When was the last time you bought tickets to your own event?

Chances are, you never have. That means you may not understand what your attendees go through to buy tickets — otherwise known as the “purchase process.”

It turns out your ticket purchase process isn’t just the first impression attendees have of your event. It’s also a central reason that so many interested website visitors don’t turn into attendees in the first place.

To sell more tickets, you need to make it as easy as possible for people to buy tickets. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you evaluate your own ticket purchase process.

1. HOW DIFFICULT IS YOUR TICKET PURCHASE PROCESS?

If it’s difficult to navigate your event website, you’re putting barriers in the way of your most engaged potential attendees — the people who are already there. Your most dedicated fans might push through a difficult purchase experience, but many people won’t. People with shorter attention spans — or less commitment to attending — will give up as soon as buying a ticket becomes difficult.

So, what makes buying a ticket challenging? Consider the following:

• Steps needed to check out: For each additional step in the checkout process, industry research has shown a 10% decrease in transactions. That means that each time you add a step, you may be losing 10% of your potential attendees.

• If you need to log in or make an account to buy tickets: 23% percent of online shoppers say they wouldn’t buy if they had to create a new user account. So if you’re not confident that all of your attendees already have accounts with your ticketing provider, you’re forcing them to make an account — and one in four won’t bother. That’s another quarter of your potential attendees, gone because they were forced to log in before buying tickets.

• If your ticketing company’s fees are hidden: The number one cause of online shoppers not completing their purchases is unexpected costs at the end. If your ticketing company only shows their fees on the final checkout page, disgruntled customers might be closing the window instead of checking out.

Even just one of these challenges can cut your ticket sales by double-digit percentages. Don’t let your event marketing spend go to waste because of a difficult ticket purchase experience.

2. HOW MANY OF YOUR SITE VISITORS TURN INTO ATTENDEES TODAY?

Consider how many of your event website’s visitors are buying tickets. The math is simple: How many visitors come to your site each day? How many tickets do you sell online each day? If you have significantly more visitors than the number of tickets you sell, it might signal a difficult purchase experience.

Once you’ve figured out what percentage of site visitors are actually buying tickets, you can determine how to improve it. (And if you don’t have the data to answer these questions at your fingertips, it’s time to choose a ticketing provider with reporting you can access 24/7.)

Remember: these site visitors have already shown an interest in your event — are you turning them into ticket buyers at a high enough rate?

3. WHAT’S YOUR PURCHASE PROCESS LIKE ON MOBILE?

Did you know that 75% of ad traffic for Facebook is on mobile? More people search Google on their phones than on computers, and 1.4 billion people use Facebook on mobile devices. So it’s important that you make their browsing and purchase experience easy on mobile.

Many event organisers rely on Facebook Event ads (or just free social media promotion) to drive ticket sales. These ads drive a lot of mobile traffic — which creates a problem if your ticket purchase process isn’t designed for mobile phones. The ad may drive clicks, but what happens after the click? It should be as easy as possible for your event page visitors to buy.

Don’t underestimate the impact this could have on ticket sales: studies have shown a 160% lift in purchase completion with mobile-optimised payments.

Sure, you could spend more money on another marketing strategy that drives some sales. But by focusing on improving your purchase experience, you can see sales skyrocket — without any additional marketing spend.

To find out how to make it happen, check out our free guide: How to Double Your Ticket Sales with Conversion Rate Optimisation.