In nearly every Broadway marketing conversation, the same question comes up: Are the ads working?
It’s a reasonable question. The idea of an ad “working” has many metrics. But one metric that gets a lot of client scrutiny is ticket sales. Can we directly connect digital ads to ticket sales?
Let’s start by looking at current consumer behavior.
I’m sure everyone can relate to buying things online without a straightforward purchase journey. We don’t necessarily see an ad and buy immediately. We drift in and out of interest — seeing an ad, ignoring it, searching later, comparing options and sometimes purchasing long after the first exposure. This is what Google has coined “the messy middle.”
A useful question isn’t whether ads directly caused a sale, it’s how advertisers should measure the common delay between attention and action.
Are we building demand in a way we can measure, and what does success in digital advertising actually look like in a nonlinear buying journey?
On Broadway, that answer comes down to two main things:
- Return on investment (ROI)
- The share of ticket sales driven by digital ads
Let’s interrogate each:
The main way ad performance is measured is ROI. The “return” is a measure of ticket revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising. For example, a 5x ROI means a $1 investment in ads drives $5 returned in ticket sales.
For Broadway advertising, ROI typically ranges between 3x and 8x.
- Early in a campaign, when audiences are just learning about the show, ROI often sits around 2x–3x.
- As a show runs and word of mouth from audiences and press begins to circulate, ROI tends to sit between 3x–6x.
- During peak demand moments (within the days following reviews, awards season, extensive press coverage or tourism spikes), it can exceed 6x.
