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Overview
Since 1993, Country Thunder has been hosting award-winning music festivals, drawing crowds in the hundreds of thousands to see national and local acts throughout the United States and Canada. Despite great success, Country Thunder knew they were only “scratching the surface” when it came to digital advertising.
In an effort to reach new audiences and shorten the customer journey, Country Thunder began looking for a digital programmatic solution that would compliment and strengthen their existing marketing efforts. After one year with Genius Monkey, the results were even better than they could have expected.
The Challenge
The customer journey is growing longer for all businesses, including music festivals. Nikki Harris – marketing manager for Country Thunder – observed that “every dollar [is] being held longer in a fan’s pocket,” and realized that they needed to be better at following the consumer wherever they went.
Country Thunder sought a programmatic platform that could help them better reach their potential fans. While their old solution was capable of capturing their pre-existing fans and attendees, Harris hoped to reach a brand new audience by shortening their path to purchase with well-placed messages.
Harris understood that metrics and data reporting would be a vital part of executing that strategy: “We needed a vendor who could mine that data and keep their fingers on the pulse of where they were.” Country Thunder’s ideal programmatic solution would offer robust reports that let the team see what strategies and tactics were working best.
The platform would also need to be flexible; Country Thunder was in the late stages of advertising for their shows, and the team wanted the ability to adjust for each show as necessary on a weekly basis. Campaign agility was a key goal in Country Thunder’s programmatic ambitions.
Country Thunder had these primary campaign goals:
Shorten the customer journey to reach a new audience
Robust metrics and data reporting
A flexible platform built for adjustment and optimization
Our Solution
Harris came to Genius Monkey in 2024, seeking a blanket programmatic strategy running on a small budget to gather data. All the stops were pulled, and Country Thunder was soon running Display, Video, Audio, and OTT advertisements. Right away, Genius Monkey’s AI systems and industry-leading reporting helped the Country Thunder team solidify an optimized strategy.
The team made weekly adjustments to targeted audiences, geographic radius, marketing mediums, and more for each individual show. Through Genius Monkey’s conversions cycle report, the team could see that ticket sales had a “sweet spot” of 25 to 60 days of carefully-placed ads influencing their future fans.
Country Thunder trusted the process and stayed with Genius Monkey through the end of their season. When the dust had settled, everyone was amazed at the stories the numbers told:
The Results
At the end of the concert season, Country Thunder had achieved a 2300% return on ad spend. That’s $230 to every $1 spent! Around 43% of fans who bought tickets were entirely brand new to Country Thunder, and nearly half of every ticket sold was influenced by Genius Monkey messaging. In a very short amount of time, Country Thunder had successfully reached a new audience.
Harris and her team were also impressed with the detail the Genius Monkey reports offered: “One of the eye-opening things that we hadn’t seen before was the cross-pollenation between our shows. Folks would be targeted with an ad for one show and would end up buying a ticket for another show.”
The team at Country Thunder saw that the efforts of Genius Monkey built upon—rather than overshadowed—their own efforts in other advertising avenues. “We could see that the added branding and push from Genius Monkey really complimented our optimized strategies we were using elsewhere.”
Harris also praised the communication and user experience of the platform: “We’re on the road most of the year, but we knew that Genius Monkey and the data we needed was just a text, an email, or a phone call away.” Country Thunder continues to utilize the Genius Monkey platform, nearing the one-year mark at time of writing. Harris and her team are excited and optimistic for the future:
"We can look at the conversion cycles and targeting data to build a launch strategy… We’re very pleased so far, and feel like we are just at the tip of the iceberg."
- Nikki Harris, Marketing Manager, Country Thunder Music FestivalsSummary
Country Thunder Music Festivals wanted to reach new audiences with a programmatic solution that let them track and act on the numbers. The initial campaign with Genius Monkey exceeded expectations with an explosive return on investment, with useful audience data paving the way for future growth.
Best of all, the team at Country Thunder felt that working with the platform was a true partnership. “We never felt like we were just revenue to Genius Monkey. We truly believe – because they did – that they were here to help us be successful.”
