A.D. Players Marketing Director Jesse GrothOlson is busy running two departments at once: marketing and box office. But before working at the theater, he was a university professor and faculty sponsor for the campus improv team.
That background shows up in how he talks about the job: he's always looking for the smallest change that removes an obstacle between someone and a "yes" and then measuring it carefully enough to know whether it actually worked.
Put up a sign where there wasn't one
Advertising on a college campus meant red tape: flyers needed approval, and could only go on bulletin boards nobody actually looked at. So the improv team tried a sandwich board on the sidewalk instead.
Where there was no sign the previous week, now all of a sudden there's a sign in the middle of the sidewalk. And people noticed it and showed up,” says Jesse. “It might sound silly, but that was the most effective thing we ever did."
At A.D. Players, that same instinct shows up in small places. Jesse added a donation popup to the theater's ticketing checkout process, asking: 'hey, do you want to give 25 bucks?' “The number of times people choose to give is astounding," says Jesse.
Feathr's display advertising was the same kind of new sign. A.D. Players had never run display ads before, and suddenly the theater’s creative was showing up on the New York Times, Bible Gateway, and Yahoo – sites they'd had almost no presence on.
"I'm seeing a 4x exposure per campaign that I just hadn't had before. Feathr just makes it super user-friendly to go, 'please put me in front of new people.'"
The reach story and the efficiency story
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was the big swing – a full mainstage musical, and a chance to get in front of as many new, relevant people as possible.
Jesse sent three awareness emails and layered Feathr retargeting on top, so anyone who opened or clicked got followed by a display ad. He then widened the net further with prospecting to reach people who'd never heard of the show at all.
The Spotlight Series needed the opposite approach. It's a smaller, guest-artist concert series with a built-in niche audience, so instead of chasing volume, Jesse used Feathr to stay precise: three emails, paired with a tighter display, Meta, and lookalike campaign aimed at people already likely to care.
The two campaigns ended up validating each other: Joseph proved Feathr could get a show in front of a much wider, still-relevant audience, and Spotlight Series proved the same platform could convert just as efficiently on a fraction of the budget.
Together, they spent $7,515.91 and generated $25,161.38 in conversion value – more than 3x return, across two audiences with almost nothing in common.
What Jesse valued most about Feathr was being able to see the difference at all. "That was nice, to just be able to say, look, it actually does something and we can clearly prove it."
Doing less, better
With a two-person team, Jesse is deliberate about what he says yes to. "Whatever we say yes to, I want us to be able to do it well. So we try to do less overall, but whatever we choose to do, we make sure it’s impactful."
That discipline shows up in how the theater builds repeat attendance: college nights with discounted tickets and concession vouchers, a "30 under 30" pricing tier, and free-ticket coupons tucked into kids'-camp playbills. Thoughtfully executed ideas that pull in new groups of people based on their specific interests.
And while some campaigns require more precise targeting, Jesse is just as insistent about where not to narrow. A.D. Players' audience skews female, which made it tempting to write men off for certain shows – until a low-budget Valentine's Day video, shot handheld outside the theater and aimed squarely at men, pulled 136,000 views in Feathr. “The lesson was: don't narrow your own audience. Don't say no on behalf of people," says Jesse.
At the end of the day, his approach comes down to balancing ritual and novelty. "There's two things that drive people's satisfaction. It's learning how to give people what they expect when that's what they need, and how to stand out when that's what they need."
