Events have become one of the fastest-growing channels for marketers who want to build trust and connect with audiences in ways digital ads can’t.
The global event industry is projected to nearly double in size in 2028, which presents a big opportunity for brands ready to show up.
In this article, we’ll break down why smart marketers are betting on events in 2025, how leading brands are making the most of sponsorships, and the trends that will define the year ahead.
How Brands Are Winning With Events In 2025
Being “present” at an event isn’t enough. The brands getting top results are engineering their impact long before they arrive. Here are five moves they’re making:
- Signature sponsorships—Aligning with the event’s biggest moments so the brand becomes part of the story, not just a name on a slide
- Immersive experiences—Using technology, design, and creativity to pull people in and make them part of the brand journey
- Content integration—Speaking on stage, leading workshops, or curating sessions that solve real audience challenges
- Networking engineering—Designing structured interactions that put the right people in the right conversations
- Follow-up momentum—Extending the event’s value through post-event content, offers, and continued outreach
Why Event Sponsorship Still Delivers ROI In 2025
Event sponsorship delivers ROI because it creates direct, memorable access to high-value audiences in ways digital channels no longer can.
They’re uniquely effective because events ensure real human connection impossible to find on Zoom, create space for companies to get their target audience’s undivided attention and also connect with their audience on an emotional level.
Brands sponsor events for many reasons, such as networking, PR and media coverage, increased exposure, targeted marketing, and stronger brand equity. But, a logo on a banner won’t deliver ROI. The value comes from the conversations you create and the moments you own.
The most strategic event sponsors focus on:
- Credibility by sharing space with respected industry leaders
- Access to high-value audiences without the noise of crowded channels
- Alignment between the event’s themes and their own positioning
- Impact that lasts beyond the closing session
If you’re a consumer brand in F&B, for example, don’t just book a booth. Create an activation that’s impossible to ignore—a branded snack cart, a surprise tasting, or giveaways at the coffee station.
If you’re in SaaS, don’t just book a keynote session to plug your tool. Curate a hands-on workshop where you guide attendees through a particular use case and deliver them a highly personalized experience that builds trust.
How To Measure Sponsorship ROI
Too many brands can’t prove whether their sponsorship worked. Effective event managers fix that before they even sign the contract.
1. Set Your Goals
Event platform Swoogo recommends starting with one critical step: define exactly what success looks like.
Setting event goals is the same as setting goals for marketing campaigns. They should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achieveable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Goals are connected to key performance indicators (KPIs) which are data points that indicate how your business is performing in relation to your goals. To keep goals simple to understand, usually goals are measured by just one or two KPIs.
Some of the most common overarching event goals and metrics to track them include:
- Lead generation: # of qualified leads, cost per lead, or demo requests
- Engagement: # of booth visits or participation in activations
- Brand awareness: Branded search traffic, social media mentions, or press mentions
- Thought leadership: # of session attendees or post-session satisfaction survey
- Revenue: Conversion rate, influenced pipeline value, or closed-won revenue
Let’s apply this framework to an event and assume your overarching goal is lead generation and your SMART goal is simply to “generate 20 qualified leads at Spotlight.”
That’s specific as it’s clear what you are aiming for; it’s measurable because you can clearly track whether 20 leads were acquired; it’s achievable if you design an activation that can attract leads at the event; it’s relevant if lead generation is your overarching goal towards driving revenue; and it’s time-bound as it’s centered around the date of the event.
It’s imperative that you have your goals clearly defined before you decide which event(s) to attend and how you want your brand to show up and be perceived.
2. Build Activations Around Your Goals
Next, it’s time to make sure you stand out at the event. Even if you’re exhibiting at the event, you’ll want to create some excitement around your booth—perhaps by providing a quiz, activity, or giveaway that takes place at your stand. Those types of activities are perfect opportunities to track leads generated and create moments that attendees will remember participating in.
On the other hand, let’s say your overarching goal is more around brand awareness. Maybe your SMART goal is defined as “position your company as a thought leader in AI content creation at Spotlight resulting in 20% increase in branded search traffic within 30 days after the event.” How could you design an activation to achieve this goal?
In this case, sponsoring a keynote or panel discussion would be a better approach. This allows you to emphasize how your brand facilitates useful and practical information, which can improve your overall brand reputation. Ultimately, you still need to thoughtfully design your session, to influence attendees watching to take the desired action (searching for and visiting your website).
3. Track Your Results
Tracking your sponsorship results is key to conclusively determine whether your goals were achieved. Some metrics can be tracked live during the event, such as number of leads generated, but others may need time before the full impact can be recognized.
For example, if you’re aiming for an increase in sales you may want to track conversion rate as one of your metrics. As turning leads to customers usually doesn’t happen at the event itself, that’s a KPI worth having a delayed time-frame for.
4. Adjust Your Strategy
Next it’s time to learn from those results and adapt your approach to the next event.
If your activations generated leads, but most were unqualified, then you’ll want to reflect on the reasons and refine your approach for the next event. If you exceeded your goal, those learnings can help inform your strategy at other events, to help you achieve even greater results in future.
Sponsorships are often an iterative process. What works at one event, might not work at another due to the event’s dynamics, alignment with your brand, or the type of audience attending. It’s important to be flexible and keep experimenting with ways to make your brand stand out.
5. Share Your Results
Finally, you’ll want to promote the outcome of the event internally. This is a critical part of post-event reporting, because it shifts the perspective of marketing from a cost center to a department driving business results.
As events admittedly can have a higher overall price tag (even though they can generate a lower cost per interaction), they are often seen as easy targets for budget cuts. It’s one of the top frustrations for business event planners.
The best way to minimize this risk is to clearly and frequently share the results an event has delivered, putting results into context for your organization by benchmarking results against competitors or past events.
3 Trends To Look For In 2026
If 2025 is the year to show up with intention, 2026 will be the year to raise the bar. Attendees constantly expect more, and those experimenting now will define what “best in class” looks like.
Sustainability as a standard
Attendees are looking well beyond recyclable tote bags. They want to see environmental responsibility woven into the product, the activation, and the event experience itself—waste-free catering, carbon-neutral booths, or circular economy initiatives.
For example, back in 2020, Google started using reusable containers in its event food and beverage programming. It served breakfast and lunch from reusable containers. If you’re a consumer F&B brand, that’s a thoughtful way to incorporate sustainability into any event giveaway you’re planning.
It’s important that brands attending events recognize attendee expectations and consider what initiatives, such as supporting local businesses or reducing the environmental impact of events (by shipping less physical materials) they can implement.
One way to stand out could be by showcasing sustainable travel to the event itself. Only one in ten companies is prioritizing sustainable travel. Encouraging your employees to reduce their carbon emissions—by choosing trains over flights for short trips, offering shared transport, or supporting carbon-offset initiatives—shows a genuine commitment to sustainability.
Above all, trust and transparency matter most. Attendees might fact-check sustainability claims, so ensure your practices are real, measurable, and clearly communicated.
Technology-driven immersion
AR, VR, and AI are no longer “nice-to-have gimmicks.” They’re becoming tools for making complex stories instantly tangible.
The technology has been in use at trade shows for almost a decade. It was initially embraced for logistical convenience as it enabled you to display an entire product line without physical samples or excessive booth real estate.
The growing trend now is interactive immersion through AI.
For example, AI avatars can conduct virtual tours, demonstrate product features, and help reduce dependency on large sales teams. Custom AI displays enable personalized experiences adapting to individual visitor profiles.
Eventagrate is an interactive technology company developing custom-built exhibition booths using everything from touchscreens to gesture-based navigation (here’s a great example booth from this year’s LEAP tech event).
The main takeaway for marketers is that events are not “show and tell” but instead “show and interact”. Activations which encourage active participation using both humans and technology will be the most successful.
Data-led personalization
The next competitive advantage will be tailoring every touchpoint to the individual. That means custom follow-up content, real-time offers triggered by attendee behavior, and experiences that feel unique.
According to research from McKinsey, “71 percent of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions. And 76 percent get frustrated when this doesn’t happen.”
An easy-to-implement idea for events is personalized welcome screens, using geofencing and digital screens to display a customized welcome message to attendees when they walk past. This represents a perfect chance for a brand to raise awareness by being mentioned in the welcome message to attendees.
An elevated version of using data for events was implemented by the BeEvents agency who WOWed attendees heading to a conference dinner. They discovered attendees’ favorite songs and had them playing while they were transported to the event.
“We call these acts of Radical Hospitality,” says BeEvents founder and creative director Ryan Hanson. “They say, ‘I see you and I'm going to use the data I've collected about you to curate an experience specifically for you.'”
Event sponsors can use the data they have about their customers to curate special experiences for its leads and customers together with the event organizer. Usually event organizers are open to creative sponsorship ideas as they recognize not only will your brand enjoy more success, but attendees will enjoy the experience more. Don’t be afraid to ask for a custom sponsorship package that includes an out-of-the-box experience.
The window is now
Event calendars move fast. Miss one, and the conversation moves on without you.
In 2025, the question isn’t whether events matter. It’s which brands will make them matter most. The ones who arrive with a clear plan, measure everything, and create moments worth sharing will be those who lead.
If you’re not in the room, you risk being left out of the conversation.
Spotlight 2025 is where that visibility can start. You’ll be in front of 1,200+ marketers who aren’t just consuming marketing—they’re creating it, shaping trends, and amplifying brands they love.
When a marketer loves a product, they talk about it, share it, and aren’t afraid to post about it. For unconventional, creative sponsorships, there’s no better stage to test, learn, and leave a mark.
