The ClickDimensions connector with GoToWebinar is an incredibly helpful tool that can help shape your webinar or virtual event marketing plans in a big way. At ClickDimensions, we use GoToWebinar to host webinars, ClickDimensions Academy sessions and other virtual group training events.
This blog post will explore how to gain an understanding of attendance patterns for your online events, which can help you identify how you can improve engagement and attendance.
First, let’s take a look at the basics of the GoToWebinar connector. The connector brings in data from the registration and associates this data to existing lead and contact records in CRM via the email address used in the registration for the event. If an existing lead or contact record is not found in CRM, a new lead or contact record is created using the email address from the registration. This is specified when the connector is set up within CRM.
When an event is created in GoToWebinar, a corresponding active event record is created in CRM (the event will change to past after the date/time of the session is complete). An event participation record is created for each individual registration for the event, and these event participation records are related to the main event record in CRM. The event participation record will have a registration status: registered, attended or missed. The event participation record will be active unless it is changed to inactive.
Taking the data coming in from GoToWebinar events and the corresponding registrations, it is easy to see trends in our event attendance and registrations. Using advanced find in CRM and custom views to pinpoint the data we are looking for, we can make this data easily accessible for reporting.
We like to see engagement patterns with live attendees vs. the registrants who prefer accessing the recorded versions of the lessons we offer. So in CRM, I have a personal view set for each course we offer within the ClickDimensions Academy: CD101, CD201 and CD301. Here is what I’m looking for:
- Event participation records with a status that equals Active
- Event Contains: CD101 (It’s a good idea to set up a naming convention for a webinar series. Since this is a course we regularly offer, we are searching for all event participations with a CD101 in the name.)
- Registration Status Does Not Equal: Registered (thereby showing us event participation records for Attended or Missed; a status of Missed indicates that the person viewed the recorded lesson instead of attending live)
- Event Scheduled Start Date/Time Last X Days: 90 (we are interested in seeing data from the events hosted within the last 90 days; this changes the scope of how we analyze participation trends)
I also made sure my columns contain the other information from the event participation record that I would like to see at a glance: contact name, organization, registration status, event, etc. You can edit to show the columns you would like to see at a glance.
When this data is viewed, it can look a bit convoluted:
CRM charts give me a better visualization of my attendance trends and help me better understand the data:
I created my chart by editing the columns of my custom view for this type of data, described in the process above. Click on the arrow for the Charts section towards the right side of the view:
From this data, I can see clearly that while we have a sizeable number of attendees, a majority of the registrants cannot attend all live sessions and rely heavily on the recorded lessons. Depending on what I’m trying to achieve, I could alter my training or marketing plan to drive up a higher number of attendees for the live sessions, if I so choose.
Remember, this is just an example of how to use CRM reporting and query tools with data brought in from ClickDimensions event connectors. Feel free to expand on this example and fully realize the potential of event data brought in via ClickDimensions!
Written by Molly Morat, ClickDimensions Training Specialist
The post Tracking Webinar Attendee Patterns with the GoToWebinar Connector appeared first on Marketing Automations.
