The 5 Most Important Event KPIs to Track to Ensure Event Success

Across the world, event attendees spent $1,100 billion on events in 2018 alone. 

Planning and hosting an event is no easy task. You have to juggle many stakeholders while simultaneously keeping a close watch on the many moving parts that make up an event. 

To keep going, you need to figure out how well (or not) your event is doing. A packed venue does not necessarily mean you have hit success, and neither does a less than full venue equates to failure. 

You need to identify the right metrics to track so that you can keep improving that important event you’re hosting. Here are five essentials things to help determine if you’re making progress with your event. 

1. Registration and Attendance

Gauging interest in your event is ideally the metric you should be most concerned with tracking. 

That’s because if people are interested in attending your event, all the other things you need to keep an eye on can follow suit. Conversely, if potential attendees register little interest in your event, then it’ll be hard to bring all the other aspects together. You may even end up not having anything to track. 

Zero in on the conversion rate for your event as this is where the rubber meets the road. 

To gauge this item, contrast the number of people to whom you sent the invite to against those who opened it. Doing so can point out the weaknesses and strengths of your email campaign, which you can use to improve future editions. 

Comparing the number of people who signed up for your event versus those who eventually showed up is also critical is uncovering your conversion rate. 

The latter figure is especially critical as it holds potential insights that can help you discover why those who wanted to come did not. When you can identify potential barriers to attendance, you can resolve them for better conversion rates in the future. 

2. App Analytics

In today’s event management universe, you need to deploy an app that can better serve both you and the attendees. 

On the customer-facing end, such an app can help you smooth out the registration process. An attendee can review their registration status and details without needing to get in touch with you. 

It, therefore, makes it convenient for them as they get to do all things related to signing up in one place that’s always accessible to them.

For you, an event app not only empowers you to deliver a tremendous customer Experience (which makes or breaks events), but you also generate much-valued analytics. 

With the app, you can create and disseminate live polls and surveys to your attendees. The feedback you receive from such polls can help you make better-informed decisions during the event in case a pivot is necessary. 

You can also get to see hard data concerning your speaker or performance lineup from the app analytics to gauge the attendees’ reactions. 

How those who came to the event connected or did no connect with the speaker or performer will become apparent from the data and go to helping you offer a better experience next time. 

Another critical area that app analytics can move the needle for you is in sponsor analytics. 

To make a case before future event sponsors, you need to show them hard numbers. Using an event app can help you deliver the statistics behind sponsor session views, app views, attendance views, etc. that prove your event is worth backing. 

3. Social Media Statistics

Pushing your event on social media before, during, and after is critical to broadening the audience base and increasing visibility. 

However, when you are tracking social media metrics, you need to be careful, or else you might end up caring about numbers that matter little to your event. 

When you’re setting the KPI for this metric, consider what matters to you. Are you interested in determining how brand awareness for your event panned out? Then looking at mentions on different social media platforms will be essential. 

What about tracking ticket sales to see if your event hit its target? Then tracking down the number of URLs from your social media platforms that directed traffic to your event’s landing site page is what will matter most.

Since social media metrics can be hard to quantify, you want to give context to them. For example, when assessing the particular aspects that matter to you, look at the last set of numbers versus what you now have. That way, you can determine if your efforts are bearing fruit.

4. Net Promoter Score

Net promoter score (NPS) is a metric to help you gauge how attendees feel about your event. Through this metric, you can investigate the effectiveness of your customer experience strategy and how loyal attendees are to your brand.

NPS is measured on a scale of one to ten. A score between one and six shows that the attendees would be least likely to recommend your event to others (detractors). 

Scoring between seven and eight indicates that an attendee liked your event but not enough to tell others about it (passives). The attendees that poll at nine to ten have a high motivation to recommend your event to others (promoters). 

To get your NPS score subtract the total number of detractors from the promoters. From there, you will know how attendees value your event, and by extension, your brand. 

5. Cost Per Head

Calculating the cost per head goes beyond looking at ticket sales. Identify and assess the total costs and revenue involved with your particular event. 

For example, if you sold a training at the event or leadership material that pulled in revenue, you ought to recognize these inflows as well. 

Furthermore, cost overruns don’t necessarily indicate a failed event. For example, if you spend more than you made but in return garnered above standard signatures, then the event was still successful in growing your topline. 

Make Your Important Event a Success

Putting an event together can feel like a superhuman feat, yet with proper planning and execution, you can repeat the success. Part of making your important event a success is knowing whether you are progressing or not. Identify the metrics that matter to you to continually check on your performance. 

Eventzilla is a platform designed to help you sell tickets online and manage your attendees with ease. Talk to us today to learn how you can lower your costs and grow your ticket sales.