Marketing & Communications

March 14, 2026

Recipe: Build Post-Purchase Upsell Journeys

# emails

# automation

# Recipes for Success

Make an automated pre-event email journey that promotes supplementary events through a dedicated subsite

Enhance your customer experience and drive secondary spend by offering tailored add-ons, like programmes/playbills, drinks, or parking, at the perfect moment.

By connecting targeted customer data with a seamless, secure subsite booking flow, you can automate your upsell strategy and ensure every attendee has the opportunity to upgrade their visit.

What you need

Spektrix admin, website admin and settings interface access

A Spektrix Link account

A Dotdigital account

Access to your web domain's DNS settings (to set up CNAME records)

Time required

Initial setup: 2 hours (may vary depending on your existing setup)

Maintenance: 5 minutes per campaign

What will this help me achieve?

Make money: Increase secondary spend by promoting add-ons before the visit.

Improve audience relationships: Provide a tailored, helpful customer journey that enhances the event experience.

Save time: Automate the upsell process so it runs in the background for every performance.

Concepts we’ll be using

Attributes: Custom fields used to store data and trigger specific behaviours in Spektrix and Dotdigital.

Supplementary Events: Items or events (like parking pre-show drinks) linked to a main "parent" event.

Pre- and Post-Event Email Campaign: You can update your existing pre-event email campaign with liquid script or you can use the pre-event email template.

Spektrix Subsite: A lightweight, standalone site powered by Spektrix Link for online purchase flows.

Custom Building Blocks: Code blocks which can be easily added to your email campaigns to power liquid script functionality.

Prep

If you are not already using a Subsite, configure your Subdomains, as outlined in the section Existing Integration.

Set up your Supplementary Events. If you already have Supplementary Events set up, take this opportunity to refresh the images and descriptions to ensure they are as effective as possible.

NOTE: If you set up supplementary events they will become available to customers in your existing ticket purchase path. The supplementary events page is displayed to customers after ticket selection and before the basket/cart page.

Set up Event / Instance Attributes:

Create an event attribute that is a checkbox and visible in the API named:

SLExcludeFromViewEventsPage

You may already have this attribute if you already use a Subsite.

Mark this attribute as true (box checked) against your supplementary events so that they do not appear on your view events page.

Create an instance attribute that is a checkbox and visible in the API named:

dotdigitalPreEventSupplementaryUpsell

Mark this attribute as true (box checked) against the instances where you’d like to upsell supplementary events.

Create an instance attribute that is a checkbox and visible in the API named:

AllowForPostPurchase

Mark this attribute as true (box checked) against instances of the supplementary events you would like to upsell.

You can use the bulk instance updater to apply these Attributes to multiple events and instances at once. Find out more about event attributes and instance attributes on the Support Centre.

If you are not already using a Subsite, set up your Subsite in Spektrix Link. Follow the steps outlined in How to Get Started with Subsites. You’ll also want to Configure your Subsite Pages and Navigation and apply the Subsite Styles and Settings.

In Dotdigital, create a custom data field as a yes/no type named SUBSITEDOMAIN and set the default value to your Subsite domain without the https:// . This Subsite Subdomain Field will link your Dotdigital account to your subsite subdomain.

Activate

Use the new Spektrix Pre Event Template or update your existing pre-event email by adding the Pre/Post Event Liquid Header block.

Add the Supplementary Events Upsell Block into your pre-event email campaign:

Drag and drop the Supplementary Event Upsell block from the Custom building blocks menu into the body of your email.

Customise the content and image in the block. You can edit the button text but do not edit the button link.

Test the email by adding an instance ID (this Instance should have the dotdigitalPreEventSupplementaryUpsell Attribute). Once you have the ID, click into the Pre/Post Event Header block and add it to the Test Instance ID field to preview your email.

Measure your success

Run the event sales report (summary) for an overview of your event sales or run the event sales report (instances summary) to look at specific instances and ticket types to monitor your revenue from supplementary events sales. If you have previously already sold supplementary events, compare sales before and after you started sending the Dotdigital campaign.

More to explore

Once you've built your post-purchase journey, you'll be able to drive higher ROI with your marketing strategies for ticket sales.

Supplementary Events: Best practices for linking items to main events.

Getting Started with Subsites: Detailed, technical steps for setting up your subsite.

Pre-Event Email Template: How to use the pre-event email template in Dotdigital.

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