There is a surprisingly common mistake in event marketing: assuming that the best sales channel is simply the one that sells the most tickets.
It sounds logical.
If one channel sells 1,000 tickets and another sells 300, why not put all your effort into the first one?
Because ticket volume tells only part of the story.
One channel may be generating genuinely new customers. Another may simply be capturing people who had already decided to attend. One may have higher fees but reach audiences you could never access yourself. Another may sell fewer tickets but bring customers who return again and again.
The real question is not “Which channel sells the most?”. It is: “Which channel creates the most valuable sales for this particular event?”
Start With How People Actually Buy
Before comparing platforms, understand the customer journey.
People rarely move neatly from an advertisement to a ticket purchase.
Someone might see your event on social media, forget about it, hear a friend mention it a week later, search for the event online and finally buy through a ticketing platform.
Another person may already know your event series and go directly to your website.
This means different channels can perform different jobs.
Some are good at discovery.
Some are good at conversion.
Some are particularly useful for repeat customers.
Treating all of them as interchangeable makes it difficult to understand what is actually working.
Measure More Than Ticket Volume
Imagine two channels produce these results.
Channel A sells 1,000 tickets.
Channel B sells 500.
At first, Channel A clearly looks better.
But suppose Channel A requires heavy advertising spend and high distribution costs, while Channel B costs very little and attracts customers who purchase again at future events.
The ranking changes.
When evaluating a sales channel, consider at least four things: sales volume, acquisition cost, conversion behaviour and customer value.
If you can measure it reliably, also look at whether the channel is bringing genuinely new customers or mostly existing ones.
The purpose is not to build the most impressive sales report.
It is to understand the economics behind the sales.
Separate the Channel From the Customer Journey
This distinction is particularly important when analysing digital marketing.
A customer may discover your event through one channel and purchase through another.
For example:
TikTok → Google search → event website → ticket purchase
If you give all the credit to the final website visit, you may conclude that your website is doing all the work.
If you give all the credit to TikTok, you may overlook the role of the later search.
Neither view tells the whole story.
Attribution systems can help you understand these journeys, but they are not perfect. Different platforms and analytics systems may assign credit differently, and some customer interactions are difficult to track.
Use attribution as evidence, not as an unquestionable description of reality.
Test Channels Before Scaling Them
You do not have to guess which channel will work.
Test it.
If you are considering a new ticket marketplace, affiliate, creator partnership or promotional channel, start with a clearly defined campaign where possible.
Use unique links, campaign parameters, codes or the channel's own reporting tools to distinguish its results.
Then compare it with your existing channels using the same definitions.
You may find that a channel with a small audience converts exceptionally well.
Or you may discover that a channel generating thousands of visits produces almost no additional purchases.
Testing turns an opinion into evidence.
And importantly, test under reasonably comparable conditions. A channel used during the final week of an event should not automatically be compared with another channel that ran six months earlier under completely different demand conditions.
Do Not Confuse Reach With Incremental Sales
This is one of the most important ideas in channel evaluation.
A channel can generate sales without necessarily creating all of those sales.
Suppose customers normally buy your tickets directly from your website. You introduce a new marketplace, and 300 customers purchase there.
It is tempting to call those 300 tickets incremental.
But what if most of those customers would have bought anyway?
The new channel may simply have moved the transaction from one place to another while adding a commission or operational cost.
This is why incrementality matters.
The valuable question is: How many additional sales did this channel create that probably would not have happened without it?
You will not always be able to measure this perfectly, but the question itself leads to better decisions.
Your Direct Channel Is More Than a Checkout Page
For many organisers, the direct sales channel deserves special attention.
Selling directly through your own website or ticketing setup can give you greater control over branding, the purchasing experience and, subject to applicable privacy and marketing rules, the ability to maintain an ongoing customer relationship.
That can become increasingly valuable as your event business grows.
A third-party platform can provide something different: established demand, discovery, technical infrastructure, payment processing or customer trust.
There is no universal rule that direct sales are always better.
The important question is what each channel contributes.
A marketplace might help you find someone who does not know you.
Your own customer relationship can help you bring that person back.
Consider the Hidden Cost of a Channel
A channel's cost is not always limited to its visible commission.
Think about the total economics.
There may be transaction fees, advertising costs, discounts, affiliate commissions, staff time, customer-service requirements or operational complexity.
A channel that appears cheap on a per-ticket basis may become expensive when all associated costs are included.
At the same time, a channel with higher fees may still be worthwhile if it brings genuinely incremental customers at a cost that makes sense.
The goal is not to find the channel with the lowest fee.
It is to find the channel with the best overall economics for the demand it creates.
The “Best” Channel Can Change
There is rarely one permanent winner.
A new event may depend heavily on discovery channels because nobody knows the brand yet.
A recurring event with thousands of previous attendees may generate a much larger share of sales from direct communication.
The launch period may behave differently from the final weeks.
A particular artist, venue or audience can also change the purchasing journey.
So instead of creating a permanent ranking of channels, review them according to the event and stage of the campaign.
Over time, you may discover something more useful than a single “best channel”:
a sales mix in which each channel performs the job it is best suited to do.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Should I sell tickets through as many channels as possible?
A: No. More channels can increase reach, but they can also add fees, complexity and customer confusion. Add a channel when you have a clear reason to believe it will create meaningful incremental value.
Q: Which metric should I use to compare sales channels?
A: Start with ticket sales, but also examine acquisition cost, conversion rate, fees and, where possible, new versus returning customers and repeat purchase behaviour. No single metric tells the whole story.
Q: Is selling directly always better than using a ticketing platform?
A: Not necessarily. Direct sales can provide more control over the customer relationship, while ticketing platforms can provide technology, trust and access to audiences. The right choice depends on what each channel contributes.
Q: What does incremental sales mean?
A: Incremental sales are sales that happened because of the channel or activity and likely would not have happened otherwise. They are different from sales that simply moved from one purchasing channel to another.
Q: What should I do if a channel gets lots of traffic but few purchases?
A: Investigate the entire journey. The audience may not be well matched to the event, the offer may be weak, or the purchase experience may create friction. High traffic is useful only when it contributes to meaningful outcomes.
If you need additional advice or support, the TicketCRM team is always ready to help with your questions!