Facebook marketing for events is one of the best ways to attract more attendees and help grow your revenue. In this post, we’re going to give you a step by step guide in setting up Facebook marketing for your event. We will discuss how to use Facebook Pixel in conjunction with your Ticketbud event page to build an audience To start, you must first either build or have a Facebook page for your end and create a Business Manager account on Facebook. These are both free and easy to set up.  I’ll show you how to generate a Facebook Pixel, and add it to your Ticketbud event page. Finally, I’m going to discuss how to build an audience, and give some best practices for getting the most out of your Facebook marketing dollars. Step 0: Create a Ticketbud Event Page If you haven’t already created an event page, go ahead and sign up here, and put all of your basic event information down. https://ticketbud.com/users/sign_up Step 1: Create a Facebook Page Creating a Facebook page is easy. The steps below are as follows:
  1. Log in to Facebook
  2. Click the Down Arrow at the top right-hand corner of your profile. The Down Arrow is next to a symbol of a lock, and your notifications.
  3. Click Create Page
  4. Choose the “Entertainment” category. I should note that Facebook isn’t super tuned into events, so choose from their provided list the option that best fits your event.  The list includes “Festival”, “Performance & Event Venue”, and “Theatrical Play”.
  5. Add a Profile Photo and Cover Photo to your Facebook page. I highly recommend adding both. If you have created a Hero Image and Banner Image for your Ticketbud event, you can use the same images (albeit resized) on Facebook.
  6. Add some content to your page, including relevant dates, times and location. Add a link to your Ticketbud event page so that people who find your Facebook page can purchase tickets.
More of a video person? Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqJLeIQRvgE' Step 2: Add Facebook Page to Business Manager Now you have a Facebook page for your event! Awesome. In order to start advertising, you’ll need to add the Facebook page to a Facebook Business Manager. Step 1: Go to business.facebook.com Step 2: Click Create Account Step 3: Choose the Event page on Facebook that you just created, and enter in its name in the appropriate name field. You’ll also need to enter your name and your email address you’ll be using. Step 4: Follow the rest of the instructions and provide the relevant information required. Step 3: Generate a Pixel and Add to Your Ticketbud Page (and/or Website) The Facebook Pixel allows you to both track actions of the people on your event site and helps you build an audience.  The Facebook Pixel is a piece of code that you’ll insert into your Ticketbud event page and/or website. This is an easy process on Ticketbud and no coding is required. Once inserted, the Facebook Pixel tracks visits, and specific actions. These actions include: “add to cart”, “initiate checkout”, and “purchase”. The Pixel is designed to track your marketing efforts so you can identify your best ads. Furthermore, the Pixel also enables you to create new audiences based off of the information that it gathers. This is an extremely powerful marketing tool, and it’s completely free for you to use. Let’s walk through how to get the most out of Pixel Step 1: Go to Business Manager, and then Ads Manager. Step 2: Click Tools, then on the drop-down menu, click Pixels Step 3: You’ll be taken to a new page. Choose to Create A Pixel. Choose a name for the Pixel (Generally, just use the name of your event). Agree to the Terms & Conditions (and read them if you haven’t) Step 4: Take the Pixel ID (it’s a set of numbers), and go to your Ticketbud page. Step 5: From the dashboard of your Ticketbud event, in the “Promote” section on the dashboard, click the button labeled “Social Tools” (Left-hand side of the screen). Enter or paste your  Facebook Pixel ID and click “Save Changes”. You’re now all set to start collecting data from Facebook! We also have an in-depth article about the Pixel here: https://help.ticketbud.com/hc/en-us/articles/115011372808-Add-Facebook-Pixel-to-your-event-page More of a video person? Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQWfNB1EV7Y Step 4: Creating Audiences With the groundwork is done, you’re now ready to take advantage of powerful marketing features! Creating audiences from Facebook marketing is a skill that will improve over time, but will have an impact even on your first event.   There are two types of Audiences that you can create: Custom Audiences, and Lookalike Audiences. Each has their own benefits, and if you’re starting out, you should be making use of both. If this is your first event, you will need to install your Facebook Pixel and let it accumulate some data before you can start building an Audience. Custom Audiences There are several ways to create a Custom Audience. You can upload a list of existing customer emails, and Facebook will use this list of existing customers to develop an audience, cross-referencing the emails of customers you provided with emails in its own database. The second method to build a Custom Audience is by connecting actions collected from the Facebook Pixel. This means you could target people who have “Added to Cart” or visited your event site. You can also target Engagement, allowing you to market to people who have “Liked” your or interacted with your event page. Custom Audiences are a fantastic way to retarget individuals who have thought about purchasing tickets, but who have not yet done so. I personally recommend using the Facebook Pixel and then choosing the following actions of “Added to Cart”, “Initiated Checkout”, and “Viewed Website Content”. From here, you can set it to exclude “Purchase”, so you will only be targeting new customers and those who have abandoned the purchase process to encourage them to complete their action. Lookalike Audiences Creating a Lookalike Audience sounds exactly like what you think it is. You will provide Facebook with information on your audience, and then Facebook will develop a new, “lookalike” audience of people similar to those who have already interacted with your event. This is a great way to reach out to a new audience and scale your event revenue. Much like Custom Audiences, there are several ways to create one. As before, you can upload a Customer File of emails, choose actions for a Facebook pixel, or choose those who have engaged with your page. When attendees purchase tickets on Ticketbud, you will capture their email address which is downloadable from the dashboard via a CSV file. You can use this CSV file to create a custom audience on Facebook. The more emails you are able to upload to Facebook, the better. Facebook recommends 1,000 as a starting point. If your event is smaller, don’t worry. You can also choose Facebook Pixel actions such as “Purchase” so that you are able to create an audience that is more likely to want to purchase tickets for your event. Creating a Lookalike Audience takes time, so this is often a much better option if it is your second or third time running an event. Facebook Marketing Best Practices When you’re creating ads on Facebook, I highly recommend following a 3 campaign rule. 1 Campaign, Interest-Based 1 Campaign, Retargeting-Based (Custom Audience) 1 Campaign, Lookalike Audience Interest-Based Audiences are fairly easy to define. If you understand your target audience, Facebook provides niches and verticals that you can target for your event. Are you doing a family event? Facebook has an option to where you can target people with families. Planning a food and wine festival? You can target people based off of food or alcohol interests. This also provides a great discovery process for finding out what kind of people are interested in your event. Retargeting Based Audiences, as mentioned above, are best served by using a Lookalike Audience. Choose people who have visited your page and have initiated checkout, but have not purchased. You have to think that people might not necessarily want to buy the first time around, or something might come up that causes them to forget about the purchase. It happens more often than you think. In ads for retargeting, really hone in on your value propositions such as early bird ticketing, limited ticket quantity, or anything else that would entice someone to return. Lookalike Based Audiences, as mentioned above, are another way to really hone in on your customer profile. Focus on those who have already paid for tickets and engaged with your page, because you are more likely to find more people like them. With these three campaigns, see which ones perform the best, and drop the ones that don’t.  ]]]]> ]]>