Oever · Live event and theatre promotion · Google Ads display and YouTube · 2026
How a Lincoln Center run bought 1.68 million impressions in its first fourteen days
A theatre run has one deadline and no second chance. The house either fills on those dates or the inventory expires, so awareness has to arrive early, locally, and cheaply enough to be repeated.
1.68M
impressions in 14 days
$3.05 CPM · 2,699 clicks at $1.90 · account live 14 days
The results, up top — every number is in the strip below
1,678,801
impressions
in the account’s first 14 days
$3.05
blended CPM
$5,123 of spend, awareness contract
842,159
impressions inside the venue geofence
five-mile radius, $2.26 CPM on display
2,699
clicks
at $1.90 average CPC
0.41%
video click-through rate
against 0.11% on display, same audience
01 — The challenge
A short run, a specific city, and a brand nobody had searched for yet.
Oever promotes touring stage productions into New York, including a run at Lincoln Center. Event marketing is the hardest shape in paid media: the product exists for a handful of dates, the audience is geographically tiny, and demand has to be manufactured rather than harvested.
Search demand for a production title that has never played the city is close to zero, which means the audience cannot be found by waiting for it. It has to be reached where it already is — reading the paper, watching video, moving around the blocks near the theatre — and it has to be reached while there is still time to buy a ticket.
“We are selling three nights in one building. Everything we spend has to be seen by someone who can physically be in that room on those dates.”
Illustrative quote — written by Web Tonic to put the results above in an owner’s words. It is not a statement provided by the client.
So the plan was built around proximity and repetition rather than search volume, and it was measured on reach and cost of reach from day one.
02 — Our approach
Geofence the venue, buy premium environments, let video carry attention.
The account was set up as an awareness build with an impression goal — that is the contract, and it is why the reporting here is cost of reach rather than cost per ticket. Three layers ran in parallel.
Proximity first. A five-mile geofence around the venue carried display and video together and delivered 842,159 impressions for $2,594 — the geofenced display line ran at a $2.26 CPM, the cheapest reach in the account.
Volume and quality side by side. A New York State display layer added 636,862 impressions at a $2.07 CPM, while a hand-picked premium placement unit bought the environments that matter for a theatre audience. Across 1,067 distinct placements with meaningful delivery, the production appeared 99,741 times on nytimes.com, plus runs on npr.org, broadwayworld.com and playbill.com.
Video for attention. Pre-roll and in-stream carried 308,118 impressions and clicked at 0.41% and 0.38% — close to four times the display click-through rate on the same audience, which is what a trailer for a stage show should do.
Fourteen days in: 1,678,801 impressions, 2,699 clicks, a $3.05 blended CPM and $1.90 per click, on $5,123 of spend. Delivery peaked at 173,870 impressions in a single day as the run approached.
03 — What we did
Four workstreams, one countdown.
Everything built to be seen by people who can reach the venue before the final curtain.
Venue geofence
A five-mile radius did half the work
Display and video inside a five-mile ring around the theatre produced 842,159 impressions and 1,525 clicks for $2,594. The geofenced display line landed at a $2.26 CPM — the most efficient reach in the account.
Premium environments
Appearing where a theatre audience already reads
A curated placement unit ran alongside the volume layers: 99,741 impressions on nytimes.com, plus npr.org, broadwayworld.com and playbill.com among 1,067 distinct delivering placements.
Video as the hook
A trailer clicks four times harder than a banner
308,118 video impressions clicked at 0.41% and 0.38%, against 0.10-0.12% on the display lines. For a stage production, motion is the product demo.
Built mobile, built for the countdown
74% of reach on the phone in the pocket
1,242,233 of the impressions and 2,210 of the clicks came from mobile, and daily delivery scaled to 173,870 impressions as the dates got closer — pacing aimed at the window when a ticket can still be bought.
04 — The results
Fourteen days, 1.68 million impressions, a $3.05 CPM.
Content highlights
The stack we ran it on
Google Ads
Paid search
Google Ads Editor
Paid search
GA4
Analytics
Google Tag Manager
Tracking
CallRail
Call tracking
Google Search Console
Search
AgencyAnalytics
Reporting
Looker Studio
Dashboards
"Their transparency, attention to detail, and collaborative approach made them feel like an extension of our own team."
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