LOOPD: A Data-driven Approach to Meeting Your Event Goals [Review]

LOOPD: What Is It?

For events to be taken seriously and demand the respect they deserve, event planners and marketers need to be able to prove the power and ROI events can offer, by taking a more scientific and data-driven approach. To date, pulling together information from multiple different sources is a time consuming and frustrating business. LOOPD offers an integrated solution which makes number crunching and analysis in real-time a reality. Data from wearable smart badges, the mobile app and the wider registration data generates insights on engagement and behavior via the analytics dashboard.

LOOPD started out as a networking app, however attendees didn’t want to use two apps, so it developed into a fully fledged event app, including gamification features. The founders still wanted the technology to be more engaging and a better way for participants to connect, so they developed a wearable device in the form of a badge, to complement the app.

LOOPD acts like an event activity tracker. It automatically captures visits to booths, contacts made and sessions attended to give attendees a personal event route map. Likewise event planners can see the number of contacts made, leads scanned and view the movements around the show.

LOOPD was recently acquired by the etouches event management platform, which means integration and greater insights from the wider event management and registration platform is possible. The LOOPD app is rebranding and combining some of the functionality from the original etouches Tapcrowd app into a single application, ready for the official launch in August 2017.

Let’s take a closer look at what LOOPD has brought to the already comprehensive etouches portfolio.

The Main Categories of Features Are:

Badge. Via a wearable badge real-world activity is captured, including exchanging contact information, automatic monitoring of session attendance and collection of marketing material. Organizers can monitor traffic flow in real-time.

App. A mobile event app with 40+ available app features can keep your attendees informed at all times, including nearby attendee discovery and networking, and lead capture for exhibitors .

Engagement and Analytics. An intelligent analysis dashboard helps you to determine your event goals and evaluates your success in real-time against these objectives, using the rich data captured from the app and badges.  

Review

LOOPD is raising the stakes in terms of reporting on your event performance and ROI. Through the badge and the app, LOOPD captures, analyzes and optimizes real time engagement and activity data, throughout the event lifecycle. The data is then translated into rich actionable analytics within the online dashboard. This data is tracked against your specific, mission-critical, event goals, as determined at the start of the project. It is focused on ensuring that you are constantly monitoring your objectives and taking action to correct issues if you go off-course, to ensure event success.

Goals

LOOPD automatically syncs with events you are planning within the etouches platform. The first step in capturing data with a purpose is identifying clear goals for your event. These can be set from scratch or copied from a prior event. These may relate to the number of registrations, session attendance, connections made, the sponsorship revenue generated and the number of leads captured by exhibitors – basically any metrics that are important to the success of the event. The criteria you set determines the success or failure of your efforts against these aims. This helps you to focus on the facts and take action based on definite objectives, rather than on a gut feeling or isolated numbers.

The dashboard shows all of the critical information that will make or break your event. You can pace your efforts to know if you are on track or where you need to extend more resources in order to meet your goals. You can also adjust your goals as you go along, if your priorities change, to ensure maximum accuracy.

Traffic Flow and Dwell Time

Organizers can track traffic flow, to show in real time where your attendees are, what the most popular spots are and how much time they are spending there. Red circles indicate that there are a lot of people in that area and blue means there ar e not so many. There is no need for a physical check in process (hooray – no lines!) – it just passively tracks people at the relevant places. Organizers can gauge attendee retention over the course of each day. Are people staying at the event and coming back to specific elements?

A floor plan is uploaded to the system in the form of a colour PDF. The distance analytics of key landmarks are set to track between 5ft to 30ft. The event manager can designate points of interest on the floor plan: rooms, exhibitors, and significant areas. LOOPD Hubs are then placed at these locations so that the “sensors” can capture movements at these specific areas in the venue. Each LOOPD Hub tracks attendees inside a radius of 30ft, or whatever the radius that has been specified. Exhibitors will need a shorter radius and seminar rooms will need a larger radius. Hubs do not track attendees after they stop outside of that proximity. Location based messages can also be issued to those within the relevant area.

Sessions

By cross-referencing an attendees schedule and time signatures, the LOOPD Hubs and the LOOPD App track each attendee’s presence in specific rooms during specific sessions. By measuring attendance the top three seminars can be identified and the most popular trending topics captured. Planners can gain a realistic picture of the success or failure of marketing conversion efforts. These leading sessions are determined by the number of attendee visits, as well as overall dwell time.

At many events, tracking an individual’s attendance is linked to education credits (CE or CPD accreditation). Being able to determine the time an attendee arrived at a session and when they departed is an accurate way to track learning hours, without having to scan people in and out of each session.

Badges

With the LOOPD badge attendees don’t have to worry about business cards or check-in. Each badge has Bluetooth LE connectivity, which offers several advantages over Near Field Communication (NFC) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies. BLE is more affordable, mobile compatible and scalable, allowing event planners to collect data about what attendees did at your event in a passive, non-intrusive way.

The device can be held within 6 inches, and the button pressed if you wish to exchange contact details via a digital business card exchange. An orange light blinks and then turns green when the exchange is done. Organizers can see the overall connections made per attendee, to show in real-time the degree of networking taking place. The device can also be used to collect marketing materials and all activity is recorded as part of the full attendee “journey” of the event.

Using the LOOPD badge has a cost implication but there are benefits of using the badges over the smartphone app as there are no bandwidth/WiFi issues, no need to reach for your device or issues with phone batteries dying. If you chose to use the badge hardware they can be posted worldwide. They are collected back after the event for checking and testing before reuse. The batteries last a minimum of two months. A new style badge will be launched soon, which is smaller, flatter and square, with room for sponsors branding.

Identify Influencers

Event planners are often eager to identify the most dynamic influencers at their events as they could be vital promoters and brand ambassadors. With the insights gathered it is possible to identify the most energized and engaged participants attending – those that are the most influential and vibrant. These individuals often make a high number of connections, attend many sessions, interact with numerous exhibitors, and complete surveys to give their feedback.

Event History

Attendees often have a lot to take in at events but LOOPD creates a timeline of their activity throughout the event. This history provides a convenient way to jog their memories and remember to follow up with new contacts. They can sort it by connection, time, and location. They can also view session information and speaker multimedia, receive contact and company update alerts, and check out exhibitor information and marketing collateral.

Analytics Dashboard

The dashboard delivers comprehensive information in a visual way to explain impact throughout the event in all of the ways we have mentioned, and also to analyze in greater detail after the event has occurred. This retrospective view shows if goals were met for attendee registration, revenue generation, and survey completion. It can reveal the level of attendee engagement before, during, and after the event. Overall the data will reveal the most popular sessions, the total connections made and messages sent. Numerous reports can be generated and these can all be exported as raw data.

Features

Badge

• A wearable device that captures real-world activity
• Measure and record activity, interactions, actions and behaviors
• Exchange contact information
• Automatically monitor session attendance
• Identify event influencers with contextual information
• Generate heat maps with event traffic flow
• Allow attendees to collect marketing material
• Provide attendees with their complete event journey
• Dashboard of insights

App

• Enterprise-grade mobile event app
• Customize the look and feel to align with brand identity
• 40+ available app features (session information, maps and more)
• Keep attendees informed at all times
• Networking and nearby attendee discovery
• In-app messaging and meeting requests
• Lead capture for exhibitors
• Push Messages for updates, news and reminders
• Personal Agenda
• Favorites allow attendees to store content for future reference: brochures, attendee details, exhibitor info and more
• Self-service and full service packages available
• Increase attendee post-event activity and set up targeted campaigns

Engagement and Analytics

• Define event goals
• Monitor performance through the rich data being captured with the app and badge
• Obtain mission-critical event metrics
• Take immediate action to correct and get back on track
• Monitor the flow of your attendees around the venue
• Identify the most popular exhibitors, partners and sessions
• Determine how long attendees stayed at your event
• Understand how many connections your attendees made
• Measure event impact and value

Who Is It For?

etouches LOOPD is targeted at corporate event planners, associations and agencies. The platform is suitable for all events, particularly conferences and trade shows, including events that need to track specific session attendance for accreditation purposes. The badge hardware is most suitable for larger events, but the app can function without the wearable hardware.

Event planners and marketers will particularly benefit from the goal and data-driven approach LOOPD offers. The insights into your event and attendee behavior enables better understanding, accountability and performance.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Setting specific goals can make you more focused and accountable in terms of event performance.
• Enables a data driven approach with insights from the badge, app and other etouches platform data (such as registrations) all collated automatically to give a rich overview.
• The traffic flow and heat map tool can offer valuable insights for future event planning.

Cons

• Smart exhibitor lead retrieval is coming in quarter 4, currently a basic lead retrieval tool is offered.
• Not fully self service, this is professional event software. There is a wizard but it needs a manager to change certain things.
• The event badges are aimed at larger events and corporates. For smaller or lower budget events the app QR code could be more suitable.

Pricing and Plans

Please reach out to sales for a demo and specific pricing information.

In Conclusion

LOOPD is raising the game in terms of setting event objectives and intelligently tracking performance before, during and after your event. The rich data collected via the badges, event app and wider event management platform gives a 360 degree analysis of the success or your event and where improvements should be made. This amount of integrated data may be out of the league of small, budget limited events, but for larger events and event planners that take ROI seriously, this is a game changer.

Disclaimer: Reviews are paid for placements. While Event Manager Blog receives a fee to extensively look at the tool and review it in detail, the content of the review is independent and by no means influenced by the company. If you have any questions please use the contact us section.