Measure event follow-up in four groups: coverage, engagement, progression, and efficiency and quality. Use viable event contacts, not total scans, as the base, so duplicates, invalid records and opt-outs do not distort the numbers.
Follow-up measurement answers one question: did the work after the event actually happen, and did it move people forward?
Four metric groups
Coverage
- Share of contacts with an owner
- Share with complete notes
- Share assigned to an account
- Share with a next action
- Share contacted within the target window
Engagement
- Email delivery and reply rates
- Positive reply rate
- Meeting-booked and meeting-held rates
- Phone connection and LinkedIn response rates
- Resource engagement
Progression
- Sales-accepted leads
- Meetings and opportunities created
- Opportunities influenced and stage progression
- Pipeline value and closed-won revenue
Efficiency and quality
- Time to first follow-up
- Time to sales acceptance
- Cost per qualified contact, meeting and opportunity
- Duplicate, invalid-data and unassigned-contact rates
Reference
Formulas
| Metric | Formula |
|---|---|
| Follow-up coverage | Contacts with completed follow-up divided by viable event contacts, times 100 |
| Response rate | Contacts who replied divided by delivered follow-up messages, times 100 |
| Meeting conversion rate | Meetings booked divided by viable event contacts, times 100 |
| Opportunity conversion rate | Event opportunities divided by viable event contacts, times 100 |
Where this stops
This lesson measures the follow-up process. Attribution, pipeline strategy and return on investment have their own guides: the Exhibitor's Pipeline Guide and the Trade Show ROI Guide.
Worksheet
Worksheet: follow-up dashboard
| Viable event contacts | |
| Contacts with an owner | |
| Contacted within the target window | |
| Replies received | |
| Meetings booked and held | |
| Opportunities created | |
| Time to first follow-up |
Frequently asked questions
What metrics measure event follow-up?
Coverage, engagement, progression, and efficiency and quality: for example contacts with an owner, reply rate, meetings booked, opportunities created and time to first follow-up.
What is a viable event contact?
A contact left after you remove duplicates, invalid records, opt-outs and clearly irrelevant people. Using viable contacts instead of total scans gives more honest rates.
How is follow-up measurement different from event ROI?
Follow-up measurement tracks whether the process happened and moved people forward. ROI compares the overall event cost with the business outcomes.