Skyrocketing ticket sales: 5X to 13X ROAS all season long WITH FACEBOOK ADS for a Marine Conservation Park
Gulfarium Marine Adventure & Conservation Park has entertained and educated millions since its inception in 1955.
When we started working with their team, they were still new to Facebook Advertising, having run only a few isolated ads during the holiday season. The park needed help reaching, attracting and converting new and old visitors.
We quickly got to work to prepare the park for a new season. After fixing a few Pixel-related issues to ensure proper tracking, we started our testing process to identify top performing audiences, polish an array of messaging options and validate a winning strategy.
The park is a destination for families, seniors and veterans, however simple geo-targeting wasn’t enough to bring in a consistent flow of new visitors and ticket sales.
We adopted a nationwide targeting and our approach was structured in three steps:
1) Identifying the unique purchase cycle and behavior for this type of customer, leveraging travel intent and analyzing how our testing audience was broken down geographically.
2) Incorporating an array of video content for each animal experience and at each step of the customer journey.
3) Optimizing our strategy using Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) and a proprietary video dripping strategy to re-engage and convert warm audiences at high ROAS.
Results came in fast: we skyrocketed the account with a 7x Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) in the first month, knowing what to look for and what to use to our advantage.
√ Leverage the Park’s historic data: without previous advertising efforts at scale on the platform, Facebook went for the low hanging fruit, looking for a potential customer similar to current park visitors.
√ Unleash top performing combinations: after testing different video / copy / headline / call-to-action variants in the first week, we knew what worked, based on actual data.
Our best performing campaigns produced 25% of monthly sales from direct advertising. Our goal was to maximize ticket sales, while engaging and educating potential customers about conservation programs and animal encounters. We replaced the “Buy Now” button, with a more subtle “Learn More”, while still offering a clear call-to-action. Building social proof - post reactions, comments, shares - also allowed us to highlight public validation and make the most of the budget.
These combined efforts lead to a Cost Per Acquisition that was 50% cheaper than industry standard (in relation to our Average Order Value).
All year long, we maintained an average of 7.5x ROAS across funnel, with 11-13X months
This was unprecedented growth that put the park on the map for new visitors and tourists, and maintained it top-of-mind among returning customers.
And while summer months are notoriously strong, we managed to generate 3.7X in general admission ticket, animal encounters and annual passes sales even during the four off-season months.
Now ready for another season!