Published by Laurie Sullivan; MediaPost, 1st September 2016.

Organizers for COPA, the South American international men’s soccer tournament, wanted to catch the attention of soccer fans in the U.S., where the games were being held for the first time in the tourney’s 100-year history.

The global fan base also needed help tracking 32 matches across 10 cities with 16 teams, from June 3 through 26.

So COPA’s organizers used ECAL’s technology, which creates calendar-based digital marketing campaigns.

There are other calendar widgets, admits Patrick Barrett, CEO at ECAL, but he says his company provides data, targeting and tracking. “The calendar notification can completely bypass the email box,” he said.

The goal for COPA meant creating awareness and anticipation for the U.S. audience ahead of the Tournament Draw. It also was aimed at building a connected calendar audience of passionate fans, driving early and advanced ticket sales, and collecting profiled data for new fan acquisitions and conversations began in February 2016.

The campaigns required fans to opt in through a sync-to-calendar button on the brand’s Web site. The technology integrated across Facebook, Web sites, calendars, even email.

The consumer chose the tournament schedule, and the technology populated the fan’s personal calendar, alerting them when a Tournament Draw became available.

A tracking URL in each link followed the consumer through the purchase. ECAL knows how much consumers spent, when they made the purchase, and in which category it was purchased.

Before the tournament was announced, there were more than 53,000 calendar subscribers.

The campaign drove total registration of 91,470 consumers; opt-in rate of 73%; active users of 59,456; and an active user rate of 65%.

Overall, the campaign drove 17,201 click-throughs, at a 0.68% click-through rate.

The emerging channel drove $90,042.36 in sales, with an average order value of $441.38. COPA earned fan preferences in event times, ticket purchasing, merchandise, TV vs live attendance, interaction, opt-ins and more at an average CPM of $20 and cost per click of $5.

View the article here