A new monthly series designed to help your event organization measure smarter
It’s the little acronym with the big impact on your events. We’re talking about RFPs—the requests for proposals that set the stage for what the event’s about and what it hopes to achieve.
But ask any seasoned event marketer and they will tell you most RFPs are lacking the kind of measurement details that set both brands and their agencies up to be successful.
“Most RFPs are still written backwards,” says Jon Wolff, senior global events manager, solutions and services group at Lenovo. “We spend pages defining the experience we want to create and three bullet points on how we’ll measure it. If measurement is an afterthought in your RFP, it will be an afterthought in your program.”
In this first installment in our new monthly series dedicated to helping event organizations build stronger measurement practices, we spoke with a cross-section of industry leaders from both brand-side event organizations and event agencies to hear what they think makes an RFP “ROI-driven.” And we dug into the RFP process to get a better understanding of how this important document can generate event concepts and activations that are not only impactful on the business, but built to be properly measured and analyzed.
Whether you’re writing them or responding to them, here are 12 ways to level up your RFP measurement practice.
1. Start With Your Goals
Brand marketers: if your RFP starts with a creative brief (and most do), it’s time to shake up your template. “One of the best-known methods for making RFPs more effective in prioritizing measurement strategy is to start with the goals, KPIs, and targets right at the very beginning, alongside the strategic framework,” says Victor Torregroza, experiences program manager, global communications and events at Intel. “These elements lay the foundation for the entire RFP—and, ultimately, the event itself.”
2. Communicate the ‘Why’
Brands, be sure you connect the dots between your event and your company’s larger business goals before you send out your RFPs. “I shouldn’t assume agencies will ‘figure out’ my ROI or metrics for me,” says Dan Ireland, portfolio activation lead at Dell. “If I don’t spend some time really thinking through the deeper ‘why’ behind the activity we’re sourcing, and how I can bridge to quantitative metrics my leaders care about, then it’s likely going to show up in an appendix.”
3. Showcase the Measurement Plan
And speaking of the appendix, agencies, be sure you also bump your measurement strategy to the top of your RFP response, too. “I don’t want to see measurement plans in an appendix. I want to see them introduced up front, early on right after the overall creative vision is pitched,” says Ireland. “Agencies should spend less time proving their chops and sharing case studies from cool past projects and more time on how they will bridge their unique strategy to my goals, once I communicate them clearly.”
4. Define Success Metrics Before Deliverables
Lenovo’s Wolff says that a successful RFP starts before you send a single document. “Define your success metrics before you define your deliverables. What does winning actually look like for this event? Pipeline generated? Audience retention? Sponsor ROI? When you know the answer to that question first, everything else: the venue, the format, the content strategy, all gets built in service of those outcomes rather than in spite of them,” he says.
5. Look for Partners Who ‘Speak’ Measurement
RFPs should require agencies provide in-depth insights on their approach to data and measurement. “Look for partners who initiate a strategic conversation early in the process, focusing on defining what success means for your event and how it connects to your broader business objectives,” says Callie Motz, vp growth and strategy at Augeo Experience. “When a partner can clearly define success, craft a compelling data story, and connect the experience to your business goals, you can trust that you’ll achieve measurable results from your event.”
6. Clarify That Measurement is a ‘Non-Negotiable’
ROI-driven RFPs make it clear that measurement is a required piece of the response. “At Proximo [Spirits], every agency partner is required to define how success will be measured up front. Not just executed,” says Karlene Palmer, senior experiential manager at Proximo Spirits. “That includes aligning on KPIs like attendance versus real dwell time in our footprint, NPS, data capture, and conversion benchmarks tied to our category.”
7. Ask for Proof of Performance
The strongest ROI-driven RFPs don’t just ask what an agency will deliver, they ask how they will prove it worked. “Make measurement methodology a scored criterion, not a bonus section,” says Wolff. “Ask vendors to show you their data infrastructure, their post-event reporting cadence, and examples of when the data told them something they didn’t want to hear and how they responded.”
8. Put it in Writing
One more way to make sure the measurement strategy isn’t an afterthought is to make it an official part of the client and agency agreement. “Bake accountability in from day one,” says Wolff. “If your KPIs aren’t written into the contract, they’re just suggestions. The RFP is where the measurement commitment begins, not the post-event debrief.”
9. Provide a Measurement ‘Framework’
One way to highlight a serious measurement strategy in an RFP response is to provide a complete overview of how the creative concept will deliver—in detail—on KPIs. “We ask agency partners to submit a proposed measurement framework alongside their creative concept, what KPIs they’ll track, how they’ll capture data, and what a ‘successful’ event looks like in numbers,” says Palmer. “It filters out partners who treat measurement as an afterthought and creates accountability from day one. It makes post-event reporting conversations much easier because expectations were set in writing.”
10. Ask for Program-level Metrics
Many RFPs reference measurement, reporting and outcomes related to quality control or performance in Service Level Agreements (SLAs), as opposed to measurement outcomes for their program investment, says Lynn Reves, executive vp-marketing and results at Exhibitus. “I would love to see questions that inquire about measurement methodologies for programs, solutions/tools that track customer journeys or sentiment, and KPIs used to assess and prove event value.”
11. Include Historical Data
Brands, including relevant historical measurement data from the previous year’s event is invaluable and sets the stage for a stronger RFP, and a stronger RFP response. “It’s helpful to highlight areas where targets were met or exceeded, as well as those that were missed, to provide context and direction” says Torregroza. “We always include KPIs and targets for key marketing areas such as social, press/comms, and event experience.”
12. Share the Tech Stack
One item many brand marketers forget on their RFPs is an overview of the organization’s tech stack, including their CRM or automation platform that their sales teams are tied into. This information can enable agencies to be hyper specific on event tech recommendations for registration, says Rick Cosgrove, president and cxo at Agency EA. “QR scanning and networking can evolve from a single use to something that ensures the metrics gathered are actually usable by the sales team beyond the event, making the ROI calculation much more real post-event.”
Image credits: iStock/girafchik123; iStock/Aliaksei Brouka
