10 Event Marketing KPIs That Will Make or Break Your Success

Event marketing KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) provide measurable metrics to assess the effectiveness and success of your marketing events. They help you track attendance, engagement, conversions, and overall ROI, enabling your business to evaluate their strategies, make data-driven decisions, and optimise future event campaigns. 

Over the years, event marketing technologies have evolved significantly, offering businesses a wealth of data. For example, advancements in event management software, mobile apps, RFID/NFC technology, and social media integration have allowed for real-time data capture and analysis.  

A Merit expert adds, “While this abundance of data can be overwhelming, your business needs to have a clear understanding of the objectives and desired outcomes to effectively track and measure the relevant KPIs for events. This will help you focus on the data that truly matters and derive actionable insights to improve future event marketing strategies.” 

For example, let’s say your goal is to have 500 participants register for your event. Typically, these are the KPIs you’d want to track – registration count, to get a direct measure of progress towards the target. Conversation rate to evaluate the efficiency of the registration process. Performance analysis of different marketing channels to identify the ones that are driving the most registrations. Time-to-registration to record the speed of sign-ups and potential bottlenecks. And, a referral tracking system to monitor the impact of word-of-mouth marketing. 

How do KPIs vary for virtual vs hybrid vs in-person events? 

For virtual events, you need to focus on attendance and viewership, tracking the number of participants and viewers, as well as engagement metrics like chat interactions and poll participation. You can also measure conversion rates through registration-to-attendance and engagement-to-lead conversion rates. If you’re hosting a hybrid event, you need to measure both virtual and in-person components, combining metrics such as online attendance, in-person attendance, and engagement across platforms. Lastly, if you’re hosting an in-person event, you need to emphasise on metrics like physical attendance, booth traffic, lead generation, and post-event surveys for feedback. 

10 event marketing KPIs you must track 

Registrations & RSVPs 

Tracking registrations helps you measure the level of interest and intent to attend your event. It also indicates the effectiveness of your marketing efforts in driving audience participation. By monitoring registrations and RSVPs, you can assess the success of your promotional campaigns, optimise your outreach strategies, and ensure that you meet your attendance goals. Additionally, tracking this metric helps you gauge the overall demand for your event and allocate resources accordingly. 

In fact, when tracking registrations and RSVPs, you can also consider tracking additional details like how many attendees are returning from previous events and how many people used promo codes to register. This will help you understand if your marketing strategies are bringing back familiar faces and which promotional campaigns are working well. 

Event Mentions 

Event mentions are an important way to measure the success of event marketing. It’s not just about the people who attend the event, but also how much others are talking about it. Event mentions include things like how many people are aware of the event, if any media outlets are covering it, how much people are sharing and talking about it on social media, and the overall excitement and buzz it generates. Tracking event mentions helps us see how much interest and attention the event is getting from a larger audience. 

Event Check-Ins 

Checking in attendees at the event, whether online or in person, helps you see how many people registered versus how many actually showed up. It’s an important way to spot any issues with registrants not attending. By keeping track of check-ins, you can figure out if you need to promote the event more as it gets closer to ensure people remember and attend. 

Pre, event, and post-event surveys 

Using pre, during, and post-event surveys is a helpful event marketing tool. Before the event, surveys gather expectations and preferences. During the event, they capture real-time feedback and attendee experience. Post-event surveys help assess satisfaction, gather testimonials, and identify areas for improvement, shaping future event strategies. 

For example, your pre-event survey can include questions like, which session or speaker they are most excited about, their reasons for registering, the topics they would like to see addressed, how they learned about the event, desired networking opportunities, and any additional expectations they have.  

NPS (Net Promoter Score) 

Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures attendee satisfaction and loyalty. It asks a simple question: “On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this event to others?” Based on their responses, attendees are categorized as promoters, passives, or detractors. For example, if many attendees give a high rating and become promoters, it indicates a successful event with potential for positive word-of-mouth promotion. 

Cost Per Lead 

Lead generation is a vital KPI in event marketing, and assessing the cost per lead is critical. It helps measure the efficiency of acquiring potential customers. For example, if your event marketing campaign costs $1,000 and generates 100 leads, the cost per lead for you would be $10, indicating the expense required to capture each potential customer’s information. 

Customer Lifetime Value 

As the name suggests, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) measures the long-term value generated by attendees. It calculates the total revenue an attendee generates throughout their relationship with the brand. For example, if a recurring attendee spends $500 per year and attends events for 5 years, their CLV would be $2,500, demonstrating the financial impact and loyalty of event attendees. 

Sponsor Satisfaction 

Sponsor satisfaction is a significant event marketing KPI  because it will help your brand maintain strong relationships with your sponsors and even make room for fostering future partnerships. This KPI will help you gauge their level of contentment with their sponsorship investment, the value they gained, and their overall experience. 

Sales-Qualified Leads 

Sales-Qualified Leads (SQLs) assess the quality and effectiveness of your lead generation efforts, indicating the potential for converting leads into paying customers. For example, if your event generates 50 SQLs, it demonstrates your event’s ability to attract and engage prospects who are more likely to convert into sales. 

Accounts Influenced 

In an account-based event marketing strategy, it’s important to track the accounts influenced by events and other marketing activities. This metric allows you to measure the impact of your events on target accounts, especially for B2B organisations with longer sales cycles. By understanding how events influence these accounts, you can quantify the value and effectiveness of your account-based marketing strategy. 

In conclusion, to make sure your event marketing is a success, it’s important to know which KPIs align with your event goals. You need to understand what you want to achieve so you can choose the right metrics to track. It’s also crucial to have all your data in one place. Otherwise, it can be a hassle to gather information from different sources like event management systems, mobile apps, and CRMs. That’s why using an event platform that integrates with multiple tools is smart. It makes it easier to access and analyse all your event data in one spot, saving you time and helping you make better decisions based on comprehensive insights. 

Merit’s Expertise in Marketing Data Intelligence 

Using our proprietary technology, we source, filter and qualify marketing data from thousands of online sources. We further enrich the data with expert research to deliver accurate contact lists that yield maximum conversion rates. Merit’s marketing data has proven to: 

• Multiply your event RoI with the best target data possible  
• Drive attendance at niche events and conferences 
• Be accurate, up-to-date and tailored for your exact audience  
• Be fully compliant (GDPR in particular), transparent and audit-friendly  

We are more than just a list broker; with a proven 10-year track record in building and validating over 100 million global contacts a year, our clients can rely on us to target relevant and engaging audience groups. 

To know more about Merit’s marketing expertise, visit https://www.meritdata-tech.com/service/data/marketing-data/