Robbie Thain
Founder, CEO
AI-generated illustrative image. Not an official campaign image.
Makai’s field operations take on Converve’s KPI guide connects staffing, product logistics and reporting deadlines with useful event measurement.
On October 23, 2026, Converve published “Event KPIs: What to Track Before, During and After an Event.” The page names Mark Kessels, Converve’s founder and managing director, as its author. The guide organizes measurement around the weeks before an event and the hours during it, followed by a post-event period of 30 to 180 days.
Converve’s contribution is a decision-oriented measurement framework. Its central recommendation is to select metrics before the event, give each a target and owner, and define the response when performance misses that target. The practical change is where measurement enters planning: before execution rather than only during the recap.
The guide separates the work into distinct windows:
For exhibitors, Converve recommends measuring meetings held and leads captured per exhibitor. It proposes comparison with the previous edition and reporting within seven days. It also recommends reviewing attributed pipeline at 30, 90 and 180 days.
The data planning starts earlier. Converve advises connecting registration, check-in, meetings and CRM through a shared participant identifier before registration opens. Its rationale is practical: reporting that arrives late may miss the budget or rebooking decision it was supposed to inform.
The reporting problem also appears in Bizzabo’s own article. It reports that 40% of organizers had difficulty proving event Return on Investment (ROI) in 2026, compared with 70% a year earlier.
The evidence boundary: Converve provides practitioner guidance for B2B events rather than proof that adopting its process increases revenue. It offers neither a universal pipeline benchmark nor a universal method for separating event-sourced opportunities from event-influenced deals. Its review windows and the organizer survey figures are not validated benchmarks for U.S. consumer activations. The useful application is to borrow the decision discipline while selecting measures that fit the activation.
At Makai, our reaction is straightforward: keep the welcome warm and the measurement disciplined. We do not see human connection and commercial accountability as competing goals. For beverage and CPG brands, the experience should give people a reason to participate while giving the marketing team evidence it can use.
Our measurement approach tracks awareness, engagement and conversion. We provide reporting on reach, trials, leads and sales to guide campaign optimization. That first-party experience is why we support defining the intended outcome before choosing the reporting format.
A product trial and a qualified business lead answer different questions. We believe both deserve clear definitions rather than being blended into a general engagement total. Our approach to connecting field activity with business outcomes keeps the commercial question attached to the interaction being measured.
We design mobile activations and roadshows to accelerate consumer trial and build trust during 90-day product launch windows. In that setting, a launch calendar and a pipeline review calendar serve different decisions. The field experience has to support the launch while reporting helps establish what happened beyond the initial interaction.
Our retail demonstrations also use trained brand ambassadors to drive in-store sales through product trials and real conversations. For us, the lesson from Converve is not to replace that work with more data collection. It is to make the intended business outcome clear enough that the experience and its measurement serve the same purpose.
Converve’s proposed procedure provides a useful planning sequence:
Our operational reading is that this sequence belongs alongside staffing and footprint planning. It should also sit beside the product and equipment plan. Otherwise, the measurement brief and the execution brief risk describing different versions of the activation.
Converve’s recommendation to assign KPI owners gives staffing discussions a sharper purpose. Our view is that the team needs clarity about the result being pursued and who owns its reporting. Responsibility for a consumer conversation and responsibility for a performance review are related jobs, but they are not interchangeable.
For a retail demonstration, Makai’s stated focus is trained ambassadors supporting product trial and in-store selling. For a trade show activation, our positioning centers on generating qualified leads. Those objectives give staffing conversations a business reference point beyond simply keeping the space occupied.
The practical implication is a clearer brief. The selected outcome should explain what a useful interaction looks like and which result the owner will review. That follows Converve’s decision-first approach without treating every conversation as the same kind of lead.
Makai plans and manages trade show spaces that attract attention, start conversations and convert visitors into customers. From that perspective, the footprint should support the intended exchange. A capture point has a job to do, but it should not become the entire experience.
We integrate QR codes and mobile technology into retail, event and tour experiences. Our view is that those tools work best as part of a connected interaction rather than as the main attraction. The planning question is whether the capture method serves the objective the team has selected.
That is why collecting useful leads without slowing the experience belongs in the same discussion as booth flow. A meeting objective calls for space that supports conversation. A trial objective calls for an experience that keeps the product central.
Makai stores sampling product and event gear, then ships, tracks and coordinates delivery nationwide. This is the physical side of the measurement discussion. The intended interaction still needs its product and equipment at the activation.
Our view is that logistics readiness and data readiness belong in the same planning conversation. Converve asks teams to verify that systems can supply the required information. For field marketers, the corresponding operational consideration is whether the planned experience has the physical support needed to take place.
Delivery completion and consumer response should remain separate measures. A shipment record describes product or gear movement. It does not establish that a trial occurred or that a sale followed. Keeping those distinctions clear gives the post-event review a better basis for evaluating execution alongside business outcomes.
Converve’s recommendation for an early exhibitor report is useful because it identifies a reporting deadline with a purpose. Our reading is that the first report and the later pipeline review should answer different questions. The first can describe delivered activity while subsequent reviews examine commercial progress.
We report on reach, trials, leads and sales to guide optimization. For us, those measures are most useful when the review connects each result to the next campaign decision. More activity is not automatically the same thing as better performance against the selected objective.
Converve’s shared-identifier recommendation also puts attention on the handoff into CRM. For activations with a sales or partner-development objective, connecting captured leads with the CRM process is part of preserving the relationship between the interaction and the later review. The reporting owner and review date give that connection an operational purpose.
Converve’s framework makes a useful demand of the brief: decide what the information will change before the event produces it. Our takeaway for CPG leaders is to keep the physical experience and the commercial review connected from the start. That means giving the desired outcome a named owner and a review date rather than leaving measurement for the recap.
As CMO or VP of Marketing, will you use today’s planning review to name the outcome, owner and review date that will guide the next investment decision for your activation?
A longer measurement window does not move the activation date; Makai stores sampling product and event gear and coordinates shipping, tracking and delivery nationwide. For CPG marketers facing pressure to prove live-event Return on Investment, Makai creates experiential campaigns and trade show activations designed to turn consumer interactions into qualified leads.
30 Years Experiential & Retail Activation Partner for CPG & Beverage Brands | Multi-Market Demos, Roadshows & Costco/Club Programs That Actually Sell
