Measuring the success of conference talks: B2B metrics that matter

The success of conference talks can be measured along a chain of six stages: submissions, acceptances, talks, conversations, meetings and paid projects. Each stage has its own metric, and the rates between the stages show where results are produced and where they fail to appear. The first three stages sit with an agency that submits for you, while the last three happen in your own sales process after the talk and have to be recorded by you. This article names the metric for each stage, shows the ROI calculation and our own acceptance rates and describes what a speaker agency should report.

How do you measure the success of a conference talk?

You measure the success of a conference talk by the contracts that come out of it and by the rates of the six stages before. For consultants and freelancers the contract counts, and a talk given is an intermediate stage on the way there. The chain starts with the submission, the talk proposal (the abstract) that you send in to a call for papers, the public invitation a conference uses to collect proposals. The programme committee, the group that puts the programme together, decides on it, and a positive decision brings an acceptance. The acceptance becomes a talk, the talk leads to conversations with listeners, the conversations to meetings and the meetings to paid projects.

The chain can be captured in an overview that names the metric, formula and data source for each stage:

Counting submissions: volume and pending decisions

The first metric is the number of submissions, and it needs two figures: how many abstracts were sent in and to how many conferences. Across our own submissions for clients, that has been 2,189 abstracts so far. Of these, 1,374 have been decided and the rest are waiting for an answer, because many conferences only respond weeks or months after the call closes, as the article on the timeline from call for papers to stage shows.

This leads to the most important measuring rule in this article: a rate is only calculated over decided submissions. If you divide 94 acceptances by all 2,189 submissions, you get just over 4 per cent and underestimate the result, because 815 answers are still missing. Every submission therefore needs a status (pending or decided) and the date of the decision.

Acceptances: 7 per cent per abstract, up to 19 per cent per conference

Of 1,374 decided abstracts, 94 were accepted and 1,280 rejected, which is around 7 per cent acceptance per abstract. At conference level the rate is higher, because we often submit several abstracts per conference and one acceptance is enough: of 433 decided conferences, 83 accepted. Per conference we reach up to 19 per cent acceptances, while at this volume of submissions the market norm is 5 per cent at most. A detailed analysis is in the article What is the acceptance rate for calls for papers.

The rate per abstract shows how well the proposal lands. The rate per conference shows whether the conference list fits your topic. The programme committee decides on every single acceptance, which is why a good agency measures the rate across many conferences.

Talks: how many there will be and what each costs

Something can come up between acceptance and talk, such as a date that moves, so the talk itself is what counts. In our work, one to three talks are usual in the first year and four to six after that. How to find the right number for your offer is described in How many talks a year you really need.

The second metric at this stage is cost per talk, and it makes routes comparable that have little in common. With pay to speak you buy the slot from the organiser, and that quickly costs 10,000 euros or more for a single slot. At Stage Starter the collaboration starts from 990 euros net a month, which is 11,880 euros net a year for the entire operation. If that produces four talks, the fees come to about 2,970 euros per talk, and at six talks 1,980 euros, in each case excluding travel and your own preparation time. This is a worked example.

Stage Starter takes on this work for you: we find the right calls, write the submission and submit it. We then follow up, support you to the stage and report the first three stages of the chain to you continuously. The services a speaker agency covers and how the models on the market bill are summarised in the speaker agency guide.

What do feedback ratings and audience numbers say about a talk?

Feedback ratings and audience numbers tell you how your talk landed and how strongly your topic drew people, but they say little about contracts. Many conferences ask attendees to rate sessions in their app or by questionnaire, usually on a scale for content and delivery. Good ratings help with the next submission, because programme committees take earlier ratings and recommendations into account, and weak ratings show where the talk needs sharpening.

Audience numbers mainly describe the size of the conference and where your slot sits in the programme. A room with forty purchasing managers brings more conversations than one with four hundred students. Both values belong in your analysis as signals of quality and fit, and business success is only measured by the chain from the fourth stage onwards.

After the talk: the metrics only you know

The agency's view ends with the talk, because you hold the conversations with listeners yourself, so the last three stages sit in your sales process. In the example, one talk brings about five serious conversations, which lead to two meetings, and every third meeting turns into paid work. A conversation counts as serious when the other person describes a problem of their own that fits your offer.

These stages only become countable once you record the source. In your CRM you create a "source" field and enter the conference name for every new contact. When the contact later becomes an opportunity, it inherits this source, so every new client can be traced back to a talk. Follow-up takes about two weeks and is described in What happens after the conference. In B2B the buying decision often comes months later, so an analysis after one year tells you more than one after a quarter.

How do you calculate the ROI of a conference talk?

You calculate the ROI of a conference talk by setting the value of the contracts won against the cost of the talk: ROI equals contracts times contract value, minus cost, divided by cost. The cost includes the share of the agency fee per talk, travel and accommodation and your own days valued at your day rate. As contract value you count a client's contribution margin over the expected length of the relationship, for consultants usually the first engagement plus follow-on work.

Combining the stage values gives a worked example. For four to six talks at 7 per cent acceptance per abstract, around 60 to 90 submissions are needed. In the example these talks bring around 20 to 30 conversations, leading to 8 to 12 meetings, and every third meeting produces a contract, almost three to four contracts in total. If a won client brings in more than the 11,880 euros net that Stage Starter costs at minimum per year, a single contract covers the year's fee in the example. If your first six months fall well short, the chain shows you at which stage the gap opens.

What a speaker agency measures and reports

An agency that submits for you sees the first three stages of the chain and shows them to you. The report includes submissions with conference and status, rates based on decided submissions and upcoming talks with dates. At Stage Starter, submissions and acceptances come together with us because we submit in your name, and the rates in this article come from that work. The model pays off most for experts with little time and high contract values, because for them a single contract covers the annual fee. A report on success is therefore a joint effort: you supply the source of your contacts, and the agency adds the submission figures.

A warning sign is a report that opens with reach. Social media impressions describe the reach of the conference, and whether your talk brings clients is only answered by the chain from the fourth stage.