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Sports & entertainment
Charleston RiverDogs
2018 season to date, measured 29 home games into a 70-game home schedule
The problem
The Class A affiliate of the New York Yankees plays 70 home games across five months. One KPI: sell as many tickets as possible at the lowest cost per acquisition. Every game is its own deadline, and unsold inventory expires the moment the first pitch is thrown.
What we did
Creative built per day of the week, because the promotions are — Friday Fireworks and Thirsty Thursday each got their own assets, deployed days ahead of the game for the window when people actually buy. When a homestand ended and the club went on the road, the creative switched to advance discounted tickets for the next homestand. Display was held to the Charleston DMA; retargeting was deliberately left unrestricted, which in 2017 produced ticket sales across 37 states and four countries.
The result
Roughly 1,050 online ticket sales attributed to programmatic display, at an average transaction of $46 and 4.4 tickets per transaction — a $6.13 CPA and slightly better than a 7:1 return. Facebook ran at 4.5:1 with a $36.80 average transaction and an $8.02 CPA. AdWords returned 3:1. Season to date, digital advertising revenue was up 25% on the same point in 2017 — while display spend came down 22%.
- Programmatic display
- Programmatic retargeting
- Google AdWords
- Day-part creative
Vertical Sports & Entertainment