Quick answer: The use of the TicketsCandy ticketing platform, cart abandonment reduction, checkout process optimization, multichannel marketing, multiple ticket types, and cost reduction are among the best techniques to boost revenue with online ticket sales.
There is a significant increase in the number of online users for event tickets in the past years. As of 2023, there are 689 million online users for event tickets that are expected to reach 864 million by 2030.
This massive shift means event organizers should be ready to sell tickets online and connect with their target audience via the internet. There are several benefits of selling event tickets online such as broader reach, cost efficiency, and revenue maximization.
You can generate more sales by reaching a wider target audience with online event ticket sales.
Proven Techniques to Maximize Event Revenue with Online Ticket Sales
Here are the best ways to boost revenue with online ticket sales for your next event:
1. Set the Right Ticket Pricing Strategy
The revenue depends on the ticket price so it has to be well-thought and planned.
Setting a high ticket price isn’t always the key to high revenue as it will reduce sales. You need a robust pricing strategy that’s focused on increasing revenue.
The two major types of event ticketing pricing strategies that give you control over revenue are:
- Value-based pricing
- Cost-plus pricing
Value-based pricing is based on the perceived value of the ticket and it is derived by how much potential customers are willing to pay for the event ticket. The price is decided on the basis of the target audience. If they can willingly pay $100 per ticket, you can adjust the cost in this price and estimate revenue upfront.

Source: Hubspot
You can determine an initial price based on how similar events are priced and then work your way up.
Cost-plus pricing is more suitable when you are interested in maximizing event revenue as you can generate a predetermined revenue based on pricing strategy. You need to find your cost per ticket and then add a markup percentage to determine the price per ticket.
Source: Clever Product Development
The ticket price doesn’t just include the ticketing platform fee but it covers all event-related costs. A better approach is to find the total cost of the event and the cost per ticket depending on available seats. Set your estimated revenue percentage and then find out how many tickets you need to sell to reach desired revenue.
Online ticketing sales help you easily and quickly reach your target audience to generate ticket sales so you can reach your target revenue. For example, if you need to sell 400 event tickets to achieve your revenue goal, it gets easier to reach your target audience with online selling as opposed to traditional ticket selling.
Selling event tickets online boosts event reach with endless opportunities to connect and engage with your ideal customers.
2. Choose Free Online Ticketing Platform
The event ticketing service you are using directly impacts revenue. If it charges a high fee per ticket, it will reduce your margin.
A high platform fee means you will have to increase ticket price and this will negatively impact sales leading to low revenue. Look for an online ticketing platform that’s free and doesn’t charge you any fee like TicketsCandy.
If you compare different popular event ticketing platforms, you will notice that all of them charge fees that include a percentage of the ticket price and credit card processing fees. TicketsCandy is the only free event ticketing software that doesn’t charge event organizers any fee. It is completely free for event organizers.
This makes it an ideal platform for revenue maximization because you can pass the benefit to your customers leading to higher sales.
In the case of a value-based pricing strategy, you can offer a lower ticket price than the perceived price leading to higher sales and more revenue. And with cost-plus pricing, you will have a much lower cost that keeps ticket prices low leading to more sales and high revenue.
Research shows that price is the top factor that makes people feel loyal to your event. It means you will be in a better position to attract more attendees for future events with low ticket price:
Source: Zendesk
It is a win-win irrespective of what pricing strategy you use as long as you are using TicketsCandy.
3. Improve Conversion Rate
One of the biggest barriers to event ticket sales and revenue is poor conversion rate. A good chunk of people leave your website without taking action. This leads to a low conversion rate, reduced ticket sales, and poor revenue.
Research shows that the average conversion rate of a website is 2.35% which means less than 3 visitors out of 100 converts on your event website:
Source: WordStream
There are several reasons for poor conversion rate but they all link to poor user experience, somehow:
Source: Clutch
For example, 94% of people say that easy navigation is the most useful feature they like to see on a website that will persuade them to take action and convert. In other words, you need to improve UX and make it easy for visitors to get what they want (event ticket).
There is a lot you can do to improve your event website conversion rate (without spending more money on marketing) and increase revenue by generating more online ticket sales. Follow these best practices:
- Improve user experience by reducing the number of steps (actions) it takes for conversion
- Make your website and event landing page mobile-friendly
- Improve website speed as a site that loads in one second has a 5x higher conversion rate than a website that loads in 10 seconds
- Make CTAs prominent and actionable
- Work on the design of the event page as 94% of first impressions are design-related
- Use customized images and visuals on the landing page.
4. Reduce Cart Abandonment
A high conversion rate doesn’t always mean more sales. Not all conversions lead to a sale. A lot of people abandon their carts without buying an event ticket.
Cart abandonment is a serious issue when selling event tickets online. An estimated 81% of people abandon a purchase after adding a product to their carts for several reasons including high extra costs, complicated checkout process, untrustworthy site, and more:
Source: SaleCycle
If you want to boost event revenue via online ticket sales, you have to make sure that potential attendees complete their purchases and don’t leave their carts.
How do you do it?
Follow these guidelines to reduce cart abandonment for your event website:
- Keep ticket prices low and share all the details upfront such as fees and tax. People hate it when additional fees are applied right at the checkout stage
- Offer guest checkout so potential event attendees can buy tickets without creating an account (more details in the next section)
- Simplify the checkout process. Keep it short. TicketsCandy offers a simple 2-step checkout process that makes it extremely easy to buy tickets online
- Add trust badges and seals to make your site trustworthy
- Use leading payment processors such as Google Pay, PayPal, Square, and others
- Use a dedicated event landing page and keep it error-free and simple
- Add links to your privacy policy and returns and refunds at the checkout process
- Offers multiple payment options to cater to a wider audience.
5. Offer Guest Checkout
The long and complicated checkout process and the inability to buy event tickets without creating an account are the biggest hurdles in revenue maximization for event organizers. If you want to generate online ticket sales and increase revenue, you need to make sure that the checkout process is insanely simple and user-friendly.
As much as 26% of people leave a website due to the complex checkout process and another 34% will abandon the cart if you don’t offer them a guest checkout feature.
So, you must offer two things to your target audience:
- Guest checkout option where potential customers can purchase tickets without account creation or registration
- A simplified, short, and easy checkout process that even a 9-year-old can understand.
These features are embedded within the ticketing platform you are using for online ticket sales. It means you have to choose your event ticketing platform carefully and must go with a tool that offers these two features.
TicketsCandy offers these features at zero cost.
It offers a simple 2-step checkout process that works seamlessly across devices. And it has a guest checkout feature as well. You can use it to sell tickets through your website or you can create an event landing page using customizable templates.
In any case, the checkout process is pre-optimized for conversions and is focused on increasing ticket sales and higher revenue.
6. Create Upsells and Cross-Sells
An easy way to boost revenue with online ticket sales is to offer upsells and cross-sells to attendees.
There are multiple upselling techniques you can use to generate more revenue. For example, you can use ticket bundles to encourage existing attendees to buy more tickets to get a discount. A study reported that ticket bundling increases revenue exponentially for large events with more seating capacity.
Here are the major event ticket upselling techniques you should consider:
- Bulk discount for attendees who buy more than one event ticket (known as graduated pricing)
- Offer an opportunity to upgrade to a premium ticket
- Gives discount to buy more tickets
- Sell multiple event tickets together in the form of a bundle. This works for event organizers who manage multiple events at any given time.
Depending on the event type, you can boost revenue through cross-selling. For example, if you are an event organizer, you can promote tickets for upcoming events to relevant attendees. This type of cross-event ticket promotion strategy can help both businesses reach a new audience and sell their tickets.
Here is an example of cross-selling event tickets:
Source: Spektrix
Probably the best cross-selling opportunity is with event merchandise. Encourage attendees to purchase merchandise with their event tickets. Consider offering them a discount as this is the best way to sell merchandise upfront and earn additional revenue.
7. Use Multichannel Strategy
For online ticket sales to be successful, you must use a multichannel marketing and sales strategy to boost sales and revenue.
Multichannel marketing refers to using more than one marketing channel to reach your target audience. For online ticket sales, you need to focus on digital marketing channels including email, social media marketing, search, PPC, etc.
Source: ActiveCampaign
The more online marketing channels you use, the better.
Research shows that having 3 or more marketing channels increases revenue by 190%:
Source: ReferralCandy
Multichannel marketing should be supported by multichannel sales which means you should use multiple online channels to sell event tickets. This includes website, social selling, event landing page, third party ticket selling marketplaces, and more.
You should use a smart event ticketing service that lets you sell tickets online via multiple channels. TicketsCandy, for example, works with your website and lets you create standalone event landing pages.
A multichannel marketing and sales approach increases your reach and boosts revenue, don’t ignore it.
8. Retain Attendees and Build an Email List
Increasing event revenue gets easier if you have a list of loyal customers who buy your event tickets over and over again. You should retain attendees to generate sales immediately with a single email for upcoming events.
A mere 5% increase in customer retention increases profit (and revenue) by a whopping 95% and it is 5-20x cheaper to sell to an existing customer than to a new one:
Source: Shogun
The first step towards retaining attendees is building an email list. When a customer purchases an event ticket, you get an email address and that’s how you can build a relationship with existing customers.
Stay in contact with existing customers after the event ends via newsletter and regular updates.
The attendee management and email marketing feature in your event ticketing platform will help you boost engagement during and after the event. Here are a few tips and techniques to engage attendees and build relationships after an event:
- Send monthly newsletter
- Use personalized emails as 80% of people say that they are most likely to buy from a business that offers a personalized experience and personalized emails increase revenue by 5-15%
- Send non-promotional emails that share interesting content (curated and owned)
- Avoid sending spam emails with unnecessary links
- Deliver extremely valuable content related to the core interest of the customers
- Segment email list based on demographics and engagement.
Once you have a new event, all you need to do is send a highly personalized email to your list and offer them an exclusive discount. This works extremely well and would improve the retention rate as people will stay on your list to avail exclusive (email-only) discounts on event tickets.
9. Sell Multiple Ticket Types
Does your event have only a single type of ticket?
It shouldn’t if revenue maximization is your primary goal.
Offering multiple ticket types increases sales revenue as potential attendees have a lot of options to choose from. Ideally, you should offer at least one type of ticket for each target group.
Here are the major types of tickets for events you can choose from:
- Free tickets: You have to offer free tickets to organizers, speakers, students, etc. for certain types of events. The best thing about free tickets is that they can be used as a great marketing tool to drive traffic to your event landing page.
- General admission: These are the basic tickets that anyone can buy to attend the event. General admission has no specific requirements which makes this ticket type a must-have for revenue maximization.
- Early bird: A pre-sale discount that’s offered to customers who purchase tickets during a specific time period which is usually way before the event date. An early bird discount is ideal to generate early buzz for your event and generate quick sales.
- Single-day pass: It is suitable for multi-day events. A single-day pass lets the attendee join the event on a single day (predetermined or any). Single-day passes are cheaper than full multi-day passes.
- Multi-day pass: It gives attendees the option to buy a ticket that they can use for a multi-day event based on their preference. Instead of buying a full event ticket, a multi-day pass is cheaper and gives more customized options to attendees.
- Family pass: A single pass for an entire family that comes at a discounted price.
- Session entry: It is a ticket type that gives access to a single session of an event. It is cheaper and highly customized as it gives access to the right session that an attendee wants to be part of.
- Reserved seating: These are special tickets that let attendees choose a specific seat during the event. For example, a front seat ticket that’s close to the performer.
- VIP: Probably the best way to increase revenue is by offering VIP tickets. These tickets offer a better experience to attendees such as front row seating or exclusive access to signed merchandise.
- Targeted discount: Discounted tickets offered to a certain group such as students, veterans, etc.
- Coded discount: A special discount code that you share with specific people or maybe in a marketing campaign to boost sales. For example, you can send a discount code to your email list for instant sales.
Your event ticketing app plays a major role if you have to offer multiple ticket types. The platform should support unlimited ticket types as this will allow you to create any type of ticket based on your specific needs.
Not all event ticketing tools support unlimited tickets. Choose your tool smartly.
10. Cut Cost
Cost reduction, in general, has nothing to do with ticket sales revenue as it impacts profitability. But, when you reduce event cost, you can lower ticket prices to boost sales.
The major cost for online ticket sales is attributed to the ticketing platform and its fee. Here is how most event ticketing apps charge event organizers:
- A fixed fee per ticket sale
- Credit card processing fee.
These fees increase exponentially for larger events and you have to pass some or all of these charges to your customers which means you have to keep ticket prices high. And this negatively impacts sales and revenue.
Your best bet is to use TicketsCandy as it is free for event organizers and does not charge a penny. You don’t have to pay any fee per ticket sale or credit card processing fee. This lets you cut costs and keep ticket prices low.
Final Words
As more people shop online and with a major increase in hybrid events, it is getting harder for event organizers to meet their revenue goals. Generating event ticket sales is getting tough.
It is time that you need to switch to online ticket sales as it offers several benefits including revenue maximization.
Selling tickets online doesn’t mean you should bypass physical selling. Instead, you should use online ticket sales with traditional ticket selling to generate more revenue.
Not sure where to begin?
Start your online ticket selling journey with TicketsCandy by signing up here. It is free – forever.
FAQs
Why is online event ticketing gaining popularity?
Online event ticketing is gaining traction due to its broader reach, cost efficiency, and potential for revenue maximization. As of 2023, there are 689 million online users for event tickets, expected to rise to 864 million by 2030.
How does ticket pricing impact revenue?
Ticket pricing is crucial for revenue generation. A well-thought-out pricing strategy ensures both sales and profitability.
What are the two main types of event ticketing pricing strategies?
The two primary strategies are value-based pricing (based on perceived value) and cost-plus pricing (cost per ticket plus a markup).
Are all online ticketing platforms chargeable?
Not all. While many platforms charge fees, there are options like TicketsCandy that offer their services free to event organizers.
How can I boost the conversion rate on my event website?
Enhance the user experience, optimize site speed, and use clear and compelling CTAs. Simplifying navigation and using high-quality images can also help.
What causes cart abandonment on event ticketing sites?
Causes range from unexpected costs, complicated checkout processes, lack of trustworthiness, and absence of guest checkout options.
How can I reduce cart abandonment?
Offer transparent pricing, simplify the checkout process, use trust badges, and provide multiple payment options.
Why is offering a guest checkout option beneficial?
A guest checkout option can reduce cart abandonment as it offers potential attendees a quicker, hassle-free way to purchase tickets without needing to create an account.
Which ticketing platform offers a simple 2-step checkout process and guest checkout?
TicketsCandy provides both features, ensuring a seamless ticket buying experience.
What other strategies can help in maximizing online ticket sales?
Techniques include early bird promotions, utilizing social media, email marketing campaigns, collaborating with influencers, and maintaining a continuous feedback loop.