AI in event marketing: your practical 4-step guide.
Every event marketer will be aware that using AI is not optional. Every event marketer will have had extensive encouragement from many sources to use AI to be more efficient and effective in their work. Every event marketer will have their LinkedIn feeds inundated with AI-focused posts - mostly from the companies selling AI tools.
And every event marketer I know is using AI - in some shape or form.
Event marketers’ willingness to find and adopt AI tools is not a problem.
If anything, event marketers will be the first people to jump on a tool that saves them time and makes their marketing perform better. I firmly believe there is no marketer in the world busier than someone whose job it is to promote conferences and exhibitions. I also firmly believe that few marketers face as much pressure and scrutiny when it comes to directly impacting commercial results as event marketers do.
When it comes to the use of AI, here are 4 key challenges event marketers are facing:
1. There is now a proliferation of martech tools available to marketers. According to Chiefmartec, in 2025 there were over 15,000 tools available for marketers. And let’s not be pedantic: martech and AI are the same thing in practical terms - technology that helps marketers do their jobs.
2. 99% of martech/AI tools available to marketers were not built for event marketing, and we know that much of what works well for most of the world’s marketers does not work well for events.
3. It takes time to find and test the AI tools that work best for any particular event marketing setup - and every event marketing setup is different when it comes to systems, processes and people in place to strategise, plan, run, analyse and optimise campaigns.
4. Event marketers have many stakeholders to satisfy as they do their jobs, and most of these stakeholders - who have never themselves done event marketing - have unrealistic expectations of what AI can do. Managing stakeholder expectations has always been a challenge for event marketers. This challenge is now bigger than ever.
It is somewhat ironic that the most time-saving device of our generation (AI) seems to have caused more problems for some event marketers than it solves.
But we believe the tide is now turning based on our observations of how the smartest event marketers are handling AI.
Acting with great urgency (panic?), but without following a systematic process is almost always an expensive exercise in terms of wasted time and money.
I've been as guilty as anyone of getting swept up in the excitement of using AI. I have experienced first-hand how highly pressured and smart event marketers feel the need to move very fast with AI adoption.
When every new tool we hear about sounds like the ‘silver bullet’, we get very excited.
And then when we dig a bit deeper, we often find this is not a tool that is going to revolutionise event marketing and save us tonnes of time.
But we don’t give up…
To go some way to helping event marketers navigate the exciting potential of AI while avoiding the pitfalls, here is a ‘5 Step’ framework for testing, evaluating, adopting & embedding the very best martech/AI tools in an event marketing function.
Step #1: Start with impact, not interest
Before you spend much time looking at a new AI tool - ask yourself this:
“If this tool does exactly what it promises - at face value - what difference will it make to my ability to generate revenue and profit more efficiently and at scale as I do my event marketing? Have I used enough of an ‘event marketing’ filter for my initial evaluation?”
There is enough information about most AI tools now available online - from biased and unbiased sources - to answer this question within 30 minutes.
I proved this to myself recently when looking closely again at Clay . Clay is a very impressive prospect data enrichment and outreach automation tool. It uses AI to research leads, fill in the gaps in your data, and personalise outreach at scale. But what they don’t tell you on their website, is that it requires specific expertise and a lot of investment to use - at a level that is out of reach of most events businesses.
Step #2 - Decide how you’ll measure ROI
When you know what impact you’re looking for and have decided it is an important enough area to prioritise in terms of the ‘size of the prize’, decide when and how you will measure gains within a defined and contained pilot (see Step 3).
ROI metrics should focus on one, two or all three of these simple goals:
(1) Making more money
(2) Saving money
(3) Saving time
As with all innovation, success is not guaranteed, and if you think your AI tool will not deliver enough ROI from a pilot, let alone a full roll out, then put that in the ‘useful learning’ box, and move on swiftly to the next AI tool on your list.
Step #3: Run a pilot to test your hypothesis
Once you’ve worked out which AI tool you want to focus on based on strong enough impact and how you’ll measure ROI - run a pilot. Your pilot plan and timeline should include: start of project, go-live date, key milestones to capture a ‘snapshot’ of progress at that point in terms of action & outcomes, and end date when you’ll assess overall ROI and consider all learnings.
Schedule regular project meetings to keep the pilot moving, probably best done weekly. This will mean you systematically track progress, consider and deploy what is being learnt as you go, make good decisions on next steps and - crucially - remove barriers to progress and success.
This rigorous and metronomic approach gives your pilot the best chance of success.
By systematically following steps 1 - 3, you will avoid falling into the following traps:
- TRAP 1: Using an AI tool because of FOMO.
Seeing a steady stream of content online telling us ‘everyone is using X tool and making millions’ creates constant pressure. But we need to always bear in mind that a lot of what we see online - especially if pushed out by the tech companies trying to sell their products - is simply not true.
AI tool vendors are making extraordinary promises right now - selling massive productivity gains, magical revenue uplift and seamless automation that will ‘transform your business overnight’. Our advice: approach every demo, every case study, and every piece of vendor marketing with healthy scepticism. Look for evidence that the tool is relevant to your own business.
- TRAP 2: Using an AI tool because a senior executive has heard about it and insisted you start using it straight away.
Do they understand your job well enough to insist it is done in a certain way?
Have they properly dug into the tool to understand what impact it will have and how ROI should be measured?
Most senior executives are under a lot of pressure to get AI into their businesses so they’re constantly pushing their team to use AI - especially if it looks like they’re not using it enough (or at all). This is where having good stakeholder management skills in your event marketing team will make all the difference to keeping the bosses happy with visible progress, while also taking a pragmatic approach to AI.
Step #4: Roll out - with rigour and pace
Once you’ve found an AI tool that will make a big enough impact; you’ve made a strong and confident business case for quantified ROI, and you’ve gathered relevant learnings from the pilot - it’s time for the roll out! This is when you adjust your processes, get all your stakeholders fully on board (that stakeholder management piece again!), train your users - and go!
Then it’s time to look for the next AI tool that will be game-changing for your event marketing.
To wrap up, a top tip for where to start (or restart): look inside your existing stack first!
Often event marketers will be distracted by or go hunting for brand new AI tools when the platforms they already use and are already paying for have relevant AI functionality that will make a difference. Testing and rolling out a new part of a platform already being used in your event marketing is usually a quick win.
HubSpot is a good example. Before you dive into a tool like Clay to build a stronger database - become an expert on the AI functionality already available in HubSpot, such as HubSpot Breeze.
Another example is Canva - the much used and loved design tool used by most event marketers. But are all event marketers using the AI functionality available here? Canva has quietly built out a significant suite of AI-powered features including Magic Write for copy generation, Magic Design for instant template creation from a brief, and AI image generation built directly into the platform. Before you look at standalone AI design or content tools, ask yourself whether Canva is already sitting in your stack doing a fraction of what it's capable of.
And a third example is PPC/Paid Media to promote your events. To find out more about how AI is now embedded in PPC/Paid media, get in touch and we’ll send you a resource on this very topic!
In essence, as event marketers our approach to exploring and adopting AI should be the same as for any new technology or digital platform for the last 20 years:
- Be strategic in prioritisation.
- Hold ourselves accountable with robust ROI metrics aligned with business goals.
- Be willing to test and learn (and fail) - in a structured way with contained and well run pilots.
- Bring your stakeholders with you.
AI is revolutionary. It’s changing everything. Being mindful of avoiding hype and rabbit holes will test our limits as pragmatic operators. As event marketers we’re in the driving seat of AI-driven change in the functions and campaigns we run. Every event marketer should grab that steering wheel firmly, put their foot down, and then drive responsibly.
