Eventbee an event management startup out of Sunnyvale, CA has been a busy little bee lately. They are rumoured to be launching two Facebook apps (one for event registration and one for event recommendation) in the next week or so (who isn’t?). They are also developing a channel on Ustream.tv to cover local events. The company provides a great package of event management tools including online registration, email marketing (souped-up spam) and online event promotion.
Their online event promotion tools include a nifty service called Event Network Listing that can only be described as “AdSense for events.” The service lets event planners for a fee list an event on any site or blog in Eventbee’s growing partner network. The partner network consists of sites and blogs that have AdSense-like code embedded on their sites. This allows for highly targeted and controlled event promotion. You can see Eventbee’s network event listings in action on Rajesh Setty’s LifeBeyondCode.
Eventbee partners get paid in two ways. First, they get an initial listing fee for each new listing that they get to set in advance. Second, when event ticket purchases are initiated from their site they receive a commission. The commission amount is set in advance by the event planner. Eventbee keeps 29% of the total earnings partners make.
Event planners can create customizable event pages on Eventbee’s site just like you can with Eventbrite (see our Eventbrite TC20 page here). Tickets sold from event pages start with fees as low as 1.45% of ticket price, plus a minimum fee of $0.25. RegOnline and Acteva also offer online event registration.
Eventbee’s glorified spam, I mean, email marketing service is tightly integrated with their online registration. You can create beautifully designed emails by importing HTML code or using their WYSIWYG editor. The service allows you to track bounced emails, opened emails and online registration URL click-throughs.
They currently have over 6,000 event managers. They are self-funded with CEO Bala Musrif claiming to be profitable since 2005 with no plans for raising money.
I like to read self-funded companies. They are like heroes. This is what like about. I wish Eventbee luck and success.
I don’t like reading startup companies that take steroid money.
will we be seeing Eventbee event listings on TC’s side panel anytime soon? D:
“Eventbee keeps 29% of the total earnings partners make.”
How much does Google keep?
Who in God’s name designed those user background images? Reminds me of a 1997 mom-and-pop HTML business page.
Decent idea though, could work.
Can you slap their code on any old blog or do they have to approve you first?
“no plans for raising money.”
where is the capitalist spirit!?
will I see them on my IPOs schedule in the future?
you should make a bee event and invite me!
ZZZzzzZZZZzzz
Looks like Mike’s letting some of the interns out of his downstairs basement. Nice post, Andrew.
Thanks, Avery.
@Troy - Do you see any free real estate?
FWIW, we have been doing much of this in a high value niche of the “events” world for over 7 years. Fully self funded and going strong.
EVO
http://www.LocalWineEvents.com
A little heavy on the spam comments. On a scale of 1-10 I’d give this intern a 6. Don’t try too hard buddy…we get your points.
@adrew - thank you for Eventbee coverage
@dean - to get the code, all you have to do is agree to our partner terms and signup as a eventbee member…approval is automatic
@jono - control of the event page CSS/HTML templates are given to the event manager, so event manager can change every aspect of the event page…including font, background image, colors etc.
@jones n all - thank you for your good wishes
Bala,
Congratulations on the press. And of course, Ustream is delighted that one of its partners is doing well. Hopefully, live streaming can be part of the package that EventBee offers to event managers!
Chris Yeh
CEO, Ustream.TV
Andrew, that reads like you’re a paid shill. Compared to eventbrite, or even socializr you can write that article with a straight face? Don’t be afraid to dig in and fact check (active users?) and don’t let them blow smoke up your bum.
Yep Dillan. Looks like Ustream.tv has a blank check written to techcrunch as well, they mention it all the time for no real reason. Valleywag seems less influenced to me.
@ Dillan & Tristan
To be fair, neither Eventbrite nor Socializr have partner networks for event listing campaigns. Eventbee’s Event Network Listing product is different and is why they got the post.
But, by all means, keep bringing the comment fire.
We used both Acteva and Eventbrite. Acteva is expensive and no customization features, Eventbrite takes users to paypal for payment processing which is big turn-off to our attendees.
1.45% Eventbee fee is bargain compared to Acteva and Eventbrite, we will evaluate Eventbee to use in our future events.
Jon
Attendio deserves a nod here. They were the first out of the gate with affiliate marketing for events.
@andrew - I also think that the spam-approach is a bit too much here.
It is absolutely legaln in terms of the CAN-SPAM act to send offers
to customers that you have a business relation ship with. In this case
everyone that buys a ticket for an event. In case they also gather
not-yey-paying prospects they would need to ask for their consent.
I’m not sure what practices they follow exactly, but I think that calling
anything that is email related spam is a kind of hard