How Nordic Tech Summit grew registrations 54% by leaving the marketplace

Nordic Tech Summit had sold out three editions through a ticket marketplace. The marketplace owned the checkout, the buyer data and, increasingly, the search results: attendees who typed the event's name found the marketplace listing above the event's own site.

Every edition began with a rebuilt website from an agency, an exported CSV from the previous year, and a 14% fee on every ticket. The team could not tell which campaigns sold and which did not.

The organizers launched a new event website on Expola nine weeks before ticket sales opened. Pages for the program, speakers and venue were generated from the same data that fed the app, and Event SEO put the official site above the marketplace listing for the event name within a month.

Ticketing moved onto the event's own domain with group bookings for delegations and a waitlist for the two workshop tracks that sell out first. The branded app replaced a printed program, and push notifications carried room changes and sponsor moments during the show.

Automated campaigns ran from the attendee record: an early-bird sequence to last year's delegates, a win-back to lapsed companies, and a last-call to everyone who had opened but not booked.

Registrations grew 54% year over year in the first edition on Expola, with 82% of tickets sold on the organizer's own domain. The app was installed 11,000 times across the four days, and 38% of the following edition's attendees had been to the previous one.

Marketplace fees fell to a minimal processing fee. The team reinvested the difference in a second stage and a larger startup showcase.