If you want to assess your experiential marketing and you’re wondering how important it is to get data about how your business has performed at an exhibition or trade show, we’d say it’s vital.

Data is the key that allows you to fine-tune your experiential marketing strategy and make your experiential events perform their best. Exposure Analytics has spent decades in the industry developing cutting-edge sensor technology to do just this. 

Let’s dive into the role that data can play in experiential marketing and why the data you harvest about customers at these live events can be so game-changing.

Why Your Experiential Marketing Strategy Needs to Be Data-Driven

The importance of driving decisions through data when you operate in the events industry can’t be understated. 

When else would you spend time and money on a marketing channel but not have the data which gives crucial visibility into its performance? By now, data-driven decision-making is a well-understood and accepted practice for all businesses with a marketing function.

For many years marketers have poured time and resources into finessing the tracking of their online buyer journey, however, offline tracking remains hugely neglected. 

This doesn’t have to be the case. When you use a data-driven strategy for your experiential events marketing you can use insights to optimise your event for your customers in much the same way you would for online customers. 

Using Offline Marketing Strategies Doesn’t Mean You Have to Be Data Blind

Here’s the harsh truth: When you don’t use tracking for your experiential events you miss out. What you miss out on is crucial data that you can use to understand how your experiential marketing is performing, and what to change. 

Imagine an underperforming paid advertising campaign. It’s one of a larger ad set. It’s not drawing traffic – people aren’t clicking – so what do you do?

The answer is obvious: you change it. 

Now let’s think about an experiential event, say a booth at an exhibition or trade show

How accurately can you really tell where people spend their time? Or which aspects of your live event are working. All you can do is take a guess. You need data to confirm or challenge your suspicions. 

The answer: event tracking technology.

How Data Impacts Your Experiential Marketing Strategy

You might then be wondering, what kind of data can you pull from tracking events? And most importantly, how can event analytics reveal valuable insights for exhibitors

Here’s a taste of how we’ve seen event tracking data impact our clients’ experiential marketing campaigns in meaningful and actionable ways:

Map Routes to Finesse Your Customer Journey

The Data Output: Flow routes around your experiential event.

Determine the flow of people throughout your event to discover the most common route taken.

The Possible Impact: Now that you know the average customer journey throughout your event space, you can optimise how they experience your event. Ensure your experiential marketing is put into telling your story to visitors in the way that makes the most sense and impact.

The Exposure Analytics Tool: Use EX Sensors to map flow routes to see how visitors move around your space. 

Use Dwell Times for Validation and A/B Testing

The Data Output: Dwell Times Around Your Event.

Find out where people spend their time around your event by tracking their dwell time.

The Possible Impact: Tailor different zones of your events to test what performs the best. Perhaps you have a range of products you want to test interest in. By seeing where people are dwelling you can validate your future experiential events campaigns.

The Exposure Analytics Tool: People Coordinates tracks dwell times and is able to pinpoint where people are as accurately as up to 1m².

Plan with Precision for Peak Times

The Data Output: Number of visitors and peak times.

If you appear at regularly scheduled events you start to build a picture of exactly how many people attend your events and when the peak times are.

The Possible Impact: Ensure any spend from your experiential marketing budget is focussed on when the most people are there. For instance, guest appearances, giveaways or other high-spend spectacles.

The Exposure Analytics Tool: People Coordinates displays heat maps that show where visitors are spending their time.

A Dashboard That Gives You Instantly Actionable Insights

Once you have event footfall tracking set up, you’re ready to access your valuable data. Get your insights delivered on one clean, customisable Dashboard. From this launchpad, you can get to grips with the data that will help you refine your experiential marketing campaigns. 

Revolutionise Your Campaigns with the Power of Data

Speak to Exposure Analytics today to find out how our events tracking tools can help you get the best from your experiential marketing campaigns. As footfall analytics experts, we can help you understand how our industry-leading sensor technology can help you understand your audience and tighten up your experiential marketing campaigns.

Want to find out how live event sensor tech can impact your experiential marketing campaigns, speak to our expert team, or call us on 0203 982 0997. Alternatively, check out our FAQ section to answer common queries about our technology.