From the Booth to the Bank: How RevOps Can Drive Event ROI

In-person events are back - and they’re not cheap. B2B companies are spending millions on booths, sponsorships, travel and swag, but still struggle to answer a basic question: Did the event actually generate revenue?

In this deep-dive webinar hosted by RevOps Co-op CEO Matthew Volm, Zach Barney, CEO and Co-founder of Mobly, delivers a tactical playbook for how Revenue Operations can help field marketing teams drive real pipeline, accelerate sales cycles, and prove event ROI. From data capture and lead routing to post-event attribution and forecasting, this is your step-by-step guide for turning booth buzz into closed-won business.

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The Hidden Cost of In-Person Events

According to Deloitte’s CMO Survey, in-person events (including first-party and third-party shows) account for roughly 20% of total B2B marketing budgets. With the average company spending 10% of revenue on marketing, that means a $100M company is investing $2M annually in events.

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And yet:

• Most companies can’t track pipeline from events with confidence.
• The average time to enter event leads into a CRM is 11 days.
• Lead data is inconsistent, unstructured, and often missing key context.
• Sales teams are frustrated with the quality—and timeliness—of leads.
• Marketing ends up calling events a “brand play” instead of measuring impact.

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Multiply that inefficiency across 15 to 30 shows per year, and you’re talking about tens of thousands of leads - and potentially millions of dollars in pipeline - stuck in operational purgatory.

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“The honest answer most people would give when asked about event ROI? ‘We have no idea.’” – Zach Barney

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The Problem: Fragmented Processes, Delayed Follow-Up

The root of the problem isn’t that events don’t generate revenue - it’s that tracking attribution from in-person interactions is messy. Unlike digital channels, where clicks and form fills are automatically captured, events require reps to manually enter context (if they bother at all). Consider the current state of most event lead workflows:

1. Marketers buy lead retrieval software from the event vendor.
2. Reps are trained (or not) on how to scan badges during the show.
3. At the end of the event, a CSV file of raw registration data is exported.
4. That data is often riddled with typos, burner emails, and duplicates.
5. It takes 11 days on average before reps start following up.
6. CRM attribution is disconnected, inconsistent, and difficult to report on.

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Even the most organized field marketing teams are often duct-taping together Asana boards, Slack channels, Google Sheets, lead scanners and enrichment tools just to get lead data in front of sales. The process doesn’t scale - and worse, it doesn’t convert.

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Three Pillars for Driving Real Event ROI with RevOps

Mobly helps companies like MongoDB, BambooHR and Fortive streamline the way they capture, process and track event interactions. Their framework boils down to three core pillars:

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1. Capture Context, Not Just Contact Info

“Your reps are not badge-scanning robots - they’re having real conversations. The context from those conversations is gold.” – Zach Barney

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The key to effective post-event follow-up is capturing the “why” behind the scan:

• What product was the person interested in?
• Were they a decision-maker or just browsing?
• Did they attend a demo? Join your happy hour? Enter a giveaway?
• What were their business challenges? Did they request pricing?

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Most lead capture tools provide basic contact data - name, title, company, email - but lack any mechanism for recording rep notes or tagging lead interests.

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Mobly solves this with customizable tags aligned to CRM fields (e.g. “Current CRM: Salesforce,” “Interested Product: Analytics”), along with voice note and text capture options. But even without a dedicated tool, companies can get scrappy:

• Encourage reps to snap a photo of badges and Slack them to a shared channel.
• Use voice memos or SMS to log notes in real time.
• Build Slack workflows that let reps add deal info on the fly.
• Use AI later to parse and structure free-text notes into fields.

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Bottom line: context enables personalization - and personalization drives pipeline.

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🛠️ Tactical tip: Use Mobly’s Event ROI Calculator to model the downstream value of capturing rich lead detail.

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2. Prioritize Speed to Lead (Yes, Even at Events)

“If you’re following up two weeks after the show, you’ve already lost.” – Zach Barney

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Sales velocity doesn’t stop just because your reps met someone face-to-face. Time kills deals - and in-person interactions deserve the same urgency as demo requests.

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Consider:

• 78% of buyers choose the first vendor to respond to them.
• A Harvard Business Review study found companies that follow up within five minutes are 21x more likely to qualify a lead.
• Yet the industry average post-event follow-up time is 11 days.

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Instead of “waiting until the dust settles,” RevOps should equip reps to follow up the moment a lead walks away from the booth.

Tactical tips:

• Let reps send calendar invites or pricing PDFs from their mobile device during the show.
• Pre-load templated follow-up emails or Slack snippets so reps don’t have to write from scratch.
• Use mobile forms to instantly trigger thank-you emails or content links.
• Push captured leads directly into Salesforce or HubSpot with routing and deduplication.

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At large organizations, internal process complexity often slows follow-up. But that’s not an excuse - it’s an opportunity for RevOps to simplify and streamline.

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3. Remove Internal Roadblocks to Selling

“A $500/month product shouldn’t require an AE to fill out 10 fields before closing a deal at a trade show.” – Zach Barney

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Your CRM should support sales, not slow it down. But most organizations require reps to:

• Manually create contacts and accounts before they can log a deal.
• Enter billing addresses, industry codes and opportunity stages.
• Wait for approvals or assignments before they’re allowed to follow up.

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Mobly encourages RevOps to adopt a “deal now, data later” philosophy for events:

• Let reps create opportunities on the fly.
• Allow contracts to be signed without fully populated opportunity records.
• Have RevOps clean up data and log the right attribution after the fact.

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Zach shared a story of one customer who used iPads at their booth to send pre-loaded DocuSign contracts for their self-serve product. Sales closed hundreds of deals in two days - with no CRM bottlenecks. Back-office teams caught up with data entry post-show.

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Your RevOps Audit Checklist: Where Do You Stand?

Before you overhaul your event processes, assess where you are today. Ask yourself:

• What is our average “speed to lead” post-event?
• Do we track both sourced and influenced revenue from events?
• How many hours per event are spent formatting, enriching or deduping data?
• How consistent are our processes across events?
• How quickly can our sales team follow up with qualified leads?
• What’s our plan for turning event contacts into opportunities?
• What’s the dollar value of pipeline we’ve attributed to in-person events this year?

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Don’t stop at “this is hard.” Run the numbers and use your findings to build the business case for investing in process improvements, automation - or tools like Mobly.

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Events Aren’t Going Anywhere - But Your Budget Might

In-person events are growing. According to Deloitte, field marketing budgets are projected to increase year over year, with more companies doubling down on conferences, trade shows and customer summits. Buyers want real connection - and vendors want face time.

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But as spending increases, scrutiny follows. Executives want to know:

• What did we get from that event?
• Should we sponsor again next year?
• Did we close any deals?

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RevOps sits at the intersection of answers. By designing better systems, standardizing attribution and aligning teams, you become the linchpin of event success.

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“RevOps is often the only team with visibility across marketing, sales and systems. That makes us uniquely positioned to solve the event ROI problem - and become true business partners.” – Zach Barney

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Looking for more great content? Check out our blog and join the community. Want tactical tools? Visit Mobly’s website to explore their webinars, articles, podcast and events.

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