Should You Run a Presale?

Before you commit to the presale method, consider the size of your event, early demand, and the industry or region where people are accustomed to registering for tickets.

A presale campaign may be less suitable for the following types of events

Recurring weekly or monthly events
Events without a clear USP or special offering
Smaller events <200 capacity
Events where ticket sales are expected on the door

If your event doesn’t fall into the above list, you should also consider what the incentive is for those who are registering:

Will they get access to the best-priced tickets?
Does the demand for the event surpass the available tickets, and therefore, is the only way for your fans to guarantee a ticket by gaining access to the presale?
Will those who have registered be entered into a competition or be invited to an exclusive community?
Are tickets only available to those who register, or will there also be a general public sale?

Benefits

Collecting Data

Data is valuable, and its collection should be a focal point of your long-term strategy. Each registrant is a potential customer for any of your future events; even if they don’t purchase a ticket for your upcoming event, they may still purchase one for a future event. Collecting phone numbers can help increase your conversions further as you can utilise both SMS and WhatsApp marketing channels. Many ticket platforms require customers to give consent to receive marketing from the promoter, so they restrict the amount of customer data you can export due to GDPR. Without a presale, you could be left with as little as 20% of the ticket buyer data, hindering your marketing efforts for this show and the next.

Sales Spikes

Rather than ticket sales trickling in over the course of a campaign, by running a presale, you are creating scarcity and a moment in time when a registrant needs to be fully committed to buying a ticket. It sparks conversations between the registrants, reminding them to prepare to purchase either individually or for a wider group. You want maximum momentum as soon as you launch your event. The more customers that purchase early, the more opportunity you create for them to act as ambassadors for your event, discussing their plans with friends and followers.

Predictor for Event Performance

Your total registration numbers can be a good indication of how successful your event will be, and by understanding this early on in the campaign, you can make adjustments where necessary. Promoters who see high demand may choose to add an additional date, whereas those who have seen less engagement may choose to add additional guests, downsize to a smaller venue, or cancel the event altogether.

Objectives

Gain Exposure

Ensure you use all your marketing channels to announce the presale, aligning your efforts across social media, email, SMS, WhatsApp, and any other online groups. Coordinate with your partners, venue, and performers to support the announcement through collaborative Instagram posts, dark ads on Meta, newsletters, and traditional methods like reposts and comments to raise awareness. Invest in high-quality assets such as professional artwork, well-edited promo videos, and tailored content for your partners or guests to share, as better, more tailored content reduces your cost per registration.

Collect Data

Ensure the registration process is as simple as possible - a fast-loading web page or in-app lead generation form where users can autofill their details and register in one or two clicks will boost your signup rate.

Try to collect email and phone number data - you don’t need to know the person’s name, and adding more form inputs will only reduce your signup rate. After someone has registered, you could consider sending them a more detailed signup form with an offer that asks them to provide additional information like cities, genres and artists they’re interested in.

Maximise Conversions

It's crucial to keep registrants informed and ready to purchase. Start by setting up a confirmation email (autoresponder) to be sent automatically upon registration, as well as a reminder email ready to send the day before the presale. This reminder should include details on when tickets will become available, when they can expect to receive the ticket link, and the starting price of the tickets.

Encouraging registrants to add the on sale date to their calendars adds another channel through which they would receive a push notification. Evntree - a platform we’ve built specifically for pre-registration campaigns - encourages users to add the on-sale or event to their calendars. Another tool you could consider using is AddEvent, a platform designed to allow users to add an event to multiple calendar formats in a click while also tracking analytics and more. You could use their embedded email buttons to encourage adding ‘to calendar’ in your autoresponders and reminder emails.

To ensure the widest possible distribution of the presale ticket link, use a multi-channel approach. Combine email, SMS, and WhatsApp to boost deliverability.

We recently analysed the results of a presale campaign which utilised all of these channels, and the results were impressive:

Total registrations: 1565
Email: Open rate: 838 (58%) Click-through rate: 328 (23%)
SMS: Delivery rate: 1376 (92%) Click-through rate: 440 (32%)
Whatsapp: Delivery rate: 1190 (81%) Read rate: 601 (51%) Click-through rate: 498 (42%)
Total click-through rate (at least one platform): 69.6% (1,089 users)
Click-through rate on email: 20.8% (326 users)
Click-through rate on SMS: 28.4% (444 users)
Click-through rate on WhatsApp: 32.4% (507 users)
Users who clicked on two platforms: 10.1% (158 users)
Users who only clicked on email: 14.1% (221 users)
Users who only clicked on SMS: 20.2% (316 users)
Users who only clicked on WhatsApp: 24.2% (379 users)
Click-through rate for only using email and SMS: 45.4% (710 users)
Click-through rate for only using email and WhatsApp: 49.4% (772 users)
Click-through rate for only using SMS and WhatsApp: 55.5% (868 users)
Total sales end of day: 994 (63% conversion vs registrants → 91% conversion vs click through)

Having an almost 70% click-through rate in total for your presale campaign is quite impressive. You can see how having a single channel (20-32% CTR) or two channels (45-55% CTR) could affect your sales.

In theory, if your average ticket price was £30, the total sales of 994 on release day would equate to £29,820 in revenue. If you used email alone and converted 91% of the 326 email users, you would have sold 297 tickets (£8,910). If you used email and SMS and converted 91% of the 710 email+SMS users, you would have sold 646 tickets (£19,380). If the email and SMS rates were slightly higher because those looking for tickets didn’t receive the message from WhatsApp, the difference in deliverability rates and conversions is still substantial and could equate to hundreds of unsold tickets and thousands in lost revenue.

When tickets are available, use social media to remind registrants to check their inboxes or spam folders for the ticket link. Additionally, consider setting up a ManyChat automation to send the ticket link automatically to anyone who DMs you on Instagram after the tickets go on sale - this is especially useful for addressing complaints about missing links.

For those who attempt to register after the presale begins, set up an autoresponder that includes the ticket link. You might be surprised by how many additional registrations you receive from people visiting the pre-registration page after the presale starts.

Finally, create urgency among potential buyers by alerting them of the presale sales progress. Send a follow-up email, SMS, or WhatsApp message about five hours after the presale begins, sharing which releases have sold out, how many tickets have sold and/or how many are left. This message is typically most effective when sent to your entire mailing list, provided the event location/concept is relevant to them.

Other Factors

Presale Length

The optimal length for a presale campaign is between 4 to 7 days, with a maximum duration of 14 days. If the presale is too short, your paid media platforms may not have enough time to optimise the ads, resulting in messy budget spending and unnecessary costs. On the other hand, if the presale is too long, early registrants may forget about the on-sale date or opt for other available events. We would recommend a launch to on-sale window of either:

Monday → Monday (+1 week)
Tuesday → Tuesday (+1 week)
Monday → Friday (same week)

Ads Budget Allocation

For many presales, if the demand is strong enough, you can expect around 30% of your tickets to be sold during the presale period. Allocate 30% of your ads budget to gathering registrations. Monitor the demand and adjust the budget accordingly. If the demand is high and registrations are coming in at a sustainable rate, consider increasing the budget. Conversely, if the demand is lower than expected, reduce the budget and save it for later stages or nearer the event date. To work out an optimal cost per registration, aim for 5-8% of the average ticket price, if under £100, or 3% for average ticket price over £100. Examples:

£30 average ticket price = £1.50 - £2.40 cost per registration
£60 average ticket price = £3.00 - £4.80 cost per registration
£180 average ticket price = ~£5.40 cost per registration

Ads Strategy

Utilise a variety of content, including artwork, promotional videos, photos, and videos from previous events, and content featuring guests, speakers, or musicians. Create audiences across multiple platforms, including your mailing list and social media engagement. Create audiences based on relevant interests and lookalike audiences based on previous attendees or engagement data. Allocate small budgets to each audience to measure their effectiveness. For those using the Evntree registration platform (explained below), you will be able to track conversions effectively across Meta (Purchase → CompleteRegistration), Tiktok (Website Conversion → CompleteRegistration) and Snapchat (Conversion → SIGN_UP) so you can adjust your budgets effectively.

Timing of Announcement

For smaller events, announce your event at least 8-12 weeks before it’s scheduled to begin. This allows time to list your event on various platforms and enables early commitment from attendees. For larger events, such as yearly festivals, it is common to announce 6-9 months in advance.

The timings will vary between event types and regions, with public holidays, economic uncertainty or competition all having the potential to affect your success. You should also consider that if you launch too early, potential attendees may not be thinking so far ahead and will be less likely to engage. If it’s too late, competitors may have already gained commitment from your target audience, and those travelling from afar may not have time to arrange transport or accommodation.

Organisers of annual events normally do a soft launch shortly after their previous event to upsell discounted loyalty tickets to their dedicated fans.

Registration Platform

Before beginning your presale campaign, you will need to decide on the best platform to use to maximise your registrations. You can choose between an on-platform lead generation tool, an external platform, or your own website. We recommend using whichever option allows you to minimise signup friction, educate your audience, collect data and track conversions (with a pixel).

Our essential checklist of pre-registration page functionality includes:

Tracking pixels for Meta - TikTok, Snapchat, Google etc are a bonus
Phone number and email address collection
CRM integration - automatically transfer registrants to your CRM of choice (Mailchimp / Bird / Brevo, etc)
Media uploads - to share images or videos to promote the event

Our additional desired functionality includes:

Add to calendar button - to support iCal and Google Calendar
Analytics - to understand the location of your registrants and your conversion rate
Referral tracking - to understand which placements are resulting in the most registrations
Customisation - to reflect your brand
Spotify integration (music events) - to allow visitors to preview the music of the artists
Support for multi-event tours - to allow users to register for a specific show in a tour
Share - allow users to share the page in one click to WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, etc

On-platform Lead Generation

Paid media platforms such as Meta, TikTok and Snapchat all provide a campaign objective to collect leads natively without the customer having to leave the app. Meta has Lead Ads using Instant Forms, TikTok has Lead Generation Campaigns, and Snapchat has Native Leads Forms.

Both Meta and TikTok allow for automatic connections between the campaign and your CRM, meaning you can automatically transfer new leads (registrant data) into the likes of Bird (fka MessageBird), Mailchimp and Brevo (fka Sendinblue). With Snapchat, you would have to export the leads at the end of the campaign and import them into your CRM.

All these lead generation forms are free, quick to set up, allow the user to autofill information from their profile - resulting in a one or two-click registration - and have some customisation to match your brand. However, there are some drawbacks to using these on-platform tools:

You can only access them via direct ads on the platform - there is no web page generated that can be shared externally off-platform, meaning you would need an additional solution if you wanted to collect registrations and share links via mailing list announcements or your social media channels.
Pre-filled information accuracy - sometimes, a user who has joined a social media platform many years ago with an email that they no longer monitor. This email is pre-filled into the form, which can reduce the accuracy and deliverability of your email communications.

External Platform

Evntree is a comprehensive event registration platform that we have designed specifically for event organisers. It provides all the necessary functionalities to run successful presales, including landing pages, integrations with Mailchimp, Bird and Brevo, pixel tracking for Meta, TikTok, and Snapchat, advanced analytics, customisation, and more. The landing pages support single events or multi-date and location tours, have Add to calendar functionality to encourage visitors to add the presale date or event date to their calendar, have Spotify integration for easy access to the performers’ music, and allow image uploads and multi-media embeds.

After creating your Evntree account, you can set up your first landing page via the Dashboard. To use all of the powerful features, such as CRM integration and pixel tracking, you will need a Premium Subscription. You can use the code EMA to get your first month of Premium free. We recommend reading the Evntree Setup Guides to ensure you have completed all the tasks and are ready to launch your campaign.

If you would prefer not to use Evntree, there are other options below, but none of them provide the full suite of functionality we believe to be essential in running a successful presale.

Built-in landing pages from Mailchimp, Bird & Brevo: easy to set up but lacking pixel integrations and customisation options
Laylo: more geared towards artists, merch drops and tours, Laylo is a fantastic product we would recommend if the use case fits. The only downside is all of your communications are handled directly through Laylo, there is no option to integrate with your own CRM, and you have to purchase credits to send messages (around $0.02 per DM or US SMS and $0.05 per international SMS)
Audience Republic: a great solution if you have the budget and are happy using Audience Republic as your CRM
Hive: similar to Audience Republic, another CRM specifically for event marketers
Splash: more of an all-in-one solution for bespoke events, Splash offers beautifully designed landing pages, built-in ticketing, pixel tracking, event management and more

Your Own Website

If you already have your own website, then you should ensure any registration pages you create have the following functionality as a minimum:

Forms that collect email and phone numbers and transfer data directly to your CRM (either as part of the website platform or via an API integration)
Pixel tracking for PageView and CompleteRegistration ad objectives, set up to fire for Meta (as a minimum) as well as TikTok and Snapchat.

Crowdsauce offers bespoke websites for a range of different use cases, all of which include the functionality of Evntree and more, giving you a powerful solution to showcase your events and run registration campaigns on a regular basis.

Get in touch via the Crowdsauce website if you’d like to learn more about web design and development services for promoters.

Schedule

We’ll now outline an example of a full content schedule for a 7 day presale. You will be able to generate your own schedule with our prompt at the bottom of this article.

We’ll be utilising all of the technologies and techniques we have available:

Email marketing
SMS marketing
Whatsapp marketing and community groups
Support from venue and guests
Evntree landing page
Manychat for Instagram automations

The schedule will be based upon:

Tuesday 5pm announcement
Following Tuesday presale
12pm tickets available for presale
5pm tickets available for general sale

Assumptions for the promoter:

A mailing list
An SMS list, who have also opted into Whatsapp marketing
A Whatsapp community
Facebook and Instagram accounts
A website or previous landing pages with pixels installed

Daily activity

Day 1 - Tuesday

Registration page: Publish and set to presale mode.
Instagram: Post on Instagram (Feed / Reels / Stories) and use the sticker and reminder functionality to add a countdown.
Facebook: Post on Facebook, @tag the artists and venue.
Facebook event: Create Facebook event and add any artists and venues as co-hosts.
Paid media: Set live campaigns on Instagram / TikTok / Snapchat.
Email marketing: Send announcement email.
SMS marketing: Send announcement SMS.
Whatsapp marketing: Send announcement on Whatsapp. Post in existing Whatsapp community.
Manychat: Set live auto DM on anybody that comments on the announcement post.

Day 2 - Wednesday

Instagram: Share content from the artists.
Facebook event: Post in the Facebook event from promoter page - talk about USPs of the event.

Day 3 - Thursday

Facebook event: Arrange for venue to post in the Facebook event.

Day 4 - Friday

Facebook event: Arrange for headliner 1 to post in the Facebook event - why they are excited to play the show.
Email marketing: Send artist and venue focus email, including USPs of the show.

Day 5 - Saturday

Facebook event: Arrange for headliner 1 to post in the Facebook event - why they are excited to play the show.

Day 6 - Sunday

(No specific actions listed.)

Day 7 - Monday

Instagram: Final chance to sign up via stories, ensure to @tag artists and venues to encourage reposting.
Facebook event: Reminder that the registrant is signed up, and that tickets are available tomorrow.
Paid media: Tickets on sale tomorrow reach ads.
Email marketing: Reminder that the registrant is signed up, and that tickets are available tomorrow. You can include how many people have registered, what price the tickets will start at. A final reminder to join the Whatsapp group to get access 30 minutes early.
Whatsapp marketing: Post in event Whatsapp group a reminder that tickets go on sale tomorrow, members will receive priority access at 11:30am, 30 minutes before anybody else.

Day 8 - Tuesday

Registration page: 5pm - Switch to onsale mode to include ticket link.

Instagram:12pm - Post on Instagram (Feed / Reels / Stories) saying those who have registered should have received their ticket link, check their spam or DM if not.
5pm - Post on Instagram (Feed / Reels / Stories) announcing general sale.
Facebook:12pm - Post on Facebook saying those who have registered should have received their ticket link, check their spam.
5pm - Post announcing general sale.
Facebook event:12pm - Post in event and on feeds saying those who have registered should have received their ticket link, check their spam.
Paid media:11:30am: Upload new registrants into customer file audiences.
12pm → 5pm: Tickets on sale now reach ads towards those who have registered or visited the registration page (pixel).
5pm: Begin general sale campaign with traffic and sales ads.
Email marketing:12pm - Send email with ticket link to registrants.
12pm - Switch autoresponder to include ticket link.
5pm - Send email to wider mailing list, emphasise success of presale.
SMS marketing:12pm - Send SMS with ticket link to registrants.
5pm - Send SMS announcing general sale with ticket link to registrants, emphasise how many tickets sold in the presale.
Whatsapp marketing:11:30am - Post ticket link in event Whatsapp group (priority access).
12pm - Send Whatsapp with ticket link to registrants.
5pm - Send Whatsapp announcing general sale with ticket link to registrants, emphasise how many tickets sold in the presale.
Manychat:12pm - Set live Manychat autoresponder, anybody that DMs send them an automated message with the ticket link.

Want your own personalised presale plan generated by AI? Fill in the form on our website and we’ll email you it over

Conclusion

By considering these factors and following the best practices outlined in this article, you can run a successful presale campaign for your event. Make use of the recommended platforms and strategies to maximise your reach and conversions.

This is a segment from our Event Marketing Blueprint course. View the entire Presale module by enrolling via the links below.

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