Case Studies
Search, YouTube and Meta: One Fan Event, Three Jobs
The best multi-platform event strategy gives each channel a clear job. Search captures fans already looking for tickets, YouTube builds demand, and Meta reaches fans at scale. For a collectibles client's large fan event, with a $300,000 budget over 49 days, pacing each platform on ROAS delivered 5.03 ROAS on Google Ads and 2.63 on Meta.
Why run more than one platform for a single event?
A large multi-day fan event has to do two things at once: sell to fans who already want to go, and create demand among fans who don't know about it yet. No single platform does both well.
Our collectibles client needed to sell tickets, maximize conversions and keep spend efficient across three platforms at once. The answer wasn't to split the budget evenly. It was to give each platform a role and measure it against that role.
What job does each platform do?
Google Search captures demand. People searching for the event or for tickets have already decided they're interested. Search answers them at the moment of intent.
YouTube builds demand. Video shows what the event feels like and gives fans reasons to go before they ever search.
Meta scales reach. Meta finds fans with matching interests and brings them into the funnel at volume.
How do you pace budget across three platforms?
We set allocation and pacing across Google Search, YouTube and Meta, and judged each one against ROAS. When a platform earned its spend, it kept it. When it didn't, budget moved.
On Google, we used staged bidding: manual first, then Enhanced CPC (at the time), then Maximize Conversion Value once there was enough conversion data. That bid strategy aims for the most total conversion value from the budget (Google Ads Help: About Maximize conversion value bidding). We also used dynamic radius targeting around the venue.
On Meta, we ran a 10-day Sales campaign with Advantage+ placements.
How does creative direction work without an in-house studio?
Three platforms need three kinds of creative: search ads, video, and images and banners. We handled creative direction. We defined the videos, images and banners and set the requirements and specs. Outside vendors then produced the assets to those specs.
That keeps the creative tied to performance goals and consistent across channels, without the client needing its own production team.
Which tests actually moved the numbers?
We ran A/B tests where the answer wasn't obvious:
Negative keywords vs none: do exclusions save money or cut off good traffic?
Broad vs phrase match: how much reach is worth the loss of control? (Google Ads Help: About keyword matching options)
30-second vs 15-second video: does the longer story earn its extra time?
Each test answered one specific question.
What were the results?
Google Ads: 5.03 ROAS (503.78%), 1.93K conversions and $364K in conversion value on $72.3K spend
Google Search: 4.23 ROAS, $219,601.45 conversion value, 1,307.80 conversions, $39.65 cost per conversion, 27.60% CTR and $0.59 CPC. One Search campaign hit 12.98 ROAS early on.
Google and YouTube combined: 2.86 ROAS and 1,371.29 conversions
Meta: 2.63 ROAS from the 10-day Sales campaign, with $10.7K spent and $28.1K generated
Google Ads performed best (5.03), led by Search (4.23), which caught demand that already existed. Meta and the combined Google + YouTube figure (2.86) came in lower, which is common for channels that build awareness. That's why each platform should be judged on its role, not just its standalone number.
How should you plan your next event's channel mix?
Give each platform one job and measure it against that job.
Pace on ROAS, and move budget toward what's earning it.
Direct creative to spec so every asset serves the plan.
Test the open questions instead of guessing.
See the full case study, our creative direction service, our live events work, and how to promote a fan convention with Google and YouTube.
Planning a fan event? Let's plan your channel mix together, starting with a baseline audit. Talk to us
Related: promoting a fan convention · dynamic radius targeting
Frequently asked questions
Why run Google Search, YouTube and Meta for one event? Search captures existing demand, YouTube builds it, and Meta reaches fans at scale. Each platform gets its own job and is paced against ROAS.
Which platform performed best for the fan event? Google Ads, at 5.03 ROAS. Google Search alone delivered 4.23 ROAS with a 27.60% CTR and $0.59 CPC. Meta returned 2.63 ROAS.
What does creative direction involve? We set the creative requirements and specs for videos, images and banners, and outside vendors produce the final assets.
Is a 30-second or 15-second video better for event ads? It depends on the audience, so we test both. On this campaign we A/B tested 30s against 15s video.