Nasstive’s Eventbrite Ads Campaign Makes $5.58 For Every $1 Spent

For the past 15 years, Jason Kuska, founder of Nasstive Entertainment has been running guided nightlife tours. You could say he’s a club crawl pioneer. Starting in Hollywood, his company now runs regular events across the country, including self-guided holiday bar crawls in cities across the US. 

However, when he wanted to take his marketing to the next level, he used Eventbrite Ads to promote Nasstive events in top placements on the platform’s most highly-trafficked areas, including the top of related search results, the homepage, and category pages. 

We spoke to him about the champagne-popping success of Nasstive Entertainment’s New Year’s Eve celebrations and beyond, exploring how Eventbrite’s marketing tools are helping him build a robust event marketing strategy.

A long-term ticketing partner

Eventbrite has been a powerful discovery tool since Nasstive Entertainment’s early days. 

Today their organizer profile has 3.5k followers and people continue to find them via the platform. “Our Eventbrite listings show up first in Google search results,” he adds.

Top tip: Learn how to create a high-quality event listing on Eventbrite to reach more attendees

Finding a “sweet spot” with Eventbrite Ads

With all this organic activity, you might think paid marketing is less of a priority but Jason’s keen to stay ahead of the curve with three major seasonal events to promote each year: St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween, and New Year’s Eve.

With Eventbrite Ads, Nasstive Entertainment’s bar crawl events saw a 5.6x return on advertising spend (ROAS)* during their NYE events, positioning them as leaders in the food and drink category. In fact, food and drinks events sell 2.3x more tickets when they promote with Eventbrite Ads versus those who don’t.**

Analyzing post-event data is an important part of his “continuous learning curve,” says Jason, adding: “Direct connections to our Eventbrite account executives have been hugely beneficial, as has the constant rollout of new products to assist event organizers like us.”

For Samuel Hawks, Senior Account Executive for Eventbrite Ads, the most effective way to discover what works for your event is to experiment.

“To maximize the impact of your advertising, it’s essential to explore a variety of strategies,” he says. “Through strategic experimentation, you can collect valuable data that will inform your future campaign optimizations, ultimately enhancing the performance of your ongoing initiatives.”

In order to find an optimal advertising budget, Samuel says it’s important to get comfortable with data analysis.

“Analyze historical performance data and the existing market conditions, such as search volume which indicates demand for the event, audience reach, etc,” he advises. “Next conduct A/B testing to monitor key metrics like impressions, clicks, and CPC. Regularly review your city-specific performance and adjust each budget based on these insights.”

“Through strategic experimentation, you can collect valuable data that will inform your future campaign optimizations, ultimately enhancing the performance of your ongoing initiatives.”

Samuel Hawks, Senior Account Executive, Eventbrite Ads 

It was this constant experimentation that allowed Jason to find Nasstive’s advertising “sweet spot”. This will differ from organizer to organizer and depends on a number of factors: event type, size, location, and demographic.

Because many variables could impact the campaign, such as budget or campaign length, try adjusting each individually so you can monitor which changes are driving impact. 

Featuring engaging descriptions, comprehensive FAQs, and Collections grouped by metro and event theme, Nasstive Entertainment offers a masterclass in crafting compelling listings.

Keyword advice and event listing optimization tips from Eventbrite account executives have further boosted the effectiveness of their ad spend—especially when promoting their 14 New Year’s Eve events—which saw an ecosystem ROAS* (eROAS) of 558% with four events achieving more than 10x eROAS (average eROAS 1435%).

Refining campaign goals to drive impact

The goal behind the New Year’s Eve campaign was to drive traffic and ticket sales. The campaign saw success with a cost-per-click (CPC*) of $0.50 and a click-through rate (CTR*) of 3% (which equates to three clicks for every 100 impressions). This is far better than the average CTR of 1.51% and CPC of $0.83 for Facebook Ads, according to a Wordstream report sharing 2024 data.

Jason is keen to continue refining Nasstive Entertainment’s strategy. In fact, it’s thanks to the reporting dashboard that Jason now understands how far in advance to promote Nasstive events. 

“We used to advertise a month out, but most people weren’t buying until two weeks out or even three or four days out,” he says.

Remember this will be different for each event and organizer, so make sure you’re digging into your own data.

Armed with this insight, they now divide their ad spend and slowly increase it as the event draws closer. 

Harnessing Eventbrite data to aid expansion plans

As the team prepares to launch summer events—new to 2024—there’s another opportunity to put what they’ve learned to the test. “As soon as we have dates, we’ll post ads on Eventbrite designed to help find the radius we need to target to sell out.”

Top tip: Pinpoint the right audience with Eventbrite Ads and location targeting controls, which enable organizers to target specific areas by selecting the location and radius where their ad appears.

And with plans to expand operations to new cities, Eventbrite is proving to be a valuable partner in gauging market saturation. “We like to be in places where only a few people are doing bar crawls,” he notes. “So we identify cities we think will be popular and cross-reference them with Eventbrite listings. It helps us see what’s being offered in a certain area and whether we can do a better job.”

Thanks to this increasingly data-driven approach, Jason believes they can balance paid and organic marketing efforts and stay one step ahead of the competition.

And with Eventbrite Ads now available in over 90 cities across the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, the tool is a key partner for national and international expansion.

Using Tap To Pay to boost revenue

Another tool helping to boost Nasstive’s success (and make life easier) is Eventbrite’s newly launched Tap To Pay feature. The feature seamlessly integrates with the Eventbrite Organizer app and allows organizers to accept cashless payments at the door in seconds. “People can walk up and tap their credit card to our check-in team’s phone to buy a ticket,” he says.

This is something Jason has wanted for a while. The Nasstive team previously used Square as its payment provider, but it didn’t sync to the Eventbrite attendee lists, meaning they had two guest lists and more admin. 

“Tap to Pay populates our Eventbrite list, and we can check people in on the spot. Plus, it means we don’t need to handle cash. It’s good to go over to digital and make the most of attendees’ spontaneity—and it’s simple with a QR code or the tap to pay.”

Whether it’s Eventbrite Ads or Tap To Pay, Nasstive is proof that embracing Eventbrite tools and products is key to growing and sustaining your events.