Back in November, I posted about advertising Agatha Annotated on Facebook for the holidays. The results are now in and we've analyzed the numbers, so if you are also an author, you might be interested in hearing how it went. 

In Christmas of 2023, we ran two ads with different graphics. We also started sooner — by November first — and used a higher daily budget. As I mentioned in the earlier post, we were so overwhelmed this season that toward the end of November, we decided to just rerun the more successful ad from 2023 and not spend as much as last year. 

As one might expect, there were more ad clicks in 2023 than there were in 2024. Book sales were also better last year. Still, the single ad with a limited budget turned in a pretty respectable performance.

Interestingly, on the days in November when clicks were up, sales were low, and then in December, when clicks were down, sales increased. I assume that means people were browsing in November and then made their buying decision in December. We'll have to remember that for next year so we can start ads earlier. Both seasons, we ran the ads for the week after Christmas when people might be spending gift certificates and that boosted sales, too. 

The upshot of this experiment is that 1) We definitely sold more books once we advertised, and 2) We made more money in sales than we spent on advertising. Which we are calling a successful holiday season! 

Next, we intend to make time to research, plan, and run a non-seasonal advertising campaign.