1. Over the years, brands investing in
sponsorship and event marketing have
sought to extract value from three areas: (i)
brand exposure, (ii) VIP hospitality, and (iii)
promotion activation. Prior to emergence of
digital analytics, measuring the ROI from a
sponsorship investment was primarily based
on advertising value and other fuzzy math
methodologies.
VIP hospitality efforts often focused on
business introductions and entertainment
in the hopes that business relationships
and revenue transactions would occur
organically. That is, the job of the event
marketing agency was largely complete
once they ushered their brand sponsors
and VIPs into a hospitality setting. This
passive approach largely amounted to
“business deals by accident” as sponsors
and prospects searched for shared business
interests and a way to generate revenue.
With regards to promotion activation,
measuring financial outcomes also varied
as brand marketing teams were often
inconsistent in their use of direct response
tracking such as unique tracking phone
numbers, promo codes, or coupons.
Measuring the success of customer
appreciation or sales channel incentives
has largely focused on qualitative insights
in the form of attendee sentiment (post-
event satisfaction surveys, opinions
from executives, etc.) These insights are
directional at best and fall short of a
fiscally responsible approach to marketing
investment.
In recent years, the availability of
digital tools such as web analytics and
marketing automation (lead scoring) has
provided greater visibility into marketing
performance. As a result, today’s CMO is
under increasing pressure to deliver ROI
and that extends to their investment in
sponsorship and event marketing.
For sponsorship and event marketing profes-
sionals, this translates to a greater need
for tracking lead capture and attribution
from events and sponsorship all the way
through the sales pipeline to revenue. It also
means a need for greater collaboration with
internal sales teams to set goals, coordinate
involvement, and track CRM data.
For those selling sponsorship opportuni-
ties, it means aligning data capture and ROI
tracking to support brand marketers’ need
for tying their investments back to revenue
and profits.
Traditional Approaches to Measuring Sponsorship ROI
A New Age of Event Marketing Accountability
©2015 TRG-AMR North America LLC | 1995 S. McDowell Blvd., Petaluma, CA | www.TRG-AstonMartinRacing.com | marketing@trg-amr.com
Best Practice Guide:
Delivering ROI from Sponsorship and Event Marketing
Today’s CMO is
under increasing
pressure to deliver
ROI and that extends
to their investment
in sponsorship and
event marketing.
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2. The Rise of Motorsports Marketing
©2015 TRG-AMR North America LLC | 1995 S. McDowell Blvd., Petaluma, CA | www.TRG-AstonMartinRacing.com | marketing@trg-amr.com
Over the past few decades, professional
sports have emerged as a hotbed of
opportunity. With exponential increases
in fan attendance, media viewership, and
the rise of digital/social, corporate brands
have jumped in on the action seeking to
increase brand awareness and generate
incremental sales. While team sports
historically dominated the sponsorship and
event landscape, professional motorsports
(led by NASCAR) has risen to prominence
in the past 20 years. Recently, it’s been
sports car racing that has been on the rise
featuring brands such as Aston Martin,
Ferrari, and Porsche.
One reason that sports car racing is on the
rise is that many corporate brands have
“been there, done that” with regards to
inviting customers, sales prospects, and
channel partners to a golf tournament, NFL
luxury box, etc.
TRG-Aston Martin Racing has been on
the leading edge of this growth curve by
leveraging sportscar racing as a venue for
B2B relationship marketing to drive sales
results. There is no other venue where
executives have the opportunity to network
with peers and prospective buyers from so
many diverse industries– all in one location.
What’s more, the setting is different from
all other forms of sports/entertainment in
that attendees can participate in the action
and become a part of the experience by
attending the team strategy meetings,
listening to the driver/crew conversations
during the race, walk on the track during
pre-race guided tours, watch the action from
pit lane and enjoy VIP hospitality.
Best Practice Guide:
Delivering ROI from Sponsorship and Event Marketing
Sportscar racing provides a business setting that is
unique from all other forms of sports/entertainment.
awareness
Consideration
Preference
purchase
loyalty
ROI
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3. The opportunity for relationship
marketing and sales networking
is substantial in sportscar racing,
however not everyone is getting it
right.
Like broader tradeshow and event
marketing, many brands and agencies
struggle to correctly structure a
program and then measure results.
Studies by trade show marketing
firms have shown that up to 50%
of business owners and marketing
managers don’t measure event
ROI. Overcoming this requires a
disciplined approach to your event
marketing.
It also requires designing and
executing event strategy to align
with the stages of the sales cycle:
prospecting, deepening relationships
with leads, and closing late-stage
opportunities.
Here are some tips to help get started:
1. Set clear, quantifiable goal(s) for each field marketing event
2. Involve your Sales leadership early and often in the goal setting exercise for shared
buy-in (after all, Sales will need to attend the events to network for sales leads)
3. Ensure your event and sponsorship marketing team(s) and your motorsport partner
marketing team understand the goals and that a reporting structure is established
4. Structure VIP events into three types: networking for prospects, deepening
relationships with Leads, and closing late-stage Opportunities.
5. Since the focus of any field marketing event is making connections, capture every
interaction in a CRM database (pre-registration conversations, registration data, at-
event conversations, post-event communications)
6. Be sure that your CRM Lead Source field (standard in Salesforce.com) is configured so
that the pick list values in the field to reflect your unique event types (it is critical to
use a consistent event naming taxonomy for reporting accuracy)
7. Consider creating an additional custom field that allows additional data to be
captured about the specific event (year, location, etc.)
8. Use your CRM mobile app to capture real-time event conversations to avoid losing
business cards or conversation details days after the event
9. Aggregate event leads from individual events by use of tags (standard in Salesforce.
com) to track aggregate performance tracking and ease of reporting
10. Establish a reporting process with your Sales team to track the progress of event-
sourced leads through the sales pipeline (e.g. conversion rates to Opportunities Won)
11. It’s profit that runs your business (not revenue) so measure it. Specifically, consider
measuring customer lifetime value (LTV) to determine customer profitability from your
events as compared to other marketing tactics
12. Collaborate with your Sales team to calculate sales close rates, average revenue size,
and average profit margin between events to compare results
13. Use the sales close rates, revenue, profit data to help you determine where to allocate
your funds to maximize ROI
14. Use LTV calculation to guide how much you can afford to invest to acquire a new
customer
15. Get predictive - group all of the leads from one event using their tag, then divide
the total profit by the amount of leads to predict how much each new tradeshow
customer is worth.
16. Avoid the last-click trap -- measure assisted attribution where your events or
sponsorship were a contributing touch point to a lead or sale (remember: your event
was one of many touch points that led to capturing a lead and converting them into a
customer)
17. Use campaign tracking (such as Google UTM tags) to track registration landing pages
18. Compare results across different field marketing events
19. Test different event formats to determine which works best for a given business goal
20. Regularly solicit feedback from prospects, customers and your sales team for
improvement.
Generating SPONSORSHIP AND Event ROI
©2015 TRG-AMR North America LLC | 1995 S. McDowell Blvd., Petaluma, CA | www.TRG-AstonMartinRacing.com | marketing@trg-amr.com
Best Practice Guide:
Delivering ROI from Sponsorship and Event Marketing
3

4. For sales and marketing professionals, it’s important to align with partners who understand your business strategy and can
deliver results. To find the right partner, we suggest you ask a few questions:
Successful sponsorship and event marketing partnerships require a blend of sales and marketing skills, plus collaboration
between brand and partner.
If you are considering an investment in motorsport relationship marketing for demand generation, be sure that your
motorsport partner can deliver. If you are already investing in motorsport marketing and not seeing results, it might be time to
contact TRG-AMR to re-assess your current program.
Choosing a Motorsports Partner for business results
Priorities
Q: Are they a racing organization, or a
business organization that uses racing to
drive business results?
Q: Do they have the on-staff business
skills to help you and your marketing team
integrate events and sponsorship into your
demand generation strategy?
Process
Q: Do they have experience with tracking
campaign performance?
Q: Can they go beyond making business
introductions to actually brokering business
opportunities?
Q: Do they have experience planning
and executing different types of business
networking events (prospecting, building
relationships with leads, closing late-stage
opportunities)?
Q: Do they have a sponsor on-boarding
process that includes setting business
objectives?
Q: How frequently do they report/share
metrics with their sponsors?
Q: Can they articulate what they need from
you to ensure they can demonstrate ROI?
Tools
Q: Are they using a CRM system or do
they have CRM expertise to potential use
your system?
Q: Do they use marketing automation
or do they have experience with email
nurture campaigns for pre/post event
engagement?
Q: Do they understand website or other
analytics?
Q: What is their level of social media
expertise and can they support your need
for content to engage your customers and
prospects?
©2015 TRG-AMR North America LLC | 1995 S. McDowell Blvd., Petaluma, CA | www.TRG-AstonMartinRacing.com | marketing@trg-amr.com
Best Practice Guide:
Delivering ROI from Sponsorship and Event Marketing
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