This post is reasonably long. Might be an idea to get a drink and put your feet up.
Advertising for subs
As I described in a previous post, I've been experimenting with Facebook ads for most of the year. The first campaign was designed to drive signups, and it worked. I added 3,500 new subscribers at a cost of around $1,500. I'm in the process of testing that new audience for responsiveness and will report on that later; the short answer is that they are less responsive than a typical signup -- not surprising -- but that they buy enough books to make it a wash against the cost of acquisition. So I'm still doing that.
Advertising for sales
And then I changed tack. Two weeks ago, I started to advertise my paid books rather than my reader magnets. And the results have been amazing. So good, in fact, that I am going to get someone to check them to make sure I haven't made a monumental cock-up. Because, as my wife told me last night, when something is too good to be true it probably is. Although, in this instance, I can't see it (and, believe me, I've looked).
I used my mailing list to create a custom audience. I paid for a nice image and drafted some strong sales copy, and then I started to serve the mirror audience with the ad. What follows are my most recent numbers:
3/20
Ad Spend: 53.26
Revenue: 142.30
3/21
Ad Spend: 72.01
Revenue: 163.50
3/22
Ad Spend: 79.12
Revenue: 219.82
3/23
Ad Spend: 74.47
Revenue: 161.35
The average ROI over the course of the campaign is 124% - in other words, for every dollar I invest I get over two in return.
Conversion is around 10%.
Both of those numbers are crazy.
Here's the dash:
The campaign started on the 13th.
And it isn't just royalties on the advertised item that I'm getting. I'm using affiliate links, and so I'm getting a commission on every sale, too. Because I'm selling a lot of items, the ratchet has gone up to 9%, effectively giving me around 79% of the cover price, rather than 70%.
And I get affiliate commission on any other item bought during the life of the cookie.
And I'm seeing follow-up purchases on my either books, too.
And, finally, every sale of the box set lifts it in the rankings. It started around 15k and is around 2k now -- and that means more organic sales on top of those from the advert.
This isn't easy to pull off, and it took a lot of trial and error. I sucked up as much knowledge as I could from the internet and podcasts (Amy Porterfield, Rick Mulready, etc). I'm thinking about putting together a video that sets out how to do this, including a screencast showing how to use the Power Editor (which is powerful, but not intuitive). If you would like to see the video, let me have your deets at the link below and I'll email when it is done. (Full disclosure: I've been approached about putting together a course and there's one question for which I'd appreciate an answer; the FB video that I'll prepare will be independent of that).
I'd be happy to answers questions here, as always, if only to stress test my logic! I'm going to keep increasing the ad spend because this looks to be scalable and, without wishing to resort to hyperbole, it's kind of like free money at this point.
EDITED: I was running a survey on this, but it is closed now after a lot of great responses. If you would like to be added to my list - and get the videos that are now finished - go to www,selfpublishingformula.com.
Advertising for subs
As I described in a previous post, I've been experimenting with Facebook ads for most of the year. The first campaign was designed to drive signups, and it worked. I added 3,500 new subscribers at a cost of around $1,500. I'm in the process of testing that new audience for responsiveness and will report on that later; the short answer is that they are less responsive than a typical signup -- not surprising -- but that they buy enough books to make it a wash against the cost of acquisition. So I'm still doing that.
Advertising for sales
And then I changed tack. Two weeks ago, I started to advertise my paid books rather than my reader magnets. And the results have been amazing. So good, in fact, that I am going to get someone to check them to make sure I haven't made a monumental cock-up. Because, as my wife told me last night, when something is too good to be true it probably is. Although, in this instance, I can't see it (and, believe me, I've looked).
I used my mailing list to create a custom audience. I paid for a nice image and drafted some strong sales copy, and then I started to serve the mirror audience with the ad. What follows are my most recent numbers:
3/20
Ad Spend: 53.26
Revenue: 142.30
3/21
Ad Spend: 72.01
Revenue: 163.50
3/22
Ad Spend: 79.12
Revenue: 219.82
3/23
Ad Spend: 74.47
Revenue: 161.35
The average ROI over the course of the campaign is 124% - in other words, for every dollar I invest I get over two in return.
Conversion is around 10%.
Both of those numbers are crazy.
Here's the dash:
The campaign started on the 13th.
And it isn't just royalties on the advertised item that I'm getting. I'm using affiliate links, and so I'm getting a commission on every sale, too. Because I'm selling a lot of items, the ratchet has gone up to 9%, effectively giving me around 79% of the cover price, rather than 70%.
And I get affiliate commission on any other item bought during the life of the cookie.
And I'm seeing follow-up purchases on my either books, too.
And, finally, every sale of the box set lifts it in the rankings. It started around 15k and is around 2k now -- and that means more organic sales on top of those from the advert.
This isn't easy to pull off, and it took a lot of trial and error. I sucked up as much knowledge as I could from the internet and podcasts (Amy Porterfield, Rick Mulready, etc). I'm thinking about putting together a video that sets out how to do this, including a screencast showing how to use the Power Editor (which is powerful, but not intuitive). If you would like to see the video, let me have your deets at the link below and I'll email when it is done. (Full disclosure: I've been approached about putting together a course and there's one question for which I'd appreciate an answer; the FB video that I'll prepare will be independent of that).
I'd be happy to answers questions here, as always, if only to stress test my logic! I'm going to keep increasing the ad spend because this looks to be scalable and, without wishing to resort to hyperbole, it's kind of like free money at this point.
EDITED: I was running a survey on this, but it is closed now after a lot of great responses. If you would like to be added to my list - and get the videos that are now finished - go to www,selfpublishingformula.com.