Delivering 946% ROI for Scottish Rugby

Scottish Rugby Union Case Study

Campaign Overview

Ticketmaster worked with Scottish Rugby to provide additional promotion for The Famous Grouse Nations Series in the week leading up to the Scotland v France match on 5 August 2023.

The campaign’s objective for the campaign was to drive ticket sales by encouraging fans to see Scotland’s national team at Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium ahead of their departure to France for the Rugby World Cup in September 2023.

Ticketmaster’s strategy focused on targeting Scottish rugby fans as well as retargeting rugby fans who previously visited ticketmaster.co.uk and encouraging customers to convert. As the campaign launched in the week leading up to the match, the campaign primarily focused on targeting fans in Edinburgh and the surrounding areas, close to the stadium.

Over the course of the campaign, we ran two variations of the ad simultaneously to A/B test copy and compared the results generated from both graphic vs photographic ad artwork.

Results

The seven-day campaign was a huge success and resulted in:

How we can drive ticket sales for tournaments

Rugby League World Cup 2021 Case Study

Campaign Overview

Ticketmaster worked with the Rugby League World Cup to boost ticket sales during the tournament stage, from the initial group stages to the final of the men’s, women’s, and wheelchair competitions.

Initially, the Rugby League World Cup approached Ticketmaster to run a one-week campaign to increase ticket sales for the tournament’s group stages. However, due to the high ROI seen across the Ticketmaster ads, the client decided to extend the campaign to run for the whole duration of the tournament. In total, the campaign ran for eight weeks with a budget x9 bigger than initially proposed.

By working directly with the Rugby League World Cup’s creative and paid media agencies, we developed a targeted strategy that connected with different audience segments and passion points without overlapping the social campaigns running on the client’s owned media channels. Focusing on retargeting rugby league fans and big eventers across other major events that previously visited ticketmaster.co.uk, Ticketmaster’s ads helped the Rugby League World Cup engage a new audience and increase awareness of the tournament.

Due to the nature of the multi-stage tournament, the campaign used geo-targeting to focus on audiences close to the venues and drive local engagement. As 90% of the tournament’s venues were in the Northeast and Northwest, the campaign focused heavily on targeting Rugby League fans in the North of England. To ensure continued effectiveness and connection with the target audience and limit creative fatigue over the 2-month campaign period, Ticketmaster A/B tested over ten artwork pieces and copy variations across eight adverts to keep the message and branding fresh.

Results

The 8-week campaign was a huge success and exceeded the goals of the original campaign:

How we can drive ticket sales for clubs

Saracens Showdown 3 Case Study

Campaign Overview

Ticketmaster worked with Saracens to provide extra promotion of The Showdown 3 and boost ticket sales with the objective of selling out the match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

In November, Ticketmaster ran a month-long Facebook campaign promoting The Showdown to rugby fans we have previously visited or purchased from the Saracens eticketing page. In this initial phase, Ticketmaster ran 2 ad variations to reach rugby fans and a family audience.

After pausing the campaign for a month over the Christmas period, Ticketmaster launched phase 2 of The Showdown 3 Facebook campaign in January, 2 months before match day. Using the insight gained from the initial campaign, Ticketmaster continued to target fans that visited the Saracens eticketing website with Showdown 2 ads. Additionally, phase 2 ads also targeted customers that visited the ‘Sport’ and ‘Rugby’ sections of the Ticketmaster.co.uk website to expand the retargeting pool.

With two London clubs competing at The Showdown 3, held at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the campaign focused on geo-targeting fans in and around the London area.

Results

Both phases of the campaign saw a strong conversion rate, resulting in a positive ROAS throughout the campaign. Over the course of the full campaign, Ticketmaster’s ads achieved the following results: