Here’s our guide to conducting an impactful post-event analysis

Events are great for generating data. From dietary preferences and session attendance to attendee demographics and social engagement, your events are rich sources of information that can significantly impact both business objectives and future events.

But there’s a problem – many planners don’t know how to take full advantage of it. 

According to Sweap:

• 23% of event planners don’t measure success
• 18% of lack the tools to evaluate event success
• 19% don’t have the right event data

…we could go on.

In this EventsAir guide, we’ll walk you through the ins and outs of optimizing your post-event analysis and introduce you to the right tools to help you get the most out of your hard work.

What is a post-event analysis?

A post-event analysis is an in-depth analysis of data generated before, during, and after an event. 

This data can be qualitative (“soft” data like attendee feedback) or quantitative (“hard” data like registration numbers and revenue). The purpose of a post-event analysis? To turn data into actionable insights that will improve your next event. 

There are all kinds of analyses that are valuable here, including:

• Feedback and sentiment analysis
• Financial analyses
• Attendance and engagement analyses
• Sponsor and exhibitor ROI analyses
• Social media and website traffic analyses

Why is analyzing event data important?

Optimizing your post-event analysis lets you:

• Identify successes and weaknesses: Understand what aspects of your event were successful and which need improvement.
• Improve future events: Use insights to make data-driven decisions for future events, ensuring continuous growth.
• Enhance attendee satisfaction: Collect feedback to understand attendee preferences and tailor future events to their needs.
• Track financial performance: Analyze budget vs. actual costs and calculate ROI to assess your event’s financial success.
• Boost engagement: Use engagement metrics to identify what content and sessions resonated most with your audience.

How to conduct an impactful post-event analysis

Step 1: Collect data

As we’ve already discussed, data is the key to conducting a successful post-event analysis. A solid event data collection strategy will significantly increase both the accuracy and the impact of your analyses—so it’s worth thinking critically about.

It’s helpful to think about your event management process as a series of distinct stages—planning, promotion, execution, and follow-up. For a comprehensive analysis, you need data points on each stage of this process (often on multiple, distinct KPIs).

For each stage:

1. Think about your goal(s). For example, during the planning phase, one goal might be to increase attendee engagement through a custom event website.
2. Map the goal(s) to KPIs that measure progress toward those goals. For example, if the goal is to increase attendee engagement via the event website, potential KPIs could include time spent on the website, number of pages visited, or number of registrations completed through the site.
3. Implement a tracking mechanism. Continuing with the previous example, you could use EventsAir’s built-in analytics to track website engagement metrics or set up custom tracking for specific actions like completing registration forms.

Repeat this for every goal within an event management stage, and then for every stage in your process.

Step 2: Analyze attendee feedback

Attendee feedback is one of the most valuable forms of event data there is. Sometimes how attendees act differs from what they say—but it’s very hard to answer nuanced questions like “Why are attendees leaving our site after only a short time?” using quantitative metrics alone.

There are a few kinds of attendee feedback data that you can collect:

Feedback Type	Description	Benefits
Ratings	Quantitative scores (e.g., 1-5 or 1-10) for various aspects of the event	• Easy to analyze and compare across events • Provides quick overview of satisfaction • Useful for tracking improvements over time
Surveys	Predefined questions with set or open-ended answer options	• Efficient for attendees to complete • Yields fairly standardized data for easy analysis • Good for gathering specific, targeted feedback
Live Polling	Real-time feedback gathered during the event	• Increases engagement • Provides immediate insights for quick adjustments • Can make attendees feel more involved
One-on-One Interviews	In-depth conversations with select attendees	• Yields rich, detailed feedback • Allows for follow-up questions and clarification • Builds stronger relationships with key attendees
Mobile & Website App Feedback	In-app surveys, ratings, or comment features	• Convenient for attendees to provide feedback in real-time • Can be tied to specific sessions or event elements • High response rates due to ease of use

For maximum impact, come up with a schedule and strategy for collecting feedback throughout the event. This could include post-session ratings, post-event surveys, and even 1:1 interviews with a select group of attendees who offered especially valuable feedback.

With EventsAir, you can truly understand the value of attendee feedback. We give planners multiple ways to collect and organize feedback—from simple live polls to customizable surveys.

Step 3: Evaluate engagement metrics

Raw numbers only tell part of the story. To truly understand engagement, you need to dig deeper:

• Look past superficial session attendance. Assess how engagement changes throughout each session in real-time using our live polling, Q&A, and session surveys. You can also use our post event analytics to get detailed attendance reports and identify drop-off points— which might indicate content that didn’t resonate or logistical issues that need to be solved.
  
• Cross-reference engagement data with attendee segments. Are certain types of sessions more popular with specific audience segments? You may find that your event content is resonating most with segments that aren’t as valuable to stakeholders. 
  
• Don’t ignore the long tail. Raw engagement— whether in a virtual or in-person event— isn’t the same as value. A niche session with high engagement from a small, targeted group might be more valuable than a huge general session with lukewarm engagement.

To yield insights like this, you need the right tool.

With EventsAir, you have the ability to generate custom reports on just about any aspect of your event. If you have the data, you can analyze it for deep insights that give you real, concrete answers to your most pressing questions about your event.

Step 4: Review financial performance

Event ROI is often the focal point for event planners—and for good reason. We need to generate positive returns in order to justify the time, effort, and resources put into planning and executing an event. But focusing on this metric alone won’t help you improve ROI going forward. 

To do that, you need to collect data on a wide range of financial metrics, such as:

• Conversion rate: What percentage of attendees actually made a purchase at the event?
• Profit margin: How much money did you ultimately make after all expenses were accounted for?
• Cost per acquisition (CPA): How much did you need to spend to attract an attendee?
• Return on ad spend (ROAS): If you advertised, how much did you make for every dollar spent?

By analyzing these financial metrics, you can identify areas where you may be overspending or underperforming, and make adjustments to improve your overall event ROI. For example, if your CPA is high, it may indicate that your marketing strategy needs to be reevaluated.

At EventsAir, our comprehensive budget tracking and ROI calculation tools help you analyze your event’s financial performance. Our tools show you where your expenses went and how they compare to your income.

This helps you evaluate how well your financial planning and execution are working.

Step 5: Create Actionable Reports

It’s time to make your data work for you. 

Create an actionable event report pulling all your data together from our post-event analysis. Base your reports on key metrics like:

• Attendance numbers
• Return on investment (ROI)
• Engagement levels 
• Revenue 
• Reach and interaction on platforms 
• Post-event feedback

This is where a great event management platform really shines. Our customizable reports and data visualization tools make it easy to create and customize reports for any stakeholder or team that needs access to your data.

Need help in optimizing your post-event analysis?

If you want to enhance your post-event analysis, leveraging the right tools and strategies can make all the difference. Use tools like EventsAir to simplify data collection, analysis, and reporting.

Ready to take your post-event analysis to the next level? Request a demo today and see how EventsAir simplifies event planning and analysis.