The ticketing landscape has changed immensely over the last few years, and while once you could get away with posting your events to social networks, getting likes, and subsequently conversions, that simply does not pass muster in 2026.
The reason is simple – you need to own your customer data for yourself, not rely on increasingly volatile social media algorithms and flatlining organic reach. As long as you have the ability to contact your customers when you want, and communicate with them directly, you have a headstart over a lot of folks still relying on Mark Zuckerberg or TikTok allowing them to speak to their own audience.
Owning Your Own Data – What’s The Point?
Why, exactly, are we sounding the alarms against relying on social media for your ticketing and event organization needs? Well, it is actually fairly simple – let’s assume you have 10,000 followers on Instagram. You have an event coming up, so you make a nice post announcing that you have early bird tickets on sale. The problem is, your organic post will reach a fraction of your total audience (and it is your audience). If you want to ensure you are reaching all of them, you have to pay Meta to “boost” the post. In effect, you don’t own your own audience data, you are renting access to it.
This works differently if you own your own customer data. Imagine you have 5,000 email addresses and phone numbers from people who bought tickets to your last three events. Now you have a direct line of contact to them, over two distinct channels. No longer are you at the mercy of a tempestuous social media algorithm’s whims, and no longer do you need to pay to get your message out to them. You own your audience and speak to them as and when you see fit.
In the event world, this distinction can often be the difference between something that struggles to break even and something that sells out in 24 hours.
Where Do Ticketing Platforms Fit In?
The answer is, of course, obvious – you want a ticket platform that lets you own your own customer data. This is where the choice of ticketing technology becomes a strategic business decision, not just a logistical or financial one. There are many legacy ticketing platforms on the market that treat your attendees as their users. They mask customer data, hold back email lists, or worse, they use the data from your event to market other events to your customers. They treat your hard-earned traffic as a lead-generation tool for their own marketplace.
Obviously you want a tool that lets you own your own customer and audience data. A data-transparent ticketing platform like AdmitONE allows not only that, but also lets you build a long term relationship with your customer. After all, when a customer buys a ticket, they are trusting you with their information. You need to capture that data, legally and transparently, to sustain interest and sales for your events on an ongoing basis.
The Bottom Line
What it comes down to is that any success comes from taking the long-term view. Tickets are a one-time transaction. Data is a long-term asset. That long term asset is what ongoing and sustainable success for your events will be built on.
So if you are pouring your budget into social ads but failing to capture the emails of the people walking through your gate, you are leaking revenue. Stop renting your audience. Start owning it.
