Post-event feedback: A strategic tool for better attendee experiences

The last speaker wraps up their session, people start heading out, and you breathe a sigh of relief that your event was a success. But was it really? Every event marketer knows that the event is just the beginning—you need data to measure the true success of the event.

Did it bring in any hot leads? Did the content and speakers resonate with attendees? Would they recommend your event to a friend? 

Post-event feedback answers these questions, but not automatically. Event feedback surveys often don’t get enough responses due to a lack of engagement—or their data doesn’t provide actionable insights.

Post-event feedback must be strategic to be effective. What does that look like?

• Event feedback surveys that attendees want to fill out
• Post-event feedback that delivers data you can act on

Conversational and powerful post-event feedback surveys encourage engagement, responses, and invaluable data that contribute to better future events and more satisfied attendees. 

So, how can you take a more strategic approach to collecting post-event feedback? I’m breaking it down.

Why post-event feedback matters

You likely have more events to run following this one, right? You probably want the next to be even better than the last. So, you need to know what went well and where you could improve. 

What did attendees enjoy? What did they get out of it? What did they want more (or less) of?

A high-quality event feedback survey gives you precise insights into what attendees thought of your event. Because the event should center around the attendee experience—not just the logistical components that bring the event to life.

An event feedback survey doesn’t leave you guessing. It helps you understand exactly how attendees feel about your event and provides actionable data to help you improve your next webinar, summit, or event.

Quality event feedback helps:

• Refine event content and engagement strategies to keep attendees interested and actively engaged throughout entire events
  

• Improve future planning and events based on attendee sentiment—if feedback consistently shows that your events start too late, you can plan morning vs. nighttime events
  

• Drive retention and repeat attendance by creating a truly attendee-focused event that creates an exceptional attendee experience—give the people what they want

Post-event feedback is crucial to demonstrating event ROI—a top priority for 95% of events teams. Attendee sentiment might seem difficult to measure, but a strategic event marketing survey makes it effortless. 

But haphazardly throwing together an event survey likely won’t get you many responses, let alone prove ROI. You need to ask the right questions (I’ll dig into that later) and create a seamless and pleasant survey-taking experience. 

Traditional surveys simply don’t capture the whole picture. They rely on rigid question structures, like Yes/No or multiple-choice, which don’t allow for deeper insights. 

They’re also usually not branded well and lack interactive elements—like images, videos, or GIFs—that keep survey-takers engaged and moving through the survey. The result? Low response rates. You get minimal data, making it hard to build a better event in the future.

Interactive elements, design, branding, different question types—I know, it sounds like a lot. But with Typeform, you can design post-event feedback surveys in minutes. 

And using more than a dozen question types, recall, and logic, you can turn your survey into a truly strategic partner.

How to use feedback to create even better event experiences

Post-event feedback is about more than just seeing whether your event was a success. Post-event attendee engagement is vital to cementing a strong relationship with your attendees—so important that 92% of events teams say they’re focused on improving it, according to Forrester. 

Asking attendees to rate their experience on a scale of 1-5 doesn’t reveal much on its own. But by combining it with more strategic questions, you can gain clarity into how to deliver an even better experience next time.

Many event marketing surveys are more like questionnaires, using closed-ended questions (like Yes/No questions) and fail to capture the full scope of the attendee experience.

‍Surveys, on the other hand, are designed for large-scale analysis. Asking open-ended questions lets attendees give nuanced answers. And giving attendees the ability to rate their responses—like with Likert scale questions—gives you more clarity into how attendees really felt about the event.

These responses then allow you to analyze trends and assess attendee sentiment—something you can’t do with one-word or exclusively multiple-choice responses. This means you can confidently say, “Attendees enjoyed the breakout sessions but felt the food options could be better” and have the numbers to back it up.

You’ll also have a better understanding of your target demographic. What roles do they hold? What are their top concerns? What do they want to learn more about? 

With more in-depth insights into your ideal attendee, you can be even more precise with your marketing for the next event, helping drive retention for long-term event success—and raving fans. 

Asking the right questions means better data

You’re probably picking up that effective event feedback requires a lot more than asking, “Did you enjoy the event?” or, “Do you plan to return next year?”

Asking different question types is crucial to understanding the attendee experience. Open-ended questions invite attendees to reflect on the event and provide more specific feedback. But they can be overwhelming, so balance them with other question types, too.

Combining open-ended questions—like, “What did you like the most?”—with rating questions keeps the survey-taker engaged while getting you the type of nuanced feedback you need.

Use the Likert scale to have attendees rate the overall experience or their likeliness to recommend the event to a friend.

This mix is not only good for your data, but it also gives the survey-taker a moment to breathe between filling in open-ended questions. Changing question types is a strategic way to promote higher survey completion rates.

Some high-quality event feedback survey questions include:

• What was the most valuable element of this event?
• How likely are you to recommend this event?
• How relevant was the content?
• How could we have made your event experience better?

Get what you give: the power of strategic feedback surveys

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Post-event feedback requires strategy and effort—what you put in is what you’ll get out. This means thoughtful design, creative yet direct questions, and an engaging, conversational flow.

A strategic survey has plenty of benefits:

• A higher response rate that leads to more—and better—data
  
• More relevant, detailed feedback that will actually improve future event planning instead of leaving you scratching your head
  
• Data-backed decision-making to make your next event even more successful than the last
  

You might be thinking: That sounds great, but how do I put this into practice with a survey I need to make now? Typeform makes it effortless. 

Create a striking and powerful post-event survey with Typeform

I get it—the post-event engagement flow can feel daunting. Once the event’s over, everyone is usually ready to move on.

But when you send the post-event survey is just as important as the questions you ask—you need to build a strategic survey quickly (or have one prepared before the event ends).

Typeform lets you build and send your interactive event survey out quickly so you can equip your team with the feedback you need to create even better events—faster.

• Build a seamless survey experience with brand customization and easy integration into existing event workflows

• Achieve higher feedback rates with a survey-taker-focused experience

• Get rich data complete with easy-to-use analysis tools to improve future events

That’s why companies like Superside use Typeform to create post-event feedback surveys that leverage personalization, a simple one-question-at-a-time format, and a better survey-taker experience. 

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Typeform lets you design eye-catching event feedback surveys people want to fill out. Easily brand your survey, make it interactive, and personalize it using the attendee's name. 

Not only does this all create a powerful, engaging survey experience, but it also brings in more responses.

‍Pro tip: Share your survey link in the webinar chat (like Zoom) for virtual events or use a QR code at live events to direct people to the survey. Always send emails with the post-event feedback survey link.

For online events, share the survey link in the webinar chat (Zoom even has a feature for adding 3rd party surveys and will redirect people to that when the session finishes). And for in-person events, use a QR code that links to the survey. In both cases, share the link in your follow-up email to maximize the opportunities for feedback.

Event feedback, meet Typeform (and better data)

What comes to mind when you think of a survey? Maybe it brings back memories from those high school fill-in-the-bubble tests. Or that feeling of overwhelm when you see a never ending screen of irrelevant questions. Either way, it’s nothing that makes you want to fill it out.

And when attendees don’t want to complete your event feedback survey, you lose access to the feedback that could make your next event a huge success.

Creating an interactive event survey experience is effortless, especially with Typeform’s native features:

• Conversational format. Typeform surveys display one question at a time to make your survey feel more like a conversation, putting the survey-taker at ease and preventing question overload.

• Conditional logic. If you’ve just run a multi-day event, you’ll want to divide feedback from day pass attendees vs. those who participated in the full event. Conditional logic lets you route survey-takers to the right questions based on their previous answers, so you’re getting clear data and not dragging attendees through a dozen irrelevant questions.

• Integrations. Want all your survey responses to go straight into Google Sheets? Need to embed your event feedback survey into an email? Typeform offers 120+ integrations for a seamless workflow.

• User-friendly design. Typeform surveys are designed to feel effortless to make and take. Attendees can easily move through the flow—and enjoy it. And, with no code required and AI-powered tools, Typeform gives you everything you need to start bringing in more feedback to power your future events. 

Not sure how to build an effective survey? Check out our top tips. If you’re a pro but looking to level up your survey design, try out some of our advanced survey tips.

Leverage strategic post-event feedback to create your best event yet 

Post-event engagement is vital to the attendee experience, and surveys are the best way to get the feedback you need. With thoughtful design and smart questions, plus powerful tools, your event feedback survey can get the rich data you need to strategically plan an even better event with happier attendees—and a higher ROI. 

Want to see an excellent post-event survey in practice? Check out how Superside reimagined the post-event feedback experience with Typeform. Then go create your own in Typeform—this template is a good place to start.