Sunday, June 24, 2012

I got a $50 coupon from Facebook for Facebook Ads, and I put together a little Facebook campaign for my novel THE CIRCLE CAST: THE LOST YEARS OF MORGAN LE FAY. One of the nice things about Facebook Ads is that you can target very specific demographics and groups. So I was able to target girls 13-18 in the US, UK and Canada who are interested in King Arthur, Wicca, historical fantasy, or any of the other books about Morgan le Fay.

A Facebook ad with my book cover did nothing for sales, but then we fooled with the tagline, and went back to my original homemade mockup cover, of a 16-year-old girl looking out at you, and that made a dent. Paperback sales perked up, and Kindle sales increased by a factor of 7.

You can pay Facebook per impression -- the number of times the ad showed up on someone's Facebook page. Or you can pay per click-through. Click-throughs are expensive. Facebook charges on the order of 75 cents for a click-through. However, someone who clicks through is a motivated consumer. They are intrigued by your ad and they want to know more.

And if you have a Kindle book, they can have the book right now.

It's interesting that I can see all these metrics from my desktop. I know every time someone clicks on my ad. And I know every time someone buys my book on Amazon.

(I'm assuming that's 99% of the business the ad is doing. Theoretically I imagine someone could see the ad, click through to the Amazon page, and then go buy a paper copy in a store. I guess people still sometimes do that.)

This gets me to thinking about how people are concerned that Facebook knows all about them. There are also advantages to Facebook knowing all about you. If Facebook can tell you about books that you would probably like, that's a win, isn't it? I'm a consumer. I like to buy good stuff. I just don't want to hear about stuff I don't care about. If I can get more ads about stuff that I might actually like or need, and get fewer solicitations for Viagra, that's a win for me.

(And anyway, I don't put anything on Facebook that would truly embarrass me if it got out. I gave up a long time ago on running for President.)

Labels: marketing, The Circle Cast

9:58 AM

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