Are you running your PPC campaigns in the best way? A checklist for event marketers
PPC and Paid Media have become one of the hardest working channels in the event marketing mix, and one of the easiest to get wrong.
PPC-driven traffic to event websites is some of the most engaged, arriving with clear intent rather than browsing casually. It’s also becoming a bigger share of the overall traffic mix than most event organisers realise. Most importantly, it’s a true acquisition channel rather than just a retargeting tool. A large share of the people PPC brings to an event website have never engaged with the event before, making it one of the few channels expanding the pool of people who know the event exists.
Done well, PPC is often the single biggest driver of new delegates and new SPEX prospects finding out your event exists in the first place.
The catch is that “done well” covers a huge amount of ground. Anyone can set up a Google Ads account and start spending. Far fewer people are putting in the strategic planning, audience validation and weekly human optimisation that separates a campaign burning through budget with little to show for it from one that reliably hits registration and MQL targets.
So how do your own PPC campaigns measure up?
This checklist applies whether your PPC is managed in-house, through a generalist agency, or through a specialist partner. It’s intended as a general health check for how thoroughly your campaigns are being planned, run and reported on.
Before any money is spent
Good PPC starts long before the account goes live. Consider whether the following is happening:
-
✓ Historical campaign performance for this event, or comparable events, has been reviewed before setting strategy, rather than launching based on assumptions.
-
✓ Audience segments have been validated specifically, rather than relying on platform defaults or broad interest categories.
-
✓ Delegate campaign goals and SPEX campaign goals are treated as different, with separate targeting, messaging and success metrics for each.
-
✓ Geographic opportunity has been mapped, focusing on where intent and budget efficiency actually sit rather than targeting broadly to be safe.
-
✓ The registration funnel has been analysed, beyond just traffic and clicks, to understand where prospects drop off before converting.
-
✓ Creative assets and messaging have been reviewed critically, with feedback on what’s likely to convert versus what isn’t.
-
✓ Website performance has been reviewed for opportunities to optimise, alongside a full audit of conversion tracking implementation and other technical setup.
-
✓ Key milestones in the registration journey, such as early bird deadlines, have been identified in advance, with budget pacing planned around them and around the expected registration pattern.
The hard questions worth answering before launching your PPC campaign
Before any budget goes live, there should be a confident, evidence based answer to each of these:
-
✓ Where is intent strongest for this audience?
-
✓ Which audiences are likely to convert quickest?
-
✓ What’s the realistic expected cost per registration, or cost per MQL for SPEX?
-
✓ What volume is realistically achievable within this budget and timeframe?
If those answers are hedged, vague, or slow to arrive, it usually means the necessary planning hasn’t happened yet.
Understanding that B2B events are a different game
Generic PPC playbooks built for B2C ecommerce or standard B2B lead gen don’t map cleanly onto event marketing. Consider whether the following are being factored in:
-
✓ Fixed event dates mean there’s no waiting it out. Every underperforming week is a week that can’t be recovered.
-
✓ The optimisation window is limited, with far less time to slowly test over months the way an evergreen ecommerce account might.
-
✓ Registration targets are non-negotiable, and the campaign gets judged against a number that doesn’t move even if the market does.
-
✓ Above average CPCs mean targeting has to be considered and precise rather than broad.
-
✓ Most platforms are built for B2C first, so budget can easily leak to irrelevant consumer audiences without active management.
-
✓ “Go time” puts heavy demands on internal marketing teams, and the campaign still gets the attention it needs even when capacity is stretched thin.
-
✓ The product itself often evolves mid campaign, with event details, speakers and agenda firming up after launch, and the campaign adapts without losing momentum.
-
✓ These campaigns aren’t always on. Platforms often have to relearn audiences and signals from scratch each year rather than building on twelve months of continuous data.
-
✓ Scrutiny on every pound spent is higher, given the urgency of hitting a number before a fixed date.
-
✓ Lead times and sales cycles run longer, particularly for SPEX campaigns, so proper funnel tracking and attribution matter more than ever.
Optimising, not just monitoring
Set and forget PPC is a warning sign for any B2B event campaign. Consider whether optimisation is happening weekly, and whether it’s grounded in the following:
-
✓ Genuine human review of performance data, not only automated platform reports.
-
✓ An understanding of how audience behaviour shifts across the campaign lifecycle.
-
✓ Structured tests and experiments, with enough data gathered to justify each change made.
-
✓ Active management of creative fatigue, which happens faster in event campaigns than most people expect.
-
✓ Awareness of competitor activity and shifting bidding behaviour in the space.
-
✓ A willingness to step in when platforms drift toward irrelevant audiences, because left alone, they will.
Turning data into insight
Good PPC reporting explains what the numbers mean, not just what they are. Check whether this happens regularly:
-
✓ Clear communication on what’s working and what isn’t, not only what was spent.
-
✓ Identification of which audiences are engaging best, and why.
-
✓ Concrete recommendations for what to do next, not just a summary of what’s already happened.
-
✓ Insight feeding back into the broader marketing strategy, rather than staying siloed within PPC.
-
✓ Full conversion tracking in place, including offline conversion tracking where a CRM allows, so reporting reflects actual registrations and pipeline rather than clicks alone.
Using AI to scale judgement rather than replace it
AI has a real role in modern PPC. It adds scale and efficiency to execution. But in B2B event campaigns, the opportunities that move the needle are still overwhelmingly identified by experienced humans rather than algorithms.
-
✓ AI is being used to improve efficiency and scale, rather than as a substitute for strategic thinking.
-
✓ A human is still providing the strategic direction, reading the market, the event and the audience, rather than letting the platform run on autopilot.
If neither of these is true, you’re probably paying for automation rather than expertise.
The bottom line
Every item on this checklist reflects work that’s required to make B2B event PPC and Paid Media succeed. None of it is a nice to have extra. It’s the same checklist we hold MPG’s PPC specialists to on every event campaign we run.
Where campaigns fall short of this, it’s rarely down to a lack of effort. Generic PPC management, built for ecommerce or evergreen lead gen, simply isn’t built to handle the constraints unique to event marketing, from fixed dates and non-negotiable targets to audiences that behave nothing like a typical B2C or SaaS funnel.
If you read through this list and weren’t sure of the answer more than once, that’s worth a conversation, whether with your own team, your current agency, or with us.
If you’d like a second opinion on how your current PPC stacks up, or want to see what this approach looks like in practice, we’d be glad to talk it through.
