Have you been upping your event promotion with paid online advertising lately? Is it working for you, or do you have a nagging feeling that you’re not getting the most for your money?
Online ads can be an effective way to introduce your event to a new audience. Nearly one in three event marketers use paid search ads to promote their B2B events, and one in four spend money on online display advertising for B2B event promotion.
Whether you’re spending a little or a lot, the trick is to make sure that every dollar you spend counts. Here’s how you do it.
What are tracking pixels and why should you use them?
It’s only worth spending money if you’re making money. Advertising platforms show you how many people your ads reached, how many people clicked on ads, and other useful insights. What you really need to see is whether or not those ads are actually driving event registrations and sales. That’s where tracking pixels come in.
A tracking pixel is computer code in the form of a 1×1 image that’s placed on a webpage. The tracking pixel lets the advertising platform you’re using know when that web page is accessed by their ad. If the web page being tracked is an order confirmation page, you’ll be able to see every time your ad results in a completed order.
This data makes it possible for you to know which of your Facebook ads, for example, is driving the most event registrations and sales. You might even learn that your ads on Twitter are reaching more people, but your paid search ads on Google are the real money makers. Insights like these help you determine which channels are worth focusing your time and dollars on.
How do you set up tracking pixels?
This might all sound complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, we’ve simplified the setup process for tracking pixels on your Eventbrite pages for the most popular advertising platforms.
To get started, you need to create a tracking pixel on the advertising platform you’re using. Each ad platform’s setup is a little different, so look for instructions on how to create a conversion tracking or a conversion pixel on the platform’s site.
We also offer step-by-step instructions in our Help Centre for setting up Facebook, Twitter, Google AdWords, AdRoll, and simple image pixels.
Once that’s done, head over to your Eventbrite event’s ‘Manage’ page. Under ‘Analyse,’ you’ll see the tab for ‘Tracking Pixels’ and can select the ad platforms you’re using. You only need to provide the tracking ID (not the full tracking code) to start sending data to that ad platform.
In addition to completed event registrations and ticket sales, you can also track how many people landed on your event listing and the checkout page as a result of your online ads.
This way you’ll know how your ads are truly performing, even if they’re not resulting in ticket sales. You may even learn that your ads aren’t the issue, and you need to beef up the information on your event listing to get people to take the next step.
How do you optimise for conversions?
Now that you’ve got the proper tracking in place, it’s time to revisit your online ad campaigns. You need to make sure they’re set up to optimise for conversions — specifically, for event registrations or ticket sales.
For example, for your Facebook ads, you should select your marketing objective as “Increase conversions on your website.” Facebook will then adjust how and when it shows your ads to get you the best results at the lowest cost.
If you prefer a more manual approach, you can increase your spend where you’re seeing the best results. For example, in Google AdWords, you can see the conversions generated by each keyword and campaign in your dashboard. It’s easy to change your advertising spend or simply pause campaigns that aren’t resulting in registrations.
Be smart about where you spend
There’s an old saying in advertising: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be the case with online ads, which allow you to carefully track your spend. If you’re focused on reach or clicks and not on driving event registrations, then you’re not seeing the full picture. You’re also missing a big opportunity to get the most out of every dollar you spend.
If you’re looking for more ideas on how to drive more event registrations and ticket sales through online advertising, check out our post on Facebook Event Ads.
