New Tech Promises to Prove Exhibitor ROI

UK-based attendee feedback company Explori has launched Maxbi, a new platform for exhibitors to evaluate their performance and the return on investment (ROI) of participating in trade shows. 

“With Maxbi, we aim to solve one of the greatest challenges both the trade show industry, and exhibit marketers face – measurement,” said Explori CEO Mark Brewster.

While many event technology companies have shifted their focus to AI, Explori has stayed close to its core data analytics and reporting competencies. Maxbi’s approach to exhibitor ROI complements its two other products aimed at corporate planners and exhibition organizers.

The Platform

Maxbi looks and feels similar to other Explori products. The clean design houses a data dashboard. Using a simple survey link, exhibiting manager can fill out a standardized set of questions around budget allocation, quality of leads, and four key performance indicators (KPIs): overall satisfaction, booth location, likelihood of returning, and likelihood to recommend.

From this data, users can clearly understand which trade shows are crucial to their business and which are missing the mark. The more data goes in; the more insights can be derived from Maxbi.

There are multiple dashboard views, one for each trade show, one for the whole portfolio or company, and a clever quadrant analysis that helps identify outliers. The data visualization options are very capable, with plenty of options to slice and dice the data.

Benchmarks are also an important part of the product. With Explori holding data from a wide range of trade shows, it currently uses this data to provide benchmarks. Once Maxbi reaches a certain data threshold, the benchmarks will shift to actual 1:1 comparable data.

The ROI for Exhibitors

Explori developed the product in collaboration with a working group of representatives from

numerous exhibiting companies that invest heavily in exhibitions. The core focus was finding a way to deliver structured, comparable data to provide new intelligence for events professionals.

“Our recent research shows that exhibitors’ inability to demonstrate event ROI to senior leadership is the greatest internal challenge after budget pressures. Whilst many senior leaders view trade shows as a valuable marketing channel, 30% are now unconvinced that they are essential. There continues to be a real friction caused by rising exhibit costs and the absence of data. This puts exhibit marketing at a real disadvantage when competing for budget with other marketing channels, which are often perceived to be more measurable.”

Mark Brewster, Explori, CEO

Connecting the Dots

While the product will only excite the event data nerds, knowing what questions to ask to measure ROI accurately is alone worth the asking price. The annual cost is a very reasonable $394 (£300 GBP) per annual license. 

While it may be tempting to try for one year, the more data collected, the more insightful the analysis can be. With a few years’ worth of data, Maxbi could prove invaluable.

Explori is open about wanting to promote exhibiting and trade shows in general. It hopes this tool helps to reveal the value of in-person business events. Its intention is not for Maxbi to become a TripAdvisor for trade shows. The data collected will not populate a public rating of trade shows. However, it may be used to provide suggestions for other relevant trade shows that exhibitors may not have considered before.