Congress season ends. Your team is exhausted, the booth looked great, and you heard the word “busy” 100 times. But when leadership asks, “Was it worth it?”, your answer still starts with anecdotes, not evidence.
Despite being the most expensive and high-profile HCP channel, most life sciences teams cannot link congress activity to meaningful outcomes.
The hidden cost of shallow metrics
Our internal analysis of pharma congresses showed that:
- The majority of reported metrics focused only on attendance or booth scans
- Most teams relied on Excel-based tracking for meetings, insight collection, and lead capture
- Very few could reconcile these touchpoints back to CRM or trigger post-congress actions
That leaves massive commercial and medical value on the table. You are not just losing data, you are losing engagement.
What real ROI looks like
Measuring true congress impact means tracking:
- Behavioral engagement: What sessions did HCPs attend? What did they download?
- Insight depth: What questions were asked? What feedback did they give in real time?
- Commercial activation: How many follow-ups were triggered? What percentage converted to rep meetings or content engagement?
- KOL relationships: Did you meet your target experts? Did new contacts convert to mapped stakeholders?
As shown in Onomi’s CongressIQ data, companies that track this level of detail see:
- 24% more rep-scheduled follow-ups
- 2x increase in qualified lead capture
- Improved visibility across medical and commercial functions
Why dashboards are not enough
Many teams believe they are measuring ROI because they can generate a dashboard. But dashboards are only as good as the structure and granularity of the data behind them.
True ROI means:
- Structuring data at the point of capture (not trying to fix it after)
- Matching attendees to CRM records in real time
- Capturing not just what happened, but what was said, asked, downloaded, and promised
At AstraZeneca, this mindset shift helped teams stop chasing vanity metrics. As Shaima Abid explained:
“The congress is not the end. It is the trigger. The value shows up in what happens next.”
Start small, but start structured
To build toward ROI clarity:
- Define what “value” looks like for each congress touchpoint: booth, symposia, business suite
- Equip your team with a single platform that captures and syncs every interaction
- Link post-congress follow-up, insights, and reporting to CRM so you can measure what matters
Final thought
You are already investing heavily in congresses. The question is: are you capturing value, or just impressions?
The real ROI of congress is not in the foot traffic: it is in the follow-up. Capture the signal, structure it, and show your impact.
