What makes live events feel personal in an age of algorithms making the calls?
That's the tension marketers are living in right now. Ben Kruger, Chief Marketing Officer at Event Tickets Center, sits at the center of this shift. He has spent 20 years shaping server-side systems and performance marketing strategies, including a decade of persistence chasing a role at Google before landing a position in New York just as eCommerce demand went into overdrive during the pandemic.
Now, at ETC, he runs marketing for more than 130,000 live events simultaneously. It's a scale that forces automation to step in. The industry moves in real time, resellers update prices by the hour, artists trend globally overnight, weather can shift demand before a stadium gate opens. Ben credits Google's AI tools and internal models as a competitive advantage, but he also talks openly about the risks. The early excitement of automation gave way to skepticism after seeing unaligned promises from new platforms and unpredictable campaign behavior in tools that remove control from brands.
There's a well-rounded argument to explore here. On one side, AI enables a small team to do the work of thousands, writing content at a volume no human team could deliver alone. On the other, removing risk from campaigns, or removing channel-level choices from advertisers, can reduce trust and increase low-quality creative output. Advantage+ tools that make placement decisions automatically, without brand input, might scale reach, but can reduce clarity of intent and control of outcomes. Some CMOs see that as smart acceleration, others see it as an overcorrection that creates opacity and dependency on platforms optimizing for their own incentives.
And somewhere in the middle is the opportunity. ETC's approach shows a future where repetition in rapid testing generates sharper insight, where lean teams move faster, where humans stay in the loop to validate outcomes, and where creativity stays grounded in audience understanding, economics, and transparency. Marketers listening to Ben will hear someone who wants experimentation, control, clarity, and long-term audience trust to exist side by side.
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[00:00:04] Welcome back to the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. When we talk about AI in marketing, I think it's often framed around tools, tactics, automation, technology. But the real question many business leaders are grappling with right now is far simpler. How can I use AI to move faster, move smarter without losing trust, creativity or even commercial discipline?
[00:00:31] Well, my guest today brings a rare perspective from the front line of this challenge. His name is Ben Kruger, Chief Marketing Officer at the Event Ticket Center. And he joins me from New Jersey, where we're going to talk about how his career spanned performance marketing, emerging tech, time at Google and how he is now leading growth for a business operating in one of the most dynamic markets there is.
[00:00:56] Live events. So we will talk about that shiny tool syndrome, why skepticism can be healthy and how AI is quietly transforming real time marketing across more than more than 100,000 live events. And we'll also explore audience segmentation, content at scale, lean teams, why human judgment still matters even more in an AI powered marketing stack and much more.
[00:01:25] So if you're working marketing growth or digital transformation, I want to hear some positive stories around how AI is actually being used successfully in an industry where margins, timing and demand shift by the minute. This one's for you. Here at the Tech Talks Network, we now have nine podcasts and approaching 4,000 interviews. And that is only possible with some of the great friendships that I've developed over 10 years of podcasting.
[00:01:52] And a company I'm proud to call friends of the show is Donodo, because not only have they been on this podcast multiple times, they also help make sense of the AI data chaos that we're seeing now. Because the data world is louder than ever. AI hype, lake house complexity and pressure to deliver more with less. These are things that I talk about every day on this show.
[00:02:13] But Donodo is helping businesses make sense of it all because they provide a unified data foundation for trustworthy AI, lake house optimization and data products to finally bring service to life. So whether you are a CIO or a builder, Donodo helps you activate your data with speed and governance. And their global partner network also helps you accelerate every step of the way.
[00:02:38] So if you're ready to unlock real outcomes, simply visit Donodo.com today. But now it's time for today's interview. Let me introduce you to today's guest. So a massive warm welcome to the show. Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do? Yeah, absolutely. Excited to be here. My name is Ben Kruger. I'm the CMO for Event Ticket Center.
[00:03:03] We are a secondary ticket resale marketplace in the US where we offer fans access to tickets to thousands of events across the country, sold out concerts, sporting events, theater shows, etc. We're primarily a marketing company and have been in business for close to 18 years. And yeah, it's a great industry to be in.
[00:03:27] We're on the cutting edge of marketing, but also working in live events, you know, helping people get to see their favorite performers is also just, you know, an awesome place to spend my time. Awesome. I'd love to talk with you about all that and much more. But before I do, I've got to go back to your origin story here, because looking at doing a little research on you online, I know that you've got an extensive background in marketing and emerging tech.
[00:03:54] So tell me more about that, your time at Google and how all those other past experiences ultimately led you to your current role. There's got to be a story there, right? If we look back and join the dots. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I started my career with an internship managing the cost per click ad campaigns on Google search for a hotel booking platform in Miami, Florida back in the day.
[00:04:21] And ever since then, I've been very intrigued with marketing, specifically digital performance marketing. And the next couple spots in my career were all at small marketing tech startups. So one was focused on attribution. So trying to connect the dots between someone who engages with a website online and then goes to buy that product in store, you know, a very difficult problem to solve. So that was very interesting to work on.
[00:04:50] And then I went to another startup that worked on email and retention marketing to help increase lifetime value of customers. And, you know, those two jobs spanned over like eight years. And I'd say every year I had applied to Google and it had always been a dream job of mine to work there.
[00:05:10] And finally broke through, I'd say a year like nine or 10, where I landed a role as an e-commerce strategist at Google in New York, primarily working with e-commerce advertisers to help them maximize their returns from Google ads. And I joined there right before COVID and then, you know, was there through COVID and e-commerce was absolutely bonkers.
[00:05:36] You know, everyone was shopping at home, but live events were obviously non-existent, basically. And I didn't know this at the time, but Event Ticket Center, Adam, the CEO, had to refund all orders. And, you know, everyone who purchased tickets to an event that eventually got canceled because of COVID. So a really down year for the live event industry.
[00:06:00] And coming out of COVID, as events started to come back online, Event Ticket Center became one of my clients. You know, every six months, as a strategist at Google, you randomly get assigned accounts and they fell into my portfolio and we hit it off. And the timing was just like perfect as live events were coming online.
[00:06:22] And Google, at the same time, had changed and updated a lot of their marketing strategies to something that we call modern search marketing. You know, it was heavily powered by AI in 2022 and machine learning. And a lot of the strategies that used to work were changing. So it was really a perfect time for us to meet up. And, you know, I helped ETC evolve their strategy into this modern sort of playbook, leveraging Google's AI. And it was a rocket ship from there.
[00:06:50] And then, you know, shortly thereafter, after working really closely with the team, I was able to join as CMO and haven't looked back since. And you mentioned the pandemic there. And it's very easy to forget that there was a time where there wasn't any events. And we also questioned if there would ever be an event again. It really felt very bleak at the time. And yeah, and everything then bounced back. We've seen how disruptive tech has bolstered the marketing industry over the last few years.
[00:07:20] You've been on a real roller coaster ride here. So from everything that you've seen, experienced and heard and the conversations you've had, how do you navigate this constantly evolving sector and adopting the right tools for your marketing strategies as the world around you moves at such a rapid rate now? Yeah, it's really difficult. I find half the time I'm like guilty of shiny object syndrome. Yeah. Right. So a new tool will come out and like, oh, we need to be using this.
[00:07:50] We need to update all of our workflows to incorporate this model or try this new offering from XYZ. And but then when you go down that path, then you sometimes find that what the service is offering isn't actually like fully aligned with what their messaging is or what the tool can do or how it can be applied to your business.
[00:08:14] So I think early on, I'd say like a year ago, I was very guilty of just hopping from tool to tool and chasing that shiny object. And now I think I've learned to have a really healthy dose of skepticism when trying new tools. And, you know, I've gone back and forth. I feel like sometimes having things not be automated and having humans do things and curated by hand is even better sometimes.
[00:08:43] You know, it's more authentic. There's less errors. It's more trustworthy. So I've, you know, I've gone back and forth with like, let's fully automate everything to now, like just having a lot of skepticism and really thinking how a given tool could help our marketing goals. And, you know, for us, we're very performance driven. So it's all about the bottom line. So unless something's really going to impact our profitability, I'm hesitant to try it.
[00:09:09] And I really want to test things like very thoroughly before letting it loose. Where I think just in today's age, to your point of how quickly things are evolving, like you could quickly just get caught up in trying all these tools and really get nowhere because some of them aren't ready to go or some of them just aren't aligned with what you need to do. So I'm now very cautious where I was like super hyped before. Yeah. You mentioned those shiny tools and the shiny tool syndrome.
[00:09:38] Now, I think it's something that we've all been through at some point. But what are the few advancements that particularly stand out most in your line of work in live events and ticketing industries? And how do these new emerging AI and tech platforms, how do they directly improve your role as chief marketing officer at a company like this? Yeah, for sure.
[00:09:59] I'd say the really unique thing about live events is the real time nature of it and how trend driven it really is. So I think there's a couple aspects that we've really unlocked by leveraging AI here. One is just like, you know, we're managing ad campaigns for, let's call it 130,000 events in the US at any given time. Some of those just went on sale yesterday and some of those shows are happening tonight.
[00:10:27] So being able to dynamically, you know, and in real time change the way that we're marketing those, doing that manually is virtually impossible. So being able to leverage AI and automations to read these trends in real time and see if there's demand for an event.
[00:10:49] And if there's not, and at the same time, monitor the prices because resellers are uploading their inventory to our marketplace. And those prices change very quickly depending on, you know, if this artist is hot or not, if the show is happening today, if it's raining at the football game, right? There's like tons of different variables that go into the demand and the pricing of it. And, you know, if we treated every event the same, we'd burn a bunch of cash and not sell the right inventory.
[00:11:16] So leveraging primarily here, like Google's AI has come a really long way in helping us do this. We've been able to unlock it by building some proprietary models and importing our data into Google way better than, you know, I think that our competitors do.
[00:11:34] That's our real advantage here is being able to leverage our data and bundle it up and feed it into the systems that we're leveraging for our targeting has really, really helped us. So that's a huge one, just the real time nature of the trends and the demand and the pricing, being able to navigate that.
[00:11:53] And then another is, you know, in the content world, as you can imagine writing, you know, if we're thinking about SEO or for paid search or for email marketing or social, the more content we have about the events that we're advertising, the better. And as you can imagine, it's impossible to handwrite compelling content for the hundred plus thousand shows that we're advertising.
[00:12:19] So leveraging AI again with our data to come up with the content that our customers are looking for has been a huge unlock. And we've, we've gone through many iterations of creating that content. But it's in a really good spot now. And, you know, primarily AI driven with humans in the loop, curating and fact-checking things. And I must admit, before you came on the podcast today, I was having a quick look around the website.
[00:12:45] I was expecting to see huge prices on things like, I think it was the AJ fight versus Jake Paul, for example. They were very reasonable, $70 and a few tickets available. So close to you there. Yeah, yeah. You should check out some World Cup tickets if you want to see some, some high priced stuff. Oh, I'm a bit nervous on that one. Yeah. But I mean, you mentioned there the strategy of constantly monitoring data and testing new tools.
[00:13:10] How is this strategy playing a role in maybe better understanding your audience and establishing deeper connections with them? Yeah. So it's been a journey in terms of our like audience segmentation, as you can imagine. We are talking to tons of different buyer personas, right?
[00:13:30] Someone who's buying, you know, Broadway tickets or family show tickets is very different than someone going to ACDC or Metallica or not. Right. They could be the same person, just different days with their kids or not. So there's a lot to unpack and a lot to learn. And it's, you know, without a lot of these advancements, it's been very difficult to segment our audience base and establish these connections and understand who our buyers are.
[00:13:59] But now we can we can really bucket them into different personas and be able to personalize a lot of the communications that we have with them based on what they've looked at on our website, what they've bought, what they're searching for. So we're able to get not a true one to one, but we're able to get a lot closer now and understanding what someone may be interested, make recommendations to them based on the venue that they the last venue that they went to or where they live, because those can be very different. Like, does this person travel for events or not?
[00:14:30] So there's a lot of interesting dots that can be connected now. And, you know, a lot of the advancements, I'd say just there's a there's a lot of tooling that helps us connect these dots together and put together a way more informed opinion about what a given customer may want or what they're looking for.
[00:14:48] And for people listening, are there any opportunities that you see, especially for younger brands, startups or even just marketers alike are immersed in this AI driven industry now and social media at such a disruptive time? Because it feels like there's a lot up for grabs and a lot of opportunities there for those early adopters. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I see young brands have an opportunity to build a very lean team.
[00:15:15] Like, I think there's value in having less people who are able to wear multiple hats and are enabled by AI. It keeps things really consistent. Collaboration stays really high. I think integrity and accountability stays really high with a lean team. So I think that's a really good opportunity where you now don't need like, you know, a specialist for all these, you know, longer tail needs or different areas of a company where you can, you know,
[00:15:44] you can get rock like one rock star employee can do five things now instead of having five employees, I'd say. So I think for young brands staying lean and is a really big opportunity both for their culture and their productivity.
[00:16:00] And then marketers similarly have a huge opportunity to unlock, understand like, I don't know, I find myself learning about new marketing channels or considering new marketing channels or messaging angles or different perspectives just, you know, by interfacing with Gemini or ChatGPT and learning about it.
[00:16:22] And instead of needing to consult with someone, hire someone, I'm able to get a lot further along in exploring new things by leveraging AI. So I think marketers have that opportunity. And, you know, I think they can find profitable pockets of traffic outside of like the Googles and Metas that everyone's using. Right.
[00:16:46] Like, I think if you go really deep, you can create content or create campaigns on these more niche platforms, maybe like a Pinterest or Reddit, etc. Right.
[00:17:26] Like, I think those strategies, those strategies, those playbooks just don't work anymore. So how can marketers avoid just keep doing the same thing that they did yesterday, adjust their strategy and incorporate some of these AI driven tools that we're talking about that are essentially needed to maintain a competitive edge in such a saturated landscape? Because it feels like that's what will set them apart. Yeah, I agree. I think it's a really big challenge for these big companies.
[00:17:51] There's so much internal, I guess, politics or roadblocks to unlocking this. Right. Like I met with a really large international hotel chain. I came back to Google to give a presentation on how we're using AI there. And, you know, they were saying like, oh, this sounds awesome, but we need to do this, this, this, this, this before we're able to even test this thing. And I think they just got to get out of their own way, to be honest.
[00:18:18] And I understand the hesitation because, you know, if you have non-technical people now going and developing a bunch of code and pushing that live, it's a real concern. So I think you got to get out of your own way, but set up maybe your own like incubation area or like a separate squad.
[00:18:39] That's like an innovation squad that has the freedom to explore and build prototypes and come up with trying to solve problems. And I think where we really benefited from adoption in our company is we first started just solving internal problems with AI, like nothing customer facing.
[00:19:00] But like, you know, if someone was spending a whole day writing headlines for a thousand ads by hand, like how can we, how can we expedite that and get that into like 10,000, 20,000? And there's no way to do that, but leveraging AI. So trying to find ways to solve either labor problems, production problems internally can really help.
[00:19:26] And I think everyone just needs that light bulb moment of seeing how powerful this can be for their job. And, and yeah, so I think to answer your question for big companies, I would think about setting up some sort of little squad or innovation team that has the freedom to explore and build prototypes instead of like business cases and actually build a working thing to show off and how a given tool can work and go that route.
[00:19:55] And really just get that light bulb moment for everyone else and then put in the, the, the workflows and processes that you need internally. And for purely selfish reasons, I am talking to a guy in New Jersey at a ticket agency selling world cup tickets. So as an England fan, I have to ask that, that selfish question. I'm probably never get this opportunity again. What is the best way of getting a ticket to see England versus Panama at the new New Jersey stadium in 2026? Any tips there?
[00:20:25] Yeah. I mean, so, so FIFA has a lottery that's live right now. I actually just entered a couple of days ago. I think it's through early January and that those tickets will be released in February. So you basically go to FIFA now, put in your credit card, choose the types of seats that you want. And then if you notice a credit card statement on February 5th, that means you've got tickets. Otherwise, if you're unable to get, that's where the secondary market really comes into place.
[00:20:53] So, you know, you can buy verified and trusted tickets from ourselves and there's a whole host of other ticket resellers as well. Love it. And I also like to ask my guest an opportunity to add something to either our Amazon wishlist, a book that they would recommend that listeners can check out or a song for a Spotify playlist. I don't mind which, but Gaur, do you like to leave everyone listening with it? Why? Let's go with a book.
[00:21:19] Early in my career, I read a book by Seth Godin, one of my favorite marketers, called Linchpin. And it's all about becoming like an indispensable employee at your employer. And, you know, I think these employees and this is very much, you know, I resonated with it and, you know, working at startups and then moving over to Google.
[00:21:43] I always thought of this, you know, this book in the back of my head about how you're just becoming, you're trying to basically become a linchpin, right? In this whole system where, you know, if you think about like a factory floor or even a bicycle or something like there's always this tool or this process where if you pulled it out, nothing would work.
[00:22:04] So as an employee, you want to become that person where you're plugged into various different parts of the organization and you love your work and you're putting your, you know, really putting yourself into the system and becoming indispensable. And great things will happen to you, right? The more that you care about a company and show up every day and do hard work and important work, things just organically, great things organically will happen to you. You'll be pulled into a feedback session with the CEO.
[00:22:34] You'll be pulled into a meeting with a top client. The product teams want to talk to you because you're so intertwined with the product and the customers. So an awesome read and just really inspiring, I think, for those young in their career, but probably applies to those later in their career as well. Awesome. Well, I'll get that added straight to our Amazon wishlist. And also for anyone listening wanting to find out more information about anything that we talked about today, if you want to bend your ear or just find out more information about where they can get tickets, where would you like to point them? Sure.
[00:23:04] I think LinkedIn is probably best. My name is Ben Kruger and eventticketcenter.com also to check out, you know, some of the things that we talked about in action. Don't click on our Google ads. That costs us. No kidding. So come directly to our site. Check it out. And feel free to shoot me a note on LinkedIn if you want to chat about anything. Love it. Well, I will add links to everything there, including your LinkedIn.
[00:23:29] I love how you're using technology, adopting generative and predictive AI-powered tools, but maintaining the human touch throughout. And hopefully, if I get through that FIFA ballot, I might see you in New Jersey next year. But thank you for joining me. Thank you, Neil. What an incredibly cool guy there. Loved how honest Ben was today, especially around that tension between automation and authenticity.
[00:23:54] And what stood out most was the focus on data discipline, testing and keeping humans in the loop, even while operating at a massive scale. So from live event pricing and demand signals to content creation and personalization, this felt like a zoomed out but very real look at what modern marketing actually looks like behind the scenes.
[00:24:17] So I'll have links to Event Ticket Center and Ben's LinkedIn so you can explore the work we discussed and also continue the conversation. And if this episode got you thinking differently about AI, your marketing strategy or how to stay competitive in these fast-moving markets, love to hear your thoughts. As always, thank you for listening. Check out Tech Talks Network for 4,000 interviews, 8 podcasts and different ways of messaging me.
[00:24:45] But other than that, it's time for me to go now. I'm going to sign up to that FIFA ballot. What's the worst that can happen? And I'll speak with you all again tomorrow. Bye for now.