Zoom, Google Meet or Teams: hosting a ticketed webinar

The short answer

Use the meeting tool you and your audience already know. Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams can all run a ticketed webinar: the meeting tool runs the session, and your ticketing page takes the bookings, the payments and sends the join link.

On One Ticket you set up the meeting in your own tool, paste its join link into an online event, and the link goes to ticket holders only: on their ticket, in the ticket email, in the calendar entry and in every reminder. There is nothing to connect or install.

Two jobs, two tools

It helps to separate the two jobs:

• The meeting tool handles the video: screens, microphones, chat, breakout rooms, recording.
• The ticketing page handles everything before the meeting: the event page, the tickets, payment, confirmation emails, reminders and the attendee list.

One Ticket does the second job. It doesn’t create meetings, connect to your meeting tool’s account or register people inside it. That keeps things simple: you can use any meeting tool, change tools between events, and nobody needs to grant One Ticket access to their calendar or video account.

Choosing between Zoom, Google Meet and Teams

The best tool is usually the one you already pay for and are comfortable presenting on. A webinar is a bad time to learn new software.

Think about your audience as well:

• Who are they? A corporate audience may have Teams on every laptop. A community group may know Zoom from years of online catch-ups. People with Google accounts may find Meet easiest.
• Will they join from a browser or an app? Some people can’t install apps on a work computer. Check whether your tool lets guests join from a browser.
• How many people? Every plan of every meeting tool has a limit on participants and, on some plans, meeting length. Check your own plan’s limits before you sell, and cap your tickets below them.
• What do you need in the room? Breakout rooms, polls, Q&A, a recording, live captions. Check that your plan includes what you need.

Plans and features change, so check the meeting tool’s own site for the current details rather than relying on anyone’s summary, including this one.

Setting up the meeting

Whichever tool you use, a few habits make a ticketed webinar run smoothly:

1. Schedule a meeting for this session, rather than using a personal meeting room you use every day. If the link is shared around, it only opens this one session.
2. Turn on a way to admit people yourself, if your tool has one and you want to check who comes in. Zoom calls it a waiting room and Teams a lobby; in Google Meet the host can admit people who ask to join.
3. Skip your meeting tool’s own registration form, if it has one. When the ticketing page takes the bookings, a second form only adds a step.
4. Test the link in a private browser window, logged out, so you see what a guest sees.
5. Copy the full join link, not a shortened version.

Pasting the link into One Ticket

Create an event, choose Online as the place, and paste the join link into the meeting link field. The public event page says the event is online and that the link comes with the ticket. It never shows the link itself.

A new organiser’s join link must open a known meeting or video site. Links on these sites work from the start:

• Zoom: zoom.us, zoom.com and zoomgov.com
• Google Meet: meet.google.com
• Microsoft Teams: teams.microsoft.com and teams.live.com

Webex, GoTo Meeting, Whereby, Jitsi Meet and several live streaming sites such as YouTube and Vimeo work too; the full list is on the webinar ticketing page. Any other link, a link shortener included, is held back until your payouts are verified. This is because join links go out in our emails under our name, so we keep them to sites people recognise. Paste the meeting link itself, not a redirect to it.

Where attendees find the link

Everyone who books, free or paid, finds the link in five places:

1. Their ticket page, straight after booking. Every email links back to it.
2. The ticket email, with a calendar file and Google Calendar and Outlook links that carry the join link into their calendar.
3. A reminder the day before, about 20 to 24 hours ahead.
4. A reminder on the morning of, from 7 am in the event’s time zone.
5. A “Starting in 15 minutes” email, just before it begins. You can turn it off in Settings › Preferences.

Someone who books an hour before the start gets the link straight away. Buyers don’t need a One Ticket account for any of this. For more on attendance, see how to run a webinar people actually show up to.

If you need to change the link

Sometimes a meeting has to be recreated. Update the link on the event as soon as you can. Ticket pages show the new link straight away, and any reminders still to come carry it. Calendar entries people have already saved keep the old link, so tell them about the change as well.

The simplest fix is to avoid it: schedule the meeting once, well ahead, and don’t delete it.

Keeping the session for ticket holders

A meeting link can be forwarded, like any link. For most webinars that is fine. If it matters for yours:

• Show the link only shortly before the start: 15, 30 or 60 minutes before. Until then the ticket and emails say when it will appear, and the “Starting in 15 minutes” email brings it.
• Use your meeting tool’s waiting room or lobby and admit the names on your list.
• Export your attendee list before you start, so you have it open while you admit people.
• Ask people to join with the name they booked under, in the event description and on the day.

If you want a link that can’t simply be passed around, a pre-recorded premiere gives each ticket its own Watch link that plays on one screen at a time. Premieres are a Pro and Team feature. Pro and Team are open now: upgrade any time in Settings › Plan. Limited-time offer: A$1 for your first year (first 100 organisers), then A$29/month for Pro or A$79/month for Team. Cancel anytime. Our post on live webinars versus pre-recorded premieres weighs them up.

Recordings

Most meeting tools can record a session. Afterwards, on Pro and Team, you can send the recording to everyone with a ticket as a replay: paste the recording link (and a password, if it has one) and choose when it goes out. Everyone booked is emailed the link and finds it on their ticket. A recording on Zoom, YouTube, Vimeo or another known site works from the start.

Live streams instead of meetings

For a large audience who only watch, a live stream may suit better than a meeting: you present, they watch, and questions come through the stream’s chat. YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch and the other live streaming sites on the webinar page work the same way on One Ticket: paste the stream’s link, and it goes to ticket holders. Where the site allows it, make the stream unlisted, so it isn’t found by searching.

The bottom line

Pick the meeting tool you know, set the meeting up properly, and let the ticketing page do the selling and the reminding. The step-by-step guide on how to sell tickets to a webinar walks through the rest, and our post on pricing a paid or free webinar helps with the price.