Advertising gets more complex every year – and Meta’s efforts to streamline ad creation have only made Facebook Ads for authors even more confusing as the new AI features throw up a lot of random results for the kind of campaigns that writers typically run.
BTW this is a private page on my site exclusively for the Decoders crew – but if you have somehow stumbled upon this, and you are not on my mailing list already, you can sign up here. You get a bunch of sign-up bonuses, like a free guide to building your author platform, a free video course on book marketing, free coursebooks, a free weekly newsletter on the latest book marketing tactics, and free resources like this! Join 20,000 authors and sign up today.
First, you should assemble your ad assets: your ad image, your ad text, and have some idea about your targeting. These are the three pillars of any profitable Facebook Ads campaign.
Second, you need to set yourself up for success by understanding the ad creation process – and how to choose the correct settings so that your ad reaches the right readers. I have a video tutorial below to help you here.
Third, you must understand how Facebook’s new AI features work – generally branded as “Advantage” – how to stop them negatively impacting your ad performance, and where you can lean into their strengths to increase your profits.
But before you tackle any of that, you should have some idea of who your comp authors are. (And even before you do that, you really should ensure your reader-capturing apparatus is in good shape!)
All these resources are free BTW – sorry for not charging $1,000.
Have Your Comp Authors Ready
Before advertising on Facebook you should have some sense of who your comp authors are. (If you already have a good sense of that, and of how popular books in your niche are packaged and presented, you can skip this step.)
For everyone else, I strongly recommend the above blog post as a starting off point. You’ll have to do some legwork yourself too, and get to know your niche better – specifically in terms of how successful authors in your genre tend to price, package, and present their books to readers. After familiarizing yourself with all that, and if you have any worries that your cover design might not be hitting the same notes, I recommend working through the process in this blog post next.
It might be called How To Design A Book Cover That Sells but it’s more about teaching you how to brief the cover designer you hire so that your book has a cover which is appropriate for your niche, and which should appeal to readers of your genre.
Three Keys to Success
Succeeding with Facebook Ads rests on three pillars: your ad image is what will stop readers from doomscrolling and your ad text is what will reel readers in and get them to click. But none of that matters if you are showing your ad to the wrong readers – which means your targeting needs to be as on point as your ad image and ad text.
1) Facebook Ad Image – the Image Workshop
I’ve put together different types of resources over the years to help with Facebook Ad Images, but nothing is better than actually showing you how to make winning ads – all using free tools. I share my screen so you can follow along – all you need is your book cover, and a free program called Canva.
I recommend also having the background cover art from your book cover – i.e. the cover art without lettering – which your designer should be able to provide. It has all sorts of uses and usually makes a great, on-brand background for your ad images.
I especially enjoy doing the Image Workshop because I get to make Facebook Ad Images from your book covers – which is equal parts fun and terrifying as I do it live, while you watch on YouTube:
In Episode 1 (above) we made ads for all sorts of books: romantic comedy, pet-themed cozy mystery, Roman-era historical fantasy, alien invasion science fiction, UK crime thriller, space adventure, and historical fiction set in Viking times to wrap things up. We focused on the design choices that elicit different emotional responses from readers – and how those underlying principles play out across different genres and styles of cover design.
Episode 2 (below) focused on fonts and how your choices can make an ad hit different, and we made ads for a missing person/cold case crime novel, a YA Epic Fantasy, a family sage, and a dark romance – while also returning to one of my favorite designs from Episode 1 to show how careful font selection and adding a little more detail can make a good ad look great.
We had a little hiatus over the last few months as I dealt with medical issues but don’t worry, Episode 3 is coming soon! We plan to cover a question I got from lots of you. “What do you do when you don’t have the cover art for the background, or it’s just not suitable?” There are several solutions here – but, as I’ll show you, one real winner. Make sure you are subscribed to my YouTube channel! It really helps support the production of these videos.
And if you want to participate in a future episode, simply reply to any of my newsletters with the following:
- your book cover
- your cover art without lettering
- your genre
- a link to your book on Amazon
- a picture of your dog*
(*While not strictly compulsory, it is appreciated.)
I’ve had lots of submissions already from you guys but the Image Workshop will be a continuing series and I’ll feature as many of your books as possible!
2) Facebook Ad Text – How To Make Readers Click
I have a simple formula for ad text which performs better today than any other method I’ve tried – taking advantage of yet another opportunity to convey the genre of your book to readers. My approach has changed a lot here – I used to write very long ad text, basically reworking the blurb of the book into a longer piece of sales copy.
These days, I go much shorter, and follow a simple formula of tagline + CTA. (CTA just means Call To Action – where you tell readers to buy this, click that, or download something etc.)
There are other approaches, like using a tasty review quote. I often do that too. Anything that really helps square the genre gets my vote, and I definitely recommend getting a CTA in there also.
As with anything Facebook Ads, testing is key – but it’s hard to see an ad without a CTA performing better whatever else you go with in the ad text. I see a surprising amount of ads without one. If you want readers to do something… tell them to do it. You’ll get much better results. Don’t believe me? Test it and see…
I cover all that in this newsletter, How To Make Readers Click. But the ad text is one of several text boxes. What should you put in the rest? Read The Anatomy of A Great Facebook Ad to fill in the blanks. And when you done all that, I recommend reading I Get So Emotional which delves into reader psychology, and the emotions you are trying to convey with your ads – containing gems like this:
Buying decisions are made with emotion but justified with logic.
Yeah, roll that around in your head for a while. I read that sentence a couple of years ago and still think about it. Anyway, this is another one of these intangibles that bestselling authors tend to be brilliant at. Learn how to do it for your own books – in all your marketing materials, not just Facebook Ads.
3) Facebook Audience (aka Targeting)
If you want a basic understanding of how targeting works – i.e. how you tell Facebook which readers should see your ad – then this guide is a good starting point: How To Reach The Right Readers. And here are more common targeting mistakes which I really recommend going through too.
If you want a more advanced discussion, covering the latest Advantage curveballs that Facebook is shoving into the targeting interface, then check out Part 3 of the Facebook Advantage Survival Guide below. All four parts are relevant and important to anyone advertising on Facebook these days, but Part 3 specifically drills down on targeting issues.
Your Guide to Ad Creation – Step-by-Step Video Tutorial!
With all this careful preparation in hand, it’s time to make an ad. If only you had a handy video guide where an experienced advertiser shared his screen and walked you through the entire process, eh?
Not only that, I also spend a lot of time highlighting the areas where you need to corrall Facebook’s runaway AI or else it can wreck your ad performance. (And if you want a deep dive on all that stuff… I got ya covered below that too.)
(Note: this is my video from 2022 so the interface might look different in places – especially all the new Advantage and generative-AI stuff that Facebook is shoving in everywhere. The four-part email series below the video – Facebook Advantage Survival Guide – covers all that in great detail so you can muddle through ad creation using this video, and that guide, until the new video is published – which I’ll drop in here.)
New video coming very soon (it’s in production already). Until then, the email series below should cover all the new Advantage and AI features in comprehensive detail, so you know what settings will give your ads the best chance of success.
Facebook Advantage and AI – A Deep Dive
Meta is fully onboard the AI train – whether you are or not – and you need to know how these features work because if you take Facebook’s advice, you are likely going to see a lot of inconsistency in results. You won’t know when things are working, or why, and will be shooting in the dark – playing Russian roulette with your ad budget. But there are ways to take back control of your ads to ensure they look exactly how you intend, and are shown to the right readers.
In Part 1 we covered the huge changes Facebook has made – which flummoxed experienced hands and left newbies with a vicious learning curve. We broke down how the algos work – and how they can work against us if we are not careful.
In Part 3 we dove into the most gator-filled pool of all: targeting. But there is a treasure chest at the bottom of that pool… if we can avoid getting into a deathroll with any more terrible metaphors.
In Part 4 we looked at one thing Advantage does really well… and then showed you a better way to do it, with all the benefits and none of the costs.
More Facebook Ads Resources for Authors
Rounding things off, we have a selection of resources showing you how to measure your performance more accurately, how to know what you should pay for a click, and then a whole bunch of common mistakes you should to avoid.
Talking about ad metrics is nobody’s idea of a good time but it’s very important that you dive into the settings in Facebook Ads Manager and customize the display because the metrics that Facebook defaults to are very misleading and you need to get an accurate sense of your ads’ performance. I show you how in How to get Facebook to show you the real picture.
What should you pay for a click? It’s a question I get asked regularly, but I’m wary of simple answers here because it really does depend on so many different things.
Finally, before you start spending any real money on advertising – of any kind – I strongly recommend reading my 15 Rules for Advertising Books. Even though I came into publishing from a marketing/advertising background, I still made plenty of mistakes – often costly ones. Hopefully these hard-won lessons can help you avoid making mistakes of your own. Want more like this? Check out Don’t Make These 5 Killer Mistakes With Facebook Ads.
