How CJCO Increased New Fans By 28% To Their Legacy Festival

The Partner
Country Jam Colorado (CJCO) is one of the most well-known country music festivals in the USA. Nested within the depths of Colorado’s scenic mountains, it is more than just a three-day-long, rain-or-shine event. It is a celebration packed with culture, community, and carnival. With over 25 artists playing, 2 stages, and 75,000+ cowboys and cowgirls boot scootin’, it is the place to be for country music lovers.

The team behind the festival, NESTE Live! a joint venture with Live Nation, has worked with Tradable Bits since 2021 to deliver an unforgettable experience to their fans. We sat down with their Director of Marketing, Jill Brenner, to get the scoop on the massive success of CJCO’23.

The Challenge
Country Jam Colorado (CJCO) is flying into its 32nd year, tackling the ultimate challenge as a legacy festival: expanding the festival and captivating newcomers while retaining those die-hard fans.

Brenner’s marketing team had three focal points to tackle in 2023:

1. Growth & Loyalty (building a sustainable audience)
2. Increasing Ticket Sales (and higher value ticket sales)
3. Maintaining High ROAS (marketing efficiency
   

How Tradable Bits Helped

1. A dedicated digital ads team: Tradable Bits’ Digital Ads Team has worked closely with NESTE Live! (CJCO’s festival promoter) for a number of years. For CJCO 2023, the team strategized and implemented a full-funnel ads plan, executing targeted digital ads across their channels for each phase of the festival. In particular, hyper-targeted dark ads, and well-timed holiday promotions played into their success.
2. A centralized database of fans: NESTE Live! leveraged Tradable Bits’ CDP to centralize and analyze all their existing fan data.
3. Digital engagement to capture new data: Using Tradable Bits’ engagement campaigns suite, the NESTE Live! team consistently gathered fresh data on both new and existing fans, including opt-ins for SMS and email. 
4. Incorporating diverse data types in targeting: Beyond standard geographic and demographic targeting, NESTE Live! also targeted based on artist affinity, and purchase history to effectively reach their audience with ads.

Results

1. Festival Growth: CJCO’23 saw a 28% increase in purchases from new fans and renewals were up by 20% from the previous year. Growth, check. Loyalty, check.
2. Ad Results: The digital ads saw an ROAS of 31x. Breaking it down, ROAS for Meta ads increased by 44% and conversions increased by 105%. Google ROAS was up by 117% while conversions increased by a staggering 633%.
3. Impact on Ticket Sales: Ticket sales increased by 13.5%. This contributed to additional revenue at a time when festival costs were increasing at a staggering rate.

Too many big numbers? Well, it’s the data speaking for itself. Brenner, however, can speak to the festival’s success:

Ending on a high note, we asked Brenner what she is most excited about for the upcoming years: 

Fun Fact: Meta and Google conversions attributed to over 30% of the overall total ticket sales for the festival. That’s 1/3rd of the festival sold out just through digital ads. 🤯