Adwords

I haven't tried it for book promotion. I have however used it to promote websites that I run, my business, and currently, my upcoming workshop. The impressions are amazing. The clicks, a little less so. But I know that in order to build my brand people must see my name/company name at least 9 times before it starts to stick and to do that, I need the impressions.

For what it's worth, I'm also trying Facebook ads and those I haven't been as impressed with. Facebook just has a smaller audience than Google. So the impressions have been less, and so have the clicks.

I've been using it to help advertise a streaming video. I imagine it would work well-- on a budget of 5$ a day, I've had a steady stream of 30 clicks per day. That might seem like little, but I can also see people are mailing/ PMing a URL to their friends so that one click you payed for might turn into twenty other clicks if they tell all their friends. The most important thing is to get the product out there so people know about it-- if they really like it, they'll tell others about it.

It really depends how much money you are willing to spend (a higher budget means more clicks) and if your website is user-friendly. You want your URL to go right to where the book can be ordered and not have them click through several screens or hunt around finding the "buy now" link.

I tried adwords for a whole bunch of my sites, and I am a reasonably savvy webmaster who understands how this stuff works.

In short, give them $5 a day they will spend it. Give them $100 a day they will spend it. They do send some traffic, but I didn't see the actual conversions that warranted spending the money needed for the keywords I wanted.

To be honest, it is not an avenue for an amateur. Grab a copy of "Search Engine Optimization for Dummies" and DIY instead. Much more rewarding and free.

I think adwords fails more than it works for this sort of application. On a micro-budget buying specific ad space on specific relevant blogs might work better.