March 24, 2025
Every event organizer knows the challenge of juggling countless details—venue logistics, scheduling, audience engagement, exhibitor expectations, and more. Whether you’re planning a small industry gathering or a global conference, making the right decisions requires careful planning and analysis. Data is the key to unlocking smoother operations, enhanced attendee experiences, and greater event success.
But how can you use event data effectively? From tracking session popularity to analyzing attendee demographics, the right insights can help you refine everything from budgeting to content planning. By understanding what works—and what doesn’t—you can adapt and improve in real time, ensuring your event meets its full potential.
In our latest Event Insider webinar, we sat down with two expert event organizers to discuss how data-driven decisions can elevate event planning.
- Jimmy Le – Global Conference Manager, IEEE Communications Society
- Max Malmund – PacRim Disability Conference Organizer, University of Hawai’i
With decades of combined experience from managing dozens of conferences, they’ve mastered the art of using data to improve everything from securing exhibitors/sponsors, budget allocation, session planning, and much more. Jimmy Le’s expertise is in hosting multiple global conferences throughout the year drawing in attendees from over 70 countries, and Max Malmund’s expertise is in planning a week long annual academic conference focusing on accessibility and disability studies. Both of them give a well-rounded perspective on what it takes to run a successful event at any scale.
We’ve distilled their insights into 7 actionable tips that will help you maximize event efficiency, increase engagement, and make every decision with confidence. Whether you’re a seasoned event planner or just starting out, these tips will help you make data-driven choices that lead to more impactful and successful events. Let’s dive in!
1:💰Cutting Costs Without Cutting Corners
When analyzing event data, your bottom line is key. Leveraging event data enables you to make informed budgeting decisions, ensuring financial efficiency and maximizing ROI. It helps you adjust staffing, scale food orders appropriately, and compare actual costs against your budget to gauge overall profitability.
The most effective way to use event data is to prevent overspending while still delivering an exceptional experience for attendees. Striking the right balance between investing in a high-quality event and maintaining profitability is essential for long-term success.
“I like to focus on the bottom line. I use event data to plan my conference budget, such as figuring out the optimal number of bags to order so there is enough for everyone and also making sure to not order too many and waste money.”
– IEEE Global Conference Manger Jimmy Le
2: Winning Over Sponsors: Show Them the Right Audience, Not Just the Numbers
When planning an event, attracting sponsors and exhibitors is critical, as they provide essential funding and support. To secure them successfully, leveraging event data is key.
Sponsors and exhibitors don’t just focus on attendance numbers—they care more about who will be there. They are far more likely to invest in an event if the audience consists of corporate decision-makers, high-level executives, or their ideal target market. A smaller, highly relevant audience is more valuable to them than a large crowd with little interest in their offerings.
By utilizing event demographic data, you can demonstrate the quality and relevance of your attendees, making your event more appealing to potential sponsors and exhibitors. For example, you can show the attendee titles to sponsors and exhibitors to demonstrate how many decision makers attend your event.
Additionally, Whova’s Sponsor Center and Exhibitor Center provides powerful tools to showcase sponsorship opportunities and maximize your ability to attract the right partners.
– IEEE Global Conference Manger Jimmy Le
3: Real-Time Adjustments, Real-World Impact: Perfecting Event Logistics with Data
Event data is the backbone of effective event logistics, providing valuable insights that help you optimize every aspect of planning and execution.
For example, if you notice that afternoon sessions have higher attendance while evening sessions see a significant drop-off, you can adjust your schedule to move key sessions earlier in the day and adjust your staffing of those sessions accordingly. If check-in bottlenecks occur at 11 a.m. rather than the anticipated 9 a.m., you can reallocate staff accordingly to streamline the process.
By leveraging real-time event data, you can make informed, on-the-fly adjustments to enhance the attendee experience, ensuring a smoother, more engaging, and well-organized event.
“We noticed from analyzing our event data that there was a heavy increase in our afternoon session attendance compared to our evening sessions, so we decided to move our lecture-based content up into the afternoon to have more interactive sessions in the evening so attendees would stay longer.”
– PacRim Disability Conference Organizer Max Malmund
4: Beyond the Numbers: Unlocking Hidden Insights with Attendee Feedback
In addition to numerical data, attendee feedback provides invaluable qualitative insights that can highlight areas for improvement beyond what numbers alone can reveal.
For example, asking attendees about their check-in experience may uncover pain points that weren’t reflected in the data. While metrics might show average wait times, written feedback could reveal frustrations with signage, staff interactions, or unexpected delays—details that numbers might miss.
To help organizers gather both qualitative and quantitative insights, Whova offers a comprehensive post-event report filled with attendee feedback and key data. This enables event organizers to make informed decisions and implement meaningful improvements for future events.
– IEEE Global Conference Manger Jimmy Le
5: Data-Driven Inclusivity: How Demographics Shape Engaging Events
Focusing on attendee demographic data is essential for creating an inclusive and engaging event experience.
For instance, if data reveals an increase in hard-of-hearing attendees, you can proactively hire more ASL interpreters to ensure accessibility. Demographic insights also help align session content with your audience. A session on marketing basics, for example, would not be valuable to an audience of seasoned marketing executives.
To further refine your event strategy, Whova’s attendee analytics feature combines attendee demographic information with general attendee behavior such as check-in and session feedback formats, so that you can further refine your event content for future events.
– PacRim Disability Conference Organizer Max Malmund
6: Right Place, Right Audience: How Geography Shapes Event Marketing
The location of your event plays a crucial role in shaping your marketing strategy. Rather than using a broad, one-size-fits-all approach, it’s essential to focus on the geographic regions where potential attendees are most likely to travel from.
A highly targeted approach ensures that marketing efforts reach the right audience. For instance, email campaigns should be directed toward regions where attendance is most feasible, rather than relying on mass outreach that may not be relevant to certain members. Similarly, localized strategies—such as partnerships or region-specific advertising—can be more effective in engaging audiences who are more likely to attend based on proximity and accessibility.
By analyzing geographic data from past events, organizations can refine their marketing efforts, improve engagement rates, and allocate resources efficiently. Understanding where attendees are coming from helps ensure that outreach efforts are both strategic and impactful.
– IEEE Global Conference Manger Jimmy Le
7: When Timing Meets Data: Maximizing Registrations and Engagement
Data is a powerful tool for optimizing the timing of both ticket reminders and event announcements.
When it comes to ticket reminders, data can reveal the most effective timing for encouraging registrations. For example, sending reminders too far in advance may result in attendees ignoring them, while reminders closer to the event may drive higher engagement and conversions.
Similarly, announcement effectiveness varies from event to event. By analyzing event data, you can determine the optimal times when attendees are most likely to see and engage with announcements, ensuring important information reaches them when they are most likely to read it.
– PacRim Disability Conference Organizer Max Malmund
Summary
Leveraging event data is key to optimizing every aspect of event planning, from budgeting and logistics to marketing and attendee engagement. By analyzing both numerical data and verbal/written feedback, organizers can make informed decisions that enhance the event experience and drive success.
Event data plays a crucial role in attracting sponsors and exhibitors, demonstrating the value of an event beyond just attendance numbers. Insights into attendee demographics ensures accessibility and content alignment, while real-time insights allow for on-the-fly adjustments to improve logistics. Additionally, marketing strategies, ticket reminders, and announcements can be fine-tuned based on data-driven insights to maximize effectiveness.
With tools like Whova’s attendee analytics and post-event reports, event organizers can continuously refine their strategies, making each event better than the last. By embracing data-driven decision-making, you can create seamless, impactful, and financially successful events.
To hear more detailed insights on how to best utilize event data from organizing experts Jimmy Le and Max Malmund, check out our exclusive event insider video.
For other Event Insider topics such as how to manage your workload as an event organizer and gamification ideas for attendee engagement, check out our YouTube channel for more.
