Biodiversity awareness days are awareness-raising interventions of increasing popularity. But what makes an awareness day campaign successful has been overlooked. We sought to determine (1) if species or taxa awareness days led to awareness proxied by engagement for information, (2) if some awareness days were more effective than others, and the possible reasons for success, and (3) if awareness days led to positive conservation action. Google Trends and Wikipedia page views of the subject of biodiversity awareness days with a