Leads Captured Isn't the Number: Auditing an Event's Real Pipeline ROI

Marketing Academy · Field Work●Events & Experiential Marketing

All projects·From: Event Budgeting and ROI Measurement

CoreAudit· 40 minutes

Wise (formerly TransferWise)

Objective: Given an event's total cost, leads captured, qualified-lead split, close rate, and average deal size, calculate pipeline value and ROI using the lesson's formula, and identify why a one-month report would have understated the real result.

You're a marketing analyst at Wise, the cross-border payments company, six months after exhibiting at a fintech conference. Leadership wants to know if the event was worth the budget, not how many badges got scanned.

Calculate pipeline value instead of reporting a lead count, and flag why the one-month report leadership already saw was misleading.

Before you start

What you'll need

Free path (everything below is enough to finish)

Google Sheets

FreeCalculate pipeline value, ROI, and the attribution-window comparison

Free, sufficient for a single-event ROI calculation

Paid upgrades (optional, faster/deeper)

HubSpot CRM(optional)

FreemiumTag leads with event name/date at import and pull a filtered 6-month pipeline report automatically

CRM-integrated attribution produces roughly 2-3x more accurate conversion tracking than a manual spreadsheet

The process

2 steps

Step 01 of 02

Pipeline value = leads captured x close rate x average deal size

The lesson replaces lead-count reporting with pipeline value = leads captured x close rate x average deal size, the one number that's comparable across channels.

Total event cost was $52,000. Of 140 leads captured, only 38 were qualified (hot+warm tiers). Close rate on qualified event leads runs 22%, average deal size is $18,000. What's the pipeline value and the ROI, and why can't you use all 140 leads in the formula?

Google Sheets— Build a single-row calculation: qualified leads, close rate, deal size, pipeline value, ROI.

Procedure

Filter the 140 leads down to the 38 qualified (hot+warm) rows, discard the rest from this formula
Multiply 38 x 0.22 (close rate) x $18,000 (average deal size)
Divide the result by the $52,000 total event cost to get ROI
Write one sentence explaining why the 102 unqualified leads are excluded from the calculation

Sample output

PIPELINE VALUE CALCULATION
  Qualified leads:        38
  Close rate:             22%
  Avg deal size:          $18,000
  Pipeline value:         38 x 0.22 x $18,000 = $150,480
  Total event cost:       $52,000
  ROI:                    $150,480 / $52,000 = 2.89x (289%)

Healthy

Only the 38 qualified leads feed the close-rate math, since unqualified leads have no realistic path to a closed deal.

Unhealthy

Running the formula on all 140 leads captured, which inflates pipeline value with contacts that were never going to convert.

What this means

Pipeline value is only honest when close rate is applied to leads that were actually qualified, not to raw booth traffic.

So what do I do about it?

Symptom	Action	Effort
The ROI report uses total leads captured instead of qualified leads	Re-run the formula on the qualified subset only and correct the reported ROI	5 min

YouYou can do this yourself, no engineering access required.

Step 02 of 02

6-month attribution window vs premature one-month reporting

The lesson notes B2B SaaS companies should expect 60-70% of event-generated pipeline to convert within 6 months, so judging an event one month out will always understate its real value.

One month after the show, only 15 of the 38 qualified leads have advanced to a real opportunity. Should you report the event as underperforming? What does the 6-month attribution window tell you to do instead?

Google Sheets— Add a status column tagged with the event name and date, filtered by time-since-event.

Procedure

Tag every one of the 38 qualified leads with the event name and date at the moment of import
Check the current status of each lead: closed, active opportunity, or still nurturing
Compare the 1-month conversion rate (15/38 = 39%) against the lesson's 60-70% six-month expectation
Recommend holding the final ROI report until the 6-month mark instead of reporting at 1 month

Sample output

ATTRIBUTION WINDOW CHECK
  Leads advanced at 1 month:   15 / 38 (39%)
  Lesson's 6-month expectation: 60-70% of qualified leads typically advance
  Recommendation: hold the final ROI report until month 6, report interim progress only,
  since 39% at month 1 is consistent with, not behind, a 60-70% six-month trajectory.

Healthy

Leadership sees a 1-month progress update labeled as interim, with the real ROI verdict scheduled for the 6-month mark.

Unhealthy

Declaring the event a failure at the 1-month mark because only 39% of qualified leads have closed, before the attribution window has run.

What this means

A one-month snapshot measures speed, not outcome. The lesson's 6-month window is what actually validates or kills an event's ROI verdict.

So what do I do about it?

Symptom	Action	Effort
Leadership already saw a 1-month report calling the event underperforming	Send a correction noting the 6-month attribution window and the interim-vs-final distinction	5 min

YouYou can do this yourself, no engineering access required.

Final deliverable

A pipeline-value ROI calculation with a recommended reporting timeline, ready to present to leadership.

See a reference example

Sample output

Nubank, fintech conference ROI audit (excerpt)

  Total event cost:       $38,000
  Qualified leads:        29
  Close rate:             19%
  Avg deal size:          $14,500
  Pipeline value:         29 x 0.19 x $14,500 = $79,895
  ROI:                    $79,895 / $38,000 = 2.10x (210%)
  1-month conversion:     9 / 29 (31%), within the expected 6-month trajectory
  Recommendation: report interim only, final ROI verdict at the 6-month mark.

Success criteria

You're done when you can:

Pipeline value is calculated from qualified leads only, not total leads captured
ROI is expressed as a ratio against total event cost, not as a raw lead count
The report distinguishes an interim 1-month update from the final 6-month attribution verdict