Organizations throw events for a variety of reasons, but whatever your objectives, many times the link between 'cost' and 'output' of an event is unclear. Understanding the ROI, Return On Investment, of each event empowers customers to invest in events that will result in the largest return.

By integrating Splash with Salesforce, the Splash ROI Dashboard allows CMOs, Head of Marketing departments, and Event Hosts to calculate ROI of individual events and of all events in aggregate. Best of all, once integrated and setup, Splash can keep track automatically without any additional lift from your marketing or sales teams!

How it works

The ROI dashboard is able to show you which contacts associated with an opportunity have RSVP’d and attended an event. Here is how this is accomplished:

1. Email addresses of contacts in SalesForce are matched to those on Splash guest list
2. Any opportunities opened in SalesForce are trackable by Splash
3. As deals close, Splash can show you the ROI from influenced contacts and/or opportunities

Salesforce Setup

• If your organization is not using "contact roles", Salesforce Opportunities are mapped to events from the contact level to the account and then to the opportunity. This could lead to an inflated number of opportunities associated with an event. If your organization is using contact roles, the ROI will be more accurate because the contact is mapped directly to the opportunity
• An alternative (and best practice) would be to map contacts straight to opportunities, but you may not have your Salesforce set up this way
• All Salesforce data is pulled into the ROI dashboard once a night
• As opportunities close or users update the Actual Cost, it won't be updated in real-time

How is ROI calculated?

(Closed-Won Pipeline + Open (weighted or unweighted) Pipeline) / Event Cost

What attribution percentages are applied?

The dashboard automatically defaults to 100% attribution, but there is a filter on the dashboard which your organization can adjust.

Weighted vs unweighted:

• The weighted pipeline is calculated using the probability to close for open opportunities.
• For example, a $100k opportunity with a 50% likelihood to close, has a weighted pipeline of $50k
• Unweighted pipeline ignores the likelihood to close and instead only looks at the total amount of the opportunity.
• For example, a $100k opportunity with a 50% likelihood to close, has an unweighted pipeline of $100k.

The ROI dashboard has filters to allow your organization to customize ROI calculation:

• sfdc_event_program - the event name in Splash. You may select multiple events that will add up for the ROI (cost and return) for each event selected
• contact_attended -  You may calculate the ROI of those who have a check-in status of Yes ("checked-in") only by choosing "Yes" on this filter. Choosing "No" will calculate it for people who RSVP'd Yes but did not check-in. "All" includes those who have an RSVP Yes ("Attending") status or a check-in status of yes ("checked-in")
• event_attribution - this is the percent of the opportunity size that an organization would like to attribute to the event. This flows through the entire dashboard. The pipeline numbers, the ROI numbers (both weighted and unweighted) are affected
• event_touch - this ensures the organization doesn't double count an opportunity to multiple events. If a contact has attended more than one event, a host may select to attribute their opportunity to the first event the contact attended or the last. Note - this only works on the program level when the events that the contact attended are selected. It DOES NOT look for other events if you are only selecting one event
• pre_event_window - this window will exclude any opportunities created prior to this window. i.e. - if the pre_event_window is set to 30 days, any opportunity created more than 30 days prior to the day of the event will NOT be included in this calculation.
• post_event_window - this window will exclude any opportunity created after the window. i.e. - if the post_event_window is set to 30 days, any opportunity created more than 30 days after the day of the event will NOT be included in this calculation
• opp_attribution_type - this will exclude the different types of opportunities (see below)
• Influenced - opportunities that were open prior to the contact RSVPing
• New - opportunities that were opened after the contact RSVPed
• All - all opportunities
• sfdc_event_spend - If the "Actual Cost" field of the associated salesforce campaign is set, the ROI dash will pull the cost of the event from there. This is pulled nightly. If it is not set, it will default to the value set in the event_spend

Best Practices

Take a look at the Splash ROI ebook, "Proving the Value of B2B Marketing"!

The best use of the Splash ROI Dashboard is to determine how many opportunities an event has impacted.

• contact_attended - Unless your organization is diligent about using the Splash Host app, "All" is the suggested value here. This pulls in all contacts who RSVP'd "Yes"
• event_attribution - In order to understand every opportunity an event has influenced, it is suggested to use 100% for event_attribution
• event_touch - This filter comes into play when you have selected more than one event. Most of our clients use "Last Touch" since that event is the most likely to have had an influence on the customer's decision making.
• pre_event_window - This filter should be set according to your organization’s average sales cycle. It is suggested to make it 30 days longer than your average sales cycle.
• post_event_window - This filter should be set according to your organization's average sales cycle. It is suggested to make it 30 days longer than your average sales cycle.
• opp_attribution_type - To determine the total amount of opportunities influenced by the event(s), it is suggested to choose "All" for this filter
• sfdc_event_spend - The key to calculating spend is to be consistent throughout the events. If you choose, for example, to include travel costs, include those costs for all events