Thanks everybody for your feedback!
I created a new ad exactly the same as the old ad except that I used the photo of the Epicat (with permission from the photographer/grower who is a member of our society) instead of our logo. The results were kind of surprising....the click through rate was .043% for the Epicat compared to .042% for the logo.
Epicat / Logo
25,710 / 26,125 impressions
11 / 11 clicks
0.04 / 0.04 CTR (Click Through Rate)
2 / 2 Actions (People who became fans)
0.01 / 0.01 AR (Action Rate)
0.32 / 0.33 CPC (Cost Per Click)
0.14 / 0.14 CPM (Cost Per 1000 impressions)
$3.53 / $3.59 Total Spent
My guess is that it's logical for the percentage of clicks to decrease over time...without knowing that rate of click decline it's kind of hard to compare the effectiveness of the two images.
A few notes...
The ad was for my
society's facebook page...which I'm pretty sure is a fan page.
On facebook you can either select to pay for each click or pay for each 1000 impressions. Both the Epicat / logo were the cost per 1000 impressions option. So even if 500 people had clicked the ad I still only would have paid the $.14 per 1000 impressions.
Personally, I would have clicked on the lady with the Dendrobium because I'm a huge fan of seeing
orchids growing on trees! For me a "just ok" orchid growing on a tree has more appeal than a "nice!" orchid growing in a pot. Plus it probably doesn't hurt that I'm a straight male.
"Over the top" is certainly subjective...but there's no arguing against the old advertising adage that "sex sells". If you select the cost per 1000 impression option then it doesn't matter if people click the ad for the wrong reasons...what matters is catching their attention.
But I wouldn't have selected the lady with Dendrobium pic for the ad because I think the "sex sells" adage might primarily apply to straight males...which seem to be a minority in orchid societies. As I mentioned in my post on the
demographics of orchid growers...orchids are most popular with women between the ages of 20 and 30...at least on facebook and for my area.
I mostly included it to see how many other people LOVE seeing orchids growing on trees. The answer is clearly... not enough!
Hmmm...I just noticed that when you
create an ad on facebook there's a link for advanced targeting. Interesting.