Prime example

[Domain Assets]

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Firstly Happy New Year all

Secondly, today I have a bolt of energy (unusual ) to find a decent ticket merchant, which I hope to build a relationship with and send them some good business this year.

There dosent appear to be many ticket merchants around, but Ticketmaster looked like everything I wanted tickets wise.

THEN, I see

We pay 25 pence per ticket sold via our Online Affiliate.

A laughable rate imo, merchants need to consider, what they get from a customer:

1.) Customers email address (worth 25pence in itself, merchant use for monthly newsletter, ie re-occurring opportunity for further business)

2.) The revenue from the customer as they come through the doors, car parking, drink, food etc

3.) Lets guess a ticket is £25 average, thats a mere 1%.

Can I be bothered to promote these people now? only if they are my only choice!

Any comments on this, and perhaps an overview of how merchants do/should value a customer.

TA

[Jeff]

The problem with ticket agencies like Ticketmaster (Qjump come in the same category), is that they are getting a relatively small amount as their share of the total purchasing price, and affiliate commission has to come from this.

So saying that they get 'The revenue from the customer as they come through the doors, car parking, drink, food etc' is wrong, because they don't get any of that.

I bet Ticketmaster's profit margins are much lower than some of the merchants that are paying 5% commission on sales.


The only way to get a significantly bigger share is to deal with 'ticket tout' type merchants where they have a bigger margin, or to sell the tickets yourself!

[Jeff]

To add to what I said above, if Ticketmaster were with one of the networks (with proper stats) I'm sure they would do well, even at 25p per ticket (remember this is per ticket, not per sale, not many people buy just one ticket).

At the moment they don't provide live stats (I think they do a quarterly report), which I'm sure would put off a lot of potentially good affiliates.

[pauley]

Im with you on this one - 25p!!! what a joke. The cost per account in the sector I work in is between £70 and £125 thats what it cost to aquire a new customer! thats seen as an acceptable amount to spend. Often the cost is even higher, yet a profit is still made.

If a ten year old wants to go and see Busted live - thats her, a friend and probably dad or mum buying a ticket too. Will cost (dad) around £100. For which you get 25p!!!!

The core problem is ticketmaster don't have to try that hard to get customers - it's a virtual monopoly in th UK - Nearly all the band live gigs are promoted by 'clear channel entertainment' which again has no serious competition. Which is why ticket prices for big bands are now around the £40 - £55 mark!

Rip-Off Britain Strikes Again.

[Jeff]

Originally posted by pauley
[B]If a ten year old wants to go and see Busted live - thats her, a friend and probably dad or mum buying a ticket too. Will cost (dad) around £100. For which you get 25p!!!!

It's 25p per ticket, not per order.


In the past I've paid a £2-3 service charge / booking fee, and 25p from that seems reasonable considering the costs of running the operation, posting tickets etc.

But I've just had a look at some of the events, and you can pay three or four quid per ticket, plus a couple of quid per order. So for events with a higher booking fee it seems reasonable for the affiliate to get paid more. Maybe a percentage of the service charge, rather than a fixed commission per ticket.

[Domain Assets]

So saying that they get 'The revenue from the customer as they come through the doors, car parking, drink, food etc' is wrong, because they don't get any of that.
-------------------------------------------------
Yes Jeff I stand corrected, perhaps my example was somewhat extreme considering Ticketmaster wouldnt take all the mentioned revenue.

However, fact is that if I do send a family of 4 to see a concert for example, I guesstimate they will spend £250 in all (inc the tickets), the expected revenue per booking "would" have been presented by TicketMaster to their partners & potential partners when offering TM as business partner.

So to conclude, imo:-

1.) Ticketmaster will give a high estimate/spend of an online customer when presenting their site to a potential partner.

2.) Ticketmaster will play down a customers value when dealing with an affiliate by offering 0.25p per ticket.

3.) They need to consider the re-occurring business and value of a targeted email address.

[sticky]

the only other one i know is http://www.firstcalltickets.com/ but think they only pay 1.5 % as well.

[lowndsy]

It'd be interesting to compare ticket agencies commissions like that 1.5% to other angecies who make relatively low comissions on high priced items themselves like travel agents.

edit:spelling

[Domain Assets]

I,ve sent an overview of the comments here to TM and await their response.

Seems a constant struggle these days to educate merchants and companies that dont have an affiliate program.