Facebook ads for a mixology experience venue
A cocktail experience business was locked out of its own ad account and starting from nothing. By month four it was returning seven times spend and selling out events.
Amanda, Mixology experiences. Recorded December 2023.
Amanda is marketing director for a mixology experience business with venues in Nashville and Louisville. They sell tickets to sessions, so the entire job of the advertising is foot traffic on specific dates — a harder brief than ecommerce, because an unsold seat on Saturday cannot be sold on Sunday.
They had run ads before, but not under her control. The founder had managed them, and by the time she took over the situation was mismanaged and they had lost access to the original account entirely.
Being locked out of an ad account is more damaging than it sounds. The pixel history, the audiences and the learning all live there, so starting again means starting cold. A completely new account was built and launched from scratch rather than trying to recover the old one.
Month one made its money back at roughly two to three times spend. Month two was already at four. By month four it was consistently around seven, revenue was visibly up, and events were selling out.
Ticketed experiences respond well to paid social because the offer is concrete and the deadline is real. A specific date and a limited number of seats does the persuading that a general brand message cannot.
If your ads were set up by someone who has left, check whether you actually control the account before anything else. It is the most common hidden problem in this category.
In Amanda’s words
“We had run ads but it wasn’t in my control. They were run by the founder of our company and very mismanaged, so we had quite a bit of cleanup to do, as well as we were locked out of our original account.”
“Within month two I think we were already hitting at least a four ROAS, and even in month one we were still making our money back at like a two or three.”
“Within month four we were consistently hitting like a seven ROAS, to the point where everyone was noticing and our revenue was increasing. Our events started getting sold out.”
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