The Client
Ticket Selection (ticket-selection.com) was a UK marketplace for concert, comedy, festival and sports tickets. We set up purchase tracking and ran their Google Ads, which sold £930K+ in tickets in 10 months.
Ticket buyers search for one thing: the artist or event, plus "tickets". They buy the moment they find seats they want, so being on the first search matters more than anything else.
"No tracked ticket sales before July 2016. £230,000+ in November 2016 alone."
The Challenge
Google Ads for event tickets moves at the speed of the tour calendar:
- Every event is its own market. Each concert, comedy tour and festival has its own searches, its own peak and its own end date.
- Demand spikes and vanishes. Searches surge when a tour is announced and disappear after the last show.
- Competitive auctions. Official sellers and other marketplaces bid on the same "[artist] tickets" searches.
- No sales tracking. Before our tracking went live, the account recorded no purchases at all, so there was no way to tell which events paid off.
What We Built
1. Purchase Tracking With Ticket Values
We set up the account's transaction tracking with order values, so every ticket order and its value were credited to the search, ad and event that produced it.
2. An Event-by-Event Search Campaign
A Search campaign built around events: artist and event keywords such as "Adele tickets", "Micky Flanagan tickets", "Stone Roses tickets" and "V Festival tickets", with ads written for each event.
3. Ads That Follow the Calendar
Ads for the biggest events of the season, from Justin Bieber and Rod Stewart to the NFL International Series in London, each with its own headline so the ad matches the search.
4. Daily Optimization via Ad Campaign Concierge™
Every campaign was reviewed daily through our proprietary Ad Campaign Concierge™ system: search terms, bids and budgets moved to the events that were selling.
The Results
- £930K+ in ticket sales from 3,600+ orders, July 2016 to April 2017.
- About 4.7x ROAS on £190K+ of ad spend.
- Best month: November 2016, £230K+ from 820+ orders.
- Second peak: March 2017, £160K+ from 720+ orders.
Key Takeaways
- Track every order first. Until purchases were tracked, the account couldn't tell a profitable event from a costly one.
- Build around events, not products. Each tour and festival is its own campaign opportunity with its own peak.
- Match the ad to the event. A headline that names the artist or event speaks to exactly what the buyer typed.
- Peaks pay for the year. One strong month, November 2016, brought in a quarter of the total.
Frequently Asked Questions
What ROAS can a ticket seller get from Google Ads?
Ticket Selection's Google Ads returned about 4.7x from July 2016 to April 2017: £930K+ in ticket sales from 3,600+ orders on £190K+ of ad spend.
How should a ticket seller structure Google Ads?
Around the events themselves. Searches name the artist or event plus 'tickets', 'Stone Roses tickets', 'Micky Flanagan tickets', 'V Festival tickets', so the ads and keywords follow the tour and event calendar.
When do event ticket sales peak?
Around big on-sales and the holidays. November 2016 was the best month, £230K+ from 820+ orders, and March 2017 brought in £160K+.
About This Campaign
E-commerce Google Ads for an event ticket marketplace, built with our proprietary Ad Campaign Concierge™ optimization system.
Industry: E-Commerce (Concert & Event Tickets) Platforms: Google Ads (Search) Location: United Kingdom Account Duration: Results from July 2016 to April 2017. The engagement has ended.
Ad revenue and orders are the transactions recorded in Google Ads by the tracking we set up, July 2016 to April 2017. A first-click conversion that recorded the same sales again is excluded. Spend covers the same ten months. All amounts are in British pounds and rounded down.