Automate Every Event Ad with Dynamic Event Ads

An explanation of dynamic event ads for event creators.

Dynamic Event Ads Overview 📅

Marketing multiple events, or calendar advertising, isn’t new. Typically, calendar advertising means creating individual marketing campaigns for each event. While this option might seem effective, time and budget restrictions usually keep promoters from running continuous campaigns for all of their events.

Now, for as little as $1/day, ToneDen’s Dynamic Event Ads improve on calendar advertising by automating the entire process—allowing promoters to pool their budgets for individual events into a single ad campaign without sacrificing the singular promotion of each event.

You can learn more about DEAs and how to create them by watching the below video and reading the rest of this article.

Here's a brief overview of how Dynamic Event Ads work:

Here’s why they work so well:

1. Fans only see ads for shows they’re interested in. DEAs only serve ads for the show pages fans have viewed (but haven’t purchased tickets to yet).

2. Promoters only need to create the campaign once. ToneDen updates Facebook daily with information about your events so that you don’t have to. Anytime you create a new event through Eventbrite, the event information is added to Facebook. Sold out, cancelled, or happened last night? The event info is removed from Facebook.

3. Promoters only need one budget for remarketing. DEAs allow you to remarket hundreds of shows within a single campaign because the creative a fan sees is dependent on the show page they viewed (but didn’t purchase tickets to yet).

How to Create a Dynamic Event Ad Campaign

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to create Dynamic Event Ads with ToneDen.

Step 1: Select Accounts

In this section, you'll select the ad account with which you'd like to pay for your campaign and the page from which you want your ad to run. We'll automatically load the ad accounts you have access to on the personal Facebook account you link with your ToneDen account.

Select a Facebook Advertising Account

You can choose which Facebook Ad Account you'd like to advertise from by clicking the drop-down menu below Select A Facebook Advertising Account.

Choose a Facebook Page

Select the Facebook page from which you'd like your ad to run. You can select any page that you have page advertiser access to in this field.

If a page doesn't show up, make sure that you have advertiser access to it on the personal Facebook account you've linked with your ToneDen sub-account.

Also, make sure to grant ToneDen access to all your Facebook pages so we can load them in our interface.

If you have access to a large number of pages, try typing your page in manually if it doesn't automatically appear in the drop-down section.

Choose an Instagram Page (Optional)

We'll automatically use the Instagram account connected to the Facebook page you select in the step above.

Feel free to leave this section blank unless you'd like to select a different Instagram account than the one already attached to your page.

Step 2: Select Event Catalog

Click the Generate button to create your Product Catalog.

Select your ticketing provider via the dropdown. Depending on your ticketing provider, the next drop-down step will vary. Here are a few examples:

1. Eventbrite - Choose the venue/org you’d like to create the product catalog for via the dropdown (based on the EB you synced to your profile)

2. Ticketmaster - Type out the name of the venue/org

3. Ticketweb - You'll need to select the "Ticketmaster" in the above dropdown. Then type out the name of your venue/org

4. eTix- Enter the url for your venue’s/org's eTix page - example
5. Showclix - Make sure you’ve synced your ToneDen + Showclix seller account

If you’ve already created a product catalog via another DEA campaign, you can select it via the dropdown.

In order to generate this product catalog, your ad account first has to be inside of a Business Manager account. You can also use this section to create a catalog of shows from multiple orgs/venues.

Step 3: Select Catalog Segment

If you’d like to segment the shows that your DEA campaign is advertising there are a few options:

Time Segments

1. All Events

2. Events that are happening within 30 days (Closeout)

3. Events on sale in the past 30 days (On-Sale)

‍Location Segments

If you have multiple events in separate locations under one org, this option can help you segment which events are being advertised.

Since this campaign's audience is based on your web traffic, no need to specify a location here if all your events are in the same place.

‍Product Catalog Exclusion

Below you can choose which events to exclude from being advertised by your campaign.

If you notice multiple options for a singular event here, it means that you have multiple ticket types for an event.

Takeaway: We recommend selecting All Events in this section as it leads to the highest overall return.

Step 4: Set Schedule

We recommend either of the following scheduling options for your DEA campaign:

1. Month to Month - Schedule your DEA campaigns on a month to month basis. This will allow you to view sales on a per month basis for the campaign.

2. Continuous - You can set the campaign for as long as you want. As this campaign is entirely automated, you could theoretically set this up to run for the next year if you wanted to.

Start Date

Choose the day you'd like your ad campaign to begin by selecting the Please select a start date field. Choose the time you'd like your ad campaign to begin by selecting the Select a start time field.

End Date

Choose the day you'd like your ad campaign to end by selecting the Please select an end date field. Choose the time you'd like your ad campaign to end by selecting the Select an end time field.

We recommend choosing the "continuous" option to let your Dynamic Event Ad run year-round.

Step 5: Modify Budgets

‍This is where you can determine how much money to spend on your Facebook Ad campaign.

Use Total Budget if you don't plan to frequently adjust the budget of your campaign once it's launched.

When you use the Total Budget option, Facebook will take the total amount you input into the “Amount” field and spend it evenly across the total number of days you chose in the “Set Schedule” step.

For example, a four-day campaign with a $100 Total Budget will spend $25/day.

Use Daily Budget when you plan to frequently adjust the budget of your campaign once it's launched.

When you use the Daily Budget option, Facebook will take the amount you input into the Amount field and spend it daily.

E.g. A four-day campaign with a $25 Daily Budget will spend $25/day.

Use the Daily Budget option and spend at least $1/day for each day your campaign is live. This ensures you're maximizing your campaign's reach. We recommend a budget of $1/day to $10/day for your remarketing DEA campaigns.

Step 6: Design Ad

The nice part about this campaign is that the creatives are made automatically (meaning you don’t have to build a single ad copy).

The placeholders {{product.name}}, {{product.brand}}, {{product.custom_label_0) correspond to the name of the event, the location of the event, and the date of these event respectively.

These placeholders will pull the info from your ticketing provider's API to automatically build the ad copy for you (additional placeholders can be added by clicking the icon).

Feel free to customize this section to your liking. But make sure to not mess with the placeholders or you’ll break the automation of the campaign. Any changes you make to any of these components will be reflected across all of your dynamic ad's copies.

Use the dropdown above the creative preview, you can preview the ad copy for each event that is advertised by the campaign.

You can always change the image on a per event basis using the "Edit Catalog Images" button towards the top right. If you want to change anything pulled in by the placeholders, you'll have to change it on your event listing page.

Pro Tip: Because the ad creatives are entirely automated, if you want to change any info pulled by the placeholders, you’ll have to change the respective info on your event listing page.

Step 7: Review Ad Campaign

Press the Continue to Next Stage button to move through this step.

Step 8: Launch Playbook

Finish launching the Playbook by typing in a Playbook Name and pressing the green Launch Playbook Campaign button.

Campaign Maintenance

The only things you'll need to do once you have launched the campaign include:

1. Updating the images for new events once they're added if you don't want to use the stock image on the event listing page

2. Changing up your ad copy every month or so to keep your creatives fresh

3. Updating your budget if you see good returns (I wouldn't recommend exceeding $5-10 day here)

4. Extending the budget of the campaign

5. Excluding events from the campaign in the "Select Catalog Segment" section when you don't want a certain event being advertised or an event has sold out

Advanced Dynamic Event Ads Strategy 🔬

For this Dynamic Event Ad strategy, we'd recommend setting up two campaigns.

One campaign will remarket to those who check out specific events, and the other campaign will serve more as a general calendar ad for all of your upcoming events.

The minimum budget for these campaigns is $60/month, but we might recommend spending $150-180 a month so that Facebook can better optimize your campaign.

• Remarketing Dynamic Ad - $1/day min, $1-2/day recommended

• Prospecting Dynamic Ad - $1/day min, $4-5/day recommended

When auditing the performance of both of these campaigns, look at both of them in the aggregate.

Your remarketing ad is likely to have a significantly higher ROAS because Facebook always ties the purchase back to the last ad someone interacts with before they buy.

Someone might see your prospecting ad a few times and then go to your site and check out an event.

If that person sees a remarketing ad for the event they looked at and then they make a purchase, the remarketing ad will take 100% of the credit for the purchase even though both ads worked together to help drive that sale.

If you're working with a very limited budget and can only afford one campaign, I'd prioritize running the remarketing campaign.

‍Campaign 1: Remarketing Dynamic Event Ad 👋

‍This campaign will target anyone who looks at one of your upcoming events on your ticketing page with a unique ad for the event they checked out.

This generally is the most profitable Facebook campaign your can every run. As it's marketing all of your events to those who are truly most likely to buy, this campaign will give you insight to whether or not your customers are actually purchasing at this point in time.

The minimum spend for this campaign is $1/day - we recommend starting small here and scaling incrementally as you see fit.

‍Campaign 2: Prospecting/Sandbox Dynamic Event Ad 🎣

This campaign will advertise your upcoming events to those who are most likely to buy (besides the audience of your Remarketing DEA)

Think of this as a digital calendar ad targeting those most familiar with your org, that will help funnel more traffic into the audience of your remarketing campaign.

You’ll want to target the Facebook Grouped Remarketing Audience, which includes your FB Page and Event Engagers, IG Profile Engagers, Website Traffic, and your list of Past Buyers/Mailing List.

The minimum spend for this campaign is $1/day - we recommend trying to spend $4-5+/day here as it will allow Facebook to better optimize your campaign.