Solved: Sales Strategy for Multiple Books on Facebook Ads

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your situation with the puzzle books. It's a common question, whether to go specific or broad with ads for multiple products. The answer, as is often the case in paid advertising, isn't quite as simple as picking one option over the other.

The real issue isn't just about the ad format, it's about your entire approach and the limitations of the platform you're selling on. Let's get into it.

We'll need to look at your fundamental strategy...

Your question is about whether you should run one ad for all ten books, two ads for five each, or ten individual ads. My immediate, gut-reaction answer is: you should probably test all three.

I know that's not the simple answer you were looking for, but it's the honest one. There's a common myth in advertising that the more granular and specific you are, the better the results. So conventional wisdom would say to run ten seperate ads, one for each book, taking people to each specific Amazon page. And that might work. But I've run enough campaigns to know that conventional wisdom is often wrong. We've had campaigns for clients with huge product catalogues where a single, well-crafted 'collection' ad massively outperformed individual product ads. Sometimes giving people choice on the ad itself (like in a carousel) works wonders. Other times, focusing all your budget on your one, single bestseller is the way to get the best return. You just don't know until you test it.

But this is actually the least of your problems. The biggest hurdle you're facing has nothing to do with Facebook and everything to do with Amazon.

I'd say your biggest problem is the 'Amazon Black Hole'...

You're sending traffic from a Facebook Ad directly to an Amazon page. This is one of the most difficult things to do profitably in paid ads, and here’s why: you have virtually no data.

When you run a normal ad campaign for a website you own, you install a little bit of code called the Facebook Pixel (or Meta Pixel now). This pixel is your pair of eyes. It watches everything. It tells Facebook who clicked, who looked at a product, who added to cart, and most importantly, who actually bought something. Facebook's algorithm, which is incredibly powerful, then takes that purchase data and goes out to find *more people* just like the ones who bought from you. This is how you optimise a campaign. You're telling the algorithm "find me customers", and it does.

When you send traffic to Amazon, the pixel stops at the click. As soon as a user lands on Amazon's site, they enter a black hole. You can't put your pixel on Amazon's product page. You have no idea if that person bought your book, if they bought a competitor's book instead, or if they got distracted and bought a toaster. Nothing. All Facebook knows is that someone clicked a link.

So, what happens when you try to run your campaign? You can only optimise for one thing: Link Clicks. You're telling Facebook's powerful algorithm "find me people who like to click on links". And it will do exactly that, very efficiently. It will find you the people who are most likely to click on anything and everything, but who are often the least likely to ever actually buy something. I've seen this happen time and time again. You're essentially paying Facebook to find you non-customers, because that's the only instruction you can give it. You get a great click-through rate, your cost per click looks cheap, and you think its working. But your sales on Amazon don't budge. It's a classic trap.

Without conversion data, you can't calculate your Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). You're just throwing money at a wall and hoping some of it sticks. That's not a sustainable way to grow a business.

You probably should build a bridge...

So what's the solution? You need to build a 'bridge' between Facebook and Amazon. A place you control, where you can install your pixel and start gathering inteligence.

This doesn't need to be a full-blown eCommerce store, at least not at first. It can be a very simple, single landing page built on a platform like Shopify, Leadpages, or even Carrd. The goal of this page is NOT to sell the book directly, but to act as a crucial middle step.

Here’s how it works:
1. Your Facebook Ad points to your new, dedicated landing page.
2. The landing page is beautiful. It showcases all your books, or your best-seller, with great images, compelling descriptions, maybe some customer reviews or testimonials.
3. The Facebook Pixel is installed on this page. Now, you can track everyone who visits.
4. There's a big, clear button on the page that says something like "Buy on Amazon". When a user clicks this, they are then taken to the Amazon page to complete their purchase.

Why is this so much better?

• -> Data & Optimisation: Now you can start optimising your campaigns for a more meaningful action. Instead of 'Link Clicks', you can tell Facebook to find people who are most likely to get to your landing page and then click the 'Buy on Amazon' button. It's not a perfect proxy for a sale, but it's a million times better than just a raw click. You're filtering for people with higher intent.
• -> Retargeting Power: This is huge. Now you have a custom audience of everyone who has visited your landing page. You can run highly effective, low-cost retargeting ads just to these people. Someone visited but didn't click through to Amazon? You can show them an ad the next day with a special offer or a reminder. This is how you capture sales that would otherwise be lost.
• -> Building an Asset: The best thing you can do on this landing page is to try and capture an email address. Offer a free sample puzzle or a 10% discount code for their first Amazon purchase in exchange for their email. An email list is an asset you own forever. You can market new books to that list for free, building a base of repeat customers. This is how you build a real brand, not just a series of one-off Amazon sales.
• -> Trust and Persuasion: A dedicated, well-designed page can build more trust than a standard Amazon author page. You control the narrative. You can make your books look irresistable before you even send them to the chaos of Amazon.

It's an extra step, yes. And some people will drop off. But the quality of the traffic that does make it to Amazon will be far, far higher, and you'll finaly have the data you need to actually run your ads intelligently.

You'll need to find your real audience...

Okay, so you've got your landing page set up. Who do you actually show the ads to? This is the next place people go wrong. They target too broadly.

Forget generic demographics. You need to get inside the head of your Ideal Customer. This isn't just "people who like music". It's much deeper. What is the *feeling* they are chasing when they buy a puzzle book? It's probably a desire for a relaxing, offline activity. A challenge. A moment of satisfying nostalgia when they figure out a lyric from a song they love. Your ads need to speak to that feeling, not just the product.

When we work with clients, we build a detailed map of their audience's world. For your books, it would look something like this. We'd start testing with detailed targeting, layering interests to find your sweet spot. The key is to find interests that contain a high concentration of your ideal buyer.

Once you have data flowing to your landing page, you can start using the most powerful tools: Retargeting (showing ads to your website visitors) and Lookalike Audiences (telling Facebook to find new people who look just like your best website visitors). This is the proccess we follow for all our eCommerce clients, and it moves them from guessing to knowing.

We'll need to look at what you're actually offering...

Your ad copy and creative are just as important as your targeting. You can have the perfect audience, but if your ad is boring, no one will click.

You need to write ads that speak to the 'before' and 'after' state of your customer. You're not selling a book; you're selling a feeling.

Before: Mindlessly scrolling through your phone for the 100th time today, feeling bored and uninspired.
After: Enjoying a quiet cup of tea, feeling the satisfying 'click' in your brain as you solve a tricky puzzle based on your favourite song.
The Bridge: Your lyric puzzle books.

Your ad copy should hint at this transformation. For example:

"Tired of the same old phone scrolling? Rediscover your favourite songs and give your brain a fun workout. Our Music Lyric Puzzle Books are perfect for a relaxing evening in. Tap to see the collection!"

Then, you need to test different ad formats. This brings us back to your original question, but now in a much more strategic context:

• -> Carousel Ad: This is perfect for showing a collection of 5-6 of your books. Each card can be a different book cover, clicking through to your landing page where they can see all of them. This is often a great starting point.
• -> Single Image Ad: Pick your single most popular, best-selling book. Give it a high-quality "hero shot" and write a very specific ad just for that book. This focuses all the attention on your proven winner.
• -> Video Ad: A short, simple video can work wonders. A quick shot of someone flicking through the pages of a book. A time-lapse of a puzzle being filled out. Even a simple animated slideshow of your book covers with some text overlays. We've seen video ads, even simple ones, reduce acquisition costs significantly for our clients.

You need to test these formats against each other to see what your specific audience responds to. I've worked on eCommerce campaigns, like one for a women's apparel brand, where we achieved a 691% return simply by rigourously testing different creative formats on Meta and Pinterest until we found the winning combination.

I'd say you need a plan, not just an ad...

So, putting it all together, what does a proper campaign structure look like? It's not just boosting a post. It's a system. For our clients, we'd build something like this to start:

It might seem complex, and honestly, it is. This is why a lot of people struggle with paid ads. They expect to just turn them on and see sales, but it's a discipline of constant testing, learning, and refining.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

I know this is a lot to take in, and it's a significant shift from just running an ad to an Amazon link. But the difference is building a predictable, scalable sales machine versus gambling your money away. Getting this right requires expertise and a lot of hands-on management, which is why businesses often turn to specialists. It frees them up to do what they do best – in your case, creating great puzzle books.

If you'd like to go over this in more detail and have us take a look at what a concrete strategy could look like for you, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation. We could walk through some of these ideas together.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh