Growing sponsorship revenue with digital placements at events

The most direct way to grow sponsorship revenue at an event is to add measurable digital placements next to the logo wall and print: a banner on the event app's home screen, sponsored cards in listings, sponsored push notifications, photo frames, and session or networking sponsorship. When you bundle these placements into tiered packages and report delivery after the event, sponsors can see exactly what they bought, and the renewal decision for your next event becomes easier.

Why logo walls and print are not enough

Logo walls, roll-up banners and the printed catalogue still have value, but they share three weaknesses. First, visibility depends on location: if an attendee never walks down that aisle, the sponsor is never seen. Second, it cannot be measured: nobody can say how many people saw the logo. Third, it is finite: a venue has only so many walls, and once they are sold you have nothing new to offer.

Sponsors know this too. The person who signs off the marketing budget will ask what the fee bought, and "your logo was at the entrance" does not answer that question. Digital placements live in the app attendees carry throughout the event, so they do not depend on location and they can be measured.

Digital placements

What you can sell inside an event app follows from how attendees use it. These are the most common placements.

Home screen banner

The first thing every attendee sees when they open the app. Space is limited, so it usually belongs to the top tier. A banner that links to the sponsor's profile, a session or a stand location creates more value than one that only shows a logo.

Sponsored listings

Sponsor cards that are featured in the exhibitor list, on the explore screen or in search results. They reach attendees who are already looking for a company, so they meet the right intent, which makes them a good core element for mid-tier packages.

Sponsored push notifications

Notifications carrying the sponsor's name, sent at a set time to all attendees or to a segment: a demo starting at the stand, a coffee break, a prize draw. The impact is high, but this is also the placement that is easiest to misuse. We cover it separately below.

Photo frames

Sponsored frames added to event photos travel beyond the venue as attendees share their pictures, so the visibility continues after the event ends.

Session and networking sponsorship

Sponsoring a panel, the opening keynote or a speed networking round gives visibility in the programme and on the session page in the app. Networking sponsorship is especially popular at B2B events, because the sponsor's name is tied to business meetings.

Building tiered packages

Selling every placement one by one wears out both your sales team and the sponsor. Group placements into tiered packages instead:

• Top tier: home screen banner, a featured sponsor card, a limited number of sponsored notifications, and one session or networking sponsorship.
• Mid tier: sponsored listing, an enriched company profile and one sponsored notification.
• Entry tier: a standard company profile and visibility in category listings.

Keep the top-tier placements genuinely scarce. If five banners rotate on the home screen at once, none of them is top tier.

Before you build packages, take an inventory: how many banner slots the app has, how many sponsored notifications you can send per day, which sessions are open to sponsorship. Selling before the inventory is clear risks promising the same placement to two sponsors. Match each package's digital elements with their physical counterpart as well; when the top-tier sponsor also has the most visible stand, the two kinds of visibility support each other.

The logic behind pricing

You can build a consistent logic without quoting figures. The value of a placement usually depends on four factors:

1. Reach: how many attendees will see it. The home screen reaches more people than an inner page.
2. Scarcity: how many sponsors it can be sold to. The opening session can have only one sponsor.
3. Timing: which moment of the event it covers. The opening morning is usually worth more than the closing afternoon.
4. Targeting: whether the placement can be aimed at a specific attendee segment.

Scoring these four factors in a simple table makes it easier to explain the price difference between packages. You then defend the price with the reach you offer rather than with last year's number.

Measuring delivery and reporting to sponsors

The biggest advantage of digital placements is that they can be measured; if you do not use that advantage, they are no different from a logo wall. Follow these steps before, during and after the event:

1. When you sell, define in writing what each package delivers: how many notifications, on which days, in which placements.
2. During the event, track delivery and check that each planned notification actually went out.
3. After the event, send every sponsor its own report: where it appeared, how many attendees opened its profile, how many connection and meeting requests it received.
4. Tie the report to the proposal for your next event, and discuss with the sponsor what worked and what could improve.

Write the report in the sponsor's terms: first a short summary showing how each element of the package was delivered, then the detailed table. For the structure of the report itself, see our sponsor report guide.

Avoiding notification fatigue

Sponsored notifications are easy to sell, which is exactly why they get oversold. If attendees receive an advertising notification every hour, they turn notifications off, and from then on your important updates, such as a session change or a meeting reminder, stop reaching them as well. Set a few simple rules:

• Set a daily cap on sponsored notifications and build your packages around it.
• Schedule sponsored notifications at different times from operational announcements.
• Require every notification to offer the attendee something useful: a demo, a coffee, a session.
• Where possible, send to the relevant segment rather than to everyone.

Common mistakes

• Selling placements one by one instead of in packages: the sales cycle gets longer and sponsors do not understand what they bought or why.
• Not keeping the top tier scarce: when every sponsor is promised the home screen, the home screen loses its value.
• Selling without defining delivery: after the event, the "how many notifications did we promise?" argument begins.
• Delivering the report late: a report that arrives weeks after the event misses the sponsor's budget decision.
• Putting notifications ahead of the attendee experience: short-term revenue lowers app usage and, over time, the value of every placement.

How Eventiqs helps

With the Ad and Visibility Placements module in Eventiqs, you manage banners on the home and Explore screens, sponsored company cards and sponsored push notifications from the organizer panel. The Sponsor and Exhibitor Profiles module gives every sponsor its own page in the app. The Analytics and Reporting module tracks active users, connection requests, QR scans and messages, and lets you prepare a report per sponsor. TKBBV 2026 ran on Eventiqs with about 100 sponsor companies and 1,000+ attendees (case study). For details, see the sponsor placements page.