How to Obtain a Full Count of Your Event Impressions

Updated May 2021: Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Event impressions have a real monetary value. You do a lot to generate meaningful event impressions of the brands you serve. However, it can be difficult to demonstrate or otherwise prove that those event impressions had some actual value. Let me tell you how to do it.

At PortMA, we work with Agencies and Brands every day to develop and deploy measurement and reporting strategies for experiential and event marketing that almost always includes impression valuation. It’s rooted in two key areas:

• Getting a full count of event impressions.
• Translating that count into a dollar value, you can defend.

Ensuring a Full Event Marketing Impression Count

Ensuring a full count of your event impressions boils down to making sure you have a process in place to count impressions from their five key sources:

1. On-Site Event Impressions

These are the most common type of impressions, and they are probably something you’re already doing. Start with venue attendance, then apply a multiplier that considers where you were situated (and/or your overall signage agreement) concerning foot traffic.

For example, if you’re upfront and in the thick of it all, where they practically have to walk through your footprint to get to the venue,  I suggest that you take 80% of attendance that day as on-site impressions. Work backward from other positions (e.g., vendor row vs. in the back by the bathrooms).

2. Word-of-Mouth Impressions

Don’t leave event impressions on the table by ignoring the impact of word-of-mouth (Event WOM). We find that most consumers (benchmarks over 75% on average) report they will recommend the brand to a friend or family member after an event experience. Combine this data with industry multipliers to derive a realistic count for word-of-mouth impressions.

In the Beverage industry, a consumer will tell, on average, 7.2 people. Event WOM has real reach!

3. Mobile Impressions

If you have a wrapped vehicle moving from market to market, you’re generating mobile impressions. Those need to be counted. Multiply total miles driven by 101.

4. Online Impressions

These can be either organic (earned) or paid. They can be from social media or traditional PR pick-ups. Either way, put a “clipping service” into play. Then get a count of what you generated.

5. Offline Media Impressions

Just like their online counterparts, offline media can be organic or purchased. If you’re putting any effort into this, use the services available to you and make sure to count these impressions as well. With your primary sources of event impressions identified, you’ve got a counting process in place. The next step is to put a value on all of the impressions you generated.

Using Ad Value Equivalence to Measure Event Impression Value

Brands understand media buying. It’s what they do when they’re not working with your event marketing team. Media is purchased in chunks of 1,000 impressions — often referred to as CPMs. To put a dollar value behind the impressions, you’re collecting, you need to speak their business language. Here is the key concept: 1,000 event impressions are worth what would have cost the brand to buy those impressions through another channel. They are worth the brand’s average CPM.

CPMs range from less than $1 to $22 or more, depending on the channel, the target, and the content. Your brand has an average CPM. If they don’t tell you what that is, then start with $12. They’ll let you know if that’s not right once they see the context. This valuation process is called the Ad Value Equivalence (or AVE) method.

Assume $12 per thousand or 0.012 cents per impression. Multiply $0.012 by your total impression count. Voila! You’ll have the value you generated from event impressions.

Photo Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/marfis75/