Google’s AI Search Shift: The Current State of SEM
Nutcracker By The Numbers
AUTHOR:
Sanjay Saverimuttu
As the curtain closes on the final bows of the Sugar Plum Fairy, it can feel a little too soon to assess what went well for this year’s marketing strategy. But before you know it, it’ll be time to set next year’s budgets, and you want to make sure you put your best foot forward (pun absolutely intended). We’ve looked back at 2025 holiday season campaigns across our clients to gather some industry-wide benchmarks and learnings.
Note: While the examples are from Nutcrackers and ballet companies, the main takeaways can be applied to many big-ticket holiday campaigns.
Dig into Nutcracker benchmarks (and more!) with me and my colleagues! Check out this free Capacity webinar, now available on demand.
When should I start?
As we know, Nutcracker and holiday programming provides a prime acquisition opportunity for your organization. At the same time, there are those die hard Nutcracker fans who are waiting to get their hands on the best seats at the best rates. How can we structure our campaigns to meet the needs of each of these audiences?
Nutcracker in July
Our clients (Ballet Arizona and Miami City Ballet) that invested in “Nutcracker in July” campaigns saw incredible returns, especially for bottom-of-funnel audiences.
A campaign like this:
- Offers the best deals on Nutcracker pricing,
- Trains your biggest fans to get their tickets early (great retargeting for the whole season)
- Provides early data on how sales are trending. This gives enough time to pivot strategy or find more media spend should it be needed.
Starting Early Pays Off. Clients that had a “Nutcracker in July campaign” on Meta had an average ROI of 581% for those campaigns, but when isolating for just bottom-of-funnel audiences (folks already on organizations’ email lists and in website retargeting pools) this climbed to 1,673% with a purchase rate of 0.08%.
Don’t Wait Until November
If you wait until November to start pushing Nutcracker, you’ll be up against all holiday messaging, not just from arts/events organizations, but from retail as well. You’ll be able to spend your budget much more efficiently if you can avoid the worst of the Q4 high CPMs. If you do an on-sale campaign like the “Nutcracker in July,” you might be able to push your start date to mid October, but many companies have found success starting in early October—or if you have a bigger revenue goal, even late September.
BalletMet, Houston Ballet, and National Ballet of Canada all started their campaigns earlier this year, and all met their goals or had record-breaking sales for Nutcracker!
What platforms should I be on?
Meta
43% of Capacity clients’ Nutcracker Media Spend in 2025
Lead Generation
- This is a great way to get early pools of highly engaged users that can later be retargeted as bottom-of-funnel audiences. Remember those high holiday CPMs we just discussed? This is one way to get around some of that expensive acquisition work, and efficiently scale reach. Check out how we helped the National Ballet of Canada using this exact method.
Conversions
- You can segment these campaigns out into separate top-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel campaigns, especially if you have specific content and messaging for those particular audiences. Or, you can do a full funnel approach that feeds similar content to all audience groups (because you never know what content will resonate with whom). If you have a limited budget, this will also allow you to maximize daily spends, which is especially useful during those high CPM months.
48% of Capacity clients’ Nutcracker Media Spend in 2025
Paid Search
(57% of Google Media Spend, 59% of Google Revenue)
- If third party ticket sellers are going to come for your organization, it’s going to be for Nutcracker. Investing in paid search will help to make sure that your organization appears at the top of search results when folks are looking for “nutcracker tickets”. If you are also dealing with multiple Nutcrackers in your area, Paid Search is a great investment to stay ahead of those competitors. These campaigns will be targeting the folks who are searching to buy, and we see an average CTR of 27%.
Performance Max
(24% of Google Media Spend, 38% of Google Revenue)
- Great for retargeting audiences and making sure your ads get in front of the right people. Coupled with strategies on other platforms, this will be another touchpoint for audiences as they look to buy tickets. Performance Max also uses data from your search campaigns to help drive more efficient results.
Demand Generation
(13% of Google Media Spend, 2% of Google Revenue)
- Once you’ve got the power pas de deux of Paid Search and Performance Max, consider adding Demand Generation as an additional acquisition tool. Serving more broadly and widely, this will help to build up those retargeting tools that you can use later in the campaign to drive towards a purchase. Audiences need multiple touch points to make a purchase, and Demand Gen Nutcracker campaigns drove 43% of the impressions served by Google campaigns for Nutcracker across Capacity clients in 2025.
Tiktok
1.5% of Capacity clients’ Nutcracker Media Spend in 2025
- This platform tends to prioritize younger audiences and lends itself to both acquisition and retargeting.
- A majority of purchases (77%) for our clients who ran Nutcracker TikTok campaigns were from top-of-funnel audience segments, meaning we were able to use TikTok’s interest and lookalike targeting to reach new audiences. These could be audiences who have migrated away from using Meta platforms, or folks who would not be as easily targeted by Meta or Google.
- Clients like Ballet Arizona and Boston Ballet who ran TikTok campaigns last year decided to invest 50% more into the platform this year and saw 2.5-5x more revenue. Across all TikTok Nutcracker campaigns, we saw an average ROI of 2,689%. In an art form that is movement-based, video content really shines here (production footage, rehearsals, backstage behind the scenes, fun videos).
- The fact that TikTok makes up under 2% of overall client spend may represent a missed opportunity for deeper investment on this platform, though we recognize and acknowledge that recent shifts in the app’s ownership and algorithm may change opinions here in 2026.
Programmatic + CTV
4.31% of Capacity clients’ Nutcracker Media Spend in 2025
- If you’re looking to leverage your strong video content, try geo-fencing, or increase your broad brand awareness, Programmatic Display and CTV might be a good option to add into your strategy. Check out how we helped Boston Ballet expand their reach beyond Google and Meta using CTV and other platforms.
0.4% of Capacity clients’ Nutcracker Media Spend in 2025
- Reddit is another tool to target communities who may not be as accessible through Meta and Google alone. The best part of this is: you don’t have to come up with a new set of assets—repurpose what you already have for Meta. National Ballet of Canada started using Reddit this year and saw the lowest CPAs out of any platform in their strategy, and the highest ROIs after Google.
- This is another scenario where limited 2025 spend and high 2025 ROI suggests a major opportunity for many organizations to expand onto this platform.
Spotify
3.1% of Capacity clients’ Nutcracker Media Spend in 2025
- Think of this platform as radio ads but with KPIs you can track. Video and audio ads can be used to reach the 46% of Spotify users who are on the ad-supported platform. In comparison to other platforms beyond Meta and Google, Spotify served the most impressions and clicks, making it a great acquisition tool.
What content works best?
There is no one piece of content that reigns supreme over others. Each has their own strengths, and a mix of content types is highly recommended by Meta (and by Capacity).
Flexible Ads give Meta a mix of images, videos, and copy to properly determine the right combination of content that will get audiences to convert, often serving the most impressions and driving high KPV rates. If you want to target more top-of-funnel audiences, this ad type provides flexibility in different content combinations and varied copy options for less guesswork and more experimentation.
Image Carousels are cost effective with low CPCs, CPAs, and high ROIs. This content should be the easiest to obtain and can be a great way to start the campaigns efficiently targeting more middle- and bottom-of-funnel audiences.
Video Ads have high CTRs and drive the most KPVs and purchases. Video Ads can require the most labor to produce, but it doesn’t have to all be highly polished.
Think of the various content pillars you could be hitting:
- Promotional Video: Your high production value trailer will be your tried and tested piece of content that will always be useful in driving purchases.
- Behind the Scenes: Never underestimate the value of getting rehearsal footage or tours of the costume/production shop. Fans who know this production will be excited by the teaser content or getting a new vantage point to what they’ve seen on stage.
- Audience-centric: When was the first time you saw a ballet or The Nutcracker? How can you tease that moment; whether it is a little child staring in awe, a family dressing up together, or two people on date night? People need to see themselves in your venue to know it’s for them. Show audiences what they can expect by coming to your organization (beyond what will appear on stage).
- Have Fun and Create Magic: Rat content never fails, as someone who was making rat content back in 2012, the rat is like the unofficial mascot for your team. That joy you feel from seeing mascots at sporting events or at Disney can be recreated with your brand.
- Pro Tip: If you can’t find a dancer to put the costume on, it might be time for the marketing team to don their ballet shoes and hide behind the mask. This doesn’t have to be reserved for the Rat, you can try the Nutcracker, Drosselmeyer, or the Sugar Plum Fairy. Look for new ways for these characters to exist beyond their choreography.
Here are a few of my personal favorites from my own Rat history:
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Haven’t had enough? See more rat content here, and here.
How much money should I be investing?
It always depends. But the simple answer is: if your revenue goal for Nutcracker is 4-5 times that of Giselle, then you should be spending at least 4-5x in media spend for Nutcracker relative to Giselle. Typically, the more you spend, the more you see efficiency metrics incrementally decrease, even as overall revenue increases.
Want help cracking the code on your Nutcracker campaigns?
Capacity’s digital advertising team are experts on the topic. We’ll build campaign strategies based on our wealth of industry data to ensure you start smart and finish strong—with or without rat content.
