Case Study · Congresses
We turned a congress website into a registration engine.
When the 17th ITS European Congress came to Istanbul, the event was world-class - but the website wasn't pulling its weight. We rebuilt how it was found, fixed how it converted, and ran the content and paid system that filled the hall. Same site, same dates. A completely different result.
Client: ERTICO – ITS Europe · Event: 17th ITS European Congress · Istanbul · 27–29 April 2026 · Sector: Events / Congresses
Scope: SEO & AI-search · registration-page CRO · paid media · organic social · video
The headline numbers
79.6% → 15.1%
Registration-page bounce rate
+125%
Registration conversion rate
41.5%
Of all site traffic came from our campaigns
2.5M / 249K
Ad impressions / video views
On €8,402 of paid spend, across four platforms, in twelve weeks.
The challenge
A congress lives or dies on one number: how many people register. ERTICO’s site was the their single most important acquisition asset – and it was leaking. Discoverability was weak and the registration page itself was bouncing four out of five visitors before they ever started.
Most congress websites are brochures. This one needed to be an engine.
The approach - one system, not a stack
We didn’t bring a film crew, a separate media agency and an SEO consultant who’d never met each other. We ran the whole acquisition system as one team, with daily data and shared targets:
Intelligence first.
A technical and on-page SEO audit across 100 pages, prioritised into four phases and tracked openly in a shared board – plus AI-search optimisation so the Congress would surface in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google, not just legacy search.
Conversion before spend.
A CRO audit of the registration funnel, then a redesign built with ERTICO’s internal team – because the fastest way to more registrations isn’t more budget, it’s a page that converts.
Narrative that shows the event.
Video built around the real thing – the programme, the speakers, the exhibition floor – cut for paid social. The Istanbul teaser alone earned 156,781 views at €0.003 each and built the retargeting audience the conversion ads later capitalised on.
Distribution with a job per platform.
A three-phase paid system – Awareness, Consideration, Conversion – across Meta, Google, LinkedIn and AdRoll, optimised daily. Underperforming campaigns were killed and budget redirected to winners in-flight.
The results
The registration page, rebuilt.
Replacing the old page cut bounce rate from 79.6% to 15.1%, lifted entry conversion from 3.72% to 8.36% (+125%), and more than doubled actions per visit.
Paid media that did the heavy lifting.
Paid drove 41.5% of all 95,927 website visits in the campaign window – 39,831 visits – generating 2.5M impressions and 249K video views on just €8,402. The best creative pairing (a programme-specific hook plus video) delivered registration starts at under €1 each; LinkedIn’s Türkiye ad hit a 9.16% CTR with a 4.7% on-site conversion rate.
Registrations, climbing to the close.
Confirmed registrations rose from 143 in mid-March to 1,821 by opening day (the official final figure landed between 2,400 and 2,700), with nearly half arriving in the final week as the conversion system hit full velocity.
An organic channel worth owning.
Alongside paid, 122 organic LinkedIn posts earned 190,402 impressions, 4,391 reactions and 852 new followers – a senior, director-plus audience concentrated on where the Congress sells: Europe and Türkiye.
“With our largest European event around the corner and an unplanned staff shortage, Backbone jumped in and turned our marketing efforts around in days. The speed at which they could operate having all functions in-house is astounding — from video and asset creation, to creative, to strategy, to digital execution and promotion. It is a pleasure working with a team who get their hands dirty very quickly and lead through sheer competence.”
— Didier Gorteman, ITS Congress
Why it matters
Every congress organiser is measured on the same thing: bodies in the room. This is the proof that a single integrated team – strategy, search, conversion, creative and media under one roof – moves that number further than any of those parts working alone. The biggest lever wasn’t a clever ad. It was a page that converted, found by a precision targeted audience, enticed by video ads built from the event’s own footage.
Built for Impact.