In the final three weeks leading up to the 2025 National Jazz Festival, I was brought on at short notice to manage paid social campaigns and boost awareness across the North Island. Despite the tight timeframe, I delivered a focused, high-performing ad campaign that significantly elevated the festival’s online presence and drove thousands of engaged visitors to the website.
Marketing Strategy & Campaigns:
Campaign Focus
The campaign supported general festival awareness, event-specific promotion (including events such as Hot Pool Jazz), and timely updates around weather-related venue changes. The goal was to maximise visibility, particularly in key regions, while driving engaged traffic to the festival website.
Performance Highlights
Total reach: 208.5K people across Aotearoa.
Total engagements: 68,342
Link clicks to the website: 4,313
Cost per click (CPC): approx. $0.14
To put that into context: the average CPC for Meta event ads in New Zealand is around $1.23. Our campaign delivered a CPC more than 8x lower than the national average – a result I'm incredibly proud of, especially given the fast turnaround and limited lead time.
As the Marketing Lead for the 2025 ECHO Walking Festival, my role was focused on broadening audience reach – particularly among younger participants – and increasing engagement through cost-effective advertising and regional media coverage.
Paid Advertising Success
I developed and managed highly efficient Meta ad campaigns that achieved standout results at a fraction of the industry average cost.
Waitangi Weekend Performance
Total reach: 40,887
Total impressions: 76,975
Total link clicks: 845
Average CPC: $0.12 NZD
By comparison, the average CPC for Meta event ads in New Zealand is $1.23, making our campaign significantly more cost-effective. Some individual ads achieved even stronger results:
Ad 1 CPC: $0.12 | CTR: 2.77%
Ad 2 CPC: $0.11 | CTR: 4.41%
Ad 3 CPC: $0.19 | CTR: 3.1%
With national click-through rates averaging just 0.62%, our performance speaks to the strength of targeted messaging and optimisation.
Expanding into New Areas
In 2025, the festival expanded into Te Puke for the first time. Our initial broad campaign didn’t gain traction in this new area, so I went back to the drawing board and reworked the strategy entirely. I created a new set of extremely targeted ads with fresh messaging, taglines, and selling points that spoke directly to our target audience. The result? We filled out the walks in the region. A huge relief and a real achievement that showed the power of hyper-localised content and agile thinking.
Press & Media Coverage
In addition to digital advertising, I secured multiple press features across key regional publications. By tailoring press releases to each area and nurturing local media relationships, we increased festival visibility and reach, often without any additional spend.
This combined strategy of well-optimised digital ads and strategic PR resulted in a highly successful campaign that boosted both awareness and participation across the festival.
Final Thoughts
Strategic, nimble, and results-driven, these campaigns are a clear example of what can be achieved with smart targeting, clear messaging, and a calm, focused approach – even when the deadline is tight and the weather's unpredictable.