Seasonal Promotion Calculator

Choosing the right baseline is crucial for an accurate analysis. The best approach is to use sales data from a recent, comparable period without a promotion. For a weekend promotion, use the prior weekend's sales. For a month-long seasonal special, use the previous month's data. Avoid periods with other major events that could skew the numbers.

Be thorough. This should include all expenses that you wouldn't have incurred otherwise. This includes digital ad spend (social media, search ads), printing costs for flyers or posters, the cost of any discounted inventory (the margin you lost on discounted items), and any staff overtime or prize money.

There's no single answer, as goals can vary. A common benchmark for marketing ROI is 5:1 (or 400%), meaning for every $1 spent, you generate $5 in revenue. However, even a lower ROI can be a success if the promotion's goal was to attract new customers (customer acquisition) who may return later.

This is a common scenario. It means your promotion was effective at driving sales, but it was too expensive to be highly profitable. This could be because the discount was too generous, or the marketing costs were too high. The next step is to analyze if you can achieve a similar uplift with a less costly promotion.

This tool is perfect for analyzing happy hour performance. Set your baseline as the sales from the same time block on a non-happy-hour day. Then, input your happy hour sales and the cost (the total discount given on all items). This will tell you if your happy hour is truly increasing overall profit or just shifting sales to a lower-margin period.