H
ow do you track the success of your virtual event? Are there any quantifiable outcomes that are indicators of success? Would you be more confident if you knew what the true measures of success are? Let’s explore how you can measure the ROI of your events.
When you put in a lot of effort behind organising these events, you must calculate the ROI (Return On Investments). But how do you do that? To identify the ROI, you need to clearly define your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).
Let’s take a look at what these KPIs could be and how to use them for measuring the success of your next virtual event.
Table of Contents
What is a virtual event KPI?
A virtual event KPI is a metric that can help you identify how well your event performed. The planning stage offers the best time to create actionable KPIs. You can collaborate with all the key stakeholders to understand what outcomes you wish to achieve. A common KPI is the number of registrations you get for the event.
You can define the KPIs based on essential elements like monetary investment and expected returns. When you design the KPIs, all the stakeholders need to have a unanimous opinion about them. A post-event assessment will help you understand whether or not you should hold more of such virtual events.
Here are some virtual event KPIs to help you get started.
Virtual event KPIs
Number of participants registered and checked-in
Getting an adequate number of registrations is only one part of it. Equally important is to ensure that most registered participants also check in to the event. You would not want to have a scenario where there is a big gap between the two numbers.
When you conduct regular events, you can track these numbers regularly. It will help you set a benchmark that you would want to eclipse each time. It will also help you figure out what event had the most success. You can accordingly understand the preference of your audience.
Event participation time
You would ideally want all the participants to spend maximum time at the event. With regular events, you can set a benchmark related to the retention rate. You can consider your strategy to be working if the participation time increases with each event.
If several participants are dropping off mid-way, it would mean the engagement levels are not high. You can also assume that the event content did not match their expectations.
Repeat participation
If there is a large number of repeat participation from your audience, you are in store for some good news. They likely enjoy your brand and its content. Gathering and analyzing the attendee list can give you further insights into your audience.
Regular attendees can act as your brand’s patrons and also help spread positive word about your business on social media. You can also expect to have better chances of converting them.
Response to live poll
One of the best ways to keep the engagement rates high during an event is by conducting live polls. The participation and response of attendees can act as reasonable virtual event metrics to understand the audience engagement levels. It will help you get better insights to plan your future events better.
Audience questions
When participants raise several curious questions it means your audience liked the sessions. Some sessions and speakers might attract good interest, giving you an idea of what worked during the event.
Speaker feedback
It is one of the critical KPIs that will give you an idea of which speaker managed to keep the audience hooked. You can design a short Q&A survey and share it with your audience to understand their event experience.
A higher rating would, of course, mean that your audience liked the speaker. They would additionally want to hear more from them in the future. You can accordingly use the most popular speakers for other similar events.
You can also share the audience feedback with the speakers. It will help them understand what worked and what didn’t with the audience. Ultimately, this feedback will help everyone improve for future events.
Another aspect of this is to get feedback from the speaker itself. How easy and intuitive the platform was; whether presenting was easy; whether they were able to engage with their audience.
Chat engagement
Whether it is an in-person or virtual event, engagement and networking opportunities for the audience are a must. With virtual events, tracking the chat mediums is a good KPI to measure the audience engagement levels. A successful event will be the one where the chat mediums have a high frequency of messages.
Social media engagement
The engagement on social media platforms includes all the likes, comments, and shares you receive on event-related posts. There will also be a possibility that the number of followers and subscribers increase on your social media handles when you announce the event. It will be an indicator that you have successfully managed to raise brand awareness.
Social media mentions
Mentions on the accounts of your audience and fellow brands can be a great way to generate buzz around the event. It is possible through specific hashtags you created for the event.
A good number of mentions can prove to be beneficial. However, it is also essential to consider the quality of those mentions to understand whether your event was a success. You might get a lot of buzz around the event. But if it is without much substance, it might not be of any good.
Post-event survey response
Post-event feedback from the audience can be of several types. They might give rave reviews, negative reviews, or not offer any feedback at all. While the first two are self-explanatory, the third would mean that event was satisfactory. However, you might not have scored much in getting your audience engaged in the event.
Post-event content
It includes additional content related to sessions, presentations, or event recordings. If several visitors are accessing this content, it would mean that your event was a success.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
It is another critical KPI to measure the success of your event. You can add a list of substantial questions in your post-event survey to collect audience feedback. The questions can include the likelihood of your audience attending similar events in the future or recommending it to their peers.
You can also add questions related to improvements your audience would like to see at the next event. Ensure that the response options are in a numerical format to be easier for you to quantify the results later.
Lead generation and virtual event conversion rate
Most virtual events center around lead generation. Virtual event conversion rate can be the most important KPI for your event if generating leads was your prime objective. Getting qualified leads is much more important than simply getting leads. The type of leads and their trigger points will further help you understand what worked for you at the event.
Online search results and traffic
If your virtual event was a success, you could experience its benefits for at least 2-4 weeks. You can experience an increase in online search numbers about the brand. Furthermore, there will also be an increase in traffic on the website and social media handles.
It indicates that your event managed to increase the curiosity about your brand and services in your audience. There is a further likelihood of converting your prospects into regular customers.
Your KPIs should give you actionable insights!
There are several KPIs to determine the success of your event. A lot of them would depend on what was the purpose behind organising such an event. Whatever KPI you choose, make sure it gives you actionable insights to help you conduct your next event much better. Looking for ideas to host your next virtual event successfully? Contact us for a free demo today.
FAQs
Virtual event ROI is the value a business manages to generate from an event for the total cost that went into conducting it.
A good virtual event return on investment will be a healthy mix of success you managed to achieve by analyzing various KPIs.
Event ROI calculator helps calculate the ROI of an event. The best way to calculate the ROI of a virtual event is to divide the profit by expenses.
You can use a variety of virtual event metrics like the number of sessions attended by participants, poll participation, chat room activity, and much more.
You can give event sponsors a virtual presence, audience data, and follow-up opportunities to help them increase their sponsorship ROI.
