Ready to grow your audience and sell more tickets? In this guide, we’ll walk you through proven best practices and tools for optimizing your event listing and marketing to stand out and sell out.
How to create and optimize your listing to convert
Think of your event listing as your online storefront, and first impressions count. It’s where potential attendees decide to click, explore, and buy.
More eventgoers are finding events through our marketplace, where 22% of Eventbrite tickets are sold. To stand out, make your listing build excitement and trust with all the key information, plus eye-catching images and videos.
1. Make your title specific and engaging
- Keep titles under 75 characters
- Use title case (no all-caps, as this looks spammy)
- Keep the title focused on key event details (e.g., artist name, event type)
- Don’t include your event’s date, time or location—there are specific sections in your listing where you’ll add these details
- Avoid unnecessary technical jargon or acronyms unless they’re part of band names, venue names or city names.
- Avoid emojis
2. Include an attention-grabbing summary
- Think of this as your event’s elevator pitch. It must be short and sweet and nail the sell on why someone should attend
- Keep your summary to one to two sentences (140 characters max)
- Use sentence case (no title case, no all-caps)
3. Make your overview clear and informative
- Keep your event overview to 150–200 words—no more than 2,500 characters
- Include key details, such as who should attend, what the event is about, where it’s located, when it’s happening, and why people should attend
- Use bullet points and line breaks where appropriate
- Add keyword tags to help Google and Eventbrite show your event in relevant search results
4. Add highlights and FAQs to your “good to know” section
- Include any age info, door times, and parking info
- Include an agenda for events with speakers or an artist lineup (see below) for music events
- Add an FAQ section to answer common questions upfront. Events with FAQs get up to 8% more views from search
5. Add a video to boost engagement
Videos auto-play at the top of your event listing in the app, helping you stand out in a dynamic way. We’ve found that event listings with video see a 10% higher conversion rate than those without.
Tips for capturing a strong video:
- Shoot vertical (9:16) to fit the app
- No longer than 1 minute long
- MP4 or MOV format
- At least 480p resolution
- Show the vibe, including the crowd, venue, and energy
6. Use compelling imagery to bring your event to life
Imagery is crucial to capturing attendees' attention. Make sure yours is high-quality and optimized for web and mobile and sharing on social. This is your opportunity to show your event at its best, and help potential ticket buyers evaluate whether your event matches their vibe.
Tips for choosing the right image:
- Use a square 1:1 aspect ratio image that is at least 1200x1200 pixels. This ensures it fits Eventbrite’s layout across web, mobile, and social previews
- Stick to one strong image, or multiple images, but avoid collages. This keeps the focus clear and prevents visual clutter
- When relevant, include people or faces to spark relatability and emotional connection
- Showcase the venue, stage, or overall vibe of the event to help attendees visualize the experience. Avoid stock photography
- Add alt text that briefly describes the image to support accessibility and assist screen readers
Pro tip: You can fill in your event title, location, and dates, and our AI tool will automatically generate overviews, summaries, and event images in a matter of seconds. Nearly half of our organizers report that this saves them 2+ hours per week. The event type, category, and sub-category will also automatically fill in, making it even easier for people to discover your events on our marketplace.
How to use Eventbrite’s marketing tools to grow reach and sales
Even the most spectacular event can struggle with turnout without a smart promotion strategy.
Below, we’ll walk through Eventbrite’s built-in marketing tools that help you easily reach your ideal audience and boost ticket sales.
1. Drive urgency and sales with discounts and promo codes
Create discounts, buy-one-get-one (BOGO) deals, or exclusive offers to drive urgency and reward VIPs. Public promos like BOGO appear right on your event listing, and events with BOGO offers sold 2.2x more tickets and saw 2.6x more views on the Eventbrite marketplace.
Top tips to make promo codes work:
- Use public promos like discounts or BOGO to boost visibility and sales
- Use private promo or access codes for VIPs, partners, or exclusive groups
- Create urgency with limited-time early bird or flash sales
You can also set up automatic promotions like Early Birds (a ticket type you can select when building your listing), 15% off or $10 off specific ticket types. These don’t require a promo code to access the discount. Early Birds are time-limited and trigger an urgency signal on your listing to further motivate attendees to buy now.
Check out our blog post on how to sell more tickets with promo codes.
2. Reach more people across our marketplace with Eventbrite Ads
Promote your events with sponsored listings across Eventbrite's most-browsed areas, including search results, homepage, category pages, and our new app. The self-service advertising tool allows you to set objectives, geo-targeting, campaign duration, and budget.
Events promoted with Eventbrite Ads get 9x more visibility and sell 4x more tickets.
Over that last year, we’ve improved performance for our advertisers by launching:
- Auction bidding, which adjusts bid prices in real-time to make your budget go further. Average effective cost per click (eCPC) has decreased by over 30%
- Multiple ad campaigns to experiment with different goals, targeting, and timing to optimize performance
- Campaign objectives to optimize your ads for impressions or clicks
3. Save big on email marketing with Eventbrite Pro
Our email marketing tools are built into Eventbrite, so you can reach your audience and drive more ticket sales without the cost or hassle of external tools.
Eventbrite emails get 77% higher open rates than the industry average.
With Eventbrite Pro, you can:
- Save over $700 per year compared to third-party tools**
- Send polished emails in minutes with AI-generated copy and auto-filled event details
- Grow your list effortlessly—your ticket buyers are added automatically
- Store unlimited contacts and choose from plans that offer up to 10k marketing sends a day
Learn more about setting up your email campaigns with Eventbrite, and try these effective email strategies.
Bonus tools for audience engagement and ticketing customization
1. Lineup tool
Eventbrite’s new Lineup tool lets you showcase who is on your bill in a more-interactive way on your listing. Use it to add artists, speakers, partners or performers to your listing, and we’ll automatically share your event with platforms like Spotify, Bandsintown, and Google to help you reach new audiences.*
This allows attendees to learn more about your star guests and feel confident in their purchase. It offers a richer, more-engaging experience because you can create dedicated talent pages with photos, bios, and social links for eventgoers to explore.
Tips:
- Add a photo, short bio, and social links for each guest
- Use the “Headliner” tag to highlight top talent
2. Timed Entry
Timed Entry lets you create multiple ticketed time slots for your event. It’s a great way to expand the capacity of your event and increase revenue while controlling crowd flow and seamlessly managing entry at the door. Attendees can book a ticket for their desired time slot and arrive without stressing about long queues.
If you’re hosting an event with multiple entry times—a city tour, immersive experience, food festival, brewery tour, museum exhibition—this is a perfect ticketing solution that’s free for you to use.
Learn how to set up Timed Entry for your event.
Unlock your Eventbrite seasonal toolkit
- Streamline your onsite operations with Eventbrite’s tools: Learn how to deliver a smooth, professional experience for your attendees and staff on the big day.
- Seasonal insights and trends to help you sell more tickets: We looked at Eventbrite data and macro trends to identify what consumers are craving in holiday events. Use this to inspire your plans for a can't-miss experience.
- Seasonal webinars: Register for our free webinars featuring Eventbrite experts showing you how to optimize your event listings, as well as seasonal marketing strategies designed to help you sell more tickets.
*Your event must be public and meet partner requirements to qualify for distribution.
**Based on a comparison of Eventbrite’s email marketing pricing with the average cost of three third-party email marketing platforms surveyed across multiple send limits as of 2024.
