Learning from the Pros
10 Insider Tips on Event Promotion From $1M+ In Ad Spend
Looking to boost registrations for your next event?
I’ve been a part of a team that has driven 10,000+ registrations for events like Ascend, and Innovation Day.
Here are my top 10 event promotion best practices for increasing registrations through paid ads.
(In no particular order, they all matter)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Tip #1: The Four-Stage Framework for Event Marketing
- Tip #2: Utilizing Partnerships & Internal Networks
- Tip #3: Mastering Segmentation & Efficiency
- Tip #4: Remarketing Mastery: Capitalizing on Targeted Engagement
- Tip #5: Cross-Channel Integration
- Tip #6: Geo-Targeted Ads: Precision Marketing for Event Success
- Tip #7: Gamification: Turning Engagement into a Competitive Advantage
- Tip #8: Display Advertising & Maximizing Visibility
- Tip #9: Remarketing Campaigns: Sharpening the Focus for Better ROI
- Tip #10: Mastering ROI: The North Star of Marketing Success
- Conclusion
- Resources for Mastering B2B Advertising
Tip #1: The Four-Stage Framework for Event Marketing
Maximizing ROI on event marketing demands more than just throwing money at promotions.
It requires a carefully structured budget across four critical stages:
- Pre-Event
- Event-Day
- Post-Event
- Repurpose-Phase
Let’s break down each stage.
1/ Pre-Event: The Hype Machine:
The goal here is to generate buzz and build anticipation. It's about investing wisely in creating brand awareness with assets like videos, static images, that get people excited and start conversations.
The aim? To discover what truly resonates with your audience.
2/ During the Event Day: Capturing Attention:
As the event unfolds, there's a golden opportunity to keep marketing with timely emails and live updates.
It's not just about informing; it's about keeping the engagement needle moving by reminding attendees of the value they're getting, right as it happens.
3/ Post-Event: Leveraging Assets:
Post-event, the focus shifts to capitalizing on the event's content.
Recorded sessions and dedicated landing pages become key tools in extending the event's lifecycle.
How? By marketing these assets to both attendees for reinforcement and to those who missed out, providing them a chance to engage.
4/ After The Event - The Repurpose Phase:
Finally, we enter the "Repurpose-Phase," where content from the event transcends its original context.
This is where smart marketers reuse and recycle event content in ads or promotions for future events, turning one-time efforts into long-term assets.
Budget distribution:
Whatever your budget may be, the principle remains the same—allocate strategically.
Invest heavily in the “Pre-Event Phase” to find your audience's pulse and save a portion for the "Repurpose Phase" to fuel future events.
This staggered approach not only maximizes exposure at each stage but also ensures that registrations and engagement peak when it matters most.
Practical Budgeting Example
With a $1,000 budget, consider allocating $600 towards the Pre-event phase to test and refine your marketing approach.
Reserve $200 for live engagement during the event, and use the remaining $200 to promote your post-event content and seed future events, ensuring your marketing efforts continue to bear fruit long after the event has concluded.
Tip #2: Utilizing Partnerships & Internal Networks
When your marketing budget seems like a drop in the ocean, it's time to get creative with what you have.
Even with $5,000 in hand, there's a wealth of untapped potential lying within your LinkedIn connections and internal team networks.
Strategic Content Sharing:
Kickstart your campaign by encouraging your team to engage with your event posts on LinkedIn.
This simple action can significantly boost your visibility, pushing the algorithm into recognizing your content's importance.
Influencer Collaboration:
Whether it's through LinkedIn, Instagram, or niche forums like Reddit, reaching out to influencers with a teaser of your event will extend your reach beyond your immediate circle.
Pro-tip:
Offer influencers engaging assets like short videos to make sharing easier and more appealing. The goal is to make your event resonate within their networks, amplifying your message through trusted voices in the community.
How to Craft Influencer Outreach:
Semrush: When faced with promoting an event with limited resources, leveraging Semrush to identify key content creators in your domain can be a game-changer.
Once you find out which websites are most suitable, cold emails to these targeted individuals proposing collaboration opportunities can open doors to new audiences.
LinkedIn Strategies: Joining LinkedIn groups and engaging with active members can also unearth opportunities for partnership.
It's about finding mutual benefits, even if it comes with a price tag.
Influencers typically have set rates, so budget accordingly. However, when reaching out directly to content creators or platforms, there's more room for negotiation.
Boosting Organic Posts: Another proven method is enhancing your LinkedIn posts organically through employee engagement before opting for paid promotions.
Remember, it's not just about spending money but making every dollar work smarter.
Example of Boosting an organic post for LinkedIn
For additional tips on promoting events, check out this LinkedIn post by AdConversion.
Tip #3: Mastering Segmentation & Efficiency
Let’s start with critical pitfalls to steer clear of.
Broad targeting equals wasted effort.
Dial into the specifics of your audience to ensure your content reaches the right eyes and ears.
- Segmentation is Non-negotiable: Specificity in targeting not only enhances engagement but also optimizes your budget by focusing on the most promising prospects.
- Creativity within Constraints: Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. "Good Enough" can often be your best starting point. Launch with what you have, then adapt and improve.
- ROI vs. ROE: While ROI (Return on Investment) reigns supreme, don't overlook the ROE (Return on Effort).
Evaluate the potential returns against the effort required. Sometimes, the simplest strategies yield the best results without exhaustive planning and resource allocation.
Pro-tip:
- Launching event promotion comes with its share of delays and edits. Start early and simplify.
- Overcomplicating creative requests can bottleneck the process, jeopardizing your timeline.Embrace minimalism in your initial creative assets.
- Focus on refining the message rather than getting lost in the design details. There will be room to iterate and enhance based on real-world feedback.
Tip #4: Remarketing Mastery: Capitalizing on Targeted Engagement
After laying the groundwork with audience segmentation, remarketing emerges as the strategic follow-through that ensures your message continually reaches those most likely to act.
It’s about reconnecting with website visitors, video-view watchers, image interactors, etc.
Reaching to those who demonstrated interest but haven't yet taken the desired action.
By targeting these engaged users with specific, relevant ads, the probability of conversion (registration) significantly increases.
If you want a crash course on remarketing check out this 35-page blueprint on How to Build a Multichannel B2B Remarketing Strategy by Silvio Perez.
Tip #5: Cross-Channel Integration
Using just one platform for event promotion is like whispering in the midst of a loud crowd.
The essence of cross-channel integration lies in presenting a unified brand narrative across various platforms.
From LinkedIn's precise targeting capabilities to the broad reach of YouTube and the personal touch of Meta's networks, each channel plays a critical role in amplifying your event's visibility.
Pro tip: Check this article to learn how to get LinkedIn-like targeting on YouTube ads for B2B.
Platform-Specific Strategies: A Closer Look:
YouTube: Leveraging YouTube for its vast audience and cost-effective view rates turns your event promotion into an engaging visual narrative.
Here, remarketing shines, allowing you to reconnect with interested viewers through compelling video content.
- LinkedIn: With unmatched segmentation options, LinkedIn stands out for B2B event promotion. Tailoring your message to reach specific professional demographics ensures your event resonates with the right audience.
- Meta: Often underestimated in B2B contexts, Meta (Facebook and Instagram) offer a unique space for testing and remarketing. Here, the personal intersects with the professional
Navigating the Creative Challenge:
A common hurdle in cross-channel marketing is content creation, especially video for platforms like YouTube.
The solution? Creativity and repurposing. Utilize existing assets, from high-engagement talks to website walkthroughs, and repurpose them into new video content with minimal effort.
Think of content as modular components that can be assembled and reassembled to suit different platforms.
A blog post can transform into an infographic, a webinar clip, or a social media snippet, maximizing your content's reach and lifespan.
Tip #6: Geo-Targeted Ads: Precision Marketing for Event Success
For events that offer both in-person and virtual attendance options, geo-targeted ads stand out as a proven tactic.
By targeting potential attendees within a specific radius of the event location, you ensure that your advertising dollars are spent on those most likely to attend in person.
Example of Meta’s radius targeting:
Measuring the Impact of Geo-Targeted Campaigns:
Leveraging tools like Gradual allows for detailed tracking of event registrations, distinguishing between virtual and in-person sign-ups.
This segmentation is key in evaluating the effectiveness of geo-targeted campaigns, providing insights into lead quality and audience relevance.
Creative and Tactical Considerations:
While geo-targeting primarily focuses on the pre-event phase, its implications for brand visibility are vast.
Creative tactics, such as mobile digital billboards, can also play a role in maximizing local awareness, even in relation to competitors' events.
Pro-tip
- For events with significant local interest, consider augmenting your digital geo-targeting with physical advertising moves.
- This can create a buzz around your event and ensure your brand remains top-of-mind among your target audience.
Tip #7: Gamification: Turning Engagement into a Competitive Advantage
Gamification: A strategy to break through the noise!
By switching up event promotion into an interactive and competitive experience, you not only capture attention but also foster a sense of community and excitement around your event.
Practical Example
- Offering a free drone to the attendees with the most referrals turns the event sign-ups into an engaging competition.
- This not only increases exposure but also incentivizes participants to become advocates for the event, effectively turning them into an extension of the sales team.
Operationalizing Gamified Content:
Using tools like Gradual, attendees receive a virtual ticket upon registration, complete with a unique referral link for sharing on social platforms.
This system not only simplifies sharing but also tracks referrals back to the source, enabling a competitive leaderboard to emerge.
Tip #8: Display Advertising & Maximizing Visibility
Stepping beyond traditional advertising channels can lead to remarkable visibility.
Display advertising, mainly used through Google Display Network or programmatic ads, holds untapped potential when approached through direct publisher partnerships.
Direct Publisher Engagement:
The strategy here isn’t just to place ads but to place your event promotions on websites specifically relevant to your niche.
By using tools like SEMRush to identify these niche publishers and reaching out directly, you can secure ad placements that speak directly to an engaged audience.
The Operational Dynamics:
Differentiating from the wide net cast by typical display networks, focusing on publisher partnership involves negotiating directly with site owners.
This can range from pop-up ads to dedicated ad slots on their site, leveraging their audience for your event’s gain.
Reducing Variables for Success:
The common pitfalls of display advertising come from an overwhelming array of variables. From ad dimensions and placements to the diversity of websites.
By choosing a direct partnership with publishers, you drastically reduce these variables, focusing on what matters most: context and audience relevance.
Tip #9: Remarketing Campaigns: Sharpening the Focus for Better ROI
We touched on the importance of remarketing in tip #4 but this is such an easy win for most brands that it deserves emphasizing. Since users have interacted with the brand before, remarketing can be ideal for high-intent offers such as "demos" or "free trial". The initial challenge often lies in cultivating a large enough audience size.
Start by building broad prospecting campaigns to stir interest and engagement across your target demographics. This boosts awareness and seeds your remarketing pool with individuals who have shown an initial interest in your offerings.
Remarketing should be viewed not just as a conversion approach but as a nurturing mechanism. With the ability to promote a mix of content—from event announcements to demos and trials—remarketing can support the entire customer journey, especially in B2B contexts where sales cycles are longer.
If you want a crash course on remarketing check out this 35-page blueprint on How to Build a Multichannel B2B Remarketing Strategy by Silvio Perez.
Tip #10: Mastering ROI: The North Star of Marketing Success
Knowing your numbers and directly tying marketing efforts to revenue generation and pipeline acceleration is fundamental. The ultimate measure of marketing’s effectiveness lies in its ability to influence revenue.
Every campaign, ad, and event should be scrutinized through the lens of its potential to contribute to the bottom line. This requires a deep understanding of your audience, the sales cycle, and the points at which marketing interventions can make a tangible difference.
Operationalizing ROI-Focused Strategies:
Quantitative Analysis: Adopt a data-driven approach to every marketing initiative.
This means setting clear, measurable objectives upfront, rigorously tracking performance, and continually refining tactics based on empirical evidence of what works.
- Strategic Alignment: Ensure that marketing activities are fully aligned with broader business goals. Collaboration with sales, product development, and customer success teams can provide valuable insights that help tailor marketing efforts for maximum impact on revenue and pipeline progression.
- Cultivating a Business Mindset: Transitioning from a pure marketing perspective to thinking like a CEO involves a broader appreciation for how marketing activities contribute to the overall health and growth of the business.
It’s about seeing beyond immediate metrics to understand the strategic importance of marketing as a driver of long-term success.
Conclusion
In this article, we covered 10 actionable tips for promoting your next successful event through paid ads.
Just to highlight a few key points, we talked about the 4 pillars of event promotion and how to distribute your budget in each phase, utilizing partnerships & internal networks, audience segmentation, and thinking like an investor to maximize your return on investment (ROI) and return on effort (ROE).
Each of the 4 event planning stages plays an important role, from generating buzz and capturing live attention to extending the event's influence and repurposing its content for future efforts. The power of partnerships, strategic content sharing, and influencer collaborations cannot be overlooked. It’s an effective way of broadening reach without proportionally increasing spend.
Remarketing and audience segmentation are essential for converting initial interest into conversions (registrations), while cross-channel integration expands your digital footprint to reach your audience on all key platforms.
I hope you got a ton of insights from this article and wish you fruitful results for your next events.
Resources for Mastering B2B Advertising
If you’re serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill sets in AdConversion.
Here’s 4 reasons why you should consider joining. Every one of our on-demand courses are:
✅ 100% free access.
✅ Taught by vetted industry experts.
✅ Have workbooks, resources, and templates.
✅ Less than 10 minutes per lesson.
We believe every marketer should know how to scale paid ads so they can:
- Scale their ideas
- Level up their careers
- Make a positive impact
Click Here to Join 1,000+ B2B Marketers Today and start leveling up your advertising skill set.
Takes < 90 seconds to sign up (seriously we timed it 😂)
10 Tips to Boost B2B SaaS Marketing Beyond Ad Platforms
Are you looking to drive a greater return from your paid ads?
The answer often lies outside of the ad platforms themselves.
Here are 10 actionable tips to improve ad performance outside the ad managers.
Let’s dive into it! 👇
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Tip #1: Unleash the Power of GA4’s Page Path Report
- Tip #2: Leverage Multiple Data Sources to Measure Performance
- Tip #3: Work with the Product or Service Team to Design Lead Magnets
- Tip #4: Meet with Sales & Customer Success for Insights
- Tip #5: Get Hands-on with Your Product or Service
- Tip #6: Dive Into CRM Metrics for a Holistic View
- Tip #7: Get Regular Insights from the Sales team
- Tip #8: Link Marketing Efforts to Business Results
- Tip #9: Incorporate Leading Indicators into Your Success Metrics
- Tip #10: Practice Patience
- Conclusion
- Resources for mastering B2B advertising
Tip #1: Unleash the Power of GA4’s Page Path Report
Have you ever wondered how visitors wander around your site before hitting that sweet 'convert' button?
In B2B, it's pretty rare for someone to convert after just one page visit. So, imagine discovering that a whopping 90% of your future clients check out your pricing page before deciding you're the one.
That's your cue! With this intel, you can strategically place pricing info where it matters most, like in your ads or on key landing pages. It's all about making that path to conversion as smooth as possible.
GA4's Page Path report is like a treasure map showing you the most popular pit stops.
You can access the page path report by signing into your GA4 account, on the left-hand side, click on “explore” and select the pre-made template called “path exploration”.
In the example below, we can see out of 1,958 page views, we had 17 form submissions ↓
Bonus tip from episode insights:
Tools like Hotjar can be like a pair of X-ray glasses for your website. They let you peek into how users navigate your pages, showing you exactly where they bounce off or get hooked. This information can help tweak your landing page by identifying unaddressed user concerns or areas for expansion.
Tip #2: Leverage Multiple Data Sources to Measure Performance
Effective marketing decisions require more than just ad platform insights.
The in-platform metrics are a great starting point, but what you gain out of it is quite limited.
You can get the initial results for optimization such as CTR, CPC, frequency, open rate, or impression share depending on the channel, but the true source of data would have to be combined with CRM data.
By bringing together data from Google Analytics 4 and your CRM, you can create a multidimensional view of your campaigns' effectiveness.
This is more important than ever before with the deprecation of third-party cookies.
Bonus tip from episode insights:
Ideally, you would have at least 3 supporting data points to back up recommendations.
This is especially true for recommendations that will require a major lift.
Tip #3: Work with the Product or Service Team to Design Lead Magnets
A lead magnet involves providing valuable content in return for information such as a name, email address, job title, and company name.
To stand out, we need to create offerings that genuinely attract and provide value to our audience, moving beyond ebooks and webinars to create lead magnets that are both informative and irresistible.
Rather than offering an e-book that your prospect may or may not find valuable, try offering resources or workshops that speak to the prospect’s unique pain points.
This shift not only aligns with consumer preferences but also sets the stage for more meaningful interactions.
Now, the question still remains: "Do content lead magnets contribute to the pipeline?"
For most B2B SaaS companies, less than 5% of content actually leads to pipeline conversions.
The most effective conversions come from meetings that address the prospect's real issues without any intention of selling them something (absolutely no hidden agendas!).
Tip #4: Meet with Sales & Customer Success for Insights
Use the insights from the Sales and CS team to fine-tune your strategy, offers, audience, ad copy, or any key piece of information that might be misaligned with current campaigns.
Understanding customer pain points, questions, and feedback directly can guide you in creating content that resonates deeply and addresses real needs.
Sales and CS teams possess in-depth knowledge about the demographics, pain points, and motivations of existing customers.
Marketers can leverage this information to refine buyer personas, ensuring that marketing messages and content resonate effectively with target audiences.
Tip #5: Get Hands-on with Your Product or Service
There’s no substitute for experiencing what you’re marketing firsthand.
Dive into demos, use the product daily, or participate in the service being offered.
This deep dive helps you understand the nuances and unique selling points from a user's perspective.
Understanding the core value of the product or services will help you communicate the value proposition when writing your ad copy.
It also provides your clients with a fresh perspective to fill any potential gaps.
If you are not sold on the product/service, then how can you sell it to someone else?
Tip #6: Dive Into CRM Metrics for a Holistic View
Regularly reviewing CRM data helps you see the real-world impact of your campaigns.
This feedback loop is crucial for making data-driven decisions that can improve campaign performance and ROI over time.
3 key metrics you should always consider as a B2B Marketer:
- Pipeline-to-spend ratio
- Average time to close
- Average deal size
If you have not already, request CRM access from your clients so you have context around the key metrics and speak the same language as your clients.
As a marketer, you must connect all activities directly to revenue since that's ultimately what matters most to businesses.
It will make clients see you as a strategic partner in their business.
Tip #7: Get Regular Insights from the Sales team
Adding on to tip #4, the sales team’s daily interactions with prospects and customers are a treasure of insights that can refine your marketing approach.
Often, marketing and sales operate in silos, even though they're both working towards the same goal.
Having a monthly or quarterly meeting with your main point of contact (POC) can help close the gap, but if that is not possible then download the CRM notes to make necessary adjustments to your campaigns.
Bonus tip from episode insights:
If you've got a substantial list of prospects who passed on your offering due to specific reasons (ex: product gaps), you can build an audience list of these closed lost customers and run ads against them when you roll out a new product feature that addresses those concerns.
Tip #8: Link Marketing Efforts to Business Results
Awareness campaigns might not deliver immediate conversions, but their role in nurturing leads and supporting the customer journey is crucial.
Work with other Marketing team members to build case studies and analytics to illustrate how awareness campaigns contribute to overall business goals.
A compelling way to validate the impact of awareness campaigns is to assess the performance disparity between remarketing campaigns and cold audience initiatives.
For example, showing a significantly lower cost per demo from prospects with prior brand exposure can justify the investment for awareness campaigns.
Tip #9: Incorporate Leading Indicators into Your Success Metrics
By understanding what early success looks like, you can refine your strategies in real time, ensuring your marketing efforts are always moving in the right direction.
These leading indicators could be top-of-funnel metrics such as:
- Clickthrough rate (CTR)
- Cost per click (CPC)
- Engagement rate
Leading indicators are vital for navigating the complex B2B landscape, offering the insights needed to steer your marketing efforts toward success, even when immediate sales results are not visible.
Tip #10: Practice Patience
B2B sales cycles are naturally longer than B2C, requiring a mindset that values persistence and long-term strategy over instant results.
By analyzing attribution data and understanding the nuances of traffic sources, you can refine the strategies.
The key is to establish a robust measurement system and integrate leading indicators to track progress.
Recognize and celebrate the small milestones along the way to keep morale high and maintain focus on the long-term goals.
Conclusion
Yielding results for your B2B SaaS marketing is not about quick wins; it's a marathon, not a sprint.
Deeply understanding your product, closely aligning with sales and customer success teams, and strategically utilizing a variety of data sources lay the foundation for sustainable success.
Real growth comes from consistently applying insights, adjusting based on performance indicators, and staying committed to your long-term vision.
Here's to marketing smarter, not harder, and seeing your efforts pay off!
Resources for mastering B2B advertising
If you’re serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill sets in AdConversion.
Here’s 4 reasons why you should consider joining. Every one of our on-demand courses are:
✅ 100% free access.
✅ Taught by vetted industry experts.
✅ Have workbooks, resources, and templates.
✅ Less than 10 minutes per lesson.
We believe every marketer should know how to scale paid ads so they can:
- Scale their ideas
- Level up their careers
- Make a positive impact
Click Here to Join 1,000+ B2B Marketers Today and start leveling up your advertising skill set.
Takes < 90 seconds to sign up (seriously we timed it 😂)
Join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill set! 🚀
