Executive summary
Lights out and away we go!
Established as a premier ticketing platform, Motorsport Events has earned its reputation as the go-to source for motorsport enthusiasts, providing customers the opportunity to experience the excitement of Formula 1, MotoGP, and other prestigious racing series.
As a result of its expansion into different motorsport events, the business had acquired different websites. Unfortunately, these sites were often built on different platforms and the diversity was proving problematic in both maintenance but also in search performance.
Motorsport Events were committed to bringing them into a single platform and hosting environment, but that entailed multiple platform migrations and a preservation of existing SERP rankings.
A comprehensive technical SEO audit started the partnership, but it has since flourished into a holistic digital marketing relationship. Our services expanded into ongoing SEO, PPC and analytics management to drive ticket sales in the UK and internationally.
The problem
Multiple disconnected websites, an unfriendly user platform and lack of visibility into essential data
With a growing portfolio of websites for the Motorsport Events team to manage, there were concerns of ranking decreases, troublesome migrations and decreases in ticket sales. Also, PPC had been turned off for a significant amount of time and the data being used was unreliable.
Relying on Universal Analytics was going to be an issue as the countdown to its retirement was approaching faster than Red Bull charging down a straight, and understanding their data was a key component of driving success for Motorsport Events.
PPC had been switched off since 2022 due to cost cutting decisions, and whether in PPC or organic SERP rankings the business always had the same issue, it was competing against F1.com, and in a number of cases, against the track as well for ticket sales. This market dynamic had continually hampered the number of ticket sales Motorsport Events were able to generate.
The solution
Tracking was the first priority, but then it was GO, GO, GO, to create engaging organic content coupled with a PPC strategy to increase ticket sales
Migrating to GA4 was the first hairpin bend to navigate, this included a full tracking plan, reviewing all event specifications and ecommerce testing. Ensuring a watertight and accurate tracking set up allowed for the marketing to flourish. However, updates to booking flows and payment provider pain points meant we had to be agile and pivot to ensure the ecommerce tracking solutions never fell over.
Once Motorsport Events were confident in the data, marketing could accelerate. For organic search, technical SEO was always high on the radar. Following a very thorough technical SEO audit early on in the relationship, subsequent months continued to dedicate technical SEO analysis and support to ensure SEO best practice. The sites were always in and out of the technical SEO pit lane so to speak.
Content optimisation was carried out across a few of the branded websites. Nearly 80 pages were optimised, with Adido providing well-researched and SEO considered content briefs, which were transformed into articles and pages by the Motorsport Events team. This maximised their budget and internal resources.
Content covered numerous topics, including transactional content to drive ticket sales and informational content such as ‘how to get to [track]’, ‘grandstand guides’ and ‘camping’ options, because an F1 race is so much more than just the race itself.
Google Ads was reviewed and restructured before launching. The creation of a new generic campaign was the first port of call, allowing for PPC ads to cover a broad keyword universe, followed by multiple race focused campaigns to double down on budget and impression shares.
A specific Le Mans 24 hour campaign was created, which also needed to be tracked separately, since tickets couldn’t be purchased in the same way as F1 tickets. This meant further updates to GA4 events and a different objective for PPC optimisation (form completions).
The results
Podium performances
Since combining most of the websites into a single platform, overall keyword rankings have significantly increased for all domains in the Motorsport Events portfolio.
The average keyword ranking moved from page 3 to a top 10 presence. Priority, high volume, keywords such as ‘f1 grand prix tickets’ and ‘grand prix tickets’ increased to positions 2 and 3 respectively.
Following a concerted effort on the Austrian Grand Prix, the ranking positions for ticket terms in the UK increased to position 2. Motorsport Events now outrank the Red Bull Ring itself!
There were improvements in organic search impressions and clicks from the priority F1 terms, as well as informational content that delivered revenue. The grandstand guides, travel guides and blogs all delivered increased traffic and influenced ticket sales.
PPC delivered a cost as a percentage of revenue 3% cheaper than the target and its revenue was split equally between its two main websites. Both F1 and Le Mans 24hr ticket sales were successfully generated via this channel.
Whilst the generic campaign accounted for 42% of the total channel revenue specific race campaigns also performed well, with specific campaigns, like Monza, generating a significant share.
The foundations are now in place for Adido and Motorsport Events to hit pole position across both search channels.
