Help > Advertisers
The Goodreads self-serve advertising product is an affordable and practical way to reach the broader Goodreads community. The product runs on a cost-per-click (CPC) model, where you determine how much to invest in the overall campaign and sets a bid per click. Ads consist of a small image, a title, a description, and a destination URL, which you can set up directly via the advertising dashboard on Goodreads. You can create an unlimited number of ads within a campaign at no extra charge.
Goodreads ads appear on all book discovery pages, including the homepage, search page, and when users browse books. You can find them on the page under ‘sponsored links’ or ‘sponsored books.’ Goodreads reserves the right to change the placements of the ads to provide the best possible service.
You can start a self-serve ad campaign for as little as $10.00, though we recommend you invest between $50.00 and $150.00 in your initial campaign. The self-serve advertising works on a cost-per-click platform (CPC), which only deducts funds when someone clicks on one of your ads. This means you pay the full amount for your campaign upfront, and funds are only deducted if someone clicks on your ad. You can set the price for the clicks, and indicate how much you’re willing to have deducted on a daily basis.
Goodreads ads can be targeted to a set list of genres or authors. Ads will only be shown to members who have rated a book 3 or more stars for those genres/authors. Gender and country targeting are also available.
A successful self-serve advertising campaign typically runs for three months, or until funds invested by the advertiser run out. A successful campaign has several ads running, each with a slightly different variable: different targeting, different headline, description, image, or destination URL. The best campaigns start with several ads, and the ads target either fans of various relevant genres, or fans of relevant authors. The title and the description catch the eye and make member want to click on the ad to learn more about the book, so it’s really important to make sure those two aspects of the ad are carefully considered.
Our team reviews and approves each ad individually every day of the week.
We use an algorithm to determine which ads are shown on the site. A major factor in this algorithm is initial click-through rate – that's the click-through rate for the ad in its first few thousand impressions for the day. The ads that generate more clicks in those first few thousand impressions are shown more frequently throughout the day, while those that don't generate as many clicks early are given a lower priority.
This is how we make sure that the most relevant ads are shown most frequently.
However, each ad gets a fresh chance each day, as its performance the day before had no effect on its placement the next day. Most of the time, when an ad experiences a low in impressions, the ad will rebound the next day.
All self-serve ads are sold at a default rate of $0.50 per click, and the minimum bid per click is $0.10. While higher bid amounts are given higher priority, the initial click-through rate is still more important in determining which ads are shown the most frequently.
Once your ad has been linked to your author profile, engagement stats will be enabled. The information will be sent to you via daily email reports if that option is enabled on the campaign.
Every time you change the copy or creative for your ad, the Goodreads staff reviews it again to ensure that it still complies with our Terms and Conditions. Ads are reviewed and approved during regular business hours Pacific Time, every day of the week.
You can edit the details of your ad budget or your ad creative at any time. Please note that when you make edits to your ad creative, those changes will need to be reviewed and approved by the Goodreads team. The team reviews ads to ensure they comply with our Terms and Conditions during regular business hours Pacific Time every day of the week.
Here are some suggestions to use if your ad has been running for awhile, but has not received any clicks.
Target as many readers as possible. You don’t want to show your ad to everyone, but you need a large enough audience to generate interest.
Use gender and age targeting sparingly. Ads with gender and age targeting will not be shown to members who don't share their gender and age with us. We suggest that you only use age targeting only to make your ad “adults-only.”
Create multiple ads within the same campaign. This allows you to test different ads to different audiences to see which resonates best.
Create a specific call to action. Tell viewers of your ad exactly what you want them to do next, whether it’s “Add to your shelf!” or “Read an excerpt!” Please note that “Buy my book!” does not work very well as a call to action.
Direct members to your Goodreads book page. Goodreads members are more likely to click on an ad when it redirects them to a familiar page within the site.
Enable engagement stats. Engagements stats share the number of reviews, an excerpt, or a link to a giveaway if there is one running concurrently. These stats are only available if you direct members to your Goodreads book page.
Review your ad performance weekly. At the end of each week, take a look at how your ads performed taking into account the click-through-rate ("CTR", which is the average number of clicks per ad viewing). The average CTR on Goodreads is 0.05%.
Edit often. If ads aren’t performing as expected, change them! This also prevents what’s known as “ad fatigue” for viewers who may see your ad multiple times.
Pause an ad when it’s not working. Pausing an ad will disable it from running and potentially using funding. Unfortunately we cannot delete ads or campaigns.
Set campaigns to end automatically. When funds run out, we will alert you that it’s time to review your overall campaign and possibly run another one.
If you have any questions, please contact us.
Clicks update every 15 minutes.
Please email us at support@goodreads.com so that we can look into this, and please be sure to let us know the date you last received the daily report email.
While we research this, you can still see a breakdown of your stats. Here’s how:
• Scroll down to the bottom of your campaign page.
• Click on the “graph with each ad” link.
• On the resulting page, select the specific month from drop-down menu.
• Select the stats you would like to see (views, clicks, etc.) in the “show” section.
• Next, scroll down to the bottom, and click on the small “Click here for breakdown” link.
Absolutely! If your ad campaign ends without a single click, we’re happy to refund the remaining funds at any time. Simply email support@goodreads.com with the details and one of our Experts will gladly assist you.
Adding targeting to only allow certain demographics to see your ad can really benefit ads. Here are a few examples of ad targeting that could potentially help you have a successful ad campaign:
• Create one ad targeting only 4-5 genres.
• Create one ad targeting only fans of authors with average 25,000 ratings or more.
• Create one ad targeting only fans of one specific author.
• Create one ad targeting only women or one targeting only men.
• Create an ad in tandem with a giveaway. Please make sure the giveaway is live before doing this.
• Create multiple ads within the same campaign. The platform allows you to create unlimited number of ads within a campaign. Your funds are only deducted when someone clicks on an ad, and by having a few different ads running at the same time, you’ll find out which ones are the most popular.
• Create an ad that includes engagement stats. These are stats that indicate how many readers have added your book to their shelves.
• Create multiple ads within the same campaign.
You can create as many ads within the same campaign as you like without it affecting your overall funding. You’re only charged when someone clicks on your ad.
1. Go to your ad’s dashboard and open the campaign’s page.
2. Under the “Ads in This Campaign” section, find the book in question.
3. On the bottom left side of the book section, click on “Pause ad”.
4. Once paused, the “Hide ad” option will appear under “Paused ad”.
1. Go to your ad’s dashboard and open the campaign’s page.
2. Under the “Ads in This Campaign” section, find the book in question.
3. On the bottom left side of the “Ads in This Campaign” section of the ad, click on “Pause ad”.
“Books added" means that a user adds the book to any of their shelves (not just their "to-read" shelf). This could include the custom shelves that many of our users create, whereas "to-read" only takes into account users who specifically added a book to their "to-read" shelf. We include both of these numbers to give you a broader idea of how your book is being shelved by users during the campaign.
Please follow these steps to create a new campaign:
1. Visit your Advertising Dashboard
2. Click on 'create a new ad' on the right-hand side of the screen.
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3. On the resulting page, click on the dropdown to the right of the "Campaign" field and choose 'start a new one':
4. Enter the new campaign details, and scroll down to 'save':
Follow the prompts to complete all of the required details.
We recommend a default rate of $0.50 per click, and the minimum bid per click is $0.10. While higher bid amounts are given priority, the initial click-through rate is still more important in determining which ads are shown the most frequently. The click-through rate is the number of clicks that your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown on the website, expressed as a percentage.
Cost Per Click (CPC) indicates the price you pay for each click in your pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaigns. This is the amount you’re charged each time a user clicks on your ad. The cost per click that you set will always be less than, or equal to, your maximum bid (maximum amount invested in the campaign).
A "click" on one of your Campaigns represents a visit to its page. Every click indicates that a person is engaging with your ad. This engagement is what you're paying for in the campaign.
It might help to try a different browser, such as Chrome, Firefox, or Safari. Sometimes the browser isn’t compatible with the page format, and using a different one generally does the trick. We’d also suggest disabling pop-up blocking and ad-blocking plugins, as they might be the reason why your as doesn’t load. If the problem persists you could try clearing your cache and cookies and refreshing your browser. If that doesn't work, email us at support@goodreads.com and we'll look into what else might be going on!
Your ad may get rejected for the following reasons:
1. The title or description is incomplete or cuts off mid-sentence
2. The ad is missing an image or if the image
3. The display URL is different from the destination URL
You can make edits directly to your ad and resubmit the ad for approval.
Make sure your ads fall within our advertising guidelines.
Absolutely! To rollover funds, please pause the currently running campaign first. Then create a new campaign and save it. Once this is done, email us at support@goodreads.com and indicate how much money you’d like us to rollover from one campaign into the other. Please specify the campaign names so we move the funds correctly.
Ads are not frequency capped on Goodreads. This means that a specific member may see your ad more than once.
Ads should stop appearing on the site within 10 minutes of being paused.
Goodreads adheres to industry best practices of preventing duplicate clicks and click fraud. Duplicate clicks by IP or cookie are discounted, and all clicks are recorded and scrubbed for a variety of other checks.
We recognize advertisers are billed based on clicks, so we take this very seriously.
The average click-through rate (CTR) on Goodreads is 0.05%. If your ad has many views and there aren’t as many clicks, you may want to adjust the targeting. You may also want to update your ad creative to have a more compelling title, description, or image.
