#071: How I Structure Facebook Ads For Promotions

We last ran a limited-time promotion for my wife's books in November 2023.

It's been a while, so we thought it was high time for another one.

We have one lined up for next week, so in today's newsletter, I'll share our plan for this promo, including how I'm structuring our Facebook Ads, as I do things a little differently when running a launch or promo.

Here's what we're going to cover, specifically on the topic of promotions:

- Pricing Strategy
- Traffic Sources
- Costings
- Facebook Ads Structure
- The Images We're Using in The Facebook Ads

Let's dive into what we're doing for this promotion and how we're doing it...

Overview of The Promotion

As Lori's eBooks are exclusive to Amazon, we can take advantage of Kindle Countdown Deals, a perk saved for authors whose books are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited.

In short, Kindle Countdown Deals (KCDs) allow you to discount your books to free or below your usual list price, for up to 7 days (upto 5 days for a free book), whilst retaining 70% royalties, even at $0.99.

Amazon also adds a little countdown timer to books that are running a KCD (hence the name, Kindle Countdown Deal).

We're running the KCD from September 12th - September 18th, taking advantage of the full 7 days, meaning more opportunities to bring new readers into Lori's world.

We're not just running the KCD on Book 1 though; we're running a KCD on every book in the series, pricing them all at $0.99 for the 7 days.

The KCD is only running in the USA, as we currently have a Kindle Monthly Deal running on Book 1 and Book 3 in the UK so we're not able to touch the price of these books.

Our Traffic Sources

There are 2 main sources of traffic for this KCD, with 1 additional traffic source that will certainly help with sales but won't have as big an impact.

Our first traffic source, as you might have guessed, is Facebook Ads, and I'll walk you through how I've structured these later on in this newsletter, as well as share the exact images we're using in the Ads.

Our second main traffic source is promo sites, such as Bargain Booksy and Robin Reads.

And our third traffic source is Amazon Ads and I'll cover what I'm doing with the Amazon Ads in more detail shortly.

How We're Using Facebook Ads

For evergreen Facebook Ads (i.e. Ads that are always on and driving traffic to the full-price books), I use Dynamic Creative, as I share inside Facebook Ads Mastery For Authors.

Dynamic Creative allows you as the advertiser to throw a bunch of images/videos and text at Facebook and they will do the heavy lifting to figure out the best combination of these assets.

The biggest issue with Dynamic Creative is how long it takes for Facebook to optimize them.

It can sometimes be 5-7 days before Dynamic Creative Ads really find their groove; not much use when you're running a 7-day promotion.

Instead, I'm structuring the Facebook Ads like this:

- 1 x Campaign
- 5 x Ad Sets (Can Be More, Can Be Less)
- 1 Ad per Ad Set (NOT Dynamic Creative)

I'm setting the budget at the Ad Set level, which allows me to control exactly how much spend goes into a specific Ad, based on its performance.

We're starting with 5 Ads (5 Ad Sets), and a £15 ($20) per day budget per Ad Set.

Once I see which Ads are getting traction, which will likely take 1-2 days to allow performance to stabilize and some data to be populated in Amazon Attribution (the tool I use to track sales and page reads), I will increase the budget of the good performing Ads, and potentially turn off the bad performers.

I'll be adjusting budgets once every 24 hours with 20% budget increases.

Increasing budgets by more than 20% can lead to performance dropping for a day or two as Facebook readjusts for the increased budget. We haven't got time for that with such a short promotion window, so need to be careful about getting too aggressive.

If you want to run 3 Ads or maybe 10+ Ads for your promo, you can use this exact structure to cater to your budget; one Ad Set per Ad. So it's completely flexible and gives you maximum control.

Here are the images of the Ads I'll be starting with (I may well create some new Ads for the final few days of the promo once I see which type of image is working best):

By the final 2 days of the promo, my goal is to be spending $200-$300+ per day on the Facebook Ads, and drive as much traffic as possible without going into the red.

With every book in the series priced at $0.99, rather than sending traffic to Book 1, we're going to be driving all the Facebook Ads traffic to the Amazon series page.

This allows readers to pick up all the books in the series (for $0.99 each) in one smooth, simple transaction. I find the series page converts extremely well when 2 or more of the books in a series are discounted.

Due to the traffic being sent to the series page, the content of the Facebook Ads is geared more towards the entire series than just Book 1.

We also mention the price of the books in the Ads and to include some scarcity, we have added a deadline for when the deal comes to an end.

All of this helps to increase click-through rate, reduce costs and ultimately, sell more books.

Promo Sites

Promo Sites offer you the opportunity to feature your books in email newsletters sent out to 10,000's, even 100,000's of readers who are interested in your genre or sub-genre.

The one caveat here is that the books being promoted MUST be on sale, and ideally priced free or $0.99.

There is a cost to these Promo Sites, ranging from $10 to $200+, based on the size of the audience the newsletter operator has for your specific genre.

It can take some testing to figure out which Promo Sites work for your books and which don't, but there are some firm favorites loved by most authors, such as Bargain Booksy, eReader News Today and Robin Reads.

For the promotion we're running next week, we've booked 21 Promo Sites, spread out across the 7 days, with most of them going out on the final 2 days to give the books one final push before they return back to their full price of $2.99 or $3.99.

Most Promo Sites only allow you to promote one book with them, so for these, we're naturally promoting Book 1 of Lori's series.

A handful of Promo Sites though have the option of promoting your Amazon Series Page and/or multiple books that are on offer.

So when these opportunities have presented themselves, we've taken advantage of them and are sending traffic from the Promo Sites to the Amazon Series Page or multiple individual books in the series.

The Costs

We've spent just over $1,000 on the Promo Sites; these have to be booked and paid for in advance, so just take cash flow into account when booking Promo Sites for your next promotion or launch.

We're budgeting $1,500 for the Facebook Ads over the course of the week, possibly a touch more; we'll see how things perform and adjust accordingly.

And the Amazon Ads will just continue to run as they have been. The only change I'll make to them first thing on Monday (3 days before the promo starts) is to increase bids and budgets to become more competitive in the Amazon Ads auction.

So, all in all, we'll be spending around $3,000 on the Promo, though we've budgeted up to $3,500, if we need it.

Wrapping Up

Running promotions is one of the best ways to bring an influx of new readers into your world. Granted, some of them won’t become lifelong fans of every book you write, but a good percentage of them will.

These hardcore fans will tell their friends and family about your books, and become cheerleaders for every book you write in the future and every book you’ve written in the past.

These are the readers you want in your corner.

Moving forward, we'll be running a promotion/launch once every 3 months (4 per year).

Currently, Lori has one complete series (The Ancestors Saga) and a box set of that series.

Book 2 of her second series (The Raknari Trilogy) is due out later this year, so our next promotion after this one will likely be for the launch of Book 2 in The Raknari Trilogy.

After that, we’ll run a promotion for the Ancestors Saga Box Set, then back to Book 1 of the Ancestors Saga series, then Book 1 of The Raknari Trilogy and by then Book 3 of her second series should be out and we'll run a launch around that.

The more offers you make, the more sales you make.

Yes, if you’re running Ads every day, bringing people into your world and onto your email list every day, then you are essentially making offers every day.

But promotions can give you a solid spike in sales and new readers, so they are worth doing regularly.

And if you have multiple series published, you could run a promotion once per month on a different series each time.

There’s no right or wrong way to do any of this (aside from spamming your audience), but promotions should without a doubt form a part of your overarching marketing strategy.

Hope you've found this helpful in thinking about your next promotion.

Thank you for reading, enjoy the rest of your weekend and I'll be back with you next week.

To Your Success
- Matt