Online marketing is a powerful tool to fill your events. But it can also be seen as overwhelming, confusing, or overly technical. Since there is so much you can gain through using Stager’s online marketing tools, in this article we will break down the most important concepts you need to know, and what options you have to use online marketing in Stager.

Effective online marketing is built on strong tracking methods. Tracking refers to how you are able to collect and measure user interactions in your digital landscape, including your website, ticket shop, emails and more. These are measured using various tools, and are reported in platforms such as Google Analytics, or other tracking tools you have set up. Tracking is vital for you to understand your visitor’s online behaviours, and allows you to measure performance and optimise your marketing initiatives.

For example, you are able to see which of your digital marketing campaigns are resulting in higher clicks and conversions, and which are lagging behind. Without proper tracking, you would be unable to attribute your campaign to specific conversions, and are left only guessing.

You can also track who has visited your website, or placed a ticket in their basket but did not pay. This allows you to create a custom audience with these visitors, and target them with advertising. In short - with tracking, you can make data-driven insights.

There are many methods of online tracking, and we will outline some key definitions below for clarity.

If you’ve ever visited a website before, and we suspect you have, then you’ve probably quickly clicked away a cookie consent banner. There’s a good chance that you accepted cookies, which means that a small file called a ‘cookie’ is stored on your device, and tracks data like your online interactions. For marketers, cookies are a common tool used to track user-behaviour, such as visiting an event page, or buying a ticket. There are two types of cookies: first-party cookies and third-party cookies.

A first-party cookie comes directly from the website that a user is visiting, placed there by the server of the website visited. If a user visits your website, a first-party cookie will track their visit for your analytics. They are easily accepted by users, and if you integrate a Stager ticket shop on your own domain, you will use first-party cookies for your shop.

A third-party cookie is set by a different website other than the one a user is visiting. This is typically set by advertising or tracking services, such as Google or Meta. This is particularly useful for targeted advertising and retargeting. For example, visitors to your website send data to a third-party cookie that they’re interested in your events, and Google or Meta are able to show these users ads for your events on other websites. If an organiser doesn’t integrate their ticket shop into their own domain, then Stager also is, in effect, a third-party cookie. It should be noted that these cookies are not accepted by Firefox and Safari anymore, and Google Chrome won’t accept them in the future either. This means that integrating Stager on your domain is important to maintain effective tracking.

Due to privacy concerns and browser restrictions, third party cookies are beginning to be phased out. If we want to keep tracking user behaviour, we need another method, and luckily, we have one - server-side tracking. Server-side tracking is an alternative method which is gaining popularity, allowing you to send user interaction data directly from your website’s server to your chosen tracking tools. This is an accurate, consistent and reliable solution for tracking user behaviour because it bypasses browser limitations like ad blockers, third-party cookie restrictions and JavaScript errors.

Client-side tracking is the name for the method used to track users through cookies, and other tools such as pixels and scripts. This differs from server-side tracking as the data is collected from the user’s browser, not from your web server. This is typically easier to set up than server-side tracking, but can be blocked by privacy settings, browser restrictions and ad blockers.

A container is a small snippet of code placed within your website or ticket shop that holds and manages your tracking codes, connected with Google Tag Manager. Think of it, as the name suggests, as a container for all your tracking tools, allowing you to manage them all in one place. On Google Tag Manager, you can manage all your tracking tools in one place, without needing to manually update website code constantly. Read more about Google Tag Manager here.

All these options sound wonderful. But what is possible in Stager? And what is suitable for your situation? Outlined below are the possible tracking setups for your online marketing within Stager.

You can install tracking methods on your own domain. This is suitable for those who are using the Stager ticket shop widget, as this ticket shop is integrated on your own domain. Then you can most effectively track user interactions within the ticket shop on your website.

There are two ways to install tracking on your own domain.

The first is to use server-side tracking. This is what we recommend for the most futureproof method of tracking. To implement server-side tracking, Stager is in partnership with TAGGRS, a Dutch company who have created different pre-made containers that you can easily implement into your Google Tag Manager for server-side tracking.

However, if you don’t want to use server-side tracking, then you can use client-side tracking. For this, Stager is partnered with online marketing agency Afdeling Online, who have provided a container that connects with Google Analytics, Google Ads, TikTok and Meta.

Learn more about client-side tracking.

If your ticket shop is on the Stager domain, meaning your ticket shop URL looks like www.venue.stager.co/shop, then you can use client-side tracking with the container from Afdeling Online. Keep in mind that this is not advised, as you will have less reliable data collection than if you integrate the Stager ticket shop on your own domain. Learn more about client-side tracking.

There are many marketing platforms that you will need to understand, and use, if you want to make the most of the online marketing possibilities in Stager. Below is a short explanation of each platform:

Google Analytics is a free tool that helps you understand how people interact with your website. It tracks user behaviour such as demographics, what devices they use, which pages they viewed, and whether they completed certain actions like purchasing a ticket.

Read more about how you can use Google Analytics.

Google Ads is a platform that allows you to promote your events with advertising on Google’s platforms. This includes Google search results, display banners, or YouTube, among other channels. With the right tracking installed, you can show ads to interested people who’ve visited your website, and you can also track what visitors do after clicking an ad. This allows you to implement and optimise your promotions and spend budget where it works.

Read more about how you can use Google Ads.

Similar to Google Ads, Meta’s advertising platform allows you to promote your events with advertising on Meta’s platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. This is likely relevant for you, as your ticket buyers probably spend quite some time on these platforms. Sending tracking data to Meta will allow you to build target audiences for marketing campaigns and retarget visitors to your page with ads on Instagram and Facebook.

Read more about how you can best use Meta.

TikTok is no longer just for the kids. This platform is growing fast, and marketing on TikTok may prove effective for your audiences. TikTok can be included in your tracking so that you can implement campaigns on TikTok and track conversions from the platform to your website and ticket shop.

Read more about how you can best use TikTok.