Understanding your Race ROI
What is Event ROI?
In order to maximize the impact of your event, it’s necessary to set the right goals and understand your event ROI, so that you can run it as a business and not just a model that relies on volunteer networks and goodwill to make the wheels go round. ROI can seem like a daunting term to get your head around, but it's useful in defining and measuring event success, which is just as important as the race itself.
On the surface ROI might seem as simple as: money in, money out. However, theres a bit more to it. The more complicated the ROI picture gets, the more accurate event attribution becomes. In this guide we will take a look at the many different forms of determining, measuring and analyzing event ROI.
Event ROI is a flexible term that indicates the net value an event organiser gets from an event for the net cost that goes into producing it. Note that Value is a much broader term than event revenue.
Value VS Cost
While value could be revenue generated from registrations, it could also include sponsorships and partnerships, leads added to the sales pipeline (if you sell merchandise or tickets to other events that benefit for example), the number of people who attended the event, the satisfaction of attendees and more.
Similarly, the cost of an event could be considered the financial price of producing an event, but it could also indicate the time and resources that go into an event, and the opportunity cost of staging an event, and so on. While event profit is expressed as net value minus net cost, event ROI is expressed as net value divided by net cost. The result is the event ROI percentage. Here are some of the items we are trying to give a value to, to produce such a figure!
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ROI = VALUE/COST
This is the simplest version of calculating your event ROI.
Event ROI Goals
As with any campaign or initiative, the first step in producing an event is identifying the goals that you are aiming to achieve. These goals will vary depending on the type of race you are holding, the target audience, and the sponsors and stakeholders you’re working with.
From a marketing perspective, the best way to determine whether you’re getting the value per cost desired (ROI) is by setting goals that are specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and timely (S.M.A.R.T.). Here are some event goals to focus on, and some accompanying event metrics. Some of these might seem like no-brainers. Others require a bit more brain.
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Company Goals |
Race Goals |
ROI Metrics |
ROI Tools |
Build Brand Awareness |
Increase Event Registrations |
# of Registrations |
Eventrac race entry system |
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Increase Social Media Presence |
# of Social Media Impressions |
Analysis of Social Media Platform |
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Increase Media Coverage |
# of Media Placements |
Manual analysis, Attribution Software |
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Increase Website Traffic |
# of Website Visits # of Website Visits from Event Page |
Web Analytics Platform eg Google Analytics |
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Drive Sales Revenue |
Generate Leads |
# of Prospects Added to Database: Eg Email Marketing database |
Mailchimp, Sendgrid, other email marketing platforms.. |
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Generate Value for other events in portfolio |
£ Value of Pipeline Created |
Eventrac Race Entry Platform |
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Opportunities Created |
# of Opportunities Created |
Manual Analysis |
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Delight race participants |
Deliver great race experience |
# participants who showed vs total ticket buyers # of sponsors involved directly |
Feedback forms, Online Reviews, Event Staff Reporting |
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Increase Satisfaction of Customers |
Pre-Event Survey Post-event Survey |
Feedback forms, email marketing |
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Increase Participant Retention |
# of clubs signed up to event, group entires, early bird entries, discount codes used |
Event Staff Reporting, Eventrac platform |
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Event Engagement |
Increase Engagement |
# of visits to food stalls or merchandise stalls # of hours spent at event |
Event Staff Reporting |
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Increase Social Media Engagement |
# of Company Mentions # of Event Hashtag Mentions |
Analysis of Social Media Platform |
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Educate and Delight Partners |
Increase Partner Engagement |
# of Visits to Sponsorship Stalls # Views on social posts featuring sponsors # Opens on email campaigns featuring sponsor |
Event Staff and Self-reporting, EMS Analysis of Social Media Platform Analysis of Email Marketing Platform |
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Increase Satisfaction of Partners |
Pre-Event Survey Post-event Survey |
Self Reporting |
This table gives some insight into the different company goals you can look at when analyzing your race, which will help you identify what tools you have available for each goal and how to use them accordingly. Our eventrac platform has lots of helpful metrics to analyse your participants geographies, where they heard about your race and has feedback features for after your race is over. And the team is always here to help if you want to find out more about them or get a deeper insight into these.