Georgia Aquarium

Crafting a Remarkable Guest Experience Through Customized Technology & Thoughtful Design

We opened up a world of new possibilities for Georgia Aquarium and their guests.

Georgia Aquarium came to us with a minimally transactional site that had limited marketing capabilities, notable downtime, and no way to support new revenue. For the largest aquarium in the Western Hemisphere, we knew we could do better. Through technology, experience, and commerce we were able to create a digital ecosystem and connect the narrative to the transaction.

How We Helped

Stability, Scalability & Performance

For a brand with such high-traffic volume and high-visibility, it was imperative that we start with a reliable foundation. Step one was to evaluate the platform and infrastructure and quickly establish stability. From there, we installed the right tools and applied best practices to ensure uptime and improve overall performance. This allowed us to reimagine the online guest experience and deliver a scalable platform.

Ticketing & e-Commerce

A must-have goal was to provide a more flexible commerce platform that allowed them to mature their ticket buying process and unlock new revenue opportunities. We were able to customize their traditional ticketing platform and introduce new ways to sell tickets and new types of products and drive donations.

Guest Experience, Marketing & Brand Management

Georgia Aquarium’s website is often the first experience a guest has with the brand and the vision was to ensure that the magic of the Aquarium starts there. Our design approach allowed guests to be inspired, curious, and compassionate while making it effortless to buy tickets and make contributions. We simultaneously armed the marketing team with more flexibility to tell stories, educate, and impact revenue.

Education & Donations

Georgia Aquarium is a nonprofit committed to inspiring awareness and preservation of our ocean and aquatic animals worldwide. It was critical that we create a flexible content tool for the Aquarium team and an accessible source of information for educators, donors, and curious guests. By providing an easy-to-use CMS for sharing eye-opening facts, impactful stories, and effective educational tools, we’re helping create lifelong Georgia Aquarium supporters.

How We Evolved the Experience

Making getting tickets, getting in, and getting around even easier with the mobile app.

The first step in our roadmap to make Georgia Aquarium the most innovative venue in its space was to give guests contactless ticket purchasing, paperless entry, real-time information, and a new interactive map to help them explore every nook and cranny. The Georgia Aquarium mobile app is a natural extension of the online and onsite experience and a key component of the ever-evolving digital ecosystem. By introducing e-commerce and integrating with the existing ticketing and content management systems, we opened up a new revenue channel for the Aquarium and enhanced the guest experience.

1.2M

tickets sold online per year

20k

website guests per day

23%

reduction in page load speed

20%

increase in organic page speed

By providing the best digital experience, we support Georgia Aquarium in its mission to promote the conservation of our oceans and the animals that call it home.

Don’t Just Take Our Word for It

“After years of partnering with Alloy, they can almost guess our needs and continue to help us reach our goals and our guests.”

– Josh Cherfoli, Georgia Aquarium

How It’s Built

Achieving the Right Blend of Experience, Technology, Commerce, and Support

The new Aquarium site had to be better at everything. By standing up a WordPress CMS paired with Pantheon’s high-performance WebOps platform we delivered optimum speed, uptime, and scalability. We familiarized ourselves with Tessitura, an industry-leading ticketing system, and became experts on how to customize it to meet the Aquarium’s needs. We performed integrations that reduced manual management and introduced automation and dynamic pricing so the Aquarium team could be more agile and efficient. Marketing integrations with Salesforce and Iterable have allowed for better email and marketing capabilities and we’ve improved overall direct and organic traffic—generating net new revenue at every opportunity.

Our integrated partnership with Georgia Aquarium has allowed us to become a natural extension of their team—providing dedicated support and enabling ongoing success.

Content Management
Wordpress

Cloud Platform
Pantheon

Tailored Ticketing Platform
Tessitura

Marketing Integration
Iterable

Marketing Integration
Salesforce