Every year we get asked the same questions like “Why am I receiving e-mails from Exhibitors I have not spoken to?” and we want to address this open and honest. Of course all of this is written into our privacy policy, ticket terms and conditions and our vendor terms. However, we want to be transparent and explain in non-lawyer language.
Commsverse, like every trade-show, community conference and exhibition is funded in the main by the exhibitors. Our exhibitors account for 90% of the entire cost of the event. They pay a premium to have access to you as attendees so that they can demonstrate their solutions and have the opportunity to build relationships.
Many attendees who attend an event might not at the moment they are walking through the exhibition hall have an immediate desire or requirement to talk to a particular vendor. However, at some point after the event their business requirements change and leave you searching for solutions. The solution could be one vendor’s product you hadn’t spent time discussing back at the event but because you received an e-mail that you glanced at from them post event, a light goes off in your mind and it gives you a starting point.
We as an event have listened to both parties on what is the most appropriate level of data sharing and over the course of our two events we have refined our policies and procedures to reduce the marketing e-mail overload to attendees while providing more intelligent data to vendors to help them tailor their approaches to you.
In 2020, we naively made it a global decision based on registrations from the virtual event, which in hindsight was not the correct approach. In 2021 we refined that further especially with the virtual registrations to limit to those whole directly interacted with a sponsor’s session. This meant that if you did not watch any sponsor session, you’d receive no emails.
In 2022, we further refined and this era will become the standard for all future years.
If you are a virtual attendee
If you have registered for a free on-demand ticket to our events then we will not share your profile data to any exhibitor, even if you watch one of their on-demand sessions.
If you have registered for a free virtual live ticket to watch a session live that happens to be a sponsor’s session, your attendance will be recorded and shared with them.
If you are an in-person attendee
If you have registered for an in-person ticket, this will include the protections of the virtual attendee for all virtual interactions. Relating specifically to in-person interactions, the following is in place:
Exhibitors will receive the attendance list post event for all attendees who physically attended the conference. This is defined by the check-in process. If you purchased a ticket but did not attend, your data is not shared.
For those who did attend and data shared, you are protected by Commsverse’s terms and conditions with it’s exhibitors. These terms state that the exhibitor agrees to send one follow-up e-mail to you post event summarising their products and offers and offer you an option to subscribe to more. After this e-mail has been received you should not receive any further emails from them that originated from your attendance to Commsverse, unless you have opted-in to receive more.
If you spoke with an exhibitor and allowed them to scan your badge at the event, this is treated as a warm lead. By allowing them to scan your badge, you agree to the marketing preferences of that exhibitor. You should enquire with them at the point of scanning what these terms are and if you’re uncomfortable with them, decline your permission for them to scan your badge.
We believe that these terms strike a fair balance between attendee and exhibitor expectation.
Unlike other community conferences, we do not share these details until after the event so you should not expect to receive increased marketing e-mails on the run up to the event.
If you do not agree with this process and policy then you should not register for Commsverse. It is unfortunate if that is the case, but that is ultimately your decision to make and we respect that.
