Often, potential attendees aren’t ready to buy a ticket the first time they hear about your event. They might need to check their schedule, coordinate with friends, or figure out transportation before they commit. But how can you make sure they remember to come back and buy tickets, instead of forgetting about your event the minute they close the tab?
Luckily, there is a way to capture that interest and remind potential attendees at the right time and place. (For instance: when they’re already making plans with friends on Facebook.) The answer is retargeting.
If you’ve ever looked at a pair of shoes online, only to later see them pop up later on other websites, then you’re already familiar with the concept. Retargeting uses pixels and cookies so that you can show display ads to event-goers that have already checked out your page. It’s a great way to remind potential attendees to get tickets once they’re actually ready to buy. And as you know from your own experience (admit it, you bought the shoes)—retargeting works.
To find out how you can turn page views into purchases, we sat down with Andy Hayes from AdRoll, a retargeting and display advertising platform. Andy works with businesses in the Media & Entertainment industry to help them promote their products and events.
What does retargeting enable event organizers to achieve that other marketing platforms don’t?
Gone are the days of guessing who your audience may be based on demographic data. Retargeting gives you the ability to target only people who have raised their hand and expressed interest in purchasing a ticket.
What are the most effective methods for event organizers to use retargeting?
Display advertising allows organizers to retarget past visitors across the entire web and Facebook. These custom ads allow you to decide how much you’re willing to spend per click in real time. For instance, you may want to spend more on past website visitors when you know they’re most likely to make a purchase.
Another effective method is Email or “Customer Relations Management” (CRM) retargeting. Typically we see annual event organizers use this to re-engage past attendees. By using your email lists, you can show ads to previous attendees as soon as next year’s tickets go on sale.
What is the best way for an organizer to customize their creative for display retargeting ads?
Ads with a strong call to action typically perform best for event organizers. It’s important to highlight lineups, event dates, discounts, and shows that are selling out soon. We usually recommend starting the campaign with a variety of ad types. That way we can separate performance to A/B test the different variations.
What are the basic steps to set up a retargeting campaign for someone who’s never done one before?
The first step is to determine what your personal benchmark for success is. Do you want the most people to see your ad for exposure, or do you want to pay as little as possible per actual ticket sale? There are different optimization techniques to find the balance between scale and performance.
From there, you should set up a variety of user segments to include in the campaign. You can then gear the campaign to highlight the best performing ads by using A/B testing. Just make sure to track which campaigns are driving incremental sales.
How long after someone interacts with your event should you retarget them for?
This totally depends on the advertiser’s sales cycle. In typical retail, an advertiser would target visitors for a few weeks after an initial visit. On the other hand, an auto dealership advertiser would want to consider a much longer window. For an event organizer, it depends on how frequent your event is and how far in advance people plan to attend. AdRoll uses pixels to analyze visitor trends and then optimize the length of the retargeting campaign.
Convinced retargeting is for you? Eventbrite makes it easy to get started with our new Boostable extension, which uses your event to create customizable ads that automatically retarget your most interested future attendees.
You can learn more on the science behind the magic of retargeting at the AdRoll blog.
The post How to Use Retargeting to Focus your Event Marketing: AdRoll Q&A appeared first on Eventbrite : Education.
