Explori Blog

Unlock Exhibit Success: The 7 Data Pillars You Need to Track

Apr 17, 2025

Event Success - 7 Data Pillars to Success Are you tired of guessing whether your trade show was truly effective? Do you want a clear, data-backed understanding of what's working and what's not? Then you need a robust exhibit measurement strategy and a powerful & easy to use platform developed by Explori. It all starts with their best practice framework of the seven data pillars of our exhibit evaluation tool, Maxbi. Let's dive into the seven data pillars that Maxbi champions: Expo Characteristics: It all begins with context. Understanding the "who, what, when, and where" of the event is fundamental. Maxbi's wizard prompts you to record details like the expo's name, date, location, and the industry it serves. This contextual data is crucial for anchoring your results and enabling valuable year-on-year comparisons for specific events. Booth Details: Your physical presence matters. Maxbi encourages you to capture specifics about your booth, such as its size, whether it was a custom build, and the number of booth personnel on-site. Correlating these booth characteristics with your performance metrics can reveal powerful insights into the impact of your physical setup. Sentiment Data: Numbers don't tell the whole story. Maxbi recognizes the growing importance of sentiment-based KPIs by prompting feedback from your team about their thoughts and feelings regarding the booth and the overall trade show experience. This qualitative data adds a valuable layer of understanding to your quantitative metrics. Budget Allocation: Where did your money go? This seemingly obvious pillar is crucial for effective exhibit budget management. Maxbi encourages you to categorize your exhibit spending, allowing for insightful comparisons across your entire exhibit program and providing a clear view of where your investments are being directed. Strategic Execution: Planning and preparation are key. Maxbi delves into the strategic decisions made before and during the event. This includes how far in advance you booked your booth, your pre-show promotion efforts, and the team you selected to represent your organization. Analyzing the correlation between these strategic elements and your performance scores helps identify winning strategies. Objectives: Why were you there? This is a core pillar, and a key element of Maxbi's approach, driving its Return on Objectives (ROO) algorithm. Recognizing that lead generation isn't always the sole goal, Maxbi emphasizes defining and weighting all your objectives – be it brand perception, product launches, or customer engagement. Scoring the achievement of these objectives provides a strategically critical ROO score. Leads: The lifeblood of many businesses. Finally, Maxbi focuses on lead data, prompting you to record targets, actual numbers, and the qualification split (hot, warm, cold). This allows your dashboard to provide robust financial value insights into your leads and different lead types. While not the only measure of success, lead generation remains a vital objective for many exhibitors. By embracing these seven data pillars, as outlined by Maxbi, you can move beyond superficial evaluations and build a comprehensive exhibit measurement strategy. This framework empowers you to gain deeper insights into your performance, optimize your future, and ultimately, unlock true exhibit success. Stop guessing and start knowing – the power lies in the data.

Trade shows and the pandemic effect

Nov 28, 2022

The effect of the pandemic on the events industry has been well-charted; you would be forgiven for thinking you knew the whole story. Explori has access to event feedback data collected from attendees and exhibitors at 4,000 trade shows in 50 countries, a dataset that is representative of 200 million trade show experiences. This data tells the story of thousands of individual events, but at an aggregate level it also provides an unparalleled view of just how the pandemic has shaped the industry – for better and for worse. All of Explori’s post-event surveys collect attendee and exhibitor data to create key benchmarking metrics. These benchmarks allow event teams to compare individual events against industry standards, and to track the progress of their own events over time. So what can these metrics reveal about how the industry has changed – and how should this knowledge inform event strategy? Post-pandemic, NPS is on the up One of Explori’s key benchmarks is the event’s Net Promoter Score, or NPS score, which measures how likely a participant in a particular trade show is to recommend the event to a friend or colleague. In previous years, the average NPS score for trade shows remained relatively static, moving by a few points at most year-on-year. From 2021, however, when events began to take place in person once again, the NPS average shot up by almost 20 points. Good news? It’s not quite so simple… The complicated role of event importance When a previously stable datapoint changes dramatically, it’s a clear sign that something is happening behind the scenes. After years of pandemic-induced disruption, professionals in every industry looked forward to the return of business-as-usual trade shows. Some events began to return, tentatively, to in-person formats. The importance of these events – another of Explori’s benchmarks – was increased by the scarcity of the last few years, with each event representing a rare opportunity to connect with colleagues in-person. We all want our events to be thought of as important – right? Well – yes. But the importance isn’t always a dependable metric. A show might be rated as important by attendees one year because its only competitor was cancelled, or because – hypothetically – it’s the first time the show is going ahead after, say, an unprecedented global pandemic shut down in-person events for two years. That benefits the show in that particular year – but what about the year after, or the year after that? Analysis by Explori found evidence of an ‘importance bump’, meaning that enhanced importance scores can inflate the NPS of events with lower satisfaction scores, another Explori benchmark. Events with high importance scores and low satisfaction scores tend to pull in ‘hostage’ attendees, who are there in the absence of a better option – leaving the event vulnerable to disruption. The reality is that NPS scores should not be considered in isolation – we need to be looking at what’s going on under the hood. Higher NPS scores may be indicative of a post-pandemic bubble, rather than telling us that events are back and better than ever. In fact, a closer look at the data tells us that attendee and exhibitor needs have changed significantly in this new era. Redefining success: Quality over quantity What do you imagine when you picture a successful trade show? Walkways thronged with people; a rising swell of conversation; meetings at stands, in lounges, over lunches. Understandably, many of us equate high attendance with success. And yet Explori’s data suggests that there is no correlation between the number of visitors and exhibitor satisfaction scores. Four in five exhibitors say that visitor quality has a strong influence on their decision to exhibit at a given show, compared to three in five who say the same for visitor quantity. Creating a positive exhibitor experience is clearly integral to the success of a show, and Explori’s analysis has found that higher exhibitor NPS scores lead to higher spend. So what else are exhibitors looking for? Post-pandemic, exhibitors are more likely to give an event a high NPS score if they feel they were able to meet with existing customers and launch new products into the market. Conversely, generating new sales leads and taking orders were less likely to correlate with high NPS scores, indicating that sales-based objectives have taken a backseat. Attendees, too, are keen to meet disruptive exhibitors bringing new products into the market. Post-pandemic, successfully discovering innovative products and solutions is the biggest driver of attendee satisfaction. What does this mean for event organizers? Exhibitor satisfaction is crucial. Trade show organizers should work closely with their exhibitors to understand their objectives and take the time to train them so they can work at their best. Organizers should shift their focus, prioritising quality of attendees and exhibitors over quantity. Armed with the data, event organizers should feel bold enough to attract fewer, higher-quality visitors. The exhibitor mix is also incredibly important. Attendees report higher satisfaction when they attend trade shows that introduce them to new, market-disrupting suppliers and products. The most nimble, disruptive exhibitors tend to be smaller, newer organizations, with smaller marketing budgets. Alternative pricing models that moved away from a strict price-per-square-metre format could make it much more attractive for these organizations to exhibit.

How do corporates really feel about returning to live events?

Nov 19, 2021

This month, Explori’s Sophie Holt was invited by M&IT magazine to shares findings from the latest Global Recovery Insights study 2021, which reveals how corporate event professionals and their businesses really feel about returning to live events… Originally created for M&IT Magazine The great comeback One year on and businesses who regularly exhibit at trade shows are still sorely missing live events. While the absence of trade shows has meant some resources have been diverted into other channels, businesses have been unable to replicate the value of trade shows in key areas. 66 per cent of businesses reported reduced networking opportunities and 44 per cent felt fewer leads had been generated due to the lack of live trade shows. As a result, both visitors and exhibitors are now eager to participate in events at roughly the same frequency as they did pre‐pandemic (2018/19). With 72 per cent of existing visitors saying they plan to attend trade shows at the same or increased frequency, this indicates a positive appetite from attendee audiences for the return to the show floor. For exhibitors at trade shows, the intention to participate in future events has also returned to pre‐pandemic levels, with 62 per cent planning to exhibit at the same or increased frequency as before. Will the money return? While some event marketers are still having to reduce their trade show budgets, overall the cuts have been less severe and less widespread than feared. Three quarters of exhibiting businesses expect their budget to return to pre‐pandemic levels within 12 months. Spending on corporate events may also decrease, but like trade shows, the impact seems less severe than was suggested in 2020. Interestingly, there is evidence that event marketers are prepared to protect investment in the shows they do choose to support, suggesting that high‐quality shows could be protected from budget cuts. Of the marketers who will reduce their spend, three quarters are looking to exhibit at fewer shows and half will reduce their spend on travel and accommodation. However, of the respondents planning to save money by exhibiting at fewer shows, 60 per cent will maintain their spend on design and build and 67 per cent will continue to invest the same amount in floor space. Unlike previous years where visitor numbers were the driving factor, 86 per cent of businesses exhibiting stated visitor quality is a large influence on their decision to support a show, against 67 per cent who are influenced by visitor numbers. This ‘quality is judged primarily through previous experience at a show, suggesting established shows with high Net Promoter Scores (NPSs) are well placed to attract investment, but shows that are highly recommended are also valued, with over half of respondents saying this has a bearing on their decision. Going digital Across the entire survey, there is no evidence to suggest a wholesale shift away from live events towards digital – budgets for virtual events have remained flat. Whilst visitors appreciate the time and cost savings offered by digital and find it a convenient way to consume content, live events are still preferred across every aspect of the experience due to their unique ability to offer a high quality of networking and overall experience. For exhibit marketers and sponsors, the live experience is still valued across all aspects, and above hybrid. Only 64 per cent of exhibitors have participated in a digital event, up from just 52 per cent 12 months previously. Explori’s exhibitor NPSSM benchmark for digital events sits well below that for live events. This suggests exhibitors’ experience at digital events is a significant challenge for organisers who wish to pursue revenue for a digital model. Is hybrid the best of both worlds? Hybrid events would seem to have the potential to combine the best of live networking and discovery with the best of digital content consumption. However, the cohort of visitors who have experienced a hybrid event were not enthusiastic about them. While better than a purely digital event, hybrid was seen as a detraction from the live event and there is evidence that hybrid events are waning in popularity as live events return. Is there any future for digital and hybrid? Previous studies have shown that digital had the potential to attract new audiences, particularly where the show was new. This has been borne out by the many events which have seen an increase in visitor numbers to their digital shows. It appears this new digital audience has the potential to convert to a live audience in future, with around half of exhibitors and visitors saying they would be highly likely to attend an event in‐person given the chance, having previously discovered it digitally. The Panel For the first time, the Global Insights report surveyed a senior group of UK and US decision-makers who had no experience of using trade shows as part of their marketing mix prior to the pandemic. The results revealed that this group had been much more digitally engaged over the previous 12 months, having been much more likely to sponsor a digital event or organise their own than our exhibitor respondents. This group is also interestingly more likely to convert from digital participation to in‐person participation than either current visitors or exhibitors. They were also highly likely to continue to participate in digital with over two‐thirds saying they would continue to run their own digital events and sponsor and exhibit at third‐party digital events. Most strikingly, 55 per cent of this group now believe that they will exhibit at in‐person trade shows more frequently. What will the future of trade shows look like? The research identified four key findings regarding the future of trade shows. Digital has the potential to broaden both the exhibitor and visitor audience. It will play a part in enhancing communities around the event, providing better access to content and a more curated experience. The quality of the audience over quantity of numbers will rise in value. Future organisers will focus on engaging the highest quality audience and the narrative will shift away from selling based on the number of attendees. As a result, the floor plan will change. Future organisers will offer a range of sponsorships and activations to help exhibitors capitalise on more curated, meaningful engagement with high-quality visitors, rather than focusing on footfall. Booth design and exhibit strategy will change accordingly. Future organisers will also work more collaboratively with exhibitors at trade shows to ensure that the value proposition, both on and offline, is designed in conjunction with the exhibitor’s objectives and maximise investment is fully understood. In summary The Global Recovery Insights survey reflects the optimism felt by the exhibition industry that live events are returning to pre‐pandemic levels. Budget cuts have not been as harsh as predicted and spending is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels within an average show cycle. Quality shows are likely to be protected and digital has opened up new opportunities to convert naysayers to the power of live! The research was conducted by the live events research specialists Explori, in partnership with UFI and supported by SISO, has just been published. The global quantitative survey of trade show visitors and exhibitors, carried out in the summer of 2021, collectively gained 15,000 responses representing trade show participation in over 30 countries. The full Global Recovery Insights report is now available to download here.

11 most important post event survey questions for attendees

Jan 27, 2021

How do you know if your event is a success? Better yet, how do you know if your attendees will be back next year? The explosion in event technology means organisers have more data than ever about how attendees are engaging with events. From the number of meetings booked to sessions attended and questions asked. However, this data isn’t capable of telling you why. Why are attendees engaging, and will they come back to your next event? This is where surveys come into play. For the last decade, Explori have been helping organisers use surveys to gather post-event feedback to develop more customer-centred event portfolios. We benchmark attendee experience for over 3,000 events globally, and analyse over 3 million data points on attendee and exhibitor sentiment. We are a trusted research partner for the Global Association for the Exhibition Industry (UFI) supplying annual reports to organisers. Our expertise lies in creating surveys that provide strategic insights to event teams. In this post we will share with you our definitive list of post-event survey questions. We will give you nine questions you can use in a live or virtual event survey and two bonus questions to include in your virtual event survey. What is a post-event survey? A post-event survey is a questionnaire. It is normally distributed via email to visitors, exhibitors, speakers, people who registered but did not attend, and any other participants. The survey normally consists of a combination of multiple/single choice and open-ended questions. The purpose of sending a post-event feedback survey is to understand the event through the eyes of attendees. Post-event surveys are crucial to any organiser interested in adopting a more customer-centred approach to their events. Types of survey questions There are different types of questions you can include in your post-event survey depending on the type of data you want to collect: Rating scales - measures the level of agreement with a question that can be quantified for reporting. It’s best to use a 5-point scale to avoid skewing survey responses. Multiple choice - useful when there are a few different options that could apply ie. when asking attendees about their reasons for attending your event. Open-ended - brings the attendee experience to life. It produces qualitative data which tends to be more emotive and specific at outlining sentiment. Screening questions At the beginning of your event survey it is important to include screening questions to ensure the integrity of the data you are collecting. When creating client surveys the first question we ask is ‘Did you attend [eventname] from [eventdates]?’ If the respondent says no they are routed to an exit screen. We then include a second screening question which asks ‘Did you attend as…’ and provide a single choice option of either Visitor, Exhibitor or Member of the press. If the respondent is not the intended recipient of the survey (i.e. an exhibitor receives the visitor survey) they will be rerouted to an exit page with a link to the relevant survey for their group. By including screening questions you can ensure your survey is being completed by the right members of your audience. Post event survey question examples Use these questions in both your live and virtual post-event surveys for attendees 1. Overall how satisfied are you with [eventname]? This question allows you to directly measure attendee satisfaction and get a more bird’s eye view of how the event went overall. This is a great way to gauge the success of your event. You can also use it to unpick which aspects of your event are driving satisfaction by creating crosstabs with other questions in your survey. 2. What were your main reasons for attending [eventname]? In other words, what is your event helping attendees do? Our studies show that the top five objectives of trade show visitors are: attending the conference, attending seminar sessions, seeing new products and innovations, keeping up to date with market trends and seeking new business partners. When using this multiple-choice question include a list of common objectives and allow respondents to select more than one. 3. Please state how well you met each of your objectives at [eventname]? Allow respondents to state how well they were able to meet each of the objectives they selected at your event. This will give you an indication of what objectives you’re helping attendees achieve versus the objectives that are going unmet. For example, across the 3,000+ shows we have benchmarked, we found there are three common attendee objectives that are poorly met at trade shows: Keeping up to date with market trends Seeking new business opportunities Seeing new products and innovations Most importantly we discovered these three objectives are highly correlated with overall satisfaction. This suggests that if you improve the ability for attendees to achieve these objectives you will see an increase in attendee satisfaction. 4. Overall, how well did you meet your objectives? Not all objectives are created equal. This is why getting an overall score is important. Earlier in the survey attendees may select five different objectives and only score one as being well met. But that one could have represented their main objective for attending the event whilst the others were ‘nice to haves’. This question will give you an overall view on how successful your event is at helping attendees achieve their objectives. Alternatively with a tool like Explori, this can be calculated automatically based on the previous question responses. 5. How likely are you to recommend our event to friends or colleagues in the industry? Net Promoter Score is an industry standard when it comes to measuring attendee experience. This allows you to measure your attendees’ likelihood to recommend your event and can be included in your post-event surveys for both virtual and live events. Respondents rate their likelihood to recommend on a scale of 0-10 and are banded into groups based on their scores. Promoters (9-10 rating) Passives (7-8 rating) Detractors (0-6 rating) The Net Promoter Score is then calculated by subtracting your percentage of Detractors from your percentage of Promoters. Organisers often ask what is a good Net Promoter Score. Technically speaking anything above zero suggests you have more Promoters than Detractors and is therefore a good score. The Explori platform benchmarks NPS for live and virtual events globally. This allows clients to compare the performance of their events against the industry standard and get a real sense of how their events compare to the industry benchmark. 6. Please tell us why you gave that score? i.e. recommending the event to a friend or colleague Open questions are a great way to collect qualitative data that can be used to explain scores. We always suggest adding an NPS reasoning question. It allows you to do some meaningful analysis of your detractors and promoters. For example, in the Explori platform clients can filter by NPS score to see all the responses given by detractors or promoters. Filtering in this way can give you a sense for why some attendees are detracting and why some are promoting. 7. Considering the total investment of your time spent, how would you rate the value you received? As event organisers we are in the business of creating value for our attendees. Asking a question about their perceived value of the event is a great way to measure the usefulness of the event relative to the time cost. Our latest research found that attendees score virtual events as being better value for time than live events. Including this question in your post-event survey will allow you to spot commonalities between attendees who rate virtual as better for time and those who do not. 8. What was your favourite aspect of [eventname]? The main aim of gathering feedback is to understand how to improve your event. However it is important to keep an eye on what is going well to make sure you don’t eliminate those aspects from future events (ie. a networking format that attendees enjoy). This open-ended question can provide some useful information about what is working at your event. You may also be able to use these responses as testimonials if you ask respondents to opt in. 9. Do you have any suggestions on how the event could be improved? Including a question about improvements is an easy way to spot what aspects of your event haven’t landed well with attendees. Depending on the tool you use, you can filter based on satisfaction or NPS to see what improvements are suggested by attendees. Virtual event survey questions For use in your virtual post-event surveys for attendees 10. How likely would you be to attend future virtual events from the organisers of [eventname]? This question provides a double benefit. On one hand it can communicate a level of satisfaction with the virtual event you organised, but it can also indicate whether or not your attendees are likely to attend future events. This is particularly important as you might be assessing what role virtual events will play once we return to organising live events. 11. Overall, how would you rate the delivery of the virtual event? Whilst you might still be finessing exactly how to deliver virtual events this could be a great question to add into your post-event survey. Pair it with an open-ended follow up question where respondents can explain why they have given it that rating. Final point To create strategic events that keep its customers at the centre organisers need to collect consistent feedback. Post-event surveys are the only tools built to give organisers an insight into their attendees and exhibitors. If you would like to start measuring your events take a tour of the Explori platform.

Global study reveals optimism for trade shows

Oct 23, 2020

Having just released the full Global Recovery Insights report, produced in partnership with UFI and supported by SISO, project lead, Sophie Holt, takes us through the key findings of the priorities of our visitors and exhibitors as live events start to return. When we embarked on this project, as lockdown commenced this spring, I was apprehensive as to what we would find. At the end of 2019 we had produced the Global Exhibitor Insights, which made somewhat uncomfortable reading for the industry. It highlighted that some exhibitors were beginning to have concerns about the ROI of live events and question some of the figures that organisers were publishing. Add to that, the biggest disruption that many of us have ever experienced in our careers and some commentators were suggesting that our industry was on a knife edge, facing a fundamental shift away from live events. It was possible that we were about to produce research that could spell dark times for our industry. But as we analysed the results in late August, it was clear that there was much to be positive about. Not only were live events being sorely missed by both visitors and exhibitors, it seems that they have not found alternative channels that can replace the unique aspects of face-to-face networking. Live events support business generation: Two thirds of those who exhibit at trade shows reported their cancellation has had a notable detrimental impact on their business, reducing their ability to build awareness with their target markets. 50% of companies reported that the absence of live events was negatively affecting their ability to generate new business. And whilst our current visitors and exhibitors strongly prefer live events across every aspect, there were also intriguing hints as to the future of digital and hybrid events, which I will cover in a future article. What does the future look like? Both visitors and exhibitors reported some drop in how frequently they planned to attend live events in future compared to previous studies we have conducted. But when compared with data from 2019, the drop for exhibitors was very modest. This reduction in frequency seems to be part of a more long term trend where exhibitors in markets where the exhibition industry is very developed are planning to level out their participation. The more pronounced impact on visitor attendance is driven by short term concerns, primarily around safety. Visitors who were planning to reduce their attendance need to be reassured that robust safety measures are in place. They are also more drawn to the option of being able to attend an event digitally, for the time being at least. When will spend return? Possibly the most encouraging aspect of the study was exhibitors still feeling confident about the return of their spend for trade shows. 28% of exhibitors said their spend would return to pre-Covid levels as soon as live events were running again. Only 13% felt the drop in spend could be permanent. On average, exhibitor spending could return to pre-Covid levels within 11 months. This held true across widely differing sectors and countries. Whilst as of August, budgets for other marketing channels remained relatively unaffected, unsurprisingly there has been a big impact on spend planned for live events. Both trade show budgets and in-house event budgets have been cut on average by 50% at this time. It will be interesting to see how this survives contact with CFOs as planning for 2021 crystalises. But will these budget cuts manifest themselves in shows being dropped from a trade show marketer’s plans, or an overall belt-tightening? The picture is complex. Whilst we can definitely see that the more severe the budget cut, the more likely an exhibitor is to reduce the number of shows they support, it is also true that, even for companies experiencing the largest cuts to their trade show budgets (in excess of 50%) they are still equally likely to continue to exhibit as frequently as to start dropping shows. What is drawing audiences back to live? This study has confirmed that building connections by networking is a unique aspect of live events, that has yet to be effectively replicated by other channels. Two thirds of both visitors and exhibitors have experienced fewer networking opportunities whilst there have been no live events. This translated into fewer leads generated for businesses (48%) and ultimately lower sales (45%). Digital events are not currently filling this gap, with “quality of networking” being the area they scored most poorly in comparison to live events with only 8% of exhibitors feeling that digital could compete with live. Whilst our audience is supportive of sensible health and safety measures, they are reluctant to accept any measures that impede their ability to network, telling us that any reduction on social and networking activity reduces their likelihood to attend an event. This presents a challenge for organisers and venues alike. How can we offer high quality interaction whilst still following Covid Secure guidelines? And how can we offer an equivalent networking experience to our visitors who currently want to participate virtually? I’m sure many innovative solutions will emerge. Quality vs. quantity? We wanted to know what factors organisers should prioritise to ensure their show was a “must attend”. Here our respondents were unequivocal. They will be evaluating shows based on the quality of the visitors and exhibitors. Whilst visitor quality has always been an important factor for exhibitors, we can now see that it far exceeds the importance of visitor numbers, with 58% of exhibitors thinking it a priority for organisers vs. only 38% who were concerned about numbers. Exhibitors appreciate that visitor numbers may be restricted for a period of time, so they want to ensure that those they do meet are both relevant and purchase-ready. Interestingly, we also see exhibitor quality emerge for the first time as a critical factor driving visitor attendance. Where previously, we might have seen quality of education and content being the biggest factor, with 34% motivated by exhibitor quality vs only 14% motivated by high quality education, this is an interesting shift. Again we can see the unique aspects of live events at play; the ability to meet the most relevant suppliers in one place, being seen as much more important than education, an objective which can potentially be achieved elsewhere. For the first time, cost of attending has also emerged a decision factor for visitors, with 39% citing it as a priority. This in part may be driven by pressure on travel budgets, but it can also be seen in the context of the availability of digital events, which visitors recognise can now provide them with high quality content at the fraction of the cost of attending in person. Future insight plans As the situation is constantly evolving, both in terms of access to live events and uptake of digital events, we asked participating organisers to reserve a portion of their data to allow for a second phase of research beginning December 2020. The first report is now available for UFI members via gri@ufi.org Other verified trade show organisers and venues can request a copy here Sophie Holt, Managing Director, Explori This article first appeared in Exhibition World

What is NPS and why should event professionals care?

Jun 12, 2020

So what exactly is a Net Promoter Score (NPS)? Developed by Bain & Company and Satmatrix, Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a way to understand a customer’s perception of your product or service. It’s widely used across many industries and allows different sectors to benchmark themselves against each other – for example event planners could use it to compare their performance to other events, or even to other service sectors like hospitality or banking. It is one of the most important questions we ask our clients to include in every post-event survey they conduct. It leverages advocacy – the likelihood to recommend to a friend or colleague – as a way of understanding many different drivers of perception including satisfaction, ease of customer journey and return on investment in a single question. Respondents, in this case event attendees or sponsors, are asked to rate how likely they are to recommend the event to a friend or colleague in the industry. This graph is an example of how respondents are categorised based on their response as Promoters, Passives or Detractors. Net Promoter Score is then calculated as the difference between the promoters and the detractors and is expressed on a scale from -100 to 100. So an event with a plus score has relatively more promoters than detractors, whilst an event with a negative score has more detractors. So why does this matter? The impact of NPS has been extensively researched across many industries. With a finite number of potential attendees and sponsors in most sectors, when advocacy is low, it will get harder and harder to attract new attendees and sponsors and the existing customers will be increasingly sensitive to any price rise and over time may even withdraw their support. It is an important “leading indicator” as to how your event might perform commercially in the future. Explori has conducted research with events around the world that shows a positive NPS from exhibitors and sponsors means an event is more likely to experience commercial growth in three key areas: Attendee numbers Exhibitor numbers Exhibitor revenue Interestingly events with a positive exhibitor NPS are growing their sponsor and exhibitor revenue faster than their exhibitor numbers, indicating they may also be finding it easier to up-sell their existing customers to new and higher value services. Want to know more about NPS and other aspects of event exhibitor and sponsor experience? You can download our full report here, covering the experience of exhibitors all round the world. NPS for virtual vs live events At Explori, we have been benchmarking attendee experience metrics including NPS for virtual events since March 2020 and the results are clear. Advocacy is higher for virtual events than for live events. The data indicates that attendees are more likely to recommend virtual events to their colleagues and friends. But we have to ask why that is? Are virtual events delivering a better experience than face-to-face events? It is highly likely that the reason virtual events are seeing a boost in their recommendations relative to live events is because of ease of access. There is much less heavy lifting involved with making a virtual recommendation. If you’re recommending an event halfway across the world that would require flying to another country, booking accommodation and taking time away from family and friends, you’ll probably want to make sure that is a must-attend event before making that recommendation. However if you are sending a colleague or friend a link that they can access from their computer in the comfort of their home it doesn’t require as much consideration past the point of the event providing good content. And this is just the tip of the iceberg with what we have been seeing in the data regarding virtual events experience. >>> Download our latest research on virtual events How to improve your event Net Promoter Score In some circles NPS is viewed as the holy grail of measuring attendee experience. Oftentimes it is the single metric monitored by event organisers to understand if their event is doing well. Though NPS is an important metric to measure, it is often better understood in the context of other key metrics, such as Overall Satisfaction. Overall satisfaction is highly correlated with NPS. If you measure attendee objectives and Overall Satisfaction in your post-event survey you can run a correlation analysis to discover which objectives are driving satisfaction at your event. By focusing attention on how to improve your satisfaction score you should see higher Net Promoter Scores for your events.

Updates, announcements and articles you need from the Explori—all in one place.

Unlock Exhibit Success: The 7 Data Pillars You Need to Track

Exhibit Leader Insights Report 2023 published: The state of the exhibition industry – The exhibit marketer’s perspective

Made to Measure Live Series Launched

Trade shows and the pandemic effect

How do corporates really feel about returning to live events?

The need to know benchmarks for 2022 – Virtual, Live & Hybrid Events

11 most important post event survey questions for attendees

Global study on the future of virtual and hybrid events

Global study reveals optimism for trade shows

Latest trade show stats shared via UFI Connects Webinar

Positive findings released from global industry study

What is NPS and why should event professionals care?

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