Facebook vs AdWords

I've come to realize that promoting my book is going to require some form of paid advertisement; that's the hard reality of it. I have a FB ad that's been working particularly well for me and I'm on my way to doubling my sales this month and that's just by increasing my CPC (Cost Per Click) by an extra $0.10.

But still, I was dissatisfied and wanted to sell 10-20 books per day instead of 4-5 books per day. I kept running into these $75 Adwords coupons all over the place; so I clicked on the "coupon" which was really a sorta credit application that had to be approved. I went ahead and filled out the application (they don't ask for your s.s.) which asked some basic questions about my project. A few hours later I received a rejection letter, they didn't tell me why I was rejected but there you have it. After that I decided to set up my own account just to test the waters of Google advertising.

The process was complicated and tedious. I felt like I needed to hire a savvy ad-executive just to get me through it. It took me a couple of days to figure it out, but I was then successful with setting up the ad and all the components that came with it. The downside was I wasn't allowed to market to anyone under the age of 18; well that's my entire audience (13-17), but I proceeded anyway.

The most important part of the set-up was picking the keywords. I chose 34 relevant keywords. I was ready to go. I put in my cc information and set the date for the weekend only, between the hours of 6pm and 3am, because those are the hours teens are wasting away in front of the computer.

Now, for the grand finale, after I put in my cc information my keywords lit up with the minimum prices of CPC. My average CPC was $1.25. Kiss my butt Adwords. Some keywords were $0.40 per click but with my 34 keywords my daily budget would exceed $25 per day. I set my daily budget to only $12 per day. My FB ad runs at $1.50 per day. Needless to say I deleted my account and increased my daily budget on FB. I figured that's where teenagers go to live anyway.

Share your paid advertising stories by leaving a comment. http://vicihowardblogspot.com

6 comments:

Karen Cioffi said...

Vici, interesting information on how to earn money with Facebooks ads. Thanks for sharing.

Karen Cioffi Writing and Marketing

Mary Jo Guglielmo said...

Vici, Great info. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Anne Duguid Knol said...

Fascinating. Always wondered if and how these things worked. Thanks for the info.

Magdalena Ball said...

Vici, this is so interesting. I've never done a formal ad (messed around a little with Google ad words and then gave up), but the FB ones sound so easy and effective that I'm convinced to give it a go. Really appreciate you sharing this information - authors rarely talk sales.

Heidiwriter said...

Wow, I'm impressed. This is interesting. I've always been scared to try anything like this, but maybe it's a good idea. Keep us posted how it's going.

Magdalena Ball said...

Okay Vici, just took your advice and started my first FB ad campaign. Thanks for the push!

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