From Research to Repeat Visit: 5 Ways to Build Trust with Automated Campaigns

ROLLER recently teamed up with Patch Retention for a live webinar on how marketing automation helps attractions build guest trust at every stage of the journey, from the first online search to the repeat visit.

Patch Retention's Head of Sales, Cody Harris, and ROLLER's Partnerships Development Manager, Dalton Haberman, walked through five practical campaigns operators are using today, backed by fresh data from ROLLER's 2026 Pulse Report.

🎥 Missed the live session? Watch the full recording here:

The 2026 Pulse Report draws on responses from 1,500 regular attraction visitors across the USA, UK, and Australia, so the numbers below reflect what guests actually look for before, during, and after a visit. Here are five ways to put those insights to work.

1. Generate more Google reviews

Trust starts before a guest ever reaches your door. According to the Pulse Report, 85.9% of guests want to see at least a 3.5-star rating before they will consider visiting, and 66.2% read further into the reviews to check whether a negative issue keeps coming up.

Reputation is not about being perfect. It is about showing a consistent pattern, and 39% of guests say a venue that collects and acts on feedback would make them significantly more likely to visit.

Reviews also shape how easily new guests find you. They feed your local SEO and your AEO (AI engine optimization, or how your venue surfaces in AI-powered search). Both of these are important because 97% of people check Google reviews before visiting.

With Patch Retention, you can set up an automated campaign to send a review request by email and text a short time after a guest's visit. Venues using this approach have tripled their Google reviews in 60 days, with a 98% open rate on the messages.

2. Remind them what they forgot with abandoned cart

A booking that never gets completed is one of the easiest wins to recover. The Pulse Report found that 53.2% of guests have chosen not to visit a venue because of its online presence, which means it’s essential to have a smooth booking flow on your website.

Patch Retention’s abandoned cart automation gently reminds guests of the booking they started but did not finish. The simplest version waits a set time, checks whether an order came through, and sends a follow-up text if it did not. On average, operators using this campaign can bring in around $3,200 in additional revenue per venue each month.

You can also now tailor the message to whatever was left in the basket so a guest who was partway through booking a party gets a different, more relevant nudge than someone who left a single day pass behind.

3. Create a smoother in-venue experience

The experience itself is what brings guests back. In the Pulse Report, 56.4% of guests said a consistently great experience is the main reason they return, and 61.8% said the overall experience is what makes them recommend a venue to others.

The challenge for operators is keeping every visit running smoothly and feeling personal, even when the venue is busy. Booking data syncs in real time with the ROLLER x Patch Retention integration, so you can set up automated messages to guests before, during, and after their visit based on what they came in for.

One example from the session is to send a welcome text with something useful, like the wifi password, a few minutes after a guest arrives. That small gesture builds goodwill, so when an "extend your time" nudge follows around 40 minutes later, guests are far more open to taking it up. Give a little first, and they are more likely to say yes.

The same timing works for membership offers and day-ticket-to-membership upgrades, giving current members a little extra value and making it easy for frequent visitors to take the next step while they are still on-site.

4. Win lapsed guests back with a personal touch

Most guests already want to come back. The Pulse Report shows 93.5% visit the same venue more than once a year, and 41.2% visit regularly without holding a membership, so they are behaving like members already.

Patch Retention's win-back campaigns run quietly in the background, checking each day for guests who have not returned in a set period and reaching out with a friendly, relevant message. Campaigns like this bring back nearly 30% of guests who have not visited in 45 days, within a week of engaging.

5. Use unique discount codes to drive action

Guests are open to a more personal approach when there is a clear benefit. The Pulse Report found 82.5% are willing to share their data in exchange for more personalized rewards.

For operators, the challenge is making an offer feel personal and timely rather than generic. Patch Retention can automatically generate a unique discount code for each contact, based on the promo code rules you have already set in ROLLER. You can set those codes to expire, which adds a sense of urgency and encourages guests to redeem sooner.

This works especially well inside an abandoned cart follow-up or an in-venue membership upsell, where a code tied to that specific guest helps move them across the line.

Putting it into action

If you are just getting started, reviews and abandoned cart are the quickest wins, and both can be set up in minutes. From there, layer in win-back and in-venue campaigns to keep guests engaged across the whole journey. Because the ROLLER and Patch Retention integration syncs your contacts, products, memberships, and bookings in real time, every campaign runs on accurate, up-to-date guest data.

The through line across all five campaigns is the same: timely, relevant communication is how you earn guest trust, from the first search to the next visit.

Want to learn how ROLLER can help your venue put these ideas into action? Book a free demo today.

Want even more insights into what guests want from venues in 2026? Download your free copy of the 2026 Pulse Report.