How to use Facebook ads to sell eBooks There comes a time in every blogger and

How to use Facebook ads to sell eBooks

There comes a time in every blogger and entrepreneur’s life when we have to consider whether or not it’s worth forking over a few dollars to try out paid advertising.

Us bloggers; we love free stuff. And that’s ok! I didn’t spend a penny on my business ideas for years, until I realized that sometimes paid stuff, wisely chosen paid stuff that is, can greatly compliment free stuff.

Let me explain.

You can take months or years to build up your email list and have an awesome audience ready to buy your book as it’s being launched. And I’d highly suggest building your platform before selling your eBook.

However, how many of us have tens of 1,000’s of email subscribers? Yes, the big blogs we follow might… but in reality? Those lovely people make up a fraction of us bloggers!

So, we can grow our reach for free by doing things like guest blogging and keeping up our social media channels. But again – this process requires a lot of consistent effort.

If we don’t want to wait around to grow our audience to these heights before launching an eBook, another option is to pay to expand our reach more quickly.

Which brings us to paid advertising.

As far as paid advertising goes, we’ve got a few options.

• Affiliate marketing (have other bloggers advertise your eBook in return for a commision on sales)
• Banner advertising (one-time fee for a spot on a website / blog, usually running one month)
• PPC advertising (pay per click on search engine site)

Affiliate programs are great, and I’d definitely suggest setting one up, but that’s not where I’d like to focus.

Banner ads CAN be successful, if you find a blog to advertise on that as exactly the right audience for your ad. This can be tricky.

PPC advertising, on the other hand, allows you to test your message and choose the audience you’d like to reach.

And out of all the PPC options, Facebook ads is hands-down the most effective.

In my opinion and many other bloggers’, Facebook ads is absolutely the most flexible PPC advertising out there.

Not only can you choose the age range of the people who will see your ads, but you can choose them by their job type! And the blogs they follow! And their marital status! It’s pretty amazing how in-depth you can go. AND, you can target specifically friends of your Facebook followers. Extra social proof! (people are more likely to click on your ad if they know their friends think you’re cool.)

This means that you can get your ad in front of the exact groups of people that you know your book would help.
Is that worth paying for to you? What if for every dollar you spent on Facebook ads, you made three dollars in eBook sales?

Uh, yeah!

Now, as with any advertising, trial and error is important.

Play around with your messaging and targeting. Try new images and headlines. Don’t skip this part- you may be very surprised what a difference a couple of words can make!

Set up a well thought-out landing page where the ad will lead to that offers up the benefits of your book. I’d also suggest offer not only an opportunity to buy the book on this page, but a chance to learn more about the book before buying (an email sign up with a free chapter of the book is my favorite).

Make sure the call to action on your landing page is clear, meaning you want it to be very obvious what you want them to do when they land there (buy or sample the eBook, that is!)

Facebook advertising is totally worth a try.

You can choose to spend just a few dollars a day to test it out, and hey, if you don’t like the results, you can either keep testing or choose a different route.

Whatever you do, it’s important with making eBook sales to give a few different marketing ideas a try to see what works best with your audience.

Treat advertising as an experiment. The best case? Your test will result in some pretty awesome rewards!

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences with PPC advertising in the comments!