With digital and e-commerce teams coming to the table with tangible results, event teams need to be able to do the same. After all, retail is an over 20 trillion dollar industry. If event teams can’t demonstrate the revenue impact of their events, resources like budget, headcount, and priorities can easily be allocated elsewhere.
So what KPIs are the top retail brands tracking? We’ve put together 7 metrics we see over and over again from our retail customers that can help event teams paint the full picture of event success.
Before you even begin measurement, it’s important to note: while there a ton of different types of retail events (pop-ups, all-doors events, partner events, influencer events, etc.), every event type should have a different goal in mind. For example, partner events usually drive brand awareness, while hosted, in-store events can help drive in-store sales and acquire new customers and loyalty members.
Before you plan any retail event, make sure to ask yourself:
• What are we trying to achieve with this event?
• What audience are we targeting with this event?
• How will we measure the success of this event?
Also, if you track the data from all your different event types, you can see what type works best for your business (i.e. which events draw the most attendees, which event types attract new vs. repeat attendees, which event types drive the most sales and traffic), which will help you throw even better events in the future.
What it means: # sales that were driven as a result of the event.
How to calculate it: This is the most obvious way to look at retail event success. Retailers often look at their Point of Sale (POS) within the timestamp of an event’s start and end time.
What it means: This can mean two different things depending on your event type and goal: # of total people who showed up or # of the right people who showed up.
For store openings, pop-ups, and other events used to attract a new audience, you should track total attendance and new customers. For private shopping events, 1v1 appointments, and other highly-targeted, intimate events, it’s all about who showed up.
How to calculate it: Use an event check-in app to get the total attendance numbers. You can also measure attendance by the number of email addresses you collect from an event, which is more effective in the long run for post-event follow-up and nurture.
What it means: # customer loyalty members who attended your event.
If you have a customer loyalty program, it’s valuable to know which (and how many) of your loyalty members attended an event. A lot of brands measure event success based on how engaged their loyalists are, since these attendees are likely to spend more on average.
How to calculate it: By integrating your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software with your event attendee data, you’ll be able to see who from your loyalty program attended (since their email address or phone number usually acts as the unique identifier associated with their membership). You can also track how many new customers you added to your loyalty program from that particular event.
Pro tip: One great way to increase loyalty members is to set up Single Sign On (SSO) so guests can only RSVP to your event if they are signed into your customer loyalty program. If they aren’t a part of the loyalty program, they will be prompted to sign up.
What it means: # app downloads that were driven from your event.
More and more retailers are turning to branded mobile apps to drive customer engagement. So much so that retailers who have both mobile sites and apps are seeing, on average, two-thirds of their online sales coming from mobile devices. Events are a great opportunity to drive more app downloads.
Before an event, market your event exclusively on your consumer app – for example, point all of your event’s social and email marketing materials to “see an exclusive shopping experience” in the app. In order to RSVP, they’ll need to download the app to access the event page. Then, on your post-event page, include a link to your app to offer up more exclusive experiences – and measure how many hits and downloads resulted from this post-event communication.
How to calculate it: Make sure you’re tracking how many new app downloads happened between event promotion and event start. If you are placing an app download link on your event pages or your ecommerce pages, make sure you're using respective tracking links for appropriate attribution.
Pro tip: You can also set up Single Sign On (SSO) in this instance to increase App downloads.
What it means: # e-commerce sales resulted from your event.
Even though in-store sales seem like the most obvious metric to track for an in-store event, ecommerce sales are just as important to measure since people often attend events then decide to buy something online afterwards. And if attending the event is what ultimately drove them to purchase, event teams should receive the credit.
How to calculate it: One way to track how your event impacts ecommerce sales is to include a tracking link to your website in post-event emails. Whether it’s an email thanking guests for coming, or a “we missed you!” follow-up to no-shows, you’ll be able to see if any purchases happen as a result.
You can also send a dedicated promo code driving people to purchase online, and then track how many purchases the promotion sourced.
Pro tip: Allow guests to RSVP “No” to your event, and then create a custom confirmation message with a discount code, letting them know they can enjoy the same sale from home. Besides, they just gave you their contact information and opted-in, so it’s the least you could do.
What it means: % increase of people coming into your store during your event (compared to average foot traffic)
For most in-store events (besides exclusive events with small guest lists), the more people that walk through the door, the better. Foot traffic is an easy way to get a sense of your retail event’s performance at a high-level. Ivivva athletica even found an 18.7% increase in foot traffic from stores that leveraged Splash for their events.
How to calculate it: By looking at your traffic counters within the event’s start and end time, you’ll see how many people were in your store during that time frame, and be able to understand if your event impacted store traffic.
Then, compare this data against both the average foot traffic for that same time frame when there isn’t an event, as well as your most high-profile periods of store traffic.
What it means: engagement analytics (impressions, clicks, event hashtag, increase of followers)
Even though this metric is considered a soft metric that don’t always equal sales, brand awareness is usually the goal for most major partner/sponsor events.
How to calculate it: Use tracking links or a designated event hashtag to track how much engagement your social posts/PR efforts get. You can also track your number of followers before and after the event (in your social platforms) to see if the campaign had a considerable impact.
While every retailer approaches event ROI uniquely, it’s always beneficial to track a variety of metrics so you have a well-rounded picture of event success. Most of our retail customers collect and connect all their event reporting into a single Business Intelligence tool (like Tableau, Periscope, Qlik, etc.). This enables your team (and your boss, and your boss’s boss) to see a holistic, and single view of your entire event performance.
And once you have an understanding of event performance, you can take it even further by combining your event data with other team’s analytics (e-commerce, digital, etc). This way, you’ll get a clear view of what’s working (i.e. which event types are most successful) and what’s not, so you can keep iterating and improving your events program.
Want more tips for optimizing your in-store experiences? See our strategy for scaling in-store events by partnering with your store managers.
