Digital live launch of a dazzling new automobile, a speech by cum laude at a university graduation, or a panel discussion of human rights activists - the list is indefinitely expansive. What is definite is that almost every single working professional on the planet had a taste of some virtual event during the pandemic.
Marketers and institutions faced the abruptness of change at the workplace amid mounting unease and uncertainty about the change.
The abruptness of change at the workplace was faced by marketers and institutions amid a mounting unease and uncertainty of the change.
The growth is expected to continue at a compounded annual rate of 23.7% until 2028, primarily driven by the widespread adoption of video conferencing solutions such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Hangouts by various industries in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Hence, the response that was devised almost overnight is commendable and is expected to stick with us in our future workplace: 93% of marketers plan to continue virtual events into the post-pandemic world.
Business leaders deciding to convene virtual or hybrid events are necessarily targeting winning sales and growth event KPIs. Therefore, deploying a good analytical tool to quantify event success and visualize the raw data of these events is the highest priority for the decision makers today.
This guide is a comprehensive study of virtual events success metrics. It also brings into light the future of work, to better perceive the role of virtual events.
Read ahead to master the KPI for events financial and receptive outcomes of virtual events.
The Future of Work
So, what lies in the backdrop of the winning strategies of virtual events by corporations, educational institutions, and healthcare professionals? To best understand the event success KPIs for events, it is imperative to look at the driving force behind them.
McKinsey’s report, The Future of Work after Covid-19, brings to the fore how “the pandemic accelerated existing trends in remote work, ecommerce, and automation”. The highest level of disruptions happened in professions that had the “highest proximity” requirements, with healthcare topping the charts. All other professions are also highly likely to undergo rapid adjustment to digital ways of working in response to the post-pandemic recovery.
With that driving force determined, we move forward to understanding how an organization can maximize its ROI by breaking down its virtual event KPIs.
What is a Virtual Event?
Chances are, you've probably tuned into a webinar online, taken part in an on-demand workout session, or hopped into a virtual meeting using a video conferencing tool.
Some of you might have even attended a conference without leaving the comfort of your desk. These are all instances of what we call virtual events.
In simple terms, a virtual event is when people participate in an event and its content through the internet instead of physically coming together in one place.
Zoom has been the go-to choice for virtual events and conferences, but it's worth noting that other platforms have also experienced significant growth in the number of events and their revenue.
Notably, Zoom's stock price skyrocketed during the pandemic, reaching an impressive $560 in the fall of 2020.
Virtual Event KPIs
A clear understanding of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is imperative for a high ROI. You can come up with virtual event KPIs by determining the estimated outcomes for the stakeholders. Virtual event KPIs are commonly associated with the following break-up of pre, during, and post event phases:
Pre-event KPIs: Pre-event benchmarks are the number of registrations and website or page views. Another KPI to be considered is monetization or sponsorship to generate interest and incentivize the invitees.
During event KPIs: Social or listening monitoring, actual number of attendees, and real-time chat conversions.
Post-event KPIs: Pipelines generated, future customers, closed businesses, worth of won businesses, number of scheduled interactions, number of conversations held.
Let’s reiterate that all event KPIs must be aligned with the objectives behind a virtual event. Virtual events are highly outcome-oriented and a thorough vetting at each stage of setting event KPIs is critical to a high ROI and churn.
Harvard Business Review study on virtual events accentuates the claim: With achievable event KPIs in place, 50% of businesses say that virtual events drive more value than other marketing channels. 64% of businesses want to move to virtual events.
Key Metrics for Evaluating Virtual Event Success
Here are several important metrics to consider on how to measure event success. These metrics provide valuable insights into the event's effectiveness and impact:
1. Counting Registrations Before the Event
So, always check when measuring how well an event is doing how many people are signing up. Before the event even starts, a lot of work goes into promoting and marketing it to encourage people to register.
The more people you can get to sign up, the better.
Virtual events typically have impressive landing pages where attendees can register with a simple click. This landing page is their first introduction to your event. It's where you can welcome them, give them an overview of the event's agenda, and, most importantly, get them to register.
The more registrations you get, the more it signals the success of the event.
Tip: Using the appropriate event registration software, virtual events can offer reduced registration fees, making them more affordable and accessible to attendees. This, in turn, attracts a larger audience, allowing event organizers to boost attendance rates and enhance their return on investment (ROI).
2. Keeping Track of Sign-Ups on the Event Day
This is an important metric because the success of your event directly depends on the number of attendees who show up.
Fortunately, virtual platforms keep an accurate count of all the sign-ups, giving you real-time information about who's joining in at any moment.
It's not surprising that 60% of virtual event organizers rely on social media as a powerful tool to generate substantial event registrations.
So, what this data does is that it highlights the effectiveness of your marketing efforts as people sign up on the event day.
Virtual platforms also track sign-ups for specific event segments, such as webinar sessions, live speaker sessions, or seminars.
3. Engaging Attendees at Booths and Speaker Sessions
Your virtual event's success depends on attendee engagement. When attendees sign up, they can interact with your representatives at virtual booths or attend live segments.
Some may prefer live 1:1 or group chats, while others may choose to attend live or recorded webinar sessions. The level of engagement is a key indicator of your event's success.
The live engagement you want from your audience can take various forms of event KPI’s, including:
- Webinar Visits
- Booth Activities
- Chat Engagement
- Q&A Sessions
- Polls and quizzes
- Roundtable Discussions
- Game participation
- Photo Booth Visits, and breakout sessions.
4. Tracking Direct Website Traffic During the Event
Direct website visits are another important metric that adds value to your virtual event. After the live event concludes, monitoring the number of website visits is essential.
People will likely visit your brand's website to explore products and services and interact with your organization. This is a safe way for potential leads to engage with your brand after the event.
We recommend creating an event-specific landing page or web page with information about the event, agenda, and what attendees can gain from it.
Your website traffic is a crucial factor that brings substantial value to your organization. Therefore, pre-and post-event marketing efforts should focus on directing people to your business website.
Implementing call-to-action buttons that direct attendees to the event page or website is a good practice. The goal here is to expand your network by any means necessary, so don't hesitate to link your website, social media, or email to guide traffic in the right direction.
Tips: Ensure your photos are high-quality and regularly refresh them. Don't forget to showcase the full product experience so potential buyers understand what they're getting.
Effective marketing of yourself and your products plays a crucial role in hosting a successful online event.
5. Measuring Conversion Rates During the Live Event
The primary purpose of hosting virtual events is to expand your reach, establish new connections, and generate leads and conversions. With virtual events, your brand is showcased globally, attracting interest from a wider audience.
It's your responsibility to nurture and convert these leads. Virtual events offer automated lead conversion opportunities. According to data from Factory, event leads tend to convert at a rate of around 55%.
For example, organizations often host virtual exhibitions, trade shows, sales events, and product launches to appeal to a global clientele.
Prospective clients express interest in your brand and engage immediately. With online shopping carts, virtual attendees can make real-time purchases. To keep your audience engaged with your brand, aim to provide a memorable event experience.
Lead conversion reflects overall attendee retention and is a key indicator of the event's return on investment (ROI) success.
6. Feedback from Polls, Questionnaires, and Quizzes
To ensure a successful virtual event, keeping your audience engaged is crucial. Half of your audience seeks opportunities to interact and participate in the event. Conducting live polls, Q&A sessions, and quizzes is an effective way to receive direct audience feedback.
Live polls can cover various topics and enhance audience engagement, whether during a webinar session, roundtable discussion, or keynote speech.
Responses gathered from polls, questionnaires, Q&A sessions, and quizzes provide valuable insights into your event's success.
As per a report from Kaltura, those who organize large-scale virtual events highlight the following top three advantages: a boost in registrations (36%), improved return on investment (ROI) (26%), and heightened attendee engagement (25%).
7. Evaluating Social Media Engagement
Measuring the success of a virtual event can also be done through social media engagement. Social media is where people actively interact with news and information. When marketing your virtual event, share relevant content on social media platforms.
You can easily track social media analytics, such as the number of likes, comments, shares, and saves, to gauge interest in your event.
Additionally, those who couldn't attend the event may still express their thoughts and views on social media.
Getting valuable insights into what people say about your event and their perceptions from an outsider's perspective. Creating an event hashtag can help your event reach the right target audience.
Tip: Share longer, authentic posts and stories on LinkedIn based on your personal experiences. These posts, ranging from 100 to 250 words, can significantly boost the value and traffic for your event.
8. Assessing Revenue Generated
Ultimately, the success of your virtual event can be measured by the revenue it generates. To gauge the overall success, calculate the revenue generated. Virtual platforms provide real-time metrics on potential leads converted, successful sales, and overall income.
You can track the number of tickets sold, funds received, additional sales, and profits earned through sponsorships.
Revenue-related event KPI’s help you analyze how well your event performed for your organization.
9. Gathering Feedback from Post-Event Surveys
Your audience is a valuable source of honest feedback regarding the success of your event. Conducting live polls and event surveys forms at the end of the virtual event allows attendees to share their thoughts on event segments, speaker sessions, and discussions.
Event surveys and feedback serve as a guide for deciding what to continue or improve for your next event. Involving attendees in the feedback process helps them feel included and valued.
Outcomes of a virtual event
Virtual events have been part of the remote presence of corporations for some time but now, as industries transform and business models shift, a remote effect has been triggered, observers the aforementioned report by McKinsey. The corporations will continue to have remote work and online meetings, representing a four to five times increase compared to before the pandemic.
The big question is: Will the virtual events promise the same fluid networking opportunities as the in-person events? Business executives are likely to be split on this; however, there are some areas which are the home base to virtual events:
Attract more attendees: Open house events, new product launches? If no travel is required, there is a possibility that more B2B and B2C clients will sign up for your event. The world just shrunk a little bit.
Apple Inc. did five global, virtual launches in 2021 and its virtual conferences were termed “one of the biggest events” of the year by Bloomberg. These virtual events engaged over 2 million users around the world in a single live event (and perched them over the edge of their couches).
Apple showcased its impressive range of engineers and creative artists, unraveling its new iOS and devices; Apple sales actually surged upwards over $90 billion amid COVID. Well, be bedazzled.
Lower cost, increased ROI: In-person events can be expensive because of costs of traveling, lodging, meals, renting, and so much more! Virtual events cost less to execute the show-time, therefore, the likelihood of lowering costs and increasing ROI is much more evident.
Talking about costs, let’s hear what Priyadarshani, Head of Marketing for Japan and Asian Pacific, MediaMath, says about costs: “We focus on enterprise selling, and about 50% of our event marketing budget is dedicated to events."
Assess valuable metrics: Virtual events make a strong case of use of analytics. Use the generated analytics and you can easily shape your strategy, draw forecasting models, and offer a scalable solution to future events.
Engage and generate demand: Virtual events can be the starting point to actually bring in all those who participated in an event or even had a no-show. You have just created a customer pipeline and can now pitch an offer that might matter.
Eric Stahl, Senior Vice President of Product Marketing, Salesforce Integration Cloud, put it better: “We like to focus on the amount of pipeline that's generated by our events, and track that pipeline right down to actual sales."
Convert attendees into clients In-person events may actually not be that effective in converting attendees into clients. The in-person corporate events are a huge bustling affair and you may not get a chance to respond to a prospective client in time. Conversely, a virtual event may give you the opportunity to do so.
How are some big companies seeing virtual events? Julie Hogan, Global Face-to-Face Marketing Director at Facebook and Instagram says, "Face-to-face interactions at these events are incredibly important and powerful, and create very meaningful connections for us."
Challenges to virtual event success metrics
The B2C Challenge: Virtual event success metrics need a different evaluation in B2C businesses. Harvard Business Analytics Services states that B2B businesses spend around 29% of their event marketing budget on virtual events, compared to 19% of the budget spent by B2C businesses.
The main challenge is for those B2C, where customers still prefer to see, touch, and apply the product in events, as observed by Nicholas Glandon of MAC Cosmetics. (HBR Analytics)
Fast growth challenge: Virtual events are inevitably held more often by the fastest-growing companies. Facebook and Yelp conduct hundreds of live events to connect with customers and they have increased their virtual events considerably in the past four years. Therefore, successful investments in virtual events can be a challenge for companies that don’t have a fast growth projection.
The metrics challenge: Virtual events post very enthusiastic numbers for the B2Bs and fastest-growing companies, as observed above; however, there is still a considerable challenge faced by C-suite executives and marketing leaders who believe that there is no “hard return” in virtual events as it is with other forms of event marketing. So, how is ROI calculated?
How to measure event success - ROI explained
How to measure event success by tracking ROI: In HBR survey, 22% of the companies “didn’t know” how they would calculate the ROI from their virtual events. 55% were not able to track ROI and only 23% were able to calculate their ROI.
What are the major metrics used to calculate ROI: In the study conducted by HBR analytics, here is the breakdown of how the respondents deployed metrics to calculate ROI:
- 64% used the number of attendees
- 56% used the number of qualified sales leads
- 48% used brand awareness
- 41% used social press mentions
- 40% used amount of sales pipelines generated
Bad leads or top-funnel problem: If a company does not define a way to calculate ROI, it is working at the top-funnel only, that is, to generate brand awareness. However, it is possible to generate a lot of registrations but it is likely that one is generating “bad leads” or leads that don’t represent any sales, observes Stahl of Salesforce.
So a more accurate take on how to measure the success of your event is to keep track of the pipelines and “track that pipeline right down to actual sales”.
Tracking every single attendee: Like Stahl likes to track down the pipeline, a similar approach is adopted by Keller of Navigant, where every single attendee from every company is tracked down, with their previous purchase data of 12-24 months as well.
This data helps navigate “estimate how likely we would have been to win that project if we hadn’t held the event. We can demonstrate that we generate revenue 10 times our investment, so we know that event is very profitable”.
Track to decide when and why to hold events: Tracking attendees is not only important because it gives us an estimate of profits and sales, rather this data is valuable in ascertaining whether we should conduct another event and when.
Track to justify further investment: The event metrics are critical in directing a company’s investment compass. Is the event marketing budget of virtual events giving returns? Marketers must decide on clear metrics that truly matter to the company because that’s the indicator “to justify further investments in a given location or format,” Priyadarshani of MediaMath.
Using technology to calculate virtual event metrics
Owing to the critical importance of event metrics and the huge impact they can exert on your company’s investment and returns profile, several marketers use event management companies’ metrics that can leverage technology to measure the success through event metrics.
Improved data with an event management company: With an event management company in place, companies have reported a 40% increase in their ability to track metrics that matter, not just the top-funnel or awareness metrics, 39% increase in attendance and improved registration process. Companies reported a 30% increase in attendee experience and a 26% increase in event planning and sales strategy.
ROI with technology by event management companies: As previously observed, ROI through virtual events is not a straightforward count of registrations, attendees or the number of such events held.
The real ROI, that is hard to measure, is made easy with technology adoption that does the calculation with insight and scalability.
A detailed mapping of metrics against the calculation of ROI is very promising for event management companies that provide analytics with visible data showing improvement in all of the following virtual event metrics by 7-23% increase in metrics:
- Number of attendees
- Number of qualified leads
- Brand awareness
- Amount of sales pipelines
- Press/social mentions
- Customer retention/loyalty
- Prospects accelerated down-funnel
- Amount of new revenue sourced
- Cost per opportunity generated
Go Virtual with Oreed. Master The Success Event Metrics
In view of the encouraging data from leading, fastest-growing companies, it is imperative that virtual events will continue to grow in number and prospects. As these events bring in a strong, real customer base, more organizations will need scalable and targeted event metrics evaluation by companies like Oreed.
Oreed is a complete event management solution offering services in KSA, MENA, the US, the UK, and Canada. Its CRM streamlines the entire process of a virtual event starting from event planning till execution of the event, and highlights the success metrics for a high ROI.
Oreed is for all B2B and B2C clients who use an online event to generate sales, train employees, or hold educational services. With Oreed you can achieve more using a single platform, such as:
- Sending attendee invitations
- Bulk or individual emails and SMS
- Virtual event streaming
- Integrated payment solution with secure gateways
- Reminders and attendance statistics
- Attendee pipeline generation
- Certifications for attendees
- Event metrics and ROI calculation using centralized data and more.
Is it business showtime? Find an agile, scalable, and 360-degrees solution to your virtual events with Oreed.
