In the world of experiential marketing and brand activations, the success of an event is measured by ambiguous and often outdated metrics. For many brands, a simple, “the event went great!” or “people seemed to like it” is enough to justify success and shape how the next activation will be created. Metrics used in traditional marketing channels don’t translate well to in-person activations, and foot traffic, social media mentions, and post-event surveys tell only a partial story of how consumers interacted with an activation. The industry as a whole has struggled to align around key metrics that accurately convey ROI.
A unique and memorable event builds an emotional connection with consumers, drives organic word-of-mouth, strengthens brand loyalty, and most importantly, inspires action.
With global brand spending on experiential marketing exceeding $120 Billion in 2024, brands are playing a very expensive guessing game when it comes to measuring experiential success. Because there is no real playbook for measuring the impact of an activation, there are opportunities to get creative when it comes to developing the methods of measurement and zeroing in on what kinds of metrics matter to a specific activation.
There are companies who have developed their own proprietary measurement formulas, platforms, and subscription services for predicting “return on experience,” “brand experience predictors,” and many other fabricated metrics.
Greenbook helped to simplify ways to break down the experiential measurement process, distilling to three “pillars of measurement;” pre-test, in the moment, and post-event reflection. This approach can help simplify the obscurity of experiential measurement.
Pre-test:
Before committing serious money, creative ideation, and labor hours into developing an activation, finding opportunities to engage with your target audience before an event can help predict engagement, share-ability, and brand impact in early development stages.
This is obviously easier said than done, but there’s room to get creative during this stage beyond a simple Instagram poll or mass survey. This approach can help inform public sentiment about things like a booth’s layout, what product demos to display, aesthetic design themes, or anything else related to an activation. If nothing else, this can help inform strategy and help steer the ship in the right direction, ensuring the experience lands with the right audience.
In the moment:
Experiences are a very powerful way to instantly build emotional connectedness and boost positive feelings towards a brand. The moment a consumer experiences the entirety of an activation is when those feelings are the strongest. Finding ways to engage participants in the moment can provide valuable contextual details that traditional metrics collected days or weeks later cannot.
Utilizing participants mobile deceives for SMS text surveys or real-time social media responses allows brands to meet people where they are and collect richer, detailed feedback. When participants are physically experiencing an event, their responses will be the most honest and reflect real-time reactions.
The methods of data collection here can be scaled up or down, and like the pre-test stage are open to various creative avenues to engage with consumers. A large video wall with live camera feeds collecting real time responses into video reels, brand ambassadors asking people questions face-to-face, or AI driven sentiment analysis… the options are plentiful. The goal here is to bring the data to life with contextual details collected in real time.
Post event reflection:
Following up with attendees isn’t about asking whether they just enjoyed the activation – it’s about finding ways to quantify real shifts in behavior, and to see if the experience changed perceptions and drove consumer action.
A deep post-event analysis will reveal what people actually liked, what they naturally engaged with, and if there was a measurable shift in behavior after attending the event. Combined with insights collected in the pre-event and in the moment stages, re-contacting on-site attendees down the road can help reveal the activation’s impact on their behavior and brand sentiment in the long term.
Fine-tuning what experiential measurements are important to a specific brand or type of activation will help to create some benchmark metrics. These can be used across future campaigns, and in different markets, creating a long-term picture of experiential success. Evaluating experiences against industry norms can ensure that brands aren’t just guessing what “good” means – they’re making informed strategy decisions that will help to save time and effort in the long term.