KEY TAKEAWAYS
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Cultural attractions should own their Google, Meta, and TikTok advertising accounts—even when an outside agency manages their campaigns.
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Owning your accounts protects valuable campaign history, audience data, and optimization learnings when changing marketing partners.
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Connecting your ticketing system to digital advertising platforms allows campaigns to optimize toward ticket revenue, not just clicks or conversions.
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Together, these steps create a permanent, transparent, and flexible advertising infrastructure that your institution controls.
Your digital advertising infrastructure should belong to your institution
Every cultural attraction should take two steps to build a digital advertising infrastructure that delivers long-term value: own your advertising accounts and connect them to your online ticket revenue.
These two steps help protect your marketing investment, give your team greater flexibility, and allow advertising platforms to optimize toward what matters most: ticket sales.
Here’s how to get started.
Own your Google, Meta, and TikTok advertising accounts
When attractions outsource digital advertising to an agency, TV station, or media partner, campaigns are sometimes run inside the partner’s advertising accounts—not the institution’s.
That arrangement can become a problem when it’s time to change partners.
Your institution risks losing years of campaign history, audience data, and optimization learnings that could improve future campaigns. A new agency may have to rebuild campaigns rather than build on what’s already working.
Your agency can manage your campaigns, but your institution should own the accounts.
Think of it like your website. You might hire someone to build and manage it, but you wouldn’t let them own your domain.
The same principle should apply to Google Ads (including YouTube), Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram), and TikTok Ads.
When your institution owns its accounts, you can grant access to agencies and media partners while maintaining control of your advertising infrastructure. You can change partners, bring management in-house, or work with multiple agencies without starting over.
Connect your ticketing system to your digital advertising platforms
Paid advertising should prioritize generating ticket revenue—not just clicks.
Many attractions use ticketing systems like Galaxy and Tessitura to sell admission tickets, memberships, and special event experiences. But the revenue generated through those platforms isn’t always connected back to their digital advertising campaigns.
Using Google Tag Manager (GTM) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4), institutions can track online ticket purchases and send that conversion and revenue data back to advertising platforms like Google and Meta.
Instead of telling an advertising platform, “Find me people who click,” you can tell it, “Find me people who buy tickets—and generate revenue.”
This is an important distinction.
A $20 general admission ticket and a $200 family membership are both conversions. But they generate very different amounts of revenue.
When advertising platforms receive accurate purchase values, campaigns can optimize toward higher-value results rather than treating every conversion equally.
Getting this connection right requires more than installing a tracking pixel. Your analytics and ticketing systems need to accurately capture completed purchases, pass revenue values, and avoid duplicate conversions.
Once established, this connection becomes part of your institution’s long-term advertising infrastructure.
Build an advertising infrastructure that lasts
Owning your advertising accounts and connecting them to ticket revenue gives your institution a permanent foundation for digital advertising.
You retain your campaign history, maintain flexibility when working with outside partners, and give your advertising platforms the data they need to optimize toward revenue.
Your marketing partners may change. Your digital advertising infrastructure shouldn’t have to.
At Attend, we help cultural attractions take ownership of their advertising platforms and connect campaigns to online ticket revenue.
Learn more about our Digital Ad Reset.
