Does PPC For Advertising Ebooks Help Sell Books?

Does PPC work for advertising ebooks?

PPC (Pay per click) marketing, or paid search, is the most common form of advertising on the Internet. But how well does it work when it comes to selling ebooks?

The leading players in PPC are Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Others, including Goodreads and Amazon AMS service, are both directly related to selling books.

I won’t go into an extended essay about the pros and cons of each service. There is a lot already published online about each service. But I will give you a summary of my experience. Before I start, however, you should know that PPC for advertising ebooks and books is not cheap.

Spend carefully on PPC ads

Google. Google is the biggest PPC provider through its Adwords service.

I used Adwords for many years for businesses I had in the past. It can be quite effective. But does Google PPC for advertising ebooks work? No, not well at all.

Because Google ads are placed on websites and blogs, ads often end up on sites with low relevance to book buyers.

You get clicks, but the ratio of clicks to sales is extremely low. So it can mean a lot of money spent for a tiny or no return.

Facebook. I used Facebook ads for a long time in previous businesses, which gave me good results.

Mind you; I was selling high-cost services. So the cost per click was cheap for gaining a sale from Facebook.

But ebooks are a cheap product. If you pay $0.45 per click, making a return on ebooks priced between $0.99 and $2.99 is highly improbable.

But there is still a good use for Facebook ads, which I’ll explain later in this post.

Twitter. I haven’t used Twitter PPC, as I have a large following on Twitter already.

Because ebook sales are hard to come by directly via Twitter anyway, I can’t see any value in paying for Promoted Tweets when I already have over 120,000 followers. If 120,000 doesn’t create good sales volume, I doubt paying to increase my reach will have a more positive effect.

What about Amazon?

KDP Select PPC was only available to those enrolled in Kindle’s Select program and had granted exclusivity to Amazon.

However, it is now available to all authors, I believe.

I was enthusiastic about this service and set up an ad immediately.

It means ads on Amazon book pages, which is precisely where you want a book ad to be.

But when I set up my first ad, I encountered some problems.

The first was that my author name was reversed in the ads. Instead of Derek Haines, it reads Haines, Derek.

It took three weeks of messages back and forth to KDP Support NOT to get this issue resolved.

Update: After some time, Amazon PPC fixed the reverse name issue.

Then there is a real problem with their ad dashboard and reporting.

It is very basic, at best. After setting up an ad, there is little information and data, which takes days to update. There is also limited ability to edit ads.

On top of all this, the minimum budget was $100.00, which seemed a bit rich for ebook advertising.

But as I discovered, you do not need to spend the whole amount.

Amazon uses this budget to stop a campaign from overspending. By comparison, Facebook has no minimum.

I will persevere with KDP PPC and hope KDP can lift its game, especially on data reports.

Goodreads?

I used this a couple of times for no return at all.

I was confused by their setup, to be frank.

Perhaps since Amazon took over Goodreads, it may have changed.

But judging by my recent experience with KDP, I doubt it.

Does PPC sell ebooks and books?

Pay-per-click has very limited value for advertising ebooks.

The cost per click is usually too expensive in relation to the price of ebooks and books to make it a viable long-term strategy.

In other words, your campaigns will almost always run at a considerable loss.

However, there is a use for PPC if you alter your goals and use it for a different reason.

The key to selling ebooks on Amazon is to have a high sales rank. If your book is at #3,456,666, it stands little chance of selling.

But if you can get it up to, say, #150,000 or better, organic sales typically increase. This is where PPC can definitely help, and for a very modest investment.

Firstly, increase your ebook price just before you plan to have a free ebook giveaway on Kindle.

This makes your book seem like better value for free.

$3.99 for free will be much more enticing than a $0.99 ebook. (Human nature and greed are at work here.)

Run the KDP giveaway for 2-3 days and no more.

This should increase your book’s ranking, making it more prominent to buyers.

Then narrowly target your Facebook PPC ad audience by readers, genre, gender, age range, country, etc., to suit your book.

Run your ad immediately following your free ebook giveaway on Kindle to take advantage of your higher ebook ranking and higher sales price.

Remember that higher-priced ebooks gain more ranking per sale.

At the same time, you could also run a PPC ad on Amazon. Again, with the aim of getting a ranking boost.

Paid ads can help your sales rank

Surprisingly, you will only need to gain a handful of sales from PPC to make your ranking jump considerably.

You should run your Facebook and Amazon ads for a week or so.

Yes, you will probably lose a little money using PPC for advertising your ebooks or books.

But your higher book ranking is your real return.

I usually set a daily budget of $5.00 for seven days on Facebook, so my investment is only $35.00.

Very often, I recoup this from Facebook generates sales, but some books work better than others, so no promises.

When you stop your PPC ebook ads, return your ebook to its normal price.

Then keep your fingers crossed for flow-on sales.

Rinse and repeat each time you do a free ebook giveaway to keep your ranking high.

Related Reading: What Are The Best Avenues To Use To Sell Your Books Online?