Arts organizations chase dozens of reports. Ticket sales, revenue totals, social impressions, email open rates; the list goes on. But most of those numbers don’t tell you what you really need to know.
The most actionable metric might surprise you: pacing by segment.
Why Pacing by Segment Matters
Every organization tracks sales against goals. But that topline view can hide what’s really happening with your audiences.
- Are you bringing in new buyers?
- Are your active households returning?
- Are your lapsed buyers re-engaging?
As Senior Consultant, Brad Carlin explains in the latest episode of Leading the Way:
“Important in terms of action — which at the end of the day is the best data — is pacing by segment. If we know how we’re pacing with new, active, and lapsed customers, even in the simplest way, it can immediately impact the updates and adjustments we make to our campaigns.”
From Numbers to Action
Pacing by segment works because it gives you the why behind the topline sales number. For example:
- You may be on track overall, but if sales are mostly to lapsed customers, you’re not building long-term loyalty.
- Or maybe revenue is lagging, but you see strong engagement from new buyers; a sign that your acquisition strategies are working.
- If active customers are pacing behind, it’s time to adjust your offers, messaging, or timing to bring them back sooner.
When you know which group is driving results (or not), you can pivot in real time instead of waiting until the campaign ends to ask, “What happened?”
Turning Pacing into Power: How to Use It
Pacing by segment is one of the most essential metrics for arts leaders. It’s simple, scalable, and reveals patterns that drive smarter decisions at every level:
- Single productions: Pacing by segment helps you see who is buying, not just how many tickets you’ve sold. Tracking new, active and lapsed audiences during a run lets you adjust campaigns in real-time; sharpening messaging, creating urgency, or investing more where it matters before the curtain goes up.
- Season planning: Looking across productions, pacing reveals retention and frequency trends. Are your new audiences returning beyond their first visit? Are active buyers deepening their engagement or slipping away? This metric acts as a loyalty checkup that helps you design campaigns to keep audiences coming back, not just showing up once.
- Annual strategy: Over time, pacing by segment exposes the health of your revenue model. Weak conversion of new-to-file buyers means wasted acquisition spend. If recency and frequency of attendance is plateauing, it’s a red flag for sustainability. Visibility into the buying behavior across your new, active, and lapsed segments shows whether your loyalty-building efforts are compounding over time.
This one metric cuts through the noise. It tells you not just where you are, but who is getting you there.
Take Action on Your Data
The latest episode of Leading the Way goes further, unpacking the other essential data points that reveal audience health: first-time buyer retention, frequency, conversion rates, cost of sale, and more. But it all begins here, with pacing by segment.