Facebook ads are very effective for event marketing and can help you sell more tickets for just about any kind of event you organize and promote. For offline events like concerts, festivals, fairs, and so on, Facebook ads also offer an affordable way to make the right people aware of your event and motivate them to buy tickets as well as tell other people about your event.
In other words, Facebook ads are great for awareness, sales, and word-of-mouth marketing. Here are some key steps to set up your Facebook ads for success from the start.
1. Develop Your Strategy
Before you log into Facebook to set up your ads and promote your event, you need to develop your Facebook advertising strategy as part of you comprehensive event marketing plan. All of your marketing and advertising tactics should be included in your event planning checklist, so as you map out your Facebook advertising schedule, add the due dates and deliverables to your overall event checklist.
Your Facebook ads strategy should include details about your target audience, when your ads will run, how many ads you’ll run, what elements you’ll test between those ads, and what your budget will be.
For scheduling, remember that most people don’t buy tickets to an event the first time they hear about it. Therefore, you’ll need to get your ad in front of your target audience more than once during your promotion period. Start running Facebook ads as soon as tickets go on sale. If you’re offering an early bird discount, you might want to start running ads before the special pricing begins and call attention to the limited time that people have to get the discount. Do the same for any other discounts you’re running at different times leading up to your event.
2. Consider Your Budget
At a minimum, you should set aside 10% of your overall budget for marketing. You should divide that budget up into a daily spending limit based on the number of days you’ll be advertising your event. However, consider the various special offers you’ll want to promote as your event gets closer and adjust your budget to give those offers more advertising dollars.
For example, if you’re offering early bird discounts, bundled package prices, and so on, you’ll want to promote those more heavily when they’re available. Also, people are more likely to purchase tickets as your event gets closer. Therefore, ramp up your budget as the event date nears.
3. Create Your Digital Assets
To run Facebook ads, you’ll need a variety of digital assets. These include images, messages and copywriting, a ticket sales page, and a Facebook Page. Let’s start with the Facebook Page. You cannot place ads on Facebook unless you have a Facebook Page. It’s that simple. If you don’t have a Facebook Page, create one here. It’s free and takes just a few minutes.
You’ll also need a professional-looking ticket sales page. This is the page people should be sent to when they click on your Facebook ads.
With your Facebook Page and ticket sales page ready, it’s time to create your ads. It’s essential that you use high quality images and compelling messaging or no one will click on your ads. Consider hiring a professional graphic designer, copywriter, or event marketing agency to help you. The difference in your results when you work with experts will be significant.
4. Set up Your Facebook Ads
Facebook has a number of rules you need to follow when you create ads. For example, your ad can’t include too much text. Every ad must be approved by Facebook before it will run, so make sure you understand the Facebook advertising rules first. You can learn more about the Facebook advertising policies here.
You also need to make sure you design your ads to Facebook’s specifications. This includes things like the best image sizes to use and more. You can find the Facebook Ads Guide here.
Once you know what your ads will look like, you need to log into Facebook, navigate to your Facebook Page, and set up your ads in Facebook’s Ads Manager. Avoid simply boosting a post directly from your Facebook Page as this limits your options and results.
Before you run your ads, you should install the Facebook pixel on both your ticket sales page and the thank you page that people arrive on after they complete their ticket purchases. This is a simple process of copying a line of code from Facebook and pasting it into the appropriate place on your website.
Next, set up a custom conversion or standard event on your thank you page. While the pixel on your ticket sales page tells Facebook that a person has clicked on your ad and visited that page, the pixel with a custom conversion or standard event installed on your thank you page tells Facebook that the ad led to a sale. You can then track those conversions directly within Facebook.
Keep in mind, using the Facebook pixel and setting up custom conversions and standard events can be confusing. This is an area where you might want to get help from an event marketing agency.
If you’re using AttendStar to sell your tickets online, it’s easy to add your Facebook pixel. Just go to Integrations on the Main Menu of your dashboard, select Facebook, and enter your Pixel ID number. The Pixel code placement is done automatically by AttendStar. That’s all there is to it!
5. Invest in Retargeting
Retargeting ads can be displayed to people who visited your ticket sales page but didn’t buy. Think of it this way, if a person took the time to visit your ticket sales page once, then it’s very possible that they’re considering buying tickets and could be motivated to do so if they saw another ad about the event.
You can set up custom audiences in Facebook of people who visited your ticket sales page. Furthermore, if you also have the Facebook pixel installed on your sales thank you page, you can create custom audiences of people who visited your ticket sales page but didn’t buy tickets yet. Then, you can target those custom audiences with additional ads for your event.
Retargeting is extremely effective. If you use an email marketing tool like ActiveCampaign (which integrates with AttendStar), you can even create custom audiences based on actions your email subscribers take on your website, with your email messages, and after clicking on your Facebook ads. It’s very powerful!
Your Next Steps with Facebook Ads for Event Marketing
Using Facebook ads to promote an event works if you place quality, relevant ads and show them to the right people. Of course, you won’t actually know if your Facebook advertising investments are working unless you can track your results. Therefore, make sure you create professional-looking ads, choose the best target audiences, create even better custom audiences, track your results using the Facebook pixel, and place retargeting ads to boost ticket sales even higher.
Did you know you can install the Facebook pixel on your ticket sales page when you use AttendStar for your online ticketing? AttendStar also offers event marketing services, including Facebook advertising creation and management. If you need help, don’t hesitate to contact AttendStar at 615-223-1973 or use the contact form.
