How Do You Measure Success for Your Experiential Marketing Campaigns?
(8-minute read)
Executive summary: With careful planning and a mix of digital, and on-site reporting it is possible to measure success and support ROI expectations for any experiential marketing activation.
I have been challenged with this question again and again, especially for brands dipping their toes into experiential marketing for the first time. At some point in the discovery phase, I start to ask, "What do we think success will look like for this activation?" This becomes a conversation about primary and secondary outcomes for the brand and/or product owners as well as key metrics designed to determine the success of the event itself. This lends itself to discussion on reportable results, usually quantitative (ex. leads, conversions, number of guests/visitors, etc.), and qualitative (i.e., brand response, on-site and social engagement, direct feedback, user/attendee content, etc.). As the event starts to take shape, we will revisit this question typically dialing in what type of touchpoints and actions play a key part in capturing key performance indicators (KPIs). Digital is great at that, but it is not the only or best answer in every case.
So, what kind of helpful information can be collected?
Foot Traffic: Measure the number of people who visit your experiential marketing event or location. This can be tracked using physical counters or digital check-ins. Indirect and perhaps more telling is to cross reference this information against other data captured by active or passive RFID, Bluetooth, and/or WIFI connections (via opt-in).
These secondary methods may be built to support key digital activations for consumers, and the ability to connect and share their experience in the moment on social media.
Engagement Metrics: Look at how visitors interact with your campaign, such as the time spent at the event, the number of interactions with your brand ambassadors, or the level of engagement with interactive elements. Again, you can use various available tech solutions to accurately capture hot spots and dwell times to support this.
Determine what digital/online engagement metrics are most important throughout the life of the event (ex. number of visitors, bounce rates, pages viewed per session, etc.).
Social Media Metrics: Monitor social media activity, including mentions, shares, likes, and comments related to your campaign. Tracking hashtags and user-generated content can provide valuable insights.
Lead Generation: Measure the number of leads generated through the event. This can include sign-ups, contact information collected, or requests for more information and they can be captured -as you can imagine, in several different ways from scanned QR codes to pencil and paper.
Brand Awareness: Assess any changes in brand awareness through surveys, pre- and post-event, or by analyzing social media and PR coverage. Capturing this can also be part of the activation itself testing visitors/consumers on what they know about your product or brand -and more importantly, reporting on what they don't know.
Sales Conversions: If applicable, track the direct impact on sales and conversions resulting from the experiential marketing campaign. This gets tricky since consumers may buy the product the next day rather than on the spot and that's okay so long as you design the event to support that customer journey.
Customer Feedback and Surveys: Collect feedback from attendees to gauge their satisfaction and gain insights for improvements. These tend to garner low responses, so I am quick to reduce these to a few questions that are sprinkled throughout the activation to reduce fatigue/friction on the Attendee/Guest.
Return on Investment (ROI): Calculate the cost of the campaign against the benefits it generates. This might include increased sales, brand exposure, or lead generation. The most important thing is to have stakeholder agreement on those benefits and then drive reportable KPIs to support them.
Data Analytics: Utilize data analytics tools to gain insights into consumer behavior, preferences, and patterns before, during, and after the event. Examples of this include valuable information from websites, social media, and other sources including event registration, opt-in/sign-in, and custom digital moments (ex. AR/VR, interactive play, etc.)
Customer Loyalty and Retention: Assess the impact of the campaign on customer loyalty and retention rates. Are consumers more likely to become repeat customers? Or, first-time customers?
Valuable User Content: Evaluate the quality of content generated by consumers and influencers during the campaign. High-quality content can have a long-lasting impact after the activation.
Post-Event Sentiment Analysis: Analyze online discussions and sentiment regarding your brand and campaign after the event. Did it leave a positive impression on your target audience? Often, I will work with stakeholders to determine what these final key reportable metrics are as they pertain to the KPIs and help justify the activation's ROI.
Often, I take key quantitative metrics (ex. foot traffic, page views, number of registrants, etc.) and key desired actions (ex. buy the product, check-in, share on social media, etc.) and create a Success Index for the event. This is a weighted formula that allows the agency to then report back what that number is with great accuracy. Assuming there is agreement on the index formula before the activation it is then shared with other major metrics and indexes to create a manageable event scorecard that is then shared with the stakeholders post-event. This can be paired with pre-event and post-event scorecards to provide a more complete picture.
The real measure of success could be customer experience-related, ROI-related, or social-related. It depends on the goals of the campaign, whom you're reporting to, and if you are reporting on an event, a campaign, or the entire channel of experiential marketing. With careful planning and reportable metrics top of mind, you will begin to see a rich well of insights developing as you carry this methodology across multiple events and your day-to-day marketing operations.
About the Author
David is a U.S.-based creative marketing executive that defines and delivers DM & XM experiences that capture the moment, breathes life into the brand, connects people, and bridges technology, data, and behavioral economics to go well beyond "If you build it, they will come." He has created live brand experiences for Microsoft, Cisco, Rodan + Fields, and the NHL.