Event Management

Event Data Cheat Sheet: A Smarter Way to Use Event Data

Eventually Learning Team
10 July 2023
Read time  4 minutes 20 seconds

“Where there is data smoke, there is business fire.” – Thomas Redman

Data management is a case in point in modern-day event planning. The increased use of event technology has provided event marketers and organizers access to relevant data like:
  • Who registers vs who attends
  • What topics ateendees show the most interest in
  • Where attendees engage
  • Conversations attendees have with your team
  • Content preferences
Every interaction you have with your attendee or prospects allows you to personalize your follow-up, upcoming event experiences, and marketing communication, which further accelerates conversions.

In addition, the data collected should be decoded by your team and broken down into simpler bytes to extract valuable clues to amplify pre, in-event and post-event engagement. Finally, to become successful Event Optimizers, you will have to leverage data by integrating it across multiple attendee touchpoints – sales, communication, and marketing- to be represented as a competitive differentiator.

Event Data Points to Rope in at Every Stage of the Event

To get the most out of event analytics, you need to leverage tools that allow two-way integration with your CRM (client relationship management) and MAPs (marketing automation platforms).

Use the below points as a guide to collect valuable attendee data throughout their event journey.

Pre-event data collection units:
 
1) RSVPs
  • Registration data: names, emails, job titles, company/business and industry
  • Secondary data: preferences (content, food, topics, products, etc.), personal info (favorite speaker/artist, t-shirt size, etc.) and reference (how they got to know about your event)
  • Consent data: subscribe to marketing communications, opt-ins to data processing (privacy policies)
  • RSVP declines: no-show attendees and reasons for not attending
 
2) Event emails, promotions or sales
  • Source: event mediums (how they found out about your event)
  • Engagement: opens, click throughs, engagement time, etc.
3) Event landing page
  • Page Views
  • Conversion Rate
  • Bounce Rate

During the event data collection units:

1) Attendee check-ins
  • Attendee Count
  • No-Shows
  • Time spent throughout
2) Walk-in data
  • Scanned data through smart badges
  • QR Code Data
3) On-site surveys
  • Booths/Stations asking for live feedback after a product demo
4) Networking meetings
  • Business deals, partnerships, sales, etc.
5) Social media or press mentions
  • Likes, shares, comments, etc. (monitor what the audience engages with the most)

Post-event data collection units:

1) Post-event satisfaction surveys
  • Most-liked sessions, favorite speakers, suggestions for change, if any
2) Anecdotal evidence
  • Tabulate data collected with briefs from your event teams
3) Sales Outreach
  • Open rates, replies, follow ups, etc.

Make Savvy Decisions by Using Your Event Data

A B2B event marketer’s toolbox has undergone an upgrade with the addition of targeted and hyper-targeted data. As a result, data strategies have become an integral part of the entire event planning process. By using data for important event marketing activities like registration campaigns, curating event sessions and onboarding the most-liked speakers for event sessions, you can accelerate buyer journeys and attendee lifecycles.

Here are some practical ways to use event data for maximizing your event ROI:


Evaluate Event Progress With Custom Data Dashboards

How can you embed new ideas to provide transformational event experiences? Firstly, you will have to assess your performance in real-time by gathering data in an event recording data sheet from your event platform’s dashboard.

While your event is live, tracking real-time analytics like the number of active audiences, stakeholder interactions, number of attendees registering for workshops/sessions, etc., will help to evaluate your performance to make future events better. 


Provide Targeted Engagement Opportunities With Attendee Intelligence

With experiential CRM platforms like Splash, you can gather insights on even the minutest segments like the most valuable attendees and other community members. Then, using attendee intelligence, you can later track, filter and sort your elite attendees to provide them with tailored engagement opportunities suitable to their time and location.


Measure Business Impact With Real-time Event Data Integration

Event data fragments like attendee and registrant data should be synced with your CRM and marketing automation platforms in real-time. So what does an effectively integrated, automated platform look like?
  • Consistently tracks event registrations and check-ins
  • Syncs bi-directionally with CRMs and MAPs for easy collaboration between teams
  • Able to scan business cards/badges to import data in records in real-time
  • Can check new attendees on-site to ensure and update data collection records
Furthermore, how can you measure business impact with event data integration? Take a look!
  • Automated Automated data updates save labor hours monumentally and make event data readily available for future use
  • Data flows allow event marketers to craft personalized responses for email, direct messaging and push notifications
  • Captured data can help with lead generation, future registration campaigns, follow up emails and social media campaigns
  • Feedback data helps to troubleshoot queries

Wrapping Up

There’s no denying that event data impacts how organizers do their job. While collecting data in in-person events still results in a “data void,” your ability to manage, integrate and leverage event data will amplify in the future.

In addition, if we talk about the not-so-distant future, attendees will prefer to attend events that have been curated by considering their previous event interactions and suggestions in mind.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you collect data during an event?

Passive event data means indirect insights about your attendees. It can be collected by:
  1. Check-in apps
  2. Smart mats (New tech: It counts the footfall at your event)
  3. Heat maps (Gives you a virtual idea about the most buzzing areas)
  4. Facial recognition
  5. Social media analytics
  6. Wearables (NFC tags and RFID wrist bands monitor physical movements)
  7. Website analytics


How can you measure the success of your event with data?

Six ways to measure the success of your event are:
  1. Monitor social media activity
  2. Post-event surveys
  3. Measure revenues
  4. Conversion numbers
  5. Event app data like live attendee numbers, number of registrations and session engagement durations
  6. Sponsor recognition


How can you keep your attendee information safe?

Before collecting event attendee data, keep data privacy policies up to date. In addition, to keep attendee information safe, you can:
  • Secure a safe ticketing system
  • Keep your event tech up-to-date
  • Ensure the Wi-Fi connection is secure
  • Give attendees the option to opt-out of any data collection activities

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