PPC Advertising for Lighthouse Poole’s Pantomime Season

Lighthouse Poole is one of the UK’s largest arts centres, delivering a year-round programme of theatre, music, comedy, film, and visual arts for audiences across Dorset and the surrounding region. At the heart of its seasonal programme sits the annual Christmas pantomime, a pivotal driver of audience engagement and ticket revenue.

While Lighthouse Poole has a strong reputation and a loyal, local audience, the festive period is highly competitive. Families and local residents are presented with a wide range of pantomimes, shows, and seasonal activities, and reaching those while still deciding where to go takes more than relying on existing channels alone.

In late 2025, Lighthouse Poole partnered with b4b to introduce Google Ads as a dedicated promotional channel for its pantomime for the first time. What followed was a focused PPC advertising campaign that supported a 4% year-on-year increase in online ticket revenue.

Despite the strength of Lighthouse’s festive programme, the Christmas period presents a complex marketing challenge. Audiences are time-poor and choice-rich, weighing up pantomimes, shows, and seasonal experiences across the local area. Many ticket buyers delay their decision, meaning visibility at the right moment can be the difference between attendance and indifference.

At the same time, Google Ads had never been used to promote a Lighthouse pantomime. There was uncertainty around whether PPC could generate genuinely incremental ticket sales without overlapping with existing demand or undermining established channels. The challenge was to carefully test a new approach, protecting brand trust while proving that paid advertising could play a meaningful, measurable role in seasonal performance.

As a certified Google Partner agency, b4b developed a PPC strategy tailored to how people discover live events, rather than how they buy products online. Instead of pushing immediate purchase alone, the focus was on guiding audiences through consideration, building familiarity with the production, and capturing intent at key decision points. All of which had to work alongside Lighthouse’s existing marketing channels. So, the first step was defining who the campaign needed to reach.

Audiences were segmented into three clear groups, which included:

1. People considering panto tickets but still deciding on which local production
2. People searching for festive activities during the Christmas period
3. People looking for family-friendly experiences in and around Poole and Dorset

Each group required a different balance of messaging, from inspiration through to intent. With those audiences in place, we deployed a mix of Google Ads formats to support the full decision-making journey. Search campaigns focused on high-intent queries related to pantomime, Christmas shows, and festive events. Display activity helped introduce the production to new audiences across relevant websites and apps, while video campaigns on YouTube and Google Discovery showcased the spectacle and personality of Dick Whittington to users who were not yet actively searching for tickets.

This multi-channel approach helped them reach audiences from awareness through to action, including ticket sales via YouTube and Google Discovery.

Once the Dick Whittington PPC campaign was live, the impact became clear across the Christmas trading period. Paid media introduced an additional performance layer that worked alongside existing marketing activity, rather than competing with it.

Here’s what we achieved:

• 4% year-on-year increase in online ticket sale revenue
• 20% of December ticket sales attributed to PPC
• Ticket sales generated via YouTube placements
• Ticket sales generated via Google Discovery placements
• Additional sales for other Lighthouse events after ad clicks

Crucially, these results were not driven by a single channel or audience type. Paid media helped Lighthouse reach people who would not typically have been captured through organic or offline promotion alone. Our efforts, therefore, supported incremental ticket sales during the most competitive time of year.

We regularly share insights like this in our News section, where you’ll find practical guidance on getting more value from digital marketing. You can also explore more results like this in our Projects portfolio to see how tailored PPC strategies perform across different sectors, like Hospitality.

The Dick Whittington pantomime campaign showed how a focused PPC strategy can support both short-term performance and wider organisational goals for a cultural venue like Lighthouse Poole. By adding paid media to its marketing mix, Lighthouse reached new audiences, generated incremental ticket sales, and extended awareness beyond a single production.

Following the success of the campaign, we’re pleased to say that b4b will continue working with Lighthouse to promote a select number of shows throughout 2026. Future activity will focus on supporting event promotion across different art forms, strengthening brand recognition, and amplifying charitable and community-led initiatives that sit at the heart of Lighthouse’s mission.

The results from the pantomime season demonstrate that PPC is not limited to traditional eCommerce brands. When applied with care and clear intent, it can play a valuable role in helping arts organisations grow audiences, unlock new demand, and build longer-term engagement. If your Google Ads are not delivering the results you expect, it may not be the offer. Often, it’s the setup.

Want to see what we could achieve for your business? Contact us or call 01202 684400 to arrange a consultation with our PPC team.