How do you measure the performance of your digital events and webinars?
Do you look at the number of attendees or registrations? Do you check the engagement metrics as well? Do you make the effort to calculate the return on investment?
Unlike marketing campaigns, where there are tons of metrics to track, marketers often get confused when it comes to tracking the performance of digital events. Some rely solely on the number of registrations, while others dig deeper and track more metrics.
Want to know more metrics that you can track to measure the performance of your digital events and webinars?
Here are four important metrics that you can start with. Let’s discuss each of these metrics, one by one, along with reasons why they are important.
1. Number of Registrations
This is probably the one metric that anyone who has ever held a digital event or webinar tracks. After all, the more people who register for your event, the more successful your event is, right?
However, this should not be the sole metric that you track to measure the performance of your digital events, and here’s why.
- The number of registrations is not always the same as the number of attendees, which means that many people who register might not attend your event. This means that you probably did not get the most relevant registrations in the first place.
- If you held a paid event, then the number of registrations gives you an idea of how much you earned. Still, you also need to take into account how much you spent before you can declare that event as a success.
Overall, this is an important metric to track, but should always be accompanied by other metrics like ROI and number of attendees.
2. Registrant-to-Attendee Ratio
This is the metric that shows you how many of your registrants actually attended your event.
This metric should be much higher for paid events than free events. After all, if you have paid for something, then you are more likely to take advantage of it.
For free events, however, this metric is also important as it tells you if you were able to target relevant people and get the right people to register. If you had a maximum limit after which you closed the registrations, then the people who registered but did not attend are a waste.
Clearly, this is an important metric that you should definitely track. You can calculate it by simply dividing the number of attendees by the number of registrations. You can also convert this ratio into a percentage to get the registrant-to-attendee conversion rate.
3. Engagement
Just like with any other type of content, the engagement during digital events and webinars can also be calculated by the views, comments, etc.
However, there are some additional ways to check engagement for your digital events.
Want to know what these are?
Here you go.
- Questions asked during the Q&A session
- Responses to surveys, polls, etc.
- Messages in group chat
- Resource downloads
The next time you organize a digital event, don’t forget to check these to see if your event was engaging for your audience or not.
4. Return on Investment
Return on investment for digital events is calculated the same way as for anything else, by dividing the profits by cost and multiplying by one hundred.
However, it might be a bit tricky for you to find the cost, especially if you want to account for the time spent on organizing the event. You can do that by multiplying the hours by pay-per-hour for each team member involved to arrive at the total cost.
Not many marketers make the effort to calculate ROI for digital events and rely mainly on attendance and engagement metrics. However, ROI is the most important metric to track as it will show you a clear picture of what you spent and recovered from your event.
Conclusion
These are some of the most important metrics that you should track for your digital events. To learn more, check out the below infographic by FLOW.
Belal has had a 30-year international business career spanning energy and technology. He has a BEng in Electronic Systems and a Masters in Business. His passion is strategic problem solving through technology.
- Metrics to Measure the Performance of Digital Events and Webinars - September 23, 2020
