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At the beginning of the month, I decided to add to the M19 MEDIA fan base with a Facebook ad and get some valuable multi-variate testing in. Of course, this isn’t my first time at the Facebook rodeo (see I Couldn’t Have Done it Without You), but I wanted to test a theory as well: Do icons or images work better in Facebook ads? Yes, we’re all hard-wired to recognize faces, but I hypothesize that we are now tired of seeing images of people on Facebook. We’re bombarded with them and I think that we have begun to tune them out. So here was the test: I put two versions of creative and copy versus each other to see who wins out. Here they are, which do you think is most effective?

So both of these ads are running and are targeted to the same group of people: those that are 30 years old and above, who are not already fans of M19 MEDIA and live within 25 miles of Wilmington, DE. That comes out to about 186,000 people. I am reaching about a tenth of those people, but that is okay. I am only working with a $50 budget for the entire campaign, which was what my budget app recommended. I want to keep the reach small.

Facebook has added a Social Reach category, and it tells you the number of people that are friends of current fans. Your fan base can be leveraged to boost your click through rate (CTR) without having to do anything!

So up until two days ago, the icon was winning hands down in all categories, posting a healthy .039% CTR, kicking a** in impressions and social connections. Now the image is having a late surge with a mind-boggling .057% CTR (that number will certainly decline). There is still some time left in the campaign, and after tweaking the amount per click that I am bidding we’ll see how the numbers will pan out. Stay tuned!

UPDATE:

The campaign is winding down. With only $10 left in the lifetime budget, there’s little that can happen now to drastically change the statistics. The icon is the winner! Posting a healthy .020% CTR, it beat the image hands down. The image achieved a respectable .014% CTR.

While this is no means an exhaustive study, it does mean that mixing up your creative is the best way to maintain viewer interest and determine which approach is resonating with your audience. Test, test and then test again until you get your desired results.