In today's competitive landscape, brands look for opportunities and innovative ways to connect with consumers and drive meaningful engagement. One such avenue is sponsorships, which offer a unique opportunity to align with events, influencers, or causes that resonate with brand initiatives, goals, and values. 

To effectively evaluate the success of these sponsorships, brands will need to identify and analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) that capture the partnership’s impact across various touchpoints. To help brands figure out the best way to measure the ROI of their marketing partnerships, we’ve put together the following comprehensive list of potential sponsorship KPIs. 

1. Brand Exposure Metrics

• Impressions: The total number of views or exposures to your sponsored content.
• Reach: The number of unique individuals exposed to your sponsorship.
• Media Value: The estimated equivalent cost of purchasing the same exposure through traditional advertising channels.
  

2. Audience Engagement

• Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of viewers who clicked on your sponsored link or call to action.
• Social Media Engagement: Likes, shares, comments, and other interactions on social media platforms that relate to your sponsorship.
  

3. Brand Sentiment

• Sentiment Analysis: Monitoring sentiment surrounding your brand before, during, and after the sponsorship to gauge public perception.
• Brand Mention Analysis: Tracking mentions of your brand in relation to the sponsorship across various channels.
  

4. Lead Generation and Sales

• Conversion Rate: The percentage of leads generated from your sponsorship that resulted in a desired action (e.g., purchase, sign-up).
• Sales Lift: The increase in sales directly attributed to your sponsorship campaign.
  

5. Brand Association and Recall

• Brand Recall: The ability of consumers to remember your brand after exposure to the sponsorship.
• Brand Association: The extent to which the sponsorship positively influences consumers' perceptions and associations with your brand.
  

6. Website Traffic and Behavior

• Website Visits: The number of visitors driven to your brand's website from sponsorship-related activities.
• Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who leave your website without engaging further, indicating the effectiveness of the landing page or content.
  

7. Content Performance

• Content Views: The number of views or interactions with your sponsored content, such as articles, videos, or blog posts.
• Time Spent on Content: The average amount of time users spend engaging with your sponsored content, indicating interest and relevance.
  

8. Influence and Thought Leadership

• Thought Leadership Opportunities: Speaking opportunities, panel invitations, or media interviews resulting from your sponsorship.
• Influencer Impact: The reach and engagement of influencers involved in promoting your brand’s sponsorship.
  

9. Customer Feedback and Surveys

• Post-Event Surveys: Feedback collected from attendees or participants regarding their perception of the sponsorship and your brand.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): A metric measuring the likelihood of customers to recommend your brand to others, potentially influenced by the sponsorship.
  

10. Long-Term Brand Equity

• Brand Health Metrics: Overall measures of brand strength, including brand awareness, loyalty, and advocacy, impacted by your sponsorship over time.
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): The projected revenue you can expect from a customer over their entire relationship, influenced by their initial interaction with your brand through the sponsorship.
  

11. Social Media Reach and Influence

• Follower Growth: The increase in your brand's social media followers as a result of the sponsorship.
• Social Media Share of Voice: Your brand's share of the overall conversation compared to competitors or industry benchmarks during the sponsorship period.

12. Event Attendance and Engagement

• Event Attendance: The number of individuals who attend sponsored events or activations.
• Booth Traffic: The volume of foot traffic and interactions at your brand's booth or sponsored area during events.
  

13. Content Amplification

• Content Amplification Metrics: The extent to which sponsored content is shared or distributed by third-party sources, amplifying its reach.
• Virality: The degree to which sponsored content spreads organically across social media and digital platforms.
  

14. Customer Behavior Analysis

• Purchase Intent: Changes in consumers' likelihood to purchase your brand as a result of the sponsorship.
• Path to Purchase: Mapping your customers’ journey from initial exposure to the sponsorship to eventual conversion or purchase.
  

15. Competitive Benchmarking

• Share of Voice: Your brand's share of overall mentions or visibility within the industry or among competitors during the sponsorship period.
• Competitive Advantage: Assessing how the sponsorship enhances your competitive positioning compared to rivals in the market.
  

16. Email Marketing Metrics

• Email Open Rate: The percentage of recipients who open sponsorship-related emails.
• Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR): The percentage of email opens that result in clicks on links or calls to action within the email.
  

17. Search Engine Visibility

• Organic Search Traffic: The number of website visitors driven through organic search queries related to the sponsorship.
• Keyword Rankings: Monitoring changes in search engine rankings for relevant keywords associated with the sponsorship.
  

18. Customer Feedback and Reviews

• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Score: Feedback collected from customers regarding their satisfaction with your brand's sponsorship-related activities.
• Online Reviews and Ratings: Monitoring changes in online reviews and ratings on platforms like Google, Facebook, Yelp, or Trustpilot following the sponsorship.
  

19. Content Co-Creation

• User-Generated Content (UGC): The volume and quality of content created by users related to the sponsorship, such as social media posts, reviews, or testimonials.
• Co-Creation Engagement: Tracking the level of participation and engagement from customers in co-creating sponsored content or campaigns.

20. Partnership Activation Metrics

• Activation Reach: The extent to which the sponsorship activates the target audience through channels such as event activations, influencer collaborations, or co-branded content.
• Partner Satisfaction: Feedback from partners or collaborators regarding their satisfaction with the sponsorship collaboration and outcomes.
  

21. Employee Engagement

• Employee Advocacy: The level of employee engagement and advocacy generated through internal communication and involvement in sponsorship-related activities.
• Employee Feedback: Gathering input from employees on their perceptions of the sponsorship's alignment with company values and objectives.
  

22. Sponsorship Integration

• Brand Integration: Assessing the seamless integration of your brand within sponsorship activation opportunities, content, events, or activities.
• Content Relevance: Evaluating the relevance of sponsored content or messaging to your target audience's interests and preferences.
  

23. Customer Loyalty and Retention

• Customer Retention Rate: The percentage of customers who continue to engage with your brand following exposure to the sponsorship.
• Loyalty Program Participation: Tracking changes in participation or engagement with your brand's loyalty program as a result of the sponsorship and its activations.
  

24. Community Impact

• Community Engagement: Measuring the level of engagement and participation from the local or target community in your sponsorship-related initiatives or events.
• Social Responsibility Impact: Assessing the positive social or environmental impact generated by your sponsorship, such as donations, volunteer efforts, or sustainable practices.
  

25. Long-Term Relationship Building

• Relationship Strength: Evaluating the strength and depth of relationships forged with stakeholders, partners, or customers through the sponsorship.
• Repeat Sponsorship Opportunities in Your Ecosystem: Assessing the likelihood of securing repeat sponsorship deals with the same partner or event based on the success and impact of the current collaboration. When working with the same partner more than once, you’ll also be able to update your corporate sponsorship package or deal to leverage current corporate sponsorship trends that weren’t necessarily relevant in earlier years of the relationship. 

Final Thoughts

The ROI of your corporate sponsorship deals can (and should) extend beyond the traditional metrics, sponsorship data, and sponsorship intelligence (such as impressions and reach). By adopting a comprehensive approach to measurement and evaluation, you can gain deeper insights into the effectiveness of your brand’s sponsorship initiatives and optimize future partnerships accordingly. 

Leveraging a diverse set of KPIs will enable you and your team to uncover valuable insights. By refining your measurement strategies and focusing on the metrics that matter most for your brand goals, you can maximize the ROI of your marketing partnership investments.

Once you’ve selected the KPIs you want to track in your marketing partnerships, learn how to measure and evaluate sponsorship ROI and gauge the success of individual sponsorship activations. You also might want to review the components of a sponsorship deal that could affect ROI. 

Sign up for a quick demo to learn more about our media and sponsorship database. Clients might refer to our sponsorship platform as a sponsorship marketing platform or even a sponsorship analytics platform since we track over 360,000 brands, 1.8 million deals, and 16.9 million data points across sports, entertainment, media, and talent.