How to Manage Your Facebook Ads Effectively Over the Holiday Season

The holiday season is one of the busiest times of the year for Facebook Ads. Whether you're running campaigns for your books, courses, or anything else, it’s essential to stay on top of your ad performance to maximize your ROI and avoid wasting money. Here are some key tips and strategies for managing your ads this season.

If you’re running ads, keep them running through the holiday season is important:

If your ads are converting and working, don’t turn them off! If the ROI is lower, consider lowering ad spend instead of just turning them off. But even if you are breaking even, consider keeping the ads going to keep your relevance high in the mind of potential shoppers.

Running ads during the pre-holiday period ensures you stay visible to these potential customers. If you don’t, another author will. Plus you’re not competing with just authors. You’re competing with everyone—big companies and small!

Additionally, repeated exposure is key to building trust and recognition. On average, it takes 7-10 touchpoints for someone to feel comfortable enough to make a purchase.

By maintaining a consistent presence through December and into January, you position yourself at the top of their minds when they’re ready to spend. Think of it as planting seeds during the holidays and harvesting new customers as the new year begins.

What if you haven’t started running ads yet?

If you haven’t started running ads yet, the first half of December is the ideal time to launch if you have a high risk tolerance. If you’re uneasy or nervous, you can hold off.

But just know then those sales most likely will go to other authors who are advertising.

Instead of panicking, make a plan either for this year by launching a promo, NL swaps, or other social media strategy.

And make an advertising plan for next holiday season to stick to it.

Ready to dive in?

During this holiday ad window (Early December) ad costs are generally lower compared to the peak holiday period, allowing you to test your campaigns without breaking the bank.

Starting early gives you enough time to gather data, optimize your targeting, and refine your ads before the competition for ad space skyrockets closer to Christmas.

After mid-December, ad space becomes incredibly costly due to increased demand from big brands vying for last-minute holiday shoppers.

Testing during this high-cost period often results in a much lower ROI because you’re spending more without the benefit of fine-tuned campaigns. By starting in early December, you’ll avoid the premium costs while setting yourself up for success as the holiday buying frenzy begins.

Ready for the important data?

1. Watch Your Frequency Number

If your ad frequency (the average number of times your ad is shown to the same person) is creeping too high, your campaign might be losing effectiveness. A frequency of around 7 or higher could mean you’re showing your ad to the same audience too many times.

What to do:

• Refresh Your Creative: Create a new version of the ad with updated images, headlines, or copy to re-engage your audience.

2. Keep an Eye on Your Reach Graph

The reach graph is a helpful tool to understand whether you’re attracting new people or just recycling the same audience. If your reach is flattening out, it’s a sign your ad is no longer pulling in new viewers.

What to do:

• Check your cumulative reach chart to see trends over time.

3. Know When to Retire an Ad

Sometimes, even the best-performing ads have an expiration date. If your results are declining despite optimizations, it might be time to let go.

What to do:

• Acknowledge the ad's success and retire it gracefully. It gave you sales, momentum, be grateful and let it go.

4. Scale Strategically

Scaling your ads during the holidays can be tricky. Jumping from $2 to $50 a day overnight can mess with Facebook’s learning phase and hurt performance. Go slow if you are nervous.

What to do:

• Consider duplicating your best-performing ads into new campaigns with slightly lower budgets.

5. Experiment with Holiday-Specific Creative

During the holidays, people’s purchasing behaviors and interests shift. This is the perfect time to test holiday-themed ad creatives and audiences.

What to do:

• Target seasonal keywords like “gift ideas,” or "holiday reads.”
• Create ads that speak directly to the season with festive imagery and messaging.

Facebook Ads can be a goldmine during the holidays, but if you are risk adverse, start with a low spend, experimental ad.

If you aren’t ready, study the market, watch our FB Ads Beginner and advanced videos and prepare to start in January for the start to a great sale year!

You can use this time to plan out 2025, write a business plan, and be ready to catapult yourself into the new year!

Strive to make each year better than the year before and you’ll have a recipe for success.