don't think this works for lower priced items.

For example... if your cost-per-click is 33c - which mine is right now - you have 20 clicks before someone needs to buy in order to break even. If it's 3.99, you have 12 clicks before you need a buy and that is clearly more difficult.


Have you tested with standalone books? How did that go?

My thinking is

Yes, a Box Set you can make more money. However, isn't conversion higher with a cheap stand-alone novel?

4) What genres see what rates for clicks?

5) Do you target only US?

6) What's the largest list you've tried this with?

7) Does Facebook save your list of email subscribers somewhere? That's my main concern - Is this just a way of giving away all your list to Facebook and they later sell it to other people?


----------



## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

You are doing good work, Mark! I've been following this thread with great interest and believe that I may have understood some of it.

I have signed up for the video and am looking forward to it. When you are making it, please try to ensure that you present it in as simple a step by step fashion as possible.

After that, go back and make it twice as simple as that.

Best of luck with this!

Philip


----------



## Marina Finlayson (May 2, 2014)

I've signed up for the video! Thanks for doing this, Mark. I'm looking forward to it. I know nothing about Facebook advertising, so it will be an education!


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Lots of questions. I'll do my best.



ireaderreview said:


> 1) Thanks for sharing this. Found both this and your earlier post on email signups via FB very helpful.


My pleasure.



ireaderreview said:


> 2) What's your take on the value of Likes. I found a book online that talked about getting Likes via ads. I just don't know if it's worth it to get Likes versus Email Subscribers.


Think about it - why would you take a Like (which you don't own) over an email subscription (which you do). I would take a subscription over a sale. My success this year is all about building a list.



ireaderreview said:


> 3) THIS: A box set. That is KEY. I don't think this works for lower priced items.
> Have you tested with standalone books? How did that go?
> 
> My thinking is
> ...


Not in my experience. I might try that a little more to get a better answer, but offering three novels at less than 7 bucks is a pretty compelling play. And your conversion has to be MUCH higher to cover your cost on a 2.99 book as opposed to a 6.99 book.



ireaderreview said:


> 4) What genres see what rates for clicks?


I can only speak for thrillers. Pretty good for those.



ireaderreview said:


> 5) Do you target only US?


Yes.



ireaderreview said:


> 6) What's the largest list you've tried this with?


15k.



ireaderreview said:


> 7) Does Facebook save your list of email subscribers somewhere? That's my main concern - Is this just a way of giving away all your list to Facebook and they later sell it to other people?


I think that's very unlikely but, of course, I can't speak for Facebook. You could try emailing here... [email protected]


----------



## DaniO (Oct 22, 2012)

I'd love to see a video on this. I tried using the Power Editor when I had a countdown deal and had pretty good returns but I did feel like I was winging it! Most of the website videos I found were out of date.
I'm on your mailing list and have read and really enjoyed the free books you've sent out. I have also told my brother and two friends to pick up your books as they love thrillers like yours. Thanks for being so generous and sharing your findings


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Carrie_Cox said:


> I'd love to see a video on this. I tried using the Power Editor when I had a countdown deal and had pretty good returns but I did feel like I was winging it! Most of the website videos I found were out of date.
> I'm on your mailing list and have read and really enjoyed the free books you've sent out. I have also told my brother and two friends to pick up your books as they love thrillers like yours. Thanks for being so generous and sharing your findings


My pleasure, Carrie - and thanks for the kind words and the word of mouth.


----------



## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

nico said:


> I understand and agree with the logic, but i would like to see evidence that this indeed works for others with smaller seed lists. Perhaps it is time to experiment with Facebook again...


Just go for targeting specific interests and fans of pages of related authors first. Just because you don't have the list yet, doesn't mean you can't make it work. Build up.

Also, Lookalike Audiences can be created out of your own Fan Page Likes or Website visitors. Maybe one of them is bigger for you and you could use that.


----------



## CelinaGrace (Nov 20, 2013)

I would love to see the video Mark and quite frankly, I would pay good money for a course as currently all a bit beyond me


----------



## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Darcy said:


> What about a very small list - under 50? Is it worth trying with just that, or should I focus on building my list more first?
> 
> Thanks for the very exciting and helpful post, Mark! I'm looking forward to the video.


Darcy, 50 is too small. But, you can run very effective ads without using the lookalike audience. You can just choose interests, specific author pages in your genre. You can test them individually, setting up a bunch of little ads for $2 each, with each one going to a different author page. This will allow you to see which will give you the best result. Then you can just go with the top one or two ads. It's kind of fun to do this too. I often have better luck just targeting interests than using my lookalike audience, so you're not missing out too much.


----------



## reneepawlish (Nov 14, 2011)

Facebook can take your mailing list (and other things), take those members who are also on FB, analyse what they like, and then create a mirror audience of people who share the same likes and interests as those people. In theory, you are advertising to a warmer audience; they may be predisposed towards you, certainly moreso than a "cold" audience. It's working for me, certainly.
--
This bit is intriguing to me, as my email list (around 2100) say they can't really come up with a comparison to my books (I write private eye mysteries).
Mark, kudos to you for being so helpful with all this. BIG thanks from me. I signed up for the video, can't wait!


----------



## Leif Sterling (Jul 19, 2014)

Hi Mark,

Thank you for such a great and informative post. I would also be interested in seeing your video.

Keep up the good work!

_*~Leif Sterling~*_


----------



## nonbreaking space (Dec 11, 2014)

> 7) Does Facebook save your list of email subscribers somewhere? That's my main concern - Is this just a way of giving away all your list to Facebook and they later sell it to other people?


it says in the tos for custom audiences that they delete the emails once they match them up to fb users.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Leif Sterling said:


> Hi Mark,
> 
> Thank you for such a great and informative post. I would also be interested in seeing your video.
> 
> ...


I will - and you're welcome.


----------



## Bob Stewart (Mar 19, 2014)

Mark Dawson said:


> Create a new fan page?


Mark,

The way you use the ads, linking directly to to a sales page, or to your email list landing page, isn't having a fan page irrelevant to the performance of the ad?


----------



## Megan D (Feb 3, 2015)

Yay, finally worked out how to do the granular detail on FB and set up my first round of video ads at the same time. Will now have to try avoid clicking refresh every 5mins and remind myself that I do need to leave things alone for a short while before trying to read anything into the results.  Have a book to finish so must focus on that.

Thank you, Mark, for the insights and help - it's been so interesting and useful, much appreciated.


----------



## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

Megan D said:


> I hope Mark doesn't mind me adding to this thread but I've had a couple of PMs about what I've done in Twitter and I hope it's relevant as it was entirely Mark's original FB thread that gave me the idea of testing what I'm now doing on Twitter.
> 
> First of all, I should make a few things clear. I write non-fiction not fiction and my books have visual content which I leverage in my marketing. However, I took Mark's concept of targeting similar authors using follower targeting. I've tested using business cards vs website click throughs to a squeeze page, and for my advertising the latter worked significantly better (like 10 times more cost-effective). I always, always use pictures, often in the form of a bespoke creative, on Twitter, it's so worth the loss of 26 characters (I create my own "artwork" which is a very posh term for what is often just a picture with a caption or call to action). I manually cap my bids. Other authors may not find this necessary, but I suspect that my target list is highly commercial (ie the big FMCG brands are also targeting the same peeps albeit for different products) and when I left it on automatic, the cost per action was ridiculous. I ignore the fact that Twitter severely warns me that my bid is too low, carry on regardless, and still get conversions at a cost that is acceptable to me. I always start a campaign with at least 3 different variations, and then add new variants on the best performing ones to hopefully get to the optimum performance.
> The last thing that I would say, though, is that whilst it is always really useful to learn what has worked for someone else, you must test, analyse, retest, reanalyse, repeat as no-one else is marketing your range of books, so what works for one may not work for another. I have a marketing budget and I allocate about 25% of that to testing new things in the knowledge that some (which can sometimes be a lot) won't work. HTH!


Good post! No sure about this part, what did you mean?

_However, I took Mark's concept of targeting similar authors using follower targeting. I've tested using business cards vs website click throughs to a squeeze page, and for my advertising the latter worked significantly better (like 10 times more cost-effective). _

Lead Cards vs Website Clickthroughs and that WCs won over trying to get people to sign up to email list straight on Twitter? 

P.S. Would love a separate thread for this!


----------



## pwtucker (Feb 12, 2011)

Very intriguing! Thanks for the generosity, and I too would love to see the video!


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Bob Stewart said:


> Mark,
> 
> The way you use the ads, linking directly to to a sales page, or to your email list landing page, isn't having a fan page irrelevant to the performance of the ad?


You need a page to run the ads. That aside, there is a benefit to getting some social proof on the ads to start with. You could, for example, run the ad as a post to your page, grab some likes and comments, and then turn it into an ad with that proof in place.


----------



## ketosis (Apr 19, 2013)

I started this method last night with an ad that points to my Mailchimp eepurl signup form.  I give away a few free copies of a new adult romance serial series in exchange for a signup.  So far I'm getting people at $0.17 a click, have had 11 mailing list signups, for a total of $8.55 sent, which is $0.77 per signup so far.  That number has gone down since earlier today, where it was at $0.87 per signup.  I've also had 49 clicks, so 22.45% of the people who click are signing up.  

I have a new release in May, so I've been building up these lists to hopefully 500 with this same offer in backmatter (bulk of signups), my old list, and now this.  Interesting to see how many I'll end up getting or how many of them will both go on to buy the rest of the series (or box set), and how many will be interested in this new release.


----------



## GoingAnon (Jan 16, 2014)

Signed up! Thank you, Mark. If this strategy turns out to be as effective as your list building ads, I'll need to send you a bottle of bubbly.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Alix Nichols said:


> Signed up! Thank you, Mark. If this strategy turns out to be as effective as your list building ads, I'll need to send you a bottle of bubbly.


I'll take you up on that!


----------



## AnonWriter (Dec 12, 2013)

Dumb Facebook Ads Question for all you experts:

Why aren't my current ads running?

I'm running a USA only set of ads for "click to website" to run continuously with a higher than recommended bid per click and a high budget per day. But I'm not getting any impressions let alone clicks.

I've raised my bid and daily budget a few times to see if that would help. No luck.

I've also googled the problem and emailed FB ads for help. Nothing.

I've had no problem in the past. This is new. Is it because Friday is high traffic?


----------



## William Meikle (Apr 19, 2010)

Emily Wibberley said:


> Dumb Facebook Ads Question for all you experts:
> 
> Why aren't my current ads running?
> 
> ...


I've got an FB ad currently running for newsletter signup through my web page and it's motoring along just fine, so I think you might have a problem somewhere.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Emily Wibberley said:


> Dumb Facebook Ads Question for all you experts:
> 
> Why aren't my current ads running?
> 
> ...


Emily - I would suggest letting Facebook set the price for you - optimised CPM. Set a lifetime budget if you are concerned about expense. Hard to diagnose otherwise without looking at your FB dash.


----------



## AnonWriter (Dec 12, 2013)

Thanks, guys. Yeah, I always do let FB set the price and I've emailed the FB support bbut haven't heard back. Like I said, I haven't had this problem before. 

Here's the weird thing:

I noticed when I looked at the REPORT of Responder Geographics that the US and GB weren't getting any impressions of my ads (they are a huge market obviously), and I could not figure out why those countries weren't getting impressions let alone clicks and all the others were getting lots.

That's why I decided to do separate ads for US and UK. Still nada. My ads for other countries run fine. 

Are there any special tips or tricks for running ads in the US and GB? 

Maybe FB assumes no one there will buy my book so they're saving me the trouble.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Emily Wibberley said:


> Are there any special tips or tricks for running ads in the US and GB?


Emily - I'll happily look at it for you. If you screencap the campaign, ad set and ad pages, and DM me I'll send you my email and take a look.


----------



## GoingAnon (Jan 16, 2014)

Emily Wibberley said:


> I'm not getting any impressions let alone clicks.


Hi, Emily. I had a similar problem with one of my ads, so I wrote to Facebook. They said that the audience I was targeting was too broad compared to my daily budget. "For example for a daily budget of 5$ you should not target more than 100 000 users.". 
They also pointed me to this help page: https://www.facebook.com/help/433385333434831.
I deleted that ad set and created a new one with the same audience but a slightly higher daily budget. The ad works like a charm now.


----------



## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

Emily Wibberley said:


> Thanks, guys. Yeah, I always do let FB set the price and I've emailed the FB support bbut haven't heard back. Like I said, I haven't had this problem before.
> 
> Here's the weird thing:
> 
> ...


Emily, post a screenshot of your ads settings, or send it to me in PM/email and we can look into it. Really no tricks about ads running in any country. Sometimes they take an hour or two to start running for me but it seems like there was bad Bid pricing set up..

What other countries you've selected btw? How are they doing?


----------



## AnonWriter (Dec 12, 2013)

Thanks, everyone. Sending out a screen grab.

Alix, I suspect that's my problem--although it wasn't for the first set of ads I ran a couple months ago. Now FB is being picky. Thanks for the link.


----------



## William Meikle (Apr 19, 2010)

loganbyrne said:


> I started this method last night with an ad that points to my Mailchimp eepurl signup form. I give away a few free copies of a new adult romance serial series in exchange for a signup. So far I'm getting people at $0.17 a click, have had 11 mailing list signups, for a total of $8.55 sent, which is $0.77 per signup so far. That number has gone down since earlier today, where it was at $0.87 per signup. I've also had 49 clicks, so 22.45% of the people who click are signing up.
> 
> I have a new release in May, so I've been building up these lists to hopefully 500 with this same offer in backmatter (bulk of signups), my old list, and now this. Interesting to see how many I'll end up getting or how many of them will both go on to buy the rest of the series (or box set), and how many will be interested in this new release.


As we're sharing...

Set up an ad of $25 split over 5 days, to a mirror audience of one garnered from the website pixel FB lets you put on page, and added targeting for genre fiction fans in my genre, calling for sign ups to my newsletter and giving away a free book to subscribers.

$4.12 spent so far, 570 people reached, 25 website clicks @ $0.16 each, and 10 sign ups to the newsletter @ $0.41 each


----------



## GoingAnon (Jan 16, 2014)

williammeikle said:


> As we're sharing...
> 
> Set up an ad of $25 split over 5 days, to a mirror audience of one garnered from the website pixel FB lets you put on page, and added targeting for genre fiction fans in my genre, calling for sign ups to my newsletter and giving away a free book to subscribers.
> $4.12 spent so far, 570 people reached, 25 website clicks @ $0.16 each, and 10 sign ups to the newsletter @ $0.41 each


Well done! I never managed to install that pixel thingy (my website is on Weebly). Maybe I should give it another try... Any tips?


----------



## William Meikle (Apr 19, 2010)

Alix Nichols said:


> Well done! I never managed to install that pixel thingy (my website is on Weebly). Maybe I should give it another try... Any tips?


My site is all handcoded by myself so all I did was paste the code into the html page and load it up. Worked first time.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

williammeikle said:


> $4.12 spent so far, 570 people reached, 25 website clicks @ $0.16 each, and 10 sign ups to the newsletter @ $0.41 each


Good stuff - 41c is just below the average for website signup conversions (for my big campaign, in any event). You'll likely find that they are "colder" than traffic that converts from the usual sources, but they certainly won't be deadwood.

A good way to find out is to set up an autoresponder that warms them up for a proper test. I would send them a couple of emails to introduce yourself, and then send, on the third, send them to an Amazon page with an offer on one of your books (using an affiliate link). I would expect a click rate of around 2%, but you might do better. And 2% of something is better than 0% of nothing...


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Endi Webb said:


> Are any of your direct sales ads video posts? When I tried a video ad, I managed to get the cost per view down to between 1-2 cents, but conversion was just awful.


Not for sales, but yes for mailing list subs - with the same cost per view. It's pretty obvious to me that FB is pricing these very low to compete with YouTube - there's an opportunity here for advertisers. How were you tracking conversions for the videos?


----------



## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

Mark,

Could you tell us more about the ads themselves, perhaps share the image, headline, and text you used?


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

TromboneAl said:


> Could you tell us more about the ads themselves, perhaps share the image, headline, and text you used?


Yep, sure. You want to big yourself up - writers tend, in my experience, to be reluctant to sing their own praises and that is a prerequisite for this to work. Maybe grab some quotes from positive readers reviews, and preface them with "Readers are saying that..." Etc. Or, if you struggle with that, ask someone with copywriting skills to draft something suitable for you. You need a nice image, worked to fit the FB template, with no text (it's easy to risk getting caught by FB's 20% rule).

I'll show my ad in the vid - answer the survey at the link and I'll send it when it's done: http://bit.ly/SelfPubSurvey

The ads are outperfoming the previous results. I spent $150 yesterday and made $431. Ulp. This could easily change with a nudge to FB's algos, but, at the moment, this is a game changer for me.


----------



## AG Claymore (Sep 19, 2011)

It looks like I've already answered that survey. Survey chimp is making me talk to the hand...


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

AG Claymore said:


> It looks like I've already answered that survey. Survey chimp is making me talk to the hand...


Bad monkey!


----------



## AG Claymore (Sep 19, 2011)

Mark Dawson said:


> Bad monkey!


Right? Well, he_ is_ a monkey, so I suppose I should be glad he's not flinging anything...


----------



## Jnassise (Mar 22, 2010)

I've been getting some excellent results with this approach as well.  Took a 2.1 million person LookAlike Audience down to 55,00 targets via use of specific Interests and ran the ad for a few days.  Generated a 7% conversion rate from ad to product page, 6% conversion from product page to sale, and 175% profit over the cost of the ad.

Clearly the dollars worked in my favor, but I'm curious what Mark and others might be seeing for conversion rates once the buyer hits the product page.  (I typically use 2-4% as an industry average for digital product but that might be off given recent changes to Facebook's algorithms.)


----------



## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

Mark a couple of questions

1. Are you driving them directly to a book on amazon or to a post on your fan page?

2. Are you targeting just the USA? or specific countries and groups?

3. Are you rotating 2 ads at a time?

4. How much is your per day limit or are you setting a lifetime budget?

5. Are you optimizing for clicks or page likes?


----------



## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

Jnassise said:


> I've been getting some excellent results with this approach as well. Took a 2.1 million person LookAlike Audience down to 55,00 targets via use of specific Interests and ran the ad for a few days. Generated a 7% conversion rate from ad to product page, 6% conversion from product page to sale, and 175% profit over the cost of the ad.
> 
> Clearly the dollars worked in my favor, but I'm curious what Mark and others might be seeing for conversion rates once the buyer hits the product page. (I typically use 2-4% as an industry average for digital product but that might be off given recent changes to Facebook's algorithms.)


Awesome, congrats on results.

You made LA from your website visitors or email list? Or fanpage Likes?

Also, that was 5500 or 55,000?


----------



## nonbreaking space (Dec 11, 2014)

is there a trick to narrowing down the list with interests? it seems that the interests are 'or' based, not 'and' based. Can you make them 'and'?


----------



## Jnassise (Mar 22, 2010)

RBC said:


> You made LA from your website visitors or email list? Or fanpage Likes? Also, that was 5500 or 55,000?


RBC - Started with my email list and created the Lookalike from there. And that should have read 55,000.


----------



## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

Jnassise said:


> RBC - Started with my email list and created the Lookalike from there. And that should have read 55,000.


Great stuff. What was our list size?

Great to see this working out continuously!!


----------



## Jnassise (Mar 22, 2010)

RBC said:


> What was your list size?


1500 members


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Jnassise said:


> Clearly the dollars worked in my favor, but I'm curious what Mark and others might be seeing for conversion rates once the buyer hits the product page. (I typically use 2-4% as an industry average for digital product but that might be off given recent changes to Facebook's algorithms.)


My conversion rate from the Amazon page to a sale is 10% for my list performing ad and 20% for my highest. Those figures are pretty high, I know - anything over 5% is excellent. The trick, for me, is to treat the Amazon page as if it was a landing page. Optimise everything, and then experiment. You need all the usual suspects: reviews, an indication in the pricing panel that this is a great deal, killer blurb, great look inside, and any other form of social proof you can muster.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

kalel said:


> Mark a couple of questions
> 
> 1. Are you driving them directly to a book on amazon or to a post on your fan page?
> 
> ...


1. Amazon page.
2. USA.
3. More than 2!
4. That varies depending on how the campaigns are performing. Yesterday was $175.
5. Definitely clicks. Why would you go for likes here?


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

nonbreaking space said:


> is there a trick to narrowing down the list with interests? it seems that the interests are 'or' based, not 'and' based. Can you make them 'and'?


Not that I am aware of - and that is the one irritation with what is a great system. I would love to be able to add "Kindle" AND (say) "Lee Child", to produce a target audience of Kindle fans who also like Lee Child.

There are roundabout ways to achieve that, of course - one can assume that a member of my mailing list is more likely than not to have a Kindle, and thereby more likely than not to have indicated somehow that they like something to do with the Kindle or eBooks, and therefore a mirror audience based on that list should - fingers crossed - be receptive to an offer about ebooks. But it would be nice to be able to make that more certain.


----------



## Jnassise (Mar 22, 2010)

Thanks Mark!  Appreciate the feedback and baseline comparison.


----------



## Eric_Hobbs (Oct 7, 2011)

Mark,

I'm curious to know how many of your Amazon click-throughs lead to purchase outside your library. Are you earning much in affiliate commission for other items bought on Amazon by the people who have subscribed to your list?

Thanks in advance!


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Yes - $20-$30 a day.


----------



## 58907 (Apr 3, 2012)

Hi Mark!

I'm loving your video training; very polished.


----------



## Eric_Hobbs (Oct 7, 2011)

Wow! And how many click-throughs to Amazon are you getting per day on average for that extra $20-30 in commission? Just curious.


----------



## AlexisR (Apr 3, 2015)

Add me to the list of people who'd love to watch your video. Please do put something together!


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

I'm miles below everyone else's level apparently...  I have no website or mailing list to "mirror" or whatever the terminology is, and I want to direct people to my amazon book page for them to click-n-buy.  

I was just on the "create an ad" page to see what it's like, and I'm dismayed to find it's not as user-friendly and flexible as I was hoping.  The "interests" field is pretty rigid and not very helpful for my particular purposes, with its narrow list of options.  And speaking of the Interests... I'm not certain if their targeting algorithm will take into account the Facebook "groups" to which some of the targeted audience members belong.  For example, if I wrote a fantasy series with dragons, I'd want to tap into members belonging to group pages for Game of Thrones, but as far as I can tell, there's not really a way to zero in on that particular target.  Also, that ad set-up page doesn't make it clear whether or not you can type in your own words under "Interests," or if you have to use the (limited) ones they suggest.  So I'm going to have to think about this a little further.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

AlexisRadcliff said:


> Add me to the list of people who'd love to watch your video. Please do put something together!


He already did http://www.selfpublishingformula.com/


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

I'm learning a lot in Mark's private Facebook group. It's turning into a bit of a laboratory, loads of our kboards friends talking about marketing and FB ads. I don't know about you, but I can't write ad copy to save my life, but Mark can! He's already fixed my main problem (not knowing what the hell to talk up in my adverts beside the price)

It's called Self Publishing Formula https://www.facebook.com/groups/1584291371854759/

I've just started trying adverts to iBooks. I think it's time Apple started giving me more money  Can't hurt to share the ad budget can it?


----------



## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

I am also interested in targeting Apple with ads to see if I can stir things up over there.  I'm also trying to get them to feature my books, but that's been an uphill battle... They are reviewing my "Marketing plan" now. I'm sure it's not yet interesting enough for them.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

thewitt said:


> I am also interested in targeting Apple with ads to see if I can stir things up over there. I'm also trying to get them to feature my books, but that's been an uphill battle... They are reviewing my "Marketing plan" now. I'm sure it's not yet interesting enough for them.


Wow, that's being a real writer/publisher. You have a bonafide marketing plan? Mine is: Spend money at ENT, Freebooksy, BB, Facebook and pray. How the heck do you even get Apple to talk to you?


----------



## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

I sent them a support email asking what it would take for them to feature my books.  They came back with a canned reply, but one of the things they needed to review was my marketing plan...  so I started to write things down and put $$ on them, and then sent it in. No reply yet.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

thewitt said:


> I sent them a support email asking what it would take for them to feature my books. They came back with a canned reply, but one of the things they needed to review was my marketing plan... so I started to write things down and put $$ on them, and then sent it in. No reply yet.


Interesting. That sounds more like a budget than a marketing plan though.


----------



## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> Interesting. That sounds more like a budget than a marketing plan though.


My marketing plan is a project plan, just as I would build a plan for any project I've run in the last 30 years, with dates, actions and expenses...

It is presented as a gantt chart. It will be interesting to see how they react to it.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

thewitt said:


> My marketing plan is a project plan, just as I would build a plan for any project I've run in the last 30 years, with dates, actions and expenses...
> 
> It is presented as a gantt chart. It will be interesting to see how they react to it.


Report back will you? If it works, can you can teach me how to do one?


----------



## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> Report back will you? If it works, can you can teach me how to do one?


Absolutely


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

thewitt said:


> Absolutely


Thanks.


----------



## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Loving the videos Mark - they are so well done and easy to follow so far.

Is it possible to use a list of Twitter followers to make a mirror list? Most of my 2,000+ followers are there because they have shown an interest in the stuff I write about (History/Space Travel).

Philip


----------



## jackconnerbooks (Nov 18, 2014)

I've tried several FB campaigns, both for paid items and for newsletter sign-ups, and so far it's just not working. I've had to cancel every ad I've ever done through them because they just don't produce. People click on link, but they don't buy, even though the book has a great cover and a high star-rating.

What am I doing wrong?


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

jackconnerbooks said:


> I've tried several FB campaigns, both for paid items and for newsletter sign-ups, and so far it's just not working. I've had to cancel every ad I've ever done through them because they just don't produce. People click on link, but they don't buy, even though the book has a great cover and a high star-rating.
> 
> What am I doing wrong?


This is what we're all trying to learn with the Facebook group and videos. So far, I've found cover pics and 3D box covers perform less well than a nice plain graphic with no text, that suggests genre. So a spacecraft or sci-fi battle scene for my space opera for example would do better than the actual covers and blurb. Copy writing is totally different to the blurbs we use on sales pages I've found. Also, using pixels, newsletter mirror audiences, and then whittling that down with interests, is better than a huge target.

I did well with high price audio books last year. Not so now that WS has taken over. I'm trying to make box sets work and also traffic to Apple. We'll have to see.


----------



## jackconnerbooks (Nov 18, 2014)

Thank you, Mark! I haven't tried doing mirror audiences yet, and I'm just coming out with my first audio book this week (!!), but I need to play with both of those things.


----------



## djv1120 (Dec 7, 2013)

Tried signing up for the free video series, but haven't gotten anything. I would definitely like to know more.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

I'm not sure what's happened there - check your spam? Otherwise, PM me your addy and I'll add you myself.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

djv1120 said:


> Tried signing up for the free video series, but haven't gotten anything. I would definitely like to know more.


If you used gmail, it will be in your promotions folder I suspect.


----------



## FMH (May 18, 2013)

As always, you are a gem on this board. THANK YOU. <3


----------



## Tim_A (May 25, 2013)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> .


Saw your ad in the wild just now, and thought it was very striking. Strong message, liked the picture. Clicked through onto your list, as much to see what happened as for the freebies!


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Tim_A said:


> Saw your ad in the wild just now, and thought it was very striking. Strong message, liked the picture. Clicked through onto your list, as much to see what happened as for the freebies!


Oh really? I'm split testing. Is it the one with the soldiers fighting, or is it the one with the cat alien?


----------



## Tim_A (May 25, 2013)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> Oh really? I'm split testing. Is it the one with the soldiers fighting, or is it the one with the cat alien?


Soldiers fighting.

BTW, you could use an extra l in install, and it would be nice to put in the link for Mac send to Kindle, as well as PC  (I never even knew that existed; I always just mailed it it my Kindle email!)


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Tim_A said:


> Soldiers fighting.
> 
> BTW, you could use an extra l in install, and it would be nice to put in the link for Mac send to Kindle, as well as PC  (I never even knew that existed; I always just mailed it it my Kindle email!)


Arggghhhh! The link to Mac, really? Okay I'll go do that.


----------



## hardnutt (Nov 19, 2010)

Late asking for your video Mark. I'm afraid I've been ill (stroke). Not exactly firing on all cylinders, but...

My email is [email protected]

Many thanks.


----------



## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Just finished watching your videos Mark and have a new campaign started! Thanks so much for doing this for those of us who need a bit of help getting started.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

hardnutt said:


> Late asking for your video Mark. I'm afraid I've been ill (stroke). Not exactly firing on all cylinders, but...
> 
> My email is [email protected]
> 
> Many thanks.


You just need to sign up here now: http://www.selfpublishingformula.com/


----------



## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Thanks for sharing. Love to watch the video.


----------



## authorfriendly (Apr 21, 2012)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> You just need to sign up here now: http://www.selfpublishingformula.com/


That link and the facebook link do not work. If there is a link to Mark's new video on this I would love to have it


----------



## Daniel Kenney (Sep 18, 2014)

I am also struggling to figure out how to access the videos. The link does not appear to work for me. Thanks! Dan.


----------



## devalong (Aug 28, 2014)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> You just need to sign up here now: http://www.selfpublishingformula.com/


I just see a white screen when I go to that link?


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Daniel Kenney said:


> I am also struggling to figure out how to access the videos. The link does not appear to work for me. Thanks! Dan.


Yeah, I'm in the FB group and did the survey but... no videos. I'm beginning to think they're the 'net equivalent of Bigfoot or Nessie.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Thanks for pointing that out, folks. I'm on it.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Thanks guys - whatever it was, I think it's fixed now.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

authorfriendly said:


> That link and the facebook link do not work. If there is a link to Mark's new video on this I would love to have it
> 
> http://www.selfpublishingformula.com/


I just checked, it does work. The Facebook group requires an invite


----------



## Paul Kohler (Aug 14, 2013)

Very bizarre... I've tried to find these videos, but even after subscribing, I don't got it. Even just now, I click on the website, and get a white page. I tried the Facebook link from page 5 here, and get an unfound page notice. I am seriously begging to think this is all just a scam to gain email addresses. Why not just share the video links? Why so ultra top secret?

For now, off to unsubscribe... I'll go back to trial and error on Facebook ads.


----------



## AJStewart (May 10, 2014)

Paul Kohler said:


> Very bizarre... I've tried to find these videos, but even after subscribing, I don't got it. Even just now, I click on the website, and get a white page. I tried the Facebook link from page 5 here, and get an unfound page notice. I am seriously begging to think this is all just a scam to gain email addresses. Why not just share the video links? Why so ultra top secret?
> 
> For now, off to unsubscribe... I'll go back to trial and error on Facebook ads.


Paul, I think the website is down at the moment, but I'm sure Mark will see it fixed in due course. It happens. But if you did signup and confirmed your subscription you might want to check your spam folder. I signed up and am getting the emails/video (I use gmail and they are in the Promotions folder for me).


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Paul Kohler said:


> Very bizarre... I've tried to find these videos, but even after subscribing, I don't got it. Even just now, I click on the website, and get a white page. I tried the Facebook link from page 5 here, and get an unfound page notice. I am seriously begging to think this is all just a scam to gain email addresses. Why not just share the video links? Why so ultra top secret?
> 
> For now, off to unsubscribe... I'll go back to trial and error on Facebook ads.


Please, I can assure you it's not a scam. Seriously. I think I've earned my bona fides by now.

The site is down - and has been twice today. It's being fixed now.

The first video is sent the day after you sign up. If you'd like me to unsubscribe you, just let me know.


----------



## Paul Kohler (Aug 14, 2013)

So, I'm planning a Facebook ad campaign. How many weeks will have to wait before I get the guts of this? Are there any links that I can just go click to see what I need to know today and not next Thursday?


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Paul Kohler said:


> So, I'm planning a Facebook ad campaign. How many weeks will have to wait before I get the guts of this? Are there any links that I can just go click to see what I need to know today and not next Thursday?


The videos fire out every day or so. There's a very active Facebook group that is full of people - many KBoards alumni - who are exchanging notes on what is and what is not working. You'd be very welcome, but if it's not for you, let me know.


----------



## Paul Kohler (Aug 14, 2013)

Sure, give me the link for the Facebook page.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Paul Kohler said:


> Sure, give me the link for the Facebook page.


It's a private group to which everyone (here, at least) is welcome. PM me with your email if you are interested and I'll add you in.


----------



## Paul Kohler (Aug 14, 2013)

Wow, real cloak and dagger. Never mind. I'll figure it out on my own, and then openly share the advice for all to use.


----------



## Chrisbwritin (Jan 28, 2014)

Mark- What you're doing here is truly lovely. Just wanted to say that.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Chrisbwritin said:


> Mark- What you're doing here is truly lovely. Just wanted to say that.


Thanks. Appreciated!


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Paul Kohler said:


> Very bizarre... I've tried to find these videos, but even after subscribing, I don't got it. Even just now, I click on the website, and get a white page. I tried the Facebook link from page 5 here, and get an unfound page notice. I am seriously begging to think this is all just a scam to gain email addresses. Why not just share the video links? Why so ultra top secret?
> 
> For now, off to unsubscribe... I'll go back to trial and error on Facebook ads.


The videos are sent to your email address. You get one every 2 days, and an invite to the Facebook group after the first video. Mark's website is giving him crap. I believe it's fixed for now. You're really missing out if you go back to trial and error. I did that for a year and had some luck but no understanding why, so when I tried to make my luck work again, it didn't and I didn't understand why not. I've learned more in two days than I did back then.


----------



## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Hey Mark, I just started an ad for my boxed set, which is priced at $9.99 using info from your videos. I make $6.90 or so on each sale. So far I've spent $6.09 and have sold 14 extra boxed sets today over my average for a total of $97.86 and the day is not over. So that seems to be working! Will report back later. This was just a test to see how my copy and image worked.

I also did a signup ad for my mailing list targeted to fans of one of the biggest selling authors in my genre but the results have't been as good. No new signups yet. Will have to play around a bit with copy.

So thanks for the great videos.


----------



## Kim Brooks (Oct 17, 2013)

Wow - your results are amazing!  I placed FB Ads before around holidays such as Valentine's Day since my books are mainly geared toward singles, however I didn't have much success.  I felt like I was just throwing my money in a hole.  I like your idea of initially posting Ads to increase email subscriber signups.  I will try that for my daily devotional for single women email list; I just hope the conversion rate will be worth it.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Sela said:


> Hey Mark, I just started an ad for my boxed set, which is priced at $9.99 using info from your videos. I make $6.90 or so on each sale. So far I've spent $6.09 and have sold 14 extra boxed sets today over my average for a total of $97.86 and the day is not over. So that seems to be working! Will report back later. This was just a test to see how my copy and image worked.
> 
> I also did a signup ad for my mailing list targeted to fans of one of the biggest selling authors in my genre but the results have't been as good. No new signups yet. Will have to play around a bit with copy.
> 
> So thanks for the great videos.


Arghhh... I get the opposite. Mailing list exploded, not movement (yet) on the box


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Sela said:


> Hey Mark, I just started an ad for my boxed set, which is priced at $9.99 using info from your videos. I make $6.90 or so on each sale. So far I've spent $6.09 and have sold 14 extra boxed sets today over my average for a total of $97.86 and the day is not over. So that seems to be working! Will report back later. This was just a test to see how my copy and image worked.
> 
> I also did a signup ad for my mailing list targeted to fans of one of the biggest selling authors in my genre but the results have't been as good. No new signups yet. Will have to play around a bit with copy.
> 
> So thanks for the great videos.


That's fantastic. I wouldn't normally recommend 9.99 but you are crushing it. One piece of advice - the ad is scalable, but only to a point. Increase the budget slowly until you find the sweetspot.


----------



## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

Mark Dawson said:


> Please, I can assure you it's not a scam. Seriously. I think I've earned my bona fides by now.
> 
> The site is down - and has been twice today. It's being fixed now.
> 
> The first video is sent the day after you sign up. If you'd like me to unsubscribe you, just let me know.


I signed up yesterday. I've been lurking throughout this thread, sucking up information in bits and pieces, so now I'm ready for the good stuff. I'll keep rubbing my greedy hands together until the video hits my email. 

Seriously, thanks for doing this, Mark. I've followed you here and there, including listening to your recent appearance on SPP. Good stuff!

I haven't jumped into any FB ads yet, but it's something I'm considering.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

scottmarlowe said:


> I signed up yesterday. I've been lurking throughout this thread, sucking up information in bits and pieces, so now I'm ready for the good stuff. I'll keep rubbing my greedy hands together until the video hits my email.
> 
> Seriously, thanks for doing this, Mark. I've followed you here and there, including listening to your recent appearance on SPP. Good stuff!
> 
> I haven't jumped into any FB ads yet, but it's something I'm considering.


My pleasure, Scott. Good to have you on board.


----------



## Reaper (Nov 5, 2013)

Just echoing the sentiments here, thanks very much Mark! I've only skimmed this thread so far, but fully intend on devouring it completely soon (and signing up, of course!).


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Just watched video 3... I want MOOOOORE!


----------



## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Just watched video three and I am excited to get started amping up my website landing page, which sucks, so I can work on my mailing list campaign. I'm waiting for my mailing list ad to be approved -- it's in review because of a change I made but I hope it will improve my results. 

As for the boxed set ad, I am doing as well today as I did yesterday so that's good. Looks like another day where I make triple what I make in a normal day in revenues on the boxed set. I checked my stats for my ad and my relevance was 10/10 and my click through rate was 7.23%. Cost per website click was $0.07 so that's also good. 

So glad I signed up for your free course, Mark. Now, if I can get my mailing list building ad to work, I'll be happy. 

ETA: so far, in two days of using your ad approach for a boxed set, I have the following to report:

Books sold @ $9.99 = 39
Books normally sold: 12 (ave = 6/day)
Increase: 27 
Royalty: $6.99
2-Day Revenue: $188.73
Normal revenue: $83.88
Cost of Ad: $19.96
Net: $84.89

So I got my money back for the ad and I made double what I normally would make. I think it's fair to say that's a success.  The night isn't over yet so I may actually sell a few more sets.

I have three more collections and will try one for each set and report back the results.

Thanks again!


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Sela said:


> Just watched video three and I am excited to get started amping up my website landing page, which sucks, so I can work on my mailing list campaign. I'm waiting for my mailing list ad to be approved -- it's in review because of a change I made but I hope it will improve my results.
> 
> As for the boxed set ad, I am doing as well today as I did yesterday so that's good. Looks like another day where I make triple what I make in a normal day in revenues on the boxed set. I checked my stats for my ad and my relevance was 10/10 and my click through rate was 7.23%. Cost per website click was $0.07 so that's also good.
> 
> ...


I'm so happy for you Sela. My mailing list ad is working well, but I can't get the box set to respond. The advert IS working, but no one is buying. It is either too expensive or my sales page copy sucks. I am guessing at a combination, but will rework my blurb first


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Sela said:


> So glad I signed up for your free course, Mark. Now, if I can get my mailing list building ad to work, I'll be happy.
> 
> ETA: so far, in two days of using your ad approach for a boxed set, I have the following to report:
> 
> ...


Wonderful. Well done, Sela. That's a really strong result.


----------



## LeonardDHilleyII (May 23, 2011)

The link on the OP has a , after the www for those who click it and find an error.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

I'm bummed that it looks like you can choose only one "interest" at a time.  I guess that's the reason for having more than one ad in an ad set.    But it's hard to narrow down the potential audience when you don't have another author's fans to target (like Grisham, King, Martin, etc.).


----------



## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Jena H said:


> I'm bummed that it looks like you can choose only one "interest" at a time. I guess that's the reason for having more than one ad in an ad set.  But it's hard to narrow down the potential audience when you don't have another author's fans to target (like Grisham, King, Martin, etc.).


You can choose more than one interest. My latest ad has the names of 9 different astronauts as interests. But you have to type in part of the name and wait for the system to provide the full name from its files, then click on that to enter it.

Although the names of most of NASA's early astronauts are provided as interest options, I have never been able to get the system to offer famed flight controller Gene Kranz as an interest, which is a pity since he is also an author.

Philip


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Philip Gibson said:


> You can choose more than one interest. My latest ad has the names of 9 different astronauts as interests. But you have to type in part of the name and wait for the system to provide the full name from its files, then click on that to enter it.
> 
> Although the names of most of NASA's early astronauts are provided as interest options, I have never been able to get the system to offer famed flight controller Gene Kranz as an interest, which is a pity since he is also an author.
> 
> Philip


Any idea how extensive the list is for the names they have on file? And I'm assuming there are other types of 'names' in there, like for example, I'm sure NASA is on the list, or maybe titles like Star Wars or MASH, etc.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Philip Gibson said:


> You can choose more than one interest. My latest ad has the names of 9 different astronauts as interests. But you have to type in part of the name and wait for the system to provide the full name from its files, then click on that to enter it.
> 
> Although the names of most of NASA's early astronauts are provided as interest options, I have never been able to get the system to offer famed flight controller Gene Kranz as an interest, which is a pity since he is also an author.
> 
> Philip


If Kranz doesn't have an author page he probably won't come up. Also, you can put more than one interest into your target box, but you can't have a reader who likes author X AND author Y. What you get is a reader who likes author X OR author Y OR both unfortunately.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> If Kranz doesn't have an author page he probably won't come up. Also, you can put more than one interest into your target box, but you can't have a reader who likes author X AND author Y. What you get is a reader who likes author X OR author Y OR both unfortunately.


Nice to know we can use more than one interest, but since the book I'm going to use is non-fiction, I won't be using other authors' names. I hope there are "suggestions" close to my target group, and that there are options available other than author names. Which makes me wonder about non-book titles. For example, instead of Suzanne Collins, would one be able to type in The Hunger Games? Same with The Hobbit instead of Tolkien? Wonder if TV show titles can be used as well.


----------



## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Jena H said:


> Any idea how extensive the list is for the names they have on file? And I'm assuming there are other types of 'names' in there, like for example, I'm sure NASA is on the list, or maybe titles like Star Wars or MASH, etc.


I can't know how extensive the prominent names Facebook has on file is, but it must be pretty extensive since typing in just one astronaut name brings up suggestions of many more, some of whom I had not heard of.

I posted earlier that I was unable to get Facebook to suggest the famous flight controller, Gene Cerman. However, I just went back in and typed in *Eugene* Cerman and his name did then pop up as an interest suggestion which could be used. My newest ad targets people who are interested in author Bill Bryson. He is currently the #1 best selling author in History with his 'A Short History of Nearly Everything'. My Facebook ad, constructed after diligently following Mark Dawson's video tutorials, looks like this and I am well pleased with it:








Next step for me is to see if Facebook will accept as 'interests' the top 5 authors who write about historical space exploration.

Philip


----------



## MQ (Jan 5, 2011)

Have you guys had success doing a FB ad for a permafree (first in the series)? Right now I'm using the second book as an incentive to get signups to my mailing list.  I've found the audience is much 'warmer' when I send them emails for subsequent books.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

I'm not going after mailing list signups.  I hope results will be good to get people to my Amazon book page.


----------



## KOwrites (May 23, 2011)

I'm late to this party. I think I saw the thread but thought it was the original one about FB. I spend a lot of money on FB ads. In 2013, that high marketing spend worked wonders for me, but not so much this past year 2014-present. I definitely want to see the videos and learn what I'm doing wrong. I signed up and cannot wait to tweak what I already know and get this aspect of marketing working for me again. Thank you, Mark.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Jena H said:


> Nice to know we can use more than one interest, but since the book I'm going to use is non-fiction, I won't be using other authors' names. I hope there are "suggestions" close to my target group, and that there are options available other than author names. Which makes me wonder about non-book titles. For example, instead of Suzanne Collins, would one be able to type in The Hunger Games? Same with The Hobbit instead of Tolkien? Wonder if TV show titles can be used as well.


Oh sure. There are "famous" things like Hunger Games, Avatar, lord of the Rings, Foundation series, Star wars... basically, anything that enough people have made a fan page for will be there. AS far as I can see, it depends upon the number of visitors or popularity. So you can target genres, authors, series, films, shows of other kinds. Devices, OS like Android or IOS etc. You can target ereaders or tablets, or combinations.

The most frustrating thing for me is the lack of ability for narrowing down to (for example) people who want Space Opera audiobooks, but again without the AND command I can't do that. If I put in audiobooks, that covers EVERY genre in audio


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> Oh sure. There are "famous" things like Hunger Games, Avatar, lord of the Rings, Foundation series, Star wars... basically,* anything that enough people have made a fan page for will be there. *AS far as I can see, it depends upon the number of visitors or popularity. So you can target genres, authors, series, films, shows of other kinds. Devices, OS like Android or IOS etc. You can target ereaders or tablets, or combinations.
> 
> The most frustrating thing for me is the lack of ability for narrowing down to (for example) people who want Space Opera audiobooks, but again without the AND command I can't do that. If I put in audiobooks, that covers EVERY genre in audio


That's what I'm hoping. I'll be targeting people with an interest in something that I know has FB groups, so I hope FB recognizes the search term I put in. I'm not interested in mail-list signups, I just want to get those people to see the book.


----------



## Megan D (Feb 3, 2015)

Mark Dawson said:


> It's a private group to which everyone (here, at least) is welcome. PM me with your email if you are interested and I'll add you in.


Personally, Mark, I appreciate it being a private group. Sadly, along with the many helpful and generous peeps in the indie world, I've also happened across a number of who are either mad, bad or both. I also add my appreciation that having invested the time and expense in learning what has and hasn't worked for you, that you are generous enough to share it with us in such a professional manner. It's impossible to please everyone, but this is one of the least scammy author marketing programmes that I've come across.


----------



## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

Thanks for the great videos, Mark. I'll be using that when I've got my reader magnet program running.

But I'm concluding that to get direct sales of my $.99 or $2.99 book, a facebook ad would not be a good idea. Correct?


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

TromboneAl said:


> Thanks for the great videos, Mark. I'll be using that when I've got my reader magnet program running.
> 
> But I'm concluding that to get direct sales of my $.99 or $2.99 book, a facebook ad would not be a good idea. Correct?


Yep - the maths gets stretched to its breaking point below, say, 4.99. I'd pass until you have a set you can sell at 5.99 and up.


----------



## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Well, I just set up an ad, not that I know what I'm doing, but so I could understand what Mark is saying in the video. Signed up for those too and the group, if I am allowed. Thanks, Mark.


----------



## Maria Romana (Jun 7, 2010)

Just a note for those who've had trouble viewing the videos in their browser: I get the blank white space when I click the links in Firefox, but I put them into Google Chrome, and they came right up. I'm not savvy enough to know what the problem is, but that's an easy solution! 

As others have said, these professional, high quality videos, not "scammy" at all. Mark has put a LOT of work into this for all of us, and I'd like to thank him for it.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Maria Romana said:


> Just a note for those who've had trouble viewing the videos in their browser: I get the blank white space when I click the links in Firefox, but I put them into Google Chrome, and they came right up. I'm not savvy enough to know what the problem is, but that's an easy solution!
> 
> As others have said, these professional, high quality videos, not "scammy" at all. Mark has put a LOT of work into this for all of us, and I'd like to thank him for it.


Thanks! That's very sweet of you. As I mentioned up thread, there will be a paid course at some point but I'm going to put out a lot if free stuff and the FB group - which is awesome - is available to anyone. Just follow the link in the OP.


----------



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

TromboneAl said:


> Thanks for the great videos, Mark. I'll be using that when I've got my reader magnet program running.
> 
> But I'm concluding that to get direct sales of my $.99 or $2.99 book, a facebook ad would not be a good idea. Correct?


Nope. Incorrect. My best ad is for a 99c book. I make about two thirds the cost back on the sales of the actual book, but since it's book 1 in a series, a good number of these people buy the other two books.

Also, you get higher sales which helps your alsobots and algorithms and lifts your entire inventory. People are much more inclined to buy a deeply discounted book, and as with all ads, you're after numbers before you're after recovering your cost. You're hoping that by increasing your sales, you'll poke Amazon's algorithms. If instead of getting a huge boost in a single day, you can get a lower number of extra sales every day, this is a much better option for getting into the recommendation engine.


----------



## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Just chiming in to add that the FB group Mark set up is amazing. It's like a FB ads lab. Seeing other people's ads and sharing what is working is so helpful. I adjusted a new ad based on what I learned and it's working better than my old ad.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

PamelaKelley said:


> Just chiming in to add that the FB group Mark set up is amazing. It's like a FB ads lab. Seeing other people's ads and sharing what is working is so helpful. I adjusted a new ad based on what I learned and it's working better than my old ad.


Great! It's kind of taken on a life of its own. I'll broaden it out to other useful topics when I get a chance to do some more videos. Probably going to look at Mailing List Hygiene next.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Mark Dawson said:


> Great! It's kind of taken on a life of its own. I'll broaden it out to other useful topics when I get a chance to do some more videos. Probably going to look at Mailing List Hygiene next.


It's alive, ALIVE! Muhahaha... how does it feel to be Doctor Frankenstein, Mark?


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

For those whose ads direct people directly to Amazon for click-to-website, what do you choose on the ad for "What text and links do you want to use?" This is where you choose your headline and text, but there's a place that has only two options: "Create a Facebook page or turn off News Feed Ads."

Sounds like the ad can be _*either*_ Desktop News Feed_* or*_ Mobile News Feed. Is that right?

(This whole FB ad set-up is the least intuitive thing I've worked on in a long time.  )


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Jena H said:


> For those whose ads direct people directly to Amazon for click-to-website, what do you choose on the ad for "What text and links do you want to use?" This is where you choose your headline and text, but there's a place that has only two options: "Create a Facebook page or turn off News Feed Ads."
> 
> Sounds like the ad can be _*either*_ Desktop News Feed_* or*_ Mobile News Feed. Is that right?
> 
> (This whole FB ad set-up is the least intuitive thing I've worked on in a long time.  )


It can be all 4. BUT I turn off ad network at the bottom.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> It can be all 4. BUT I turn off ad network at the bottom.


I'm going to have to play with it again later, it's too frustrating and I need to take a break from it. From what I can tell I can't even "save" what I've worked on so far, to pick it up again later... just have to create a new one all over again.

Really, I'd think that Facebook would _want_ to make the process of creating an ad easy, but it's anything BUT. I had less trouble figuring out how to upload entire books, back in the day, than I do in trying to create one little ad.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Jena H said:


> I'm going to have to play with it again later, it's too frustrating and I need to take a break from it. From what I can tell I can't even "save" what I've worked on so far, to pick it up again later... just have to create a new one all over again.
> 
> Really, I'd think that Facebook would _want_ to make the process of creating an ad easy, but it's anything BUT. I had less trouble figuring out how to upload entire books, back in the day, than I do in trying to create one little ad.


No. You MUST hit the green upload button before leaving the page, and you MUST download to power editor BEFORE starting work again to use current stored data. Before uploading, use the switches to prevent the advert going live after you upload it.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> No. You MUST hit the green upload button before leaving the page, and you MUST download to power editor BEFORE starting work again to use current stored data. Before uploading, use the switches to prevent the advert going live after you upload it.


Thanks, Mark. The Power Editor.... that's a whole different story. Let's just say that Ad Manager and Power Editor are _not_ visible on the left-hand side of my FB page as they apparently are for others. (Even though everyone keeps telling me it is.) I do have a Power Editor account, so the next question will be whether it's actually tied to my FB page.  Ah well, we'll see. (Zuckerberg, you've got some 'splaining to do for making this so complicated!!)


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Jena H said:


> Thanks, Mark. The Power Editor.... that's a whole different story. Let's just say that Ad Manager and Power Editor are _not_ visible on the left-hand side of my FB page as they apparently are for others. (Even though everyone keeps telling me it is.) I do have a Power Editor account, so the next question will be whether it's actually tied to my FB page.  Ah well, we'll see. (Zuckerberg, you've got some 'splaining to do for making this so complicated!!)


Power editor is a Chrome extension thing. You MUST use Chrome for it to appear. Also, i don't have it on the left of my author page either, I have to click the blue bar on the right above the advert (the right column next to your news feed). It says promote, a drop down shows advert manager. Click that, THEN you will have the stuff on the left like tracking and the power editor.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> It's alive, ALIVE! Muhahaha... how does it feel to be Doctor Frankenstein, Mark?


It's already taken on a life of its own. I will be nudging it away from exclusively FB ads, though - if I can, of course. I'm thinking mailing list growth for our next subject...


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Mark Dawson said:


> It's already taken on a life of its own. I will be nudging it away from exclusively FB ads, though - if I can, of course. I'm thinking mailing list growth for our next subject...


Goog idea. I'm around 60 a day and very happy, but anything I can do to improve is welcome.


----------



## Censored (Oct 31, 2014)

Mark, thank you for the videos. High quality stuff.

I didn't feel like downloading Chrome, so I've been getting along without the Power Editor using the default Facebook ad setup. A little different from the Power Editor, but it seems to get you to the same stuff--right? Does anyone know if I'm missing out on any features by not using the Power Editor or is Power Editor just a neater interface?

I set up three ads so far, one for an audiobook on Audible, one for my mailing list, and one for a permafree first in series on Amazon. Since I'm just dipping my toes into this, they're each set for $1/day. Just seeing how scalable this is for us cheap, small-time prawns.

The permafree ad I set up last night and, somewhat curiously, it's still in review. The other two I set up on Tuesday and they were approved within about ten minutes. 

Mailing List Sign Ups stands at 10 clicks for $0.17 per click. Last time I checked, 2 of those had converted, which would be $.84 per conversion. The audiobook ad stands at 3 clicks for $0.45 per click. ACX doesn't show any new sales but I understand it's delayed.

I think these are pretty terrible numbers, but as someone with about 30 mailing list subscribers, a dollar or so per subscriber still seems like an okay trade.


----------



## MQ (Jan 5, 2011)

FictionFugitive said:


> The permafree ad I set up last night and, somewhat curiously, it's still in review. The other two I set up on Tuesday and they were approved within about ten minutes.


I'd be interested to know how you do with the permafree. I'm in the process of setting up two ads, one for a perma free and one for a mailing list. I think I'll start with a $1/day as I'm still not sure what I'm doing...


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

FictionFugitive said:


> Mark, thank you for the videos. High quality stuff.
> 
> I didn't feel like downloading Chrome, so I've been getting along without the Power Editor using the default Facebook ad setup. A little different from the Power Editor, but it seems to get you to the same stuff--right? Does anyone know if I'm missing out on any features by not using the Power Editor or is Power Editor just a neater interface?
> 
> ...


If it's in review for a long time, it might be too much text on the image.


----------



## Leif Sterling (Jul 19, 2014)

FictionFugitive said:


> I set up three ads so far, one for an audiobook on Audible, one for my mailing list, and one for a permafree first in series on Amazon. Since I'm just dipping my toes into this, they're each set for $1/day. Just seeing how scalable this is for us cheap, small-time prawns.


I like this so much. I am very interested to see how this works for you. My prawny budget sounds just about like yours, lol. I'm glad you can set it to $1/day. That's just about my speed.

Also, please report back with the advertising of your permafree. I'm curious to see how that works. I have seen that when I advertise my permafree, that it elevates sales to the rest of the series. So, this might be a good option.

Thanks!
_*~Leif Sterling~*_


----------



## Leif Sterling (Jul 19, 2014)

@Mark Dawson,

I've enjoyed your videos. They have been good. One of my favorite aspects of them was that they distinctly lack the "WarriorForum pushy salesman" flavor. I also like that you spaced out your videos. I hate getting spammed everyday.

I am interested to know about what your experience has been (or those in your FB group) with permafree books. My thought is that if FB ads worked for permafree books, that it would work quite well (as it's easier to give something away than to sell it). Then you have them in your series funnel (which, if well written, should direct them onto the next book) and can push them towards your mailing list.

Thanks!
_*~Leif Sterling~*_


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

I don't understand the "create a Facebook page" business. I'm logged into FB when I work on the ad, so why is it telling me to create _another_ page? I don't want another FB page to deal with. And if I just have to suck it up and create another page, should it be Brand/Product, or Entertainment?

For the record, no,I don't sell books off my FB page, and I write under pen names.


----------



## Censored (Oct 31, 2014)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> If it's in review for a long time, it might be too much text on the image.


Nah, there's no text. It's a cropped version of the permafree's cover with all text layers disabled. Not sure what the hang up is but if it stays in review much longer I might try to just disable/delete it and set a new one.



Jena H said:


> I don't understand the "create a Facebook page" business. I'm logged into FB when I work on the ad, so why is it telling me to create _another_ page? I don't want another FB page to deal with. And if I just have to suck it up and create another page, should it be Brand/Product, or Entertainment?
> 
> For the record, no,I don't sell books off my FB page, and I write under pen names.


You can create an author page. I believe the broad category it's under is "public figure" or "celebrity" (lol). Alternately, I thought you could set the ad to not be connected to a facebook page, but it probably costs you some functionality or makes the ad look different.


----------



## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

FictionFugitive said:


> I've been getting along without the Power Editor using the default Facebook ad setup. A little different from the Power Editor, but it seems to get you to the same stuff--right? Does anyone know if I'm missing out on any features by not using the Power Editor or is Power Editor just a neater interface.


When using the default Facebook setup method, you have two areas on the ad into which you can insert text. When using Power Editor, you are provided with three text boxes so your ad gets one area of text above the image and two text areas below the image.

Philip


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Philip Gibson said:


> When using the default Facebook setup method, you have two areas on the ad into which you can insert text. When using Power Editor, you are provided with three text boxes so your ad gets one area of text above the image and two text areas below the image.
> 
> Philip


Incorrect Philip. You CAN reach all three using the ad manager, but you have to click a link to reveal it.

One thing that power editor does have over the ad manager is more characters per box. I found out when I put in a blurb, and then opened the ad later in ad manager and saw it was too long, yet live and being served. So I didn't continue the edit I had in mind, and went back to power editor to do it. Also, the url that the advert displays can be edited in power manager. It can be different from the destination you are setting. You can make it pretty without having a long url on display.


----------



## JennyJ (Jul 20, 2011)

Thanks so much for sharing your videos. They are easy to understand so far


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Is everyone really following the herd and using the format "Question? You decide" format in their ads? I realize that's how Mark Dawson created his ads, but for _so_ many people to use the same "You decide" hook.... that seems a bit much. Or am I missing something really obvious??


----------



## Mike_Author (Oct 19, 2013)

Just a general question here - I don't have an author FB page - if I set up an ad series for one of my alias's books, will there be any link to my private FB page?  ie - I want to keep my author alias private and not broadcast to all my FB friends...


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Mike_Author said:


> Just a general question here - I don't have an author FB page - if I set up an ad series for one of my alias's books, will there be any link to my private FB page? ie - I want to keep my author alias private and not broadcast to all my FB friends...


You need to have a Page. The ads account will be linked to your pofile for billing, but the ads will be linked to your Page.


----------



## Censored (Oct 31, 2014)

So the first Prequel ad was eventually not approved. I looked at the guidelines, saw the part about not advertising alcohol to anyone below the legal age, realized my ad had been targeted for US readers 18+ and features spilled wine, and resubmitted the ad for 21+ instead. It was still in review for a while but late afternoon it was approved. 

Unless the impact is huge, it'll be hard for me to track permafree downloads from the ad because I get a somewhat steady clip of 10 or so daily permafree downloads already. But I'll try to get a general feel for conversion. So far, in terms of click rate, it's already performing better than the audiobook ad, which I think I'll take down shortly due to the rather high CPC and (as far as I can tell) no actual conversion.

Permafree Ad: 3 clicks, $0.41 per click, 5.405% click through, $1.23 total spend
Audible Audiobook: 5 clicks, $0.66 per click, 1.089% click through, $3.30 total spend
Mailing List: 23 clicks, $0.16 per click, 6.849% click through, $3.57 total spend

6 new subscribers to the mailing list that I think I can attribute to the ad, so that's about $.60 per subscriber. Again, no new audiobook downloads, and can't really tell about freebie conversions.


----------



## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

Jena H said:


> Is everyone really following the herd and using the format "Question? You decide" format in their ads? I realize that's how Mark Dawson created his ads, but for _so_ many people to use the same "You decide" hook.... that seems a bit much. Or am I missing something really obvious??


I wonder about this myself. I know it's a call to action, but it's going to become a tired marketing pitch real fast if everyone is using the same tagline.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

scottmarlowe said:


> I wonder about this myself. I know it's a call to action, but it's going to become a tired marketing pitch real fast if everyone is using the same tagline.


Yes. That is an issue. I should've kept that to myself. 

Of course, that's not the only formulation that can be used. We're creative people. Copy should come reasonably easily!


----------



## Megan D (Feb 3, 2015)

scottmarlowe said:


> I wonder about this myself. I know it's a call to action, but it's going to become a tired marketing pitch real fast if everyone is using the same tagline.


I made exactly the same point over on Mark's FB group a few days ago. People seem to be following MD's ad formats verbatum and that is going to lose it's effectiveness very, very rapidly especially if there are now a group of authors targeting the same interest groups (quite apart from what that will also do to the cost per click). Also, people should be testing a variety of ads and calls to action, the FB algorithms will ensure that the cream rises fairly rapidly to the top.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Megan D said:


> I made exactly the same point over on Mark's FB group a few days ago. People seem to be following MD's ad formats verbatum and that is going to lose it's effectiveness very, very rapidly especially if there are now a group of authors targeting the same interest groups (quite apart from what that will also do to the cost per click). Also, people should be testing a variety of ads and calls to action, the FB algorithms will ensure that the cream rises fairly rapidly to the top.


LOL, you're braver than I am, bringing that up in the FB group. (That's why I asked the question here instead.  ) I totally agree that authors who have similar target groups are in danger of devaluing the ads if A) there are too many book ads showing up for those audience members, and B) many of the ads look too similar or have same/similar wording. Makes me glad my books have a totally different niche audience.


----------



## AnonWriter (Dec 12, 2013)

Making my way slowly through the videos. Thanks so much, Mark.

Question: How do you guys get a list of your website visitors? I use wordpress.com. I couldn't see any way to do it on the site. Do I need a special app?


----------



## Tony Bertauski (May 18, 2012)

Have done the 3 video and love the approach to the starter library. Have already revamped my mailing list landing page. Haven't dipped into FB advert yet, but have a question. The video primarily address obtaining more mailing list subscribers. What other FB adverts have worked? Directly to book? Amazon page or website?

Also, wish you had a way to buy you a cup of coffee for the video. They were worth it.

Looking forward to getting into FB page (sent request via email).

Thanks!


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Tony Bertauski said:


> Have done the 3 video and love the approach to the starter library. Have already revamped my mailing list landing page. Haven't dipped into FB advert yet, but have a question. The video primarily address obtaining more mailing list subscribers. What other FB adverts have worked? Directly to book? Amazon page or website?
> 
> Also, wish you had a way to buy you a cup of coffee for the video. They were worth it.
> 
> ...


I don't have mailing lists, so that's not a consideration for me. Quite a few people have run ads aimed at sales, taking people directly to their book's Amazon page or another click-to-buy site, and I believe they're quite happy with that process. I've just run my first neophyte ad like that myself. So far results have been pretty good (good by _my_ standards-- probably quite pitiful by other people's standards, lol).


----------



## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Tony Bertauski said:


> Have done the 3 video and love the approach to the starter library. Have already revamped my mailing list landing page. Haven't dipped into FB advert yet, but have a question. The video primarily address obtaining more mailing list subscribers. What other FB adverts have worked? Directly to book? Amazon page or website?
> 
> Also, wish you had a way to buy you a cup of coffee for the video. They were worth it.
> 
> ...


On Mark's private Facebook page on the subject (which you can join), several authors have reported fair to good results from directing the ad at their book page on Amazon. The general consensus so far seems to be that the ads pointing to sales only really pay off when pointing to the more expensive items such as box sets.

Philip


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Emily Wibberley said:


> Making my way slowly through the videos. Thanks so much, Mark.
> 
> Question: How do you guys get a list of your website visitors? I use wordpress.com. I couldn't see any way to do it on the site. Do I need a special app?


You use a retargeting pixel. It's a piece of Javasvript that tells FB (in this instance) or Google, etc, who has visited your site. Retargeting is powerful - it's the reason you'll see ads for a site that you have just visited starting to appear in your newsfeed, etc - but I don't recommend them for these kinds of ad. They don't work very well with fiction.


----------



## Leif Sterling (Jul 19, 2014)

Any reports from anyone on using this method for permafree books, in order to move the rest of the series?

Thanks!
_*~Leif Sterling~*_


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Leif Sterling said:


> Any reports from anyone on using this method for permafree books, in order to move the rest of the series?
> 
> Thanks!
> _*~Leif Sterling~*_


I'm not doing precisely what you want but similar. I'm using my permafree books to gain mailing list subs, which is really working amazingly well. I've noticed though that books 2,3,4 of my sci-fi has ticked up. Not my hundreds a day (I wish!) but they're up by about 5 each a day. No idea if that will continue. It seems my mailing list is more engaged with my books than the normal free download people. They're reading the books straight away (as far as I can tell) rather than letting them sit awhile.

I know Patty Jansen is promoting a $0.99 first in series. She has seen some decent ROI on the follow up books. She reported being happy the other day in the group.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Leif Sterling said:


> Any reports from anyone on using this method for permafree books, in order to move the rest of the series?
> 
> Thanks!
> _*~Leif Sterling~*_


If you are asking about advertising the permafree to push sales of the others, I wouldn't recommend it. It is untrackable, and you won't be able to know whether the campaign is working. You might be able to deduce that it is, but not with certainty. And, if I'm spending on an ad, I want to know how much it makes me to the last cent.


----------



## Leif Sterling (Jul 19, 2014)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> I'm not doing precisely what you want but similar. I'm using my permafree books to gain mailing list subs, which is really working amazingly well. I've noticed though that books 2,3,4 of my sci-fi has ticked up. Not my hundreds a day (I wish!) but they're up by about 5 each a day. No idea if that will continue. It seems my mailing list is more engaged with my books than the normal free download people. They're reading the books straight away (as far as I can tell) rather than letting them sit awhile.
> 
> I know Patty Jansen is promoting a $0.99 first in series. She has seen some decent ROI on the follow up books. She reported being happy the other day in the group.


@Mark E. Cooper,
Thanks for replying. Using them to get mailing list subs is a great idea. I appreciate your insight!

_*~Leif Sterling~*_


----------



## Leif Sterling (Jul 19, 2014)

Mark Dawson said:


> If you are asking about advertising the permafree to push sales of the others, I wouldn't recommend it. It is untrackable, and you won't be able to know whether the campaign is working. You might be able to deduce that it is, but not with certainty. And, if I'm spending on an ad, I want to know how much it makes me to the last cent.


@Mark Dawson,

Good point on not being able to track the progress. I do agree with you that I want to very carefully watch my pennies when it comes to advertising.

I have another question. I was just about to get a bundle together for my series. I was wondering how well this was working for the $4.99 price range? My series is similar to Hunger Games/Maze Runner/Divergent.

Thanks for your help!
_*~Leif Sterling~*_


----------



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

OK, I'm back home from Supanova now. It was awesome, but don't ask me about the weather on the drive back.

Yes, I have an ad running for a 99c book that's first in a series. It has been selling 8-18 copies a day, and I usually get 2-4 sales of subsequent volumes at full price, so the ad makes a profit. This is a small ad targeted to a small audience for $5 a day. I've just set up a parallel ad which targets a different audience, also for $5 a day. If the ad earns out, it can stay. At this point in time I'm more interested in numbers on the board than direct profits. This is an ongoing series and I simply want to sell as many books of book 1 at 99c as I can to lift it in the rankings and get alsobots happening.

At the moment it's working so well that I'm considering putting my permafrees back to paid and duplicate the process. IMO it's better for algorithms on all sites (and I sell a lot on Kobo and B&N) to sell books cheaply than to give them away.


----------



## MQ (Jan 5, 2011)

I am getting about 10+ signups to my mailing list on a $5/day budget.  I was wondering is better to raise the budget and try to get more signups faster or let them gradually come through on the lower budget?


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Thomas Fincham said:


> I am getting about 10+ signups to my mailing list on a $5/day budget. I was wondering is better to raise the budget and try to get more signups faster or let them gradually come through on the lower budget?


Don't raise budget until you optimise your advert. You should be looking for 6%-10% CTR (higher the better) and as close to 10/10 relevancy as you can get. THAT will lower your per click price. Once your advert is performing to those specs, you'll get 30 (or more) subs a day for $5.


----------



## MQ (Jan 5, 2011)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> Don't raise budget until you optimise your advert. You should be looking for 6%-10% CTR (higher the better) and as close to 10/10 relevancy as you can get. THAT will lower your per click price. Once your advert is performing to those specs, you'll get 30 (or more) subs a day for $5.


Wow, that's good to know, Mark! Should I be tinkering with the copy, image, etc? I've tried about 5 different ads with the 'interest' section changed, but only one has given me some positive results. So I'm not really sure what else to do to push the ad further.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

I'm not the expert, you need to watch Mark's vids, but I've found that image and the wording on the advert gets the CTR and relevancy up. My mailing list advert is 9.8% and 10/10. I've tried pics with covers on it, and found my target likes plain picture without text on it, and the ad copy asking a question. Something like, "Do you like Harry Dresden?" And maybe a bit of the blurb from the sales page etc. You have to experiment.

Targeting should be something relevant to your book. Is it like Stephen king, Jim Butcher, James Patterson... something else? Target according to authors or series similar to yours. Use $5 a day, and if the percentages are less than 6% drop the ad and try something else. Anything over 6% is pretty good, and if you get 10/10 as well, it will be the absolute cheapest it can be.


----------



## MQ (Jan 5, 2011)

After running several ads (one for a freebie, one for a boxset, and one for a mailing list signup) I've decided to take a step back and put the ads on hold.  I didn't realize how much $$$ got eaten up so quickly when I was experimenting.  

The freebie was a waste and the boxset ad didn't fare well either. The mailing list was getting me 10+ signups/day but when I played around with the copy to boost it even more I suddenly started seeing only 2+ signs/day.  

I'll guess I'll have to do some more research before I jump back in...


----------



## CoolChick (Feb 3, 2015)

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the great mini course. I've just gone through all 3 of the videos and can't wait to give it a go. 

Let me make sure I fully understand, you are using Amz associates to keep track of how the clicks are actually converting, correct?


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

CoolChick said:


> Hi Mark,
> 
> Thanks for the great mini course. I've just gone through all 3 of the videos and can't wait to give it a go.
> 
> Let me make sure I fully understand, you are using Amz associates to keep track of how the clicks are actually converting, correct?


Nodding here.


----------



## CoolChick (Feb 3, 2015)

Thanks for confirming! Guess it's about time I get one of those (an Amazon associate account that is).


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

CoolChick said:


> Thanks for confirming! Guess it's about time I get one of those (an Amazon associate account that is).


Glad you enjoyed the mini course - stay tuned, more to come.


----------



## Anna Drake (Sep 22, 2014)

I'd love to see some example of ads. I tried boosting a post, and it was rejected because it had too much text. My problem is I can't see an ad being effective w/o a sales pitch. If they're in the video, please forgive me. I can't find the active link.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

metwo said:


> I'd love to see some example of ads. I tried boosting a post, and it was rejected because it had too much text. My problem is I can't see an ad being effective w/o a sales pitch. If they're in the video, please forgive me. I can't find the active link.


The pitch isn't text in the image. It's above and below when you build the advert.


----------



## danpadavona (Sep 25, 2014)

This is a fascinating topic, and thanks to Mark Dawson for sharing his personal statistics to help us make an informed decision.

Determining profit from an ad is not cut-and-dry, and if you look at it from the perspective of revenue gained during the promotion versus ad cost, you are missing a lot of the picture. I haven't experienced much success with my novels, but I've run a small business and dealt with advertising.

Let's say you spend $10 a day on a FB ad for a single novel and generate $8 in revenue. Seems like you lost. But what if 10% of the new customers go on to buy another of your books, and what if 10% also sign up to your email list and join your FB author page? How much revenue are these new fans worth? 

Also, how do the extra sales generated by the FB ad change your novel's ranking? It is accepted that Amazon's algorithms filter out to a degree one day blowout sales, such as winning a Bookbub ad. But if you are getting an extra 10%-20% sales per day over several weeks because of your FB ad, is your higher novel ranking more sustainable in the eyes of Amazon's algorithm? My guess is Yes, which would lead to better organic search placement and additional revenue. But these are all unknowns, and they make the true worth of an advertisement more difficult to determine.

Would love to hear others' thoughts.


----------



## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

You need to understand what a reader is worth, and that takes data collecting and analysis - and time.

Mark D has spent a great deal of time trying to understand this, with surveys to his readers and more, and has a pretty good feel for what a mailing list member is worth.  He talks about this in his 3 video series (free) and it helps to hear it from him.

I have three different types of ads running on Facebook now.

1) Mailing List signups - with a free book offer.
2) Free book downloads - targeted at each of the major bookstores
3) For Sale

I'm using static images, video and what Amazon calls carousel format.

I'm paying roughly $0.40 for each new mailing list signup.

I'm paying roughly $0.10 for each link visit to my free book download.  Closing the deal needs more work here.

I'm paying roughly $0.01 for each view of my book trailer video, and about $0.16 for each follow-on visit to the download page, with a 50% download rate so far.

The data is not in yet on the books for sale, as I've just started playing with this one.

Are Facebook ads working for me?  I would say yes, but I have more to learn, more to optimize, and more to do.


----------



## danpadavona (Sep 25, 2014)

Thank you, Thewitt.

I've watched Mark's three videos, though that was a few weeks ago. I don't recall - did he actually place an estimate on what an email list subscriber is worth? Of course it should be different for each author, depending on how large their library is and what each book retails for. Really interesting discussion, though. 

Just as a ballpark figure, my guess is the average subscriber is worth north of $1, and possibly $2. But I don't have Mark's sample size to work off of.

Thanks again.


----------



## AnonWriter (Dec 12, 2013)

Anna Drake said:


> I'd love to see some example of ads. I tried boosting a post, and it was rejected because it had too much text. My problem is I can't see an ad being effective w/o a sales pitch. If they're in the video, please forgive me. I can't find the active link.


Here's an ad I ran recently with minimal text.



I targeted using a lookalike audience. I boosted my sales a bit that day but not enough to earn back on the $15 I spent on the ads. Still, it's been a fun learning experience.


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

danpadavona said:


> Thank you, Thewitt.
> 
> I've watched Mark's three videos, though that was a few weeks ago. I don't recall - did he actually place an estimate on what an email list subscriber is worth? Of course it should be different for each author, depending on how large their library is and what each book retails for. Really interesting discussion, though.
> 
> ...


Evening... yes, I have surveyed this (and tested with several campaigns) to work out what each subscriber is worth). I don't take into account readthrough and rank boost - both of which are legitimate bonuses - and neither do I consider the intangible benefit of building your brand with fans of writers in your genre (thereby making it more likely that sales will happen when you start popping up as Also Boughts in other writers' books).

Saying all that, I believe that each subscriber is worth around 10c-15c more to me than the cost of aquisition.


----------



## danpadavona (Sep 25, 2014)

Thank you, Mark.


----------



## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

I'm having trouble accessing targeting options in the 'behaviors' box. Seems like I'm limited to the very few standard options Facebook provides as a default.

Is this because I'm not in the U.S.?


----------



## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

Yes, some of the targeting options in the Behaviors box are not available outside of the US.  Kindle is one of those...  Complain to Author Support under the Ad Manager.  There is another function that is only available for limited users called the Partner category, which they tell me they are going to ad to my account - though they have not done it yet...


----------



## suzflt (Mar 19, 2013)

Wonderful share ... thank you so much! I'm selling in the spiritual memoir genre and I find so far it's really tied to quality of my other sponsored posts somehow ... you're inspiring me to redo my opt in campaign and make it much better. Great! Suzanne


----------



## srf89 (Aug 18, 2014)

Question: Did your Facebook campaign focus more on getting readers to buy the book directly, or getting them to your Facebook page where you made a push to sell books? I was under the impression Facebook ads were better at building brand awarness than actually getting someone to spend any money. But your success story is awesome!


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

srf89 said:


> Question: Did your Facebook campaign focus more on getting readers to buy the book directly, or getting them to your Facebook page where you made a push to sell books? I was under the impression Facebook ads were better at building brand awarness than actually getting someone to spend any money. But your success story is awesome!


Mine is now focused upon getting people who read books just like mine to give me their email address. In return, I give them my Free Starter Library, emails from me every two weeks about "me and stuff" and also snippets of work in progress, emails asking for opinions, votes, and thoughts on upcoming projects. Now and then I may ask them to read something on my YouTube channel or Facebook, and then vote on a poll.

Things like that.

As for direct sales. You couldn't be more wrong. Last year I was sending people to Audible and managed to "earn" 30 sales a day for the price of 2. This year I can't seem to get that to work, but others in the Mark D's group are absolutely crushing it. I am very jealous, but I hide it well. I do, don't I?


----------



## J.A. Cipriano (May 27, 2014)

I ran an experiment. I ran a set of facebook ads at $1 a day sending people directly to amazon for the free book. I did this for two weeks. 
I stopped the first set and ran another set of adds (same ad and parameters) this time sending them to a squeeze page where if they signed up I sent them to book via email. 

I haven't run any other promotions or anything so I'm reasonably sure its as close to a stable sample as possible. The second adset has outperformed the first (in sales produced) by about 50-60%. I don't sell a lot of books to begin with, so there's that, but I'm pleased with the ad enough that I'm probably going to keep running it.


----------



## MQ (Jan 5, 2011)

I ran a $3/day mailing list signup campaign and I only managed 6 new subscribers in the three days the ad ran    I used to be able to get 10 signups a day with the same ad, albeit with a $5/day budget, but I'm not sure throwing more money at the ad would've changed the results significantly.

I'm not sure how others are crushing it but ads for a paid book or even a free book have been a bust for me.

I don't want to give up on FB but so far it has been a thoroughly disappointing experience.


----------



## mrforbes (Feb 16, 2013)

I've got a FB ad returning 200% ROI on a full-priced book.  It is absolutely amazing to me that I am making money on ads at full price. I didn't think it was possible before this.

That being said, I have 1 ad that is performing out of about 20 that I've tried. You need to be persistent and not be afraid to experiment A LOT.


----------



## WillGreen (May 11, 2015)

mrforbes said:


> I've got a FB ad returning 200% ROI on a full-priced book. It is absolutely amazing to me that I am making money on ads at full price. I didn't think it was possible before this.
> 
> That being said, I have 1 ad that is performing out of about 20 that I've tried. You need to be persistent and not be afraid to experiment A LOT.


That's awesome. What's the price point on the book?


----------



## mrforbes (Feb 16, 2013)

> That's awesome. What's the price point on the book?


$3.99


----------



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

VERY good at that price point. The conversion % has to be VERY keen to make a positive return with the royalty that low.

Good work.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Mark's course is now live for new members here: http://www.selfpublishingformula.com/facebookcourse


----------



## SunshineOnMe (Jan 11, 2014)

Thank you Mark for all of your help!


----------



## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> Mark's course is now live for new members here: http://www.selfpublishingformula.com/facebookcourse


Signed up.

I had been discouraged in my last attempts at Facebook advertising by the seeming fact that authors outside the U.S. were limited in their targeting options.

But now I remember that both Mark Dawson and yourself are both outside of the U.S. Now I can't even remember what the limitations were. Can you remind me and maybe hint at how they are overcome?

Thanks.

Philip


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Philip Gibson said:


> Signed up.
> 
> I had been discouraged in my last attempts at Facebook advertising by the seeming fact that authors outside the U.S. were limited in their targeting options.
> 
> ...




If it's the one I think you mean, it hasn't hurt Mark Dawson. For myself, I can say I have now officially doubled my mailing list using the system. The limitation is the way FB doesn't offer the AND operator when targeting interests. So you can't target readers who like David Weber AND are kindle readers just for one example. If you put David Weber in the interests and Kindle, the actual target will be: People who like David Weber OR Kindle.

In the US, it's my understanding that you can use AND properly, but only for US targets because of the mountainous amount data FB has on the home crowd. Thing is, my account is UK BUT most of my readers are US, so I would LOVE to have the AND ability.


----------



## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> If it's the one I think you mean, it hasn't hurt Mark Dawson. For myself, I can say I have now officially doubled my mailing list using the system. The limitation is the way FB doesn't offer the AND operator when targeting interests. So you can't target readers who like David Weber AND are kindle readers just for one example. If you put David Weber in the interests and Kindle, the actual target will be: People who like David Weber OR Kindle.
> 
> In the US, it's my understanding that you can use AND properly, but only for US targets because of the mountainous amount data FB has on the home crowd. Thing is, my account is UK BUT most of my readers are US, so I would LOVE to have the AND ability.


Facebook does not offer the AND operator when targeting in the U.S. either. But in the U.S. they offer Kindle as a behavior, which is different from interests. If you select one behavior and one interest it acts like an AND. So it's not the Facebook offers an AND in the U.S., it's that it has kindle as a behavior.


----------



## Maia Sepp Ross (May 10, 2013)

edwardgtalbot said:


> Facebook does not offer the AND operator when targeting in the U.S. either. But in the U.S. they offer Kindle as a behavior, which is different from interests. If you select one behavior and one interest it acts like an AND. So it's not the Facebook offers an AND in the U.S., it's that it has kindle as a behavior.


There are actually 3rd party apps that will do an AND. I've been checking some of them out.


----------



## JalexM (May 14, 2015)

Maia said:


> There are actually 3rd party apps that will do an AND. I've been checking some of them out.


Would like to hear about them


----------



## Maia Sepp Ross (May 10, 2013)

I can't give any definitive info bc I haven't used any yet, although I am thinking about it. The one that appears to be the most reasonably-priced is AdEspresso: http://adespresso.com. (I'm not affiliated with them.) I came across them while researching fixes for this exact problem. I've been doing some FB campaigns, but my books are cross genre (think humorous Apocalypse, like Shaun of the Dead with no zombies) and my readers are a little offbeat. So I can't target a big writer in my genre, because there really aren't any. I'd rather target Shaun of the Dead fans who also like ebooks and/or environmentalists (my series is about a world wracked by climate-change. With jokes.) There is another one: Qwaya, but it's much more expensive. This article talks about both: http://www.razorsocial.com/facebook-advertising-tools-for-results/. AdEspress has a blog and a bunch of free guides I've been going through and also have a free trial. If I try the trial, I'll post an update of my results.


----------



## JalexM (May 14, 2015)

Maia said:


> I can't give any definitive info bc I haven't used any yet, although I am thinking about it. The one that appears to be the most reasonably-priced is AdEspresso: http://adespresso.com. (I'm not affiliated with them.) I came across them while researching fixes for this exact problem. I've been doing some FB campaigns, but my books are cross genre (think humorous Apocalypse, like Shaun of the Dead with no zombies) and my readers are a little offbeat. So I can't target a big writer in my genre, because there really aren't any. I'd rather target Shaun of the Dead fans who also like ebooks and/or environmentalists (my series is about a world wracked by climate-change. With jokes.) There is another one: Qwaya, but it's much more expensive. This article talks about both: http://www.razorsocial.com/facebook-advertising-tools-for-results/. AdEspress has a blog and a bunch of free guides I've been going through and also have a free trial. If I try the trial, I'll post an update of my results.


You've peaked my curiosity, i'm interested in seeing your results


----------



## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> If it's the one I think you mean, it hasn't hurt Mark Dawson. For myself, I can say I have now officially doubled my mailing list using the system. The limitation is the way FB doesn't offer the AND operator when targeting interests. So you can't target readers who like David Weber AND are kindle readers just for one example. If you put David Weber in the interests and Kindle, the actual target will be: People who like David Weber OR Kindle.
> 
> In the US, it's my understanding that you can use AND properly, but only for US targets because of the mountainous amount data FB has on the home crowd. Thing is, my account is UK BUT most of my readers are US, so I would LOVE to have the AND ability.


They gave me the Kindle Behavior when I asked, but I had to convert my account to a US account. It was set up as a Malaysian account. I lost all my active ads and ad history.

The Kindle behavior did nothing for my ads in my three experiments, but I'm not finished playing with it.


----------



## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

thewitt said:


> They gave me the Kindle Behavior when I asked, but I had to convert my account to a US account. It was set up as a Malaysian account. I lost all my active ads and ad history.
> 
> The Kindle behavior did nothing for my ads in my three experiments, but I'm not finished playing with it.


Good to know. I don't fancy losing all my data though. I doubt I'll convert to US.


----------



## Jerry Patterson (Nov 20, 2013)

The course by Mark Dawson is closed.  Will it open again?


----------



## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Jamie Warren said:


> The course by Mark Dawson is closed. Will it open again?


It looks like there is a mini-course, though.


----------



## ChristinaGarner (Aug 31, 2011)

Hi All,

I started reading this thread back when it began but hadn't started implementing anything b/c of some crazy hours I was pulling on a gig. I've done Amy Portfield's FB Profit Lab, et al, but none were geared toward fiction writers so I'm especially interested in Mark's course. I've done the mini-course but see that the paid course is closed, with no plans for it to reopen. Not sure if Mark is still checking this thread, but does anyone have any more info about when/if it will be offered again?

I'm also curious how everyone is doing with their ads these days. I had success last year during a promotion and building a non-fiction list, but I suspect selling fiction is a whole other animal. 

Cheers!


----------



## Maria Romana (Jun 7, 2010)

ChristinaGarner said:


> I started reading this thread back when it began but hadn't started implementing anything b/c of some crazy hours I was pulling on a gig. I've done Amy Portfield's FB Profit Lab, et al, but none were geared toward fiction writers so I'm especially interested in Mark's course. I've done the mini-course but see that the paid course is closed, with no plans for it to reopen. Not sure if Mark is still checking this thread, but does anyone have any more info about when/if it will be offered again?


Hey Christiana,

I've also not had time to actually implement anything due to job changes, etc., but I have been following the groups over on Facebook, and yes, it sounds like Mark is going to open the course again. I believe he said October for his updated version of the course. Hope to see you there!

--Maria


----------



## ChristinaGarner (Aug 31, 2011)

Thanks, Maria! I requested an invite to the FB group this morning so if he's still taking members I'll definitely see you there


----------



## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

After many headaches and frustrations, I managed to get my ad live sometime last night UK time. I have had seven clicks to the landing page, but no sign ups yet. It has also cost .48 cents per click to website which is more than was indicated in the video, but not sure what to do about it. I put it on auction but have no idea about bidding. Should I change that?


----------

