Data is having a moment. Or is it?
Panelists:
Ashley Bradbury, Meta
Nat Harden, Nashville Predators
Scott Heurman, Bubble Up
Moderated by:
Jessica Runyon Hartwig, Ticketmaster
Data Is Definitely Having a Moment
Moderator Jessica Runyon Hartwig began this discussion by addressing the title of the session. Hartwig and her panelists all agree that data is definitely having a moment and that data is more valuable than ever. As fans rush back to live stages, we are looking at what tickets they’re buying, to which events (premium!), at what prices (higher!), and other key behaviors like an increase in domestic travel to see live performances. Ashley Bradbury elaborated, “The landscape has changed. I think about how hard it must feel like to reach your fans. There are significant changes in the platforms you have access to, where people are spending their time, and how you are running your media campaigns. From my perspective, I’ve seen two camps emerge: those who have looked at the landscape and have seen that their campaigns are performing worse – CPs are higher and it’s harder to find fans – they’re pulling back and shifting to traditional media or desktop search because these are tried-and-true, uninterrupted platforms. And in the second camp are those who are really leaning into these changes as an opportunity to adopt new strategies and new technologies. They have embraced a test-and-learn mindset. I think they are finding a lot of success, even with all the complexities introduced by things like iOS 14.”
“Data has always been important,” said Scott Heuerman. “In the early 90s, I worked with artists who sent postcards out by zip code. But now the world is so competitive and there are so many channels. At the same time, it is really effective and efficient to get to fans through your website and fan club and through email. The industry has truly moved from a curator world where radio stations and media outlets controlled access to the fans to an absolute consumer-driven world.”
Nashville’s NHL team, the Predators, started an analytics department back in 2012. “A big part of that was to collect data and start mining that data,” said Nat Harden. “We pushed out ticket offers and provided leads for sales reps to sell packages. We also took a fundamental step to make sure we were working with our building and cross-mining that data from concert sales to Predator ticket buyers. We make sure we have taken all of the data that we collected and use it to help sell tickets. For example, this year the Preds are having Grateful Dead night and we’re pulling all the like-minded demographics and marketing a Predators game to those folks. And vice versa. On the team side, we have 650,000 names in our database. If we have a show that matches demographics, we’ll market it. That was a big step for us – really having the teamwork with the arena to make sure we are maximizing resources to maximize revenue on both sides. That’s helped move us from a market that was 35th in the nation to a Top 5 ticket-selling arena today.”
Data Is Here to Test Your Assumptions
“Systems are built on machine learning, a mechanism by which algorithms are trained to make predictions about outcomes, much in the same way that you all do as marketers using your years of marketing experience,” explained Bradbury. “But it does so faster, and with thousands of more inputs, than a human mind can process. So, machine learning can make more accurate predictions and drive more accurate outcomes than we can. But it needs data. But it is a signal source that sends outward to find more people who are more likely to take the action you are trying to drive. So we can deliver personalized ads, personalized messages, etc. That’s how I define data – it’s a signal source. Think of data as a way to inform machine learning in order to help drive outcomes -- optimize, measure, target, etc.”
Hartwig agreed, “We take that and say, ‘if we don’t have the data we’re looking to get, how can find it?’ Let’s say you’re in a funnel and, at the bottom, are the really loyal fans you talk to the most. What happens when we’re not selling tickets and we know they know?”
Bradbury answered, “In live, we’re not working with the biggest marketing budgets and a lot of times it’s a race to the bottom where we are super-serving the super fan and not thinking enough about bringing new people into the fold. A lot of the digital platforms right now are primed to help you find new people to buy tickets. But we’ve been looking at fans and that’s a really limiting factor. Here’s the thing about machine learning – if you know what your desired outcome is – purchases, leads, even mid-funnel clicks – when you tell it what you want to do. You can leave the system open to find those people for you. You don’t have to apply all those controls. In fact, when you do that, you create a box that you’re not able to get out of.”
“We have this battle all the time,” said Hartwig. “I’m marketing a show; here’s my radius. This is where people bought last time and that’s where I’m focused. Should we always go back to that core radius?”
“Data is not here to replace the market expert or someone who knows the ins & outs of their venue and the market data. It is here to test your assumptions,” said Heuerman. “It goes back to your attitude toward data. Data can be your friend, as long as you have the attitude of ‘I think I know what I know but what are the tools that can challenge and expand my mindset and grow my business?’”
Bradbury replied, “We’re starting to see marketers take off the targeting radius a little bit and see what the system can do. Believe it or not, removing that DMA targeting can blow the results out of the water. Split tests with the only control being one side has the targeting layer and one side does not – the one that does not is blowing it out of the water. Be open to being surprised with the results. It will do wonders for your bottom line. Broaden your targeting and radius and utilize the signal you have. With iOS 14, things don’t look like they are performing as well. So you have to shore up your signal source. That often means having a server-to-server integration. If you do not own the website that you transact tickets on, then we need your ticketing platform to start delivering that for you because we’re going to need a reliable signal source. A reliable signal source opens the doors to approach things in a different way. We have clients who are starting to explore taking off all the targeting and just going with age 18+. We’re finding really strong performance in just exploring that. For venues marketing multiple shows, rather than trying to target out each individual show with its own budget and its own campaign, group them so the algorithm can learn to figure out the right show to show that specific person. And remember that people buys tickets to shows they haven’t been marketed to. Consumers have choices. They go into a platform and, if they don’t see the inventory they’re looking for, they may purchase a ticket for a Preds game instead. And this is normal behavior. We shouldn’t be shy from that. They are benefiting from “the halo effect” of the other marketing you are running for your others shows too. These are opportunities that are tired and true for retail and travel that we’ve been slower to adapt on the live event side. But they can make use of data less complicated and scary.”
Using Data to Build a Loyal Fan Base
When a fan buys a single-game Predators ticket, the team’s program immediately begins outreach to that fan. “At the same time, we try to separate our most loyal fans – our multi-year season ticket holders,” said Harden. “We brand them ‘The Loyal Legion.’ Fans want to separate themselves from other fans as the most loyal fans. Pearl Jam came in a couple of weeks ago and we all know they have an extremely loyal fan base. People were walking around the arena wearing 10-show Pearl Jam shirts. Our season ticket base for the Predators is just north of 12,000 full-season equivalents. 11,000 of those are season ticket holders that are multiyear season ticket holders because they want to be the best fan, the most loyal fan. So, they’re on three-year commitments. And that eases the burden for us, not having to renew that fan year after year. And we want to create a brand for our most loyal fans – with special experiences, with a logo they can wear, things like that. How do we translate that over to live entertainment and create that separation of fan and that pay off?”
“The interesting and fun thing about the fan business is when you use data to find, engage with, and delight the very top of your fan base – people whose love of the artist is part of who they are as a person – it becomes less of a transactional relationship,” said Heuerman. “When you identify them and connect with them and delight them with benefits, what they spring off and how much they talk about the artist is exponential. We’ve been with Luke Bryan for 15 years. We’re doing a big fan club celebration next year with everyone who’s been in the fan club for 15 years. The Avett Brothers are the best in the business at taking care of their fans. They know the people in my office who talk to their fans. They have a vibrant Facebook group. They send a free 7” vinyl of an unreleased track to every fan club member every year. And they just delight those people. When you take care of those fans, they’re going to talk about what you are doing.”
Heuerman continued, “We all live in a world where everything is due yesterday. There’s all this stuff we’d love to do. But the way to grow is to stop and build your data infrastructure. That sounds tech-y and complicated but I’m talking about getting your social media shored up, getting email up, and understanding your site analytics. Make sure everything is talking together. We work in a business where things are a bit siloed and we’re not using data from all parts of the business. But if we can pull all of this data together under one umbrella – only good things are going to happen.
Creative Data Uses
Harden dynamically prices all of his Predator tickets, based on opponent, seat location, etc. “One day tickets are one price and the next day they’re a different price. Obviously, you have your premium customer, and you can charge whatever you want. But we’ve found that the fan who wants a $15 - $20 ticket is getting left out because those tickets don’t exist anymore. Bridgestone Arena is fundamentally committing to servicing that group. Over the next 4-5 years, we’re implementing changes. We’ll have 700 - 800 tickets in the $15 - $20 range. There’s a huge group of young people and people on fixed incomes that will purchase SRO tickets. We discovered them through our analysis of ticket sales and pricing. And we know we need to serve this market as well as the premium customer who will purchase a $300 - $400 ticket. They get in at an entry level price and receive a hat with team colors. We capture their name and try to develop them as a fan. Especially students – when you graduate, maybe you’re buying the higher priced tickets. We have you in our database and we’re speaking to you along the way not only through ticket offers but also through social media and content about the team. It’s a great way to grab new fans.”
Heuerman concurred, “Access and experience is key. And content doesn’t have to be complicated. But it does allow a contact and a data point, even within the fan base. Kelsea Ballerini does these wonderful fan club check-ins. She just talks to the camera to her fans and plays. It’s not complicated. They just access want the artist … or the team.”
Privacy and Performance, Can We Have Both?
We live in a world now where consumers want more control over how their data is shared with first and third-party platforms. “We at Meta don’t believe that privacy and performance can’t co-exist,” said Bradbury. “In fact, I think the stat is 65% of people would willingly opt-in for sharing data if they know they are going to get personalized ads and offers. Not everybody wants to be anonymous but everybody wants to get value for data exchange. But there are powers enforcing changes on the tried-and-true mechanism by which data was exchanged between browsers. Pixels have be stripped. iOS 14 was not the first time we lost signal. Safari stopped allowing third-party cookies to pass back data years ago. This has been a pattern and it’s the right thing. People should have access to and control over their data. So now we have to evolve the technologies that we use. We are making major investments in privacy-enhancing technologies. We’re about to go down a very technical rabbit hole but I’ll try to make it interesting. We’re working on device learning and multi-party computation -- multiple parties computing together. In a pixel-based environment, and utilizing the Meta pixel, you have a pixel placed on your browser and it’s passing back signal to Meta and we’re spitting out reporting – there is an exchange of data between two parties. In a multi-party computation environment, Meta is sharing encrypted data with a key that unlocks that data. The advertiser is sharing encrypted data with a key to a third party where that data is matched. The data is unlocked with our keys. It’s jumbled up so that it can’t be unlocked by either party and then we are given the output. We can see that the average cost per conversion was say $30. And that’s the most important thing for you as an advertiser. And it’s important for us because we’re learning to deliver personalized ads. So we’re learning together in this case. And this feels right for the consumer because no one is using their data in ways they haven’t given explicit access to. This is the direction we’re heading and we’re really, really excited. We’re in the early days. And this is really cool because we have some live entertainment partners helping us build this and helping us learn how this technology is going to work. Data clean rooms may be the 1.0 version of what we’re envisioning.”
Heuerman referenced Mary Meeker’s 2018 report called “The Privacy Paradox.” The paradox is: to make products and services that the fans love you need fan data but everyone wants their privacy respected. “Then you have government trying to make it all work,” Heuerman said. “I think we are still living in the Privacy Paradox. I want my privacy but I also want to get information about artists and events that I care about. It’s a constant navigation of how you do that well.” Hartwig added that tools and technology are helping us navigate this paradox in a way that we didn’t have a year ago.
“I’ll continue to emphasize that we are going to see more and more utility of machine learning, using algorithms to determine how content is served to people – ads and organic content,” said Bradbury. “Platforms are less about showing content based on what you’ve explicitly said you’ve a fan of. It’s going to make your jobs as marketers theoretically harder. You’re going to see less platforms encouraging you to layer on a lot of targeting. So give fewer controls. You’re going to hear ‘let the system do its thing’ more and more. Hopefully, you’ll see more and more success that way. Certainly, you have to have someone on your team running data analytics and you’ll work really closely with them as marketers. It’s going to be difficult to wear both hats. And find ways to build out that CRM list because first-party data will lead you to new fans. Ultimately that’s the thing that helps you win.”
Harden agreed, “Capture names and better understand who your customers are.”