Complete Facebook Ads Guide for Authors: How to Advertise on Facebook?
In this Facebook ads guide for authors, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know, from planning your first ad to developing advanced campaign strategies for your Facebook Ads.
Facebook advertising or Facebook ads is a crucial strategy to connect with your audience on the world's largest social network.
But, how big a platform are we talking about?
Around 3 billion monthly active users big, and growing.
But Facebook ads, like any other mode of advertising, are all about getting your book and your message in front of exactly the right reader from those 3 billion or so Facebook users. The readers who are most likely to actually want your books or stories or maybe courses.
But before we dive into the nitty gritty of the Facebook Ads, it is crucial to understand that if you want to get the best results, it's equally important to understand the different Facebook ad types authors can use and how authors can improve Facebook Ad Targeting to sell more books .
In this Facebook ads guide, I'll walk you through everything you need to know, from planning your first ad to developing advanced campaign strategies.
Pros and cons of Facebook advertising for authors
Before we get too deep into the specifics of Facebook advertising, I wanted to share some of the pros and cons of Facebook Ads for authors that will help you in deciding how to pursue Facebook Ads for your books.
Pros
Immediate inrush of traffic and book sales
Complete control over your budget and how much you want to spend per ad click.
Easy to track campaigns
Excellent targeting options, including authors, books, E-readers, age, likes/interests, and other demographics
You can use images and videos to capture the interest of your target audience to sell your books, products, and other services
CPC is relatively cheap, depending on your industry. For authors, on average, no more than $0.50 per click
Cons
If set up and managed incorrectly, it can be costly
Depending on your target market, the majority of the large potential audience can be irrelevant
There is no option to target your ads at certain times within the day or on certain days of the week unless you choose a lifetime budget
How to advertise on Facebook
If you already have a Facebook business page (and you should), you can head straight to the Facebook Ads Manager or Business Manager to create your Facebook ad campaign. If you don't yet have a business page, you'll need to create one first.
We'll follow the steps for Ads Manager in this post.
If you'd prefer to use Business Manager, you can get the details in our complete guide on how to use Facebook Business Manager.
Step 1. Choose your objective
Log into Facebook Ads Manager and select the Campaigns tab, then click Create to get started with a new Facebook ad campaign.
To understand what is a campaign and how it is different from an ad, head to this article - Difference Between Facebook Campaigns, Ad Sets, and Ads.
Facebook offers 11 marketing objectives based on what you want your ad to accomplish but for authors these FOUR matters the most.
Choose a campaign objective based on your goals for your particular ad.
Keep in mind that for conversion-oriented objectives (like sales) you can pay per click or action taken by the audience, but for exposure objectives (like traffic and views) you will pay for impressions.
Step 2. Name your campaign
Name your Facebook ad campaign. As authors, we rarely have to declare whether our ad fits into any special categories like credit or politics but if they do then do declare them otherwise Facebook can reject your ad and in the worst case, suspend your ad account.
If you want to set up an A/B split test to test your image ad or headline or ad copy, click the 'Get Started' in the A/B Test section to set this in-production ad. Once you publish, select a variable, and create new versions to compare against your original. A/B split test helps you test campaigns, ad sets, and ads against each other to understand which combinations will give you the best results.
When you scroll down a little further, you will see options to turn on the Campaign Budget Optimization. If you have multiple ad sets then Campaign budget optimization will distribute your budget across all those ad sets to get more results (depending on your delivery optimization choices and bid strategy). You can control spending on each ad set.
This option can be useful if you're using multiple ad sets, but for your first ad, you can leave it as it is.
Step 3. Set your budget and schedule
The next step is to name your ad set. If you have multiple author pages associated with your name then you can choose one of them to promote.
Next, you have to decide how much money you want to spend on your Facebook ad campaign on a daily basis. You can also use a lifetime budget.
If you want to schedule your ad in the future, you can set the start and the end dates, or you can choose to make it live right away.
Running your Facebook ads for your books when your target readers are most likely to be on Facebook may be the most efficient way to spend your budget. You can schedule to show your ad for certain time periods only if you create a lifetime budget for your ad.
Step 4. Target your readers on Facebook
Scroll down to start building the target audience for your ads.
Step 5. Choose your Facebook ad placements
The next this you need is to choose where your ads will appear on Facebook.
Facebook gives you a plethora of options to place your ads across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and the Audience Network when they are likely to get the best results.
Device type: Mobile, desktop, or both.
Platform: Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network and/or Messenger
Placements: Feeds, Stories, in-stream (for videos), search, messages, in-article, and apps and sites (external to Facebook).
Specific mobile devices and operating systems: iOS, Android, feature phones, or all devices.
Step 6. Set cost controls
Finally, optimize your ad bidding strategy and bidding type, and you can also add an optional bid control. As authors, for your first ad, I'd suggest starting with the default options.
To understand the best Facebook Ad Budgets And Bidding Strategies for Author and Content Creators, check this article.
Also, consider the potential reach and conversion estimates before moving ahead.
Step 7. Create your ad
To start creating your ad, choose your ad format, then enter the ad copy text and image or video components. The formats available will vary based on the campaign objective you selected at the beginning of this process.
For Ad images, you can use your book cover or a your cover image without text.
If you want stock photos as in my experience of Facebook Ads for authors they work equally well, then check these 63 Amazing Sites With Breathtaking FREE Stock Photos For Authors, Bloggers and Content Creators.
Creatively, there are multiple options for you like with a click of a button ''Turn into Video", you can turn your ad image into a short video animation.
You can also create a slideshow of multiple images by clicking "Create Slideshow" and build a Slideshow ad.
The preview tool at the right side of the page will show you how your ad will look on all chosen ad placement locations.
Here are 10 Tips to Write the Best Facebook Ads Ever (with Examples) where I'll guide you on how to create the perfect Facebook ad that will sell more books and reach more readers
You can also check these 8 Stunning Facebook Ad Ideas Your Book Readers Will Love.
When you're satisfied with your choices, click the Publish button at the bottom of the ad page to launch your ad. It generally takes 24-72 hours to get the ad approved by Facebook.
Facebook ad specs
There are a lot of details to keep in mind when getting your images and videos ready for Facebook ads.
Text and objective specs for Facebook ads
To create the best Facebook ads, you need to keep the recommended character counts in mind. Anything beyond these text limits will be cut off.
You also need to understand which types of Facebook ads work with each of the ad campaign objectives described above.
Image ads
Headline: 40 characters
Link description: 30 characters
Body text: 125 characters
Campaign objectives: All except video views
Video ads
Headline: 40 characters
Link description: 30 characters
Body text: 125 characters
Campaign objectives: All except catalog sales
Facebook Stories ads
Text: No set character count. Aim to leave 250 pixels text-free at the top and bottom of the ad.
Campaign objectives: All except engagement and store visits
Carousel ads
Headline: 40 characters
Link description: 20 characters
Body text: 125 characters
Campaign objectives: All except engagement and video views
Slideshow ads
Headline: 25 characters
Link description: 30 characters
Body text: 125 characters
Campaign objectives: All
Collection ads
Headline: 40 characters
Link description: n/a
Body text: 125 characters
Campaign objectives: Traffic, conversions, catalog sales, store traffic
Instant Experience ads
Text: Blocks of text up to 500 words each
Button text: 30 characters
Campaign objectives: All except lead generation
Messenger Inbox ads
Headline: 40 characters
Link description: n/a
Body text: 125 characters
Campaign objectives: Traffic, app installs, conversions, catalog sales, messages
Facebook ads cost
How much does it cost to advertise on Facebook? The answer is, it depends.
Still I have written a post on the minimum Facebook ad budget you need when you are just starting out.
The main factors that affect Facebook ads cost are:
Timing: The month, day and even hour can affect ad cost.
Bidding strategy: Whether you choose the lowest cost or a specific bid cap.
Ad placement: Higher-competition spots cost more.
Ad relevance: Low scores for your ad's engagement ranking, quality ranking or conversion ranking can raise costs.
Target audience: Higher competition audiences cost more.
But you can reduce the cost of your Facebooks ads using these techniques.
Final thoughts
Thank you so much for taking the time to look through this guide. As I’ve mentioned, there’s so much to know on Facebook – I’d love to help as much as we can if there are any questions or tips you’d like me to know. And if you spot anything that’s changed about Facebook Ads since I’ve published, I’d be grateful for the heads up.
What has your Facebook Ads strategy looked like?
What kind of results are you seeing?
It’d be really great to get your thoughts in the comments. Talk to you there!