Our goal for AdBiblio campaigns is to run book ads that capture attention, increase engagement and make your book stand out in front of the right audience. When it comes to our native ads, the headline plays a major role in helping this happen.
Like the lead paragraph in a news story, the headline of the ad is the single most important asset for capturing readers’ attention in the feed. So, with that in mind, I’m sharing some suggestions to deliver a killer headline for your book!
1) Mention well known authors / books / media
The variation among engagement rates can boil down to simple word choice. For example, using recognizable authors or books in your headline, like Nicholas Sparks or Harry potter, can increase engagement. Likewise, mentioning well-known television shows, movies or celebrities grab reader’s attention to draw them into content speaks specifically to their likes.
2) Add emotional words
Humans react to words that make us feel anxious– like afraid, scare, risk and alarm. These are great words to use for engagement, but be careful to use them wisely and not add too much negativity to the ad. In addition, it helps to use words that humanize the ad and are related to people (i.e. hair, friend, laugh) and can increase engagement.
3) Use context words to increase attention.
What are context words? They’re a group of 1,072 words in the English language that can increase a person’s interest and attention! You can read more about these here. The context words can easily be split into 4 categories: insight, time, space, and motion – as shown here:
4) For the long headline, WRITE LONG.
Longer headlines drive more engagement and deliver greater impact. Think about Buzzfeed headlines — they practically tell the entire story in the headline! While our native ad specs do include a short headline that’s only 25 characters, we also ask for a 90 character headline – and we suggest using as much of that space as you can!
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Now that I’ve shared some best practices for native headlines, let’s take a look at some top headline examples:
Killer Headline #1:
Looking for a scare? You’ll feel the hair stand on your arms with Stephen King’s new novel
This headline rocks with its use of a famous author, insight context words like “feel,” humanizing words like “hair” and “arm,” an alert word (“scare”), and clocks in at exactly 90 characters long!
Killer Headline #2:
Obsessed with sexy reads? Then meet the sexiest new character your eyes will ever read.
At 87 characters long, this headline uses humanizing words like “sexy” and “eyes”, and lots of context words!
Killer Headline #3 :
James Patterson is the master of storytelling. This June, he’s back with his best book yet…
This headline mentions a popular author, and uses time context words like “back” and “June” to connect with the audience.
Note: these have not been used in campaigns, only fictionalized for the purpose of this blog post.
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Of course, we’re still discovering day by day what works best when it comes to native ads for books – and we’ll be sure to share as we learn more! To set up your first (or next!) native campaign today, shoot me an email with your book, budget and timeline and we’ll start scoring some headlines!
AdBiblio Native Ad Specs:
– long headline (90 char. max)
– short headline (25 char. max)
– long description (140 char. max)
– short description (90 char. max)
– image: 1200×627 jpeg or png, but if you have another one ready that you’d like to use, it needs to be a minimum of 600×315
• And don’t forget you’re free to link the ad wherever you’d like – no written content required!
