This is a guest post by Ali Shakeri, CRO and Co-founder at ToneDen, a social marketing platform for events.
An exclusive wine tasting dinner, a goat yoga festival, or a networking cocktail hour are just a few of the 20+ events on your roster for the season. You couldn’t be more excited to get the word out.
The first event is in 90 days, so it’s time to launch your marketing campaigns. Facebook’s daily minimum for paid ads is $1. You do the math:
90 days x 20 shows x $1 a day = $1800
With a total ad budget of only $500 — and 20 events to promote — you’re in a bit of a bind. $1 a day is the bare minimum, not necessarily the recommended amount to move the needle. Even if you had the budget, you don’t have the time to create, manage, and monitor 20 different campaigns over the next few months.
After all, most frequent event creators’ budgets are lean. A promoter or venue with multiple events to promote has to make some tough decisions. They can’t afford to spend $1 a day on each individual show.
Instead, they’re often forced to pick and choose which events to promote and when to promote them. They might only pay for ads when tickets go on sale and then again right before the event. The rest of the time? Crickets — in terms of ads and ticket sales.
But there’s a solution not a lot of people know about: Facebook Dynamic Event Ads.
Use Facebook Dynamic Ads to promote all your events in one campaign
Facebook offers the perfect solution to the event-promoter’s problems. Facebook Dynamic Event Ads effectively allow you to promote multiple events to select target audiences within one ad campaign.
For promoters in charge of multiple events, Dynamic Event Ads are like a new-wave version of the traditional event calendar. Instead of scanning a long list of performances and dates to find interesting events, viewers are handed the events Facebook already knows they’ll be most curious about.
Even better, with Dynamic Event Ads promoters pool their budgets for individual events into one effective campaign, without sacrificing the singular promotion of each event.
Here’s how it works:
- Create a Facebook Dynamic Event Ads campaign through Facebook Ads manager
- Upload a version of your event calendar, along with artwork for each individual event
- Facebook uses its sophisticated data and algorithms to swap out info and art depending on the user it’s showing the ad to
The same ad might show a picture of goat yogis to a user who’s recently visited a ticketing page for your goat yoga festival. It might share your networking event with a local business professional.
It’s the same ad, as far as Facebook is concerned. But for the user, it’s a personalized, relevant experience. And for you, this means more targeted advertising for the price of one ad campaign.
You can set up a Dynamic Event Ad campaign for as little as $1 a day, stock it with every event you’re producing, and run it for the entire season. No more downtime, no more hard decisions about which of your events to favor. Amazing, right?
Why didn’t you know this was possible?
The technicalities of Facebook Dynamic Event Ads
Actually, there’s a pretty good reason why. Facebook Dynamic Event Ads take quite a bit of technical savvy to implement. You can’t just switch them on like simpler ad types.
Instead, you have to:
- Create a “product feed” or catalog of your events in a CSV file that Facebook can pull your information from
- Embed Facebook pixels in your event ticketing pages to reveal which users are viewing which shows beyond Facebook’s site
- Ensure all your images adhere closely to Facebook guidelines for Dynamic Ads
The good news is you only have to do this once to promote all your upcoming events. Still, there’s an even easier way to set up Facebook Dynamic Events.
Automate your Dynamic Event Ads creation
You’re hosting 20 events a season — the last thing you have is time to investigate and set up a new advertising strategy. The good news is that through ToneDen’s Eventbrite integration, you can automate this entire process.
ToneDen “scrapes” your event catalog from Eventbrite and automatically uploads it to Facebook. The app takes care of the technical dirty work, all you need to do is connect the app to your page and provide imagery.
ToneDen has seen creators spend as little as $1 a day on Dynamic Event Ads and see an average return of $80 a day in gross ticket sales. One promoter spent $80 and drove over $10,000 with this type of ad.
Want to set up your first Dynamic Event Ads Campaign? Set up a demo with the ToneDen team here.
One campaign, one budget = More tickets sold, far less effort
Simplifying your ad efforts by relying on ToneDen to create Dynamic Event Ads doesn’t just free you up for bigger tasks. It automates and optimizes your social media advertising, getting all your events out there, to the right people, at the ideal times.
For more insight about how to master your event advertising, download the free Ultimate Event Advertising Plan for Busy Event Creators.
