TikTok Ads success story · Marine theme parks in three cities

How SeaWorld grew incremental ticket sales 9.36% with creator videos and Smart+ on TikTok.

Name: Overtop Media Digital Marketing
Address: 933 Louise Ave Suite 101-18, Charlotte, NC, 28204, US
Telephone: (704) 237-0707
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SeaWorld needed one campaign to make people want to visit and to sell tickets online. Creator videos built the interest, Smart+ Web found the likely buyers in each city, and two lift studies measured what the ads actually added.

Business: SeaWorld
Market: Orlando, San Diego and San Antonio
Goal: Awareness and incremental online ticket sales

Family and visitors walking along a waterfront promenade past a large ferris wheel

The results.

The lift results compare people who saw the ads with a comparable group who did not, as measured by TikTok’s Conversion Lift Study and Brand Lift Study. The 10,747 website purchases and about $1.13 million in revenue come from platform reporting and have no baseline.

1.97incremental return on ad spend
9.36%lift in incremental purchases
30.9%lift in ad recall
8.9%lift in visit intent

As published by TikTok on October 8, 2026, for a campaign that ran October to November 2025. Measured with TikTok’s Unified Lift framework: a Brand Lift Study and a Conversion Lift Study.

The challenge.

SeaWorld runs marine theme parks in Orlando, San Diego and San Antonio. Going into the autumn of 2025 it wanted two things at once from the same campaign: more people thinking about a visit, and more admission tickets and passes bought online at a target cost per sale.

Awareness and sales campaigns are usually run and judged separately, and three parks in three regions respond differently. The brand needed one plan that could do both jobs, adjust by city, and prove what the ads added rather than what they happened to touch.

Creators make the videosFive creators show the parks, events and family days.
Smart+ Web deliversAutomation finds likely ticket buyers in real time.
Three markets, one planOrlando, San Diego and San Antonio targeted and budgeted separately.
Two lift studiesBrand Lift and Conversion Lift measure what the ads added.

What they did.

Creator-led videos · Smart+ Web · Geographic targeting by market · Brand Lift Study · Conversion Lift Study

Five creators told the story: Five creators made videos about the parks’ attractions, seasonal events and family experiences, made to look like everything else in the For You feed while meeting the brand’s safety rules.
Smart+ Web found the buyers: Smart+ Web handled delivery, finding the people most likely to buy tickets in real time instead of relying on fixed manual targeting.
One campaign, three cities: Location targeting split the campaign across Orlando, San Diego and San Antonio, so budget could move to the market responding best.
Measured for lift, not just clicks: A Brand Lift Study tracked recall, favorability, preference and visit intent, and a Conversion Lift Study measured the extra page views, add-to-carts and purchases the ads caused.

Why it worked.

Our read on the decisions behind the numbers, and what any business can take from them.

Creators made the trip feel real: A family day at a park is something people want to see before they book. Creator videos showed it the way a friend would, which is where the 30.9% recall lift came from.
Automation carried the sale: The same videos that built interest were put in front of likely buyers by Smart+ Web, so awareness and sales were one campaign, not two.
Each city earned its budget: Splitting by market let spend follow the park whose audience was responding, rather than a fixed share for each.
The proof was incremental: The 1.97 incremental ROAS and $0.70 cost per incremental conversion count only what the ads added, the honest answer to whether the campaign paid.

How we would run this play for your business.

You do not need a national budget to use the same ideas. This is how Overtop Media Digital Marketing puts them to work in our tiktok ads management.

Inspire and sell in one plan: For attractions, venues and destinations, our TikTok ads management runs one campaign that builds the wish to visit and sells the ticket or booking, judged on both.
Your footage, then local creators: We start with your own videos of the experience, then add the best local creators booked directly with no agency markup, and use stock only to fill gaps.
Budget by location: Multi-site businesses get each location targeted and reported on its own, so money moves to the city or venue that is filling up.
Test what the ads really add: When the budget is big enough, we set up lift testing so you see the extra sales TikTok caused, and we run Google Ads and Meta ads from the same plan.