The Q1 2024 benchmarking report for UK ticket resellers has just been published. Learn how the top 8 UK ticket resellers perform across the digital space.

The latest Q1 2024 benchmarking report for UK ticket resellers has just been published.  It covers the largest 8 national Ticket resellers, including Ticketmaster, The Ticket Factory, See Tickets, Gigantic, Eventim, Viagogo, TicketSellers, and Live Nation.

The research gives an inside track on who is winning the biggest share of voice online, and quantifies the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for other ticket resellers to win brand exposure, drive online views, and generate ticket sales. The report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from your online strategy and identifies the barriers that may be reducing your site’s ability to optimise digital performance.

To see a preview and contents page of the Q1 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q1 2024 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 8 ticket resellers on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK ticket resellers, or request a copy of the report for the full review.

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What The Industry Research Report Covers

The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each retailer based on 50+ metrics and indicators of successful digital strategy, including organic visibility, domain authority, paid media ads, conversion performance, technical performance, site speed, universal search, content, social ads, accessibility, and mobile performance.  

Driving Optimal ROAS from Paid Media Channels

Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing & Facebook - but have a poor or sub-optimal conversion improvement strategy. Without an optimised, sophisticated conversion strategy that maximises the conversion rate, the return on investment is unsustainable or will underperform. Scaling spend on paid media is not achievable unless the conversion rate delivers optimal performance in the sector. Some in the space have paid media spend levels from 30k+ per month but dedicate minimal resources and budgets to conversion testing.  Given the cost per clicks on ad networks will continue to rise, we recommend spending at least 10% of your paid media budget on ongoing conversion optimisation testing schedules to ensure your paid media ROI maintains long-term viability, competitive advantage, and sustainability.

Technical Website Compliance

Savvy digital marketers know that having a technically sound website is an essential component of a successful fully integrated digital strategy - plus a site capable of maximising conversion performance.  For ticket resellers, having an easy-to-navigate site is essential for consumers needing to purchase tickets. Particular care should be taken of the pathways to key pages, such as upcoming events and 'my account'.

In this quarter, Live Nation flagged 2,309 4xx errors — the highest of all ticket resellers. It should aim to reduce these errors to ensure customers aren’t being sent down dead ends. Live Nation can achieve this by checking that all links are being directed to the right page and updating ones that are outdated.

Site Speed & Conversion Rate Performance

When 62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience, ensuring that your site is quick and easy to load makes a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. Ticket resellers need to ensure their customers have a positive experience on their mobile site as many customers now rely on purchasing via the mobile site and apps. Plus, when popular events sell out quickly, ticket sellers don't want disappointed fans blaming their missing out on poor site performance!

For Q1 2024, the mobile site speed ranged between 76 and 32, with The Ticket Factory reporting the lowest score. Upon closer inspection, this ticket reseller should adopt lazy loading, especially given that its website is image-dominated.

Building Competitive Advantage with Domain Authority

Domain authority is an essential metric for measuring the effectiveness of SEO performance, and helps create a reliable overall gauge of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that is not gained through sponsored ads. Ticket resellers should be continually pushing to improve their DA by sharing great-quality content about their upcoming events and payment options.

A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it is generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. The DA range for this quarter ranged between 86 and 58, with all ticket resellers scoring above the recommended 40. However, as no company scored 100, all of them can make improvements to increase their DA rating by adopting a PR strategy to increase backlinks, including and regularly updated their blog page.

Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop

A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for key, transactional keywords. When 93% of your customers won’t go past the first page of Google, your absence or lack of targeting for essential keywords will cost you conversions. The cost-of-living crisis may have some kickback on to the live event industry, having an impact on ticket resellers. However, with high-profile events, such as the Taylor Swift Eras tour, still selling out rapidly, ticket sellers can still expect to see high levels of traffic for key events.

All ticket resellers saw a loss in organic traffic for both mobile and desktop users. Seven of the 8 providers saw the most loss for mobile users, which means that all must user their websites are mobile-friendly, taking into account site speed.

Universal Search Opportunity

Google Universal Search Results is an evolving opportunity to make your pages visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results often appear before traditional listings and are eye-catching for users. Universal search results refer to rankings on a SERP that are not the traditional ‘blue line’ Google link, and a site can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. Ticket resellers should be utilising all universal search features as potential customers will be interested to see how previous customers have found their experience via 'reviews', 'FAQs' and 'people also ask' results.

Ticketmaster holds the top spot for the most Universal Search results, with the majority of these appearances coming from the ‘image’ category (9,000). All ticket sellers scores 0 for FAQs, and they should look to increase this to ensure they’re ranking in the SERP.

The Longtail Keyword Opportunity

Longtail keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for brand-new search terms as they enter Google’s index. Ticket resellers should consider event-specific terms in order to improve appearances for longtail, high conversion-potential tickets.

Ticketmaster continues to hold the top spot for the most longtail keyword appearances. Securing high in positions 4–10 is one of the quickest and most effective ways for companies to rank higher online, so there’s no indication that Ticketmaster will fall off this top spot.

Facebook Adverts

With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) hitting over 44 million users in 2023, it is not surprising that companies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise on the social media platform. Facebook’s UK digital advertising revenue has been estimated to have breached 2.6b GB pounds in 2019. For UK ticket resellers, Facebook ads are an opportunity to ensure customers see upcoming events and ticket availability.

Below, we’ve provided examples of The Ticket Factory’s sponsored Facebook posts. All three include vertical media (a combination of two videos and one static image) to cater for mobile users. The “Book Now” CTA is a great opportunity for this ticket reseller to increase conversions through social media.

Top Social Shares & Content

When it comes to social media and on-site content strategies, it is important to release content that has a longer shelf life. An article is considered 'Evergreen' if it has maintained its relevancy to an audience for longer. It's great for your retailer engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Social media is an effective tool for ticket resellers to share information about upcoming events, along with features on artists that will be engaging and entertaining for social media users.

Seven of the 8 ticket resellers favour Facebook, with one favouring X/Twitter. Gigantic saw the highest total engagement (573,656 — over 9 times as much as the runner-up). Interestingly, this ticket reseller doesn’t have the largest social media following: Ticketmaster has 359,400 Facebook Likes and 77,100 Instagram followers.

Website Readability & Accessibility

20% of people in the UK have a disability – 2 million of which are people living with sight loss. In addition, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency. When websites are not designed to meet these needs, brands lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. All the ticket resellers need to ensure their website is accessible for all customers looking purchase tickets, especially when there is such a huge range of different events to suit a range of potential ticket-buyers.

In our last audit, Gigantic reported 154 accessibility alerts, which it’s increased to 158 in this quarter. Upon closer inspection, these alerts are mainly due to redundant links and redundant alternative text. All brands should aim to score zero to ensure those using a screen reader aren’t negatively impacted

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q1 2024 REPORT

To get a copy of the full report, please complete the enquiry form. If you want to talk to us about accelerating your digital performance, please call us on 01543 410014 or schedule a call with Mike Movassaghi.

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