In 2023, we started our second year of working with a well-established four-day Midwest country and rock music festival. They had a “limited” budget of $25,000 for their entire digital ads campaigns. We say “limited” because advertising needed to start 11 months before the event. Additionally, the budget was split between Facebook and Google ads. That meant just $74 per day for a festival that needed to grow their sales revenue by at least 30% over the previous year. As such, we had the double goals of leveraging a limited budget and getting impressive ROAS.

The Challenge of Leveraging a Limited Budget

Our challenge, then, was to maximize their revenue and increase their Return on Investment with a small daily budget. What we did was look for the “leverage points” and where could we focus the ad spend to produce outsized results.

We found an opportunity in the tiered pricing structure that this client uses (a tactic we recommend for larger-scale festivals and events).

One of their best opportunities for leveraging a limited budget came in January 2023 (their event was in June 2023), when they had an upcoming price increase for VIP passes. This created a scarcity event (a real one – this client never reduces prices after an increase). This resulted in higher purchase values.

We created hard-hitting, scarcity-based ad copy and creatives to encourage action now. Plus we greatly increased the daily spend and put 4% of the budget into just 5 days of ads.

It paid off in a BIG way for a HUGE ROAS of 13.07!

The $1,105.93 spent on the two VIP price increase campaigns produced at least* $14,452.54 in revenue for a 5-day ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) of 13.07.

* Facebook only reports an average of 40 – 60% (based on information from their representatives) of purchases and revenue attributable to ads. Therefore, it’s likely that this was closer to 26X ROAS and $28,000 in revenue.

Interested in learning how we can help you sell more tickets to your events?