Sports Technology

Ticketing company Ticketek has recently gone live with a new data management platform (DMP) that not only gives the marketing team a single customer view, but which also opens up the opportunity to become a digital agency to event promoters and partners.

Speaking to marketing magazine CMO, Ticketek Managing Director Cameron Hoy said the group already possesses a wealth of data about its customers, ranging from their interests and intent to purchase through to age, gender, address and preferred device.

Now the company is leveraging  those insights to better interact with customers across all devices was crucial for driving better sales and engagement.

Ticketek, part of the former Nine Live group acquired by Affinity Equity Partners in July, has recorded transactions with close to 11 million customers and has an average online audience of 1.9 million unique visitors per month.

Hoy explained “in our business, people signal their interest and intent everyday by the way they engage with our platform.

“If we are not capturing this and repurposing the content we playback to them as a result, we’re missing the opportunity to be tailored and personalised.”

Karen Chapple, head of digital and programmatic media at Ticketek, said the business had been sitting on valuable data sets but wasn’t sure how to unlock them.

Chapple added “it’s not just how we view our audience, but the way they interact with our channels.

“We have an incredibly varied audience across multiple genres. The insights we are pulling out, for example, around the types of people interacting with sporting content, what channels they are most likely to be on, and what channels they are most likely to convert in, has opened a whole new view on our audience.”

Hoy said this granular detail goes as far as determining whether an email is opened on a mobile, whether that person is also likely to transact via a mobile, and if they’re most likely to do that within 10 days of the event.

She continued “stitching and tracing marketing activity to that level at the transactional end is very valuable.

“Not only does it change the way we go to market as a retailer of tickets, it also helps inform the decisions the inventory owners make, and changes the way they are allocating their marketing budgets.”

A system from data activation specialists Krux has been integrating into Ticketek’s Web-based components for website engagement, email marketing and advertising touchpoints, content consumption and purchase cycle.

Having achieved this in August and September, Ticketek is now working to integrate DMP capabilities with its mobile apps and back-office business analytics solution by January, gaining a complete view of all audience data.

Hoy says that personalising content and remarketing to customers across owned assets is just one pillar of a much wider data-driven business investment, adding “collecting all that data, as you can image, adds great value for us as a ticketing business, but it also means we are well positioned to provide digital marketing solutions for the likes of AFL, NRL, event producers and promoters.

“This is part of a broader play that includes a move to a 100% programmatic ad trading platform of our owned media assets. Having data from Krux sitting at the back of that is helping to fuel and improve yield of that inventory across our sites.”

In added that said Ticketek has “effectively built an in-house digital agency” that can deliver audience-driven advertising campaign opportunities owned assets as well as the wider Web.

As an example of work, Hoy said Ticketek can find customers that have sent a clear signal of intent and interest in a particular event series by either viewing or partially completing transactions for a ticket to one of these events.

He continued “we can then remarket to them across all our channels, as well as the Web”, advising that early results already showed much more effective cost per conversion.

Hoy saw its investment as illustrative of the way big brands are pivoting their businesses off the back of audience data.

He concluded “in many respects, pure reach is being commoditised and it’s the data fuelling the intelligence behind reach that has value

“There are big brands and businesses using their own data, acquiring inventory themselves and bringing these [publishing] capabilities in-house.

“The first step for us is being a more efficient marketing organisation for onsite monetisation.

“The second step is activating this digital agency, bringing us closer to partners in the live entertainment and sports industries.

“Thirdly, there is an incredible opportunity for us as a live entertainment and sports intelligence and analytics business now that we have stitched together both our offline and online data.”

Click here to view the original article in CMO.

To find out more about Krux go to www.krux.com

Images: Ticketek tickets Sydney's Allphones Arena (top) and the Australian Open in Melbourne (below).

28th September 2015 - A STAR ARISES AS NINE LIVE REBRANDS AS TEG

7th May 2015 - NEW NINE LIVE OWNERS LOOK FOR ONGOING EXPANSION

19th January 2015 - TICKETEK INTRODUCES WORLD FIRST DYNAMIC MOBILE TICKET AT AUSTRALIAN OPEN 

6th January 2015 - AUSTRALIAN OPEN IS NOW A ‘WEATHERPROOF’ EVENT

8th January 2014 - MARGARET COURT ARENA SET FOR THE AUSTRALIAN OPEN