If you’re looking for evidence of sales and marketing’s obsession with hard numbers and ROI, consider the rapid rise of retail media networks (RMNs) within the ad tech sector. RMNs promise to get brands much closer to high-purchase intent consumers, both online and in-store, while providing direct line of sight into return on campaign spend. In a world where every marketing dollar needs to prove its value, brands are reallocating their spend in favor of highly targeted, measurable channels like this, versus more traditional, top-of-funnel approaches like linear TV and radio.
We’re seeing this trend play out similarly in in-person B2B event marketing. Even with the increased emphasis on digital channels like social selling, in-person interactions between buyers and sellers continue to be viewed as an irreplaceable piece of the sales puzzle. In fact, 87% of business managers believe in-person meetings are still central to strong business relationships.
However, the expectations for in-person B2B events are changing rapidly for both buyers and sellers. In many ways, the mega tradeshows that characterized Y2K and the early aughts are diminishing in influence, as today’s attendees seek more meaningful, intimate networking and personalized content over crowded, chaotic exhibition halls.
Not surprisingly, sales and marketing teams are now prioritizing these more intimate in-person events over the mega tradeshows, with one recent survey showing 34% year-over-year (1H 2024 – 1H 2025) growth in small (under 150 attendees) in-person gatherings. In contrast, the number of organizations planning more hosted large events fell 12% year over year from 2024 to 2025.
What’s Driving the Shift
This shift from the mega tradeshow model to highly curated in-person gatherings is being driven by several factors, including:
Declining ROI – Industry data repeatedly shows that more intimate, in-person events consistently deliver a stronger ROI due to higher attendance rates, lower cost per individual sales rep attendance, and sales reps’ ability to actually get quality facetime with key purchase decision-makers. (At larger events, high registration numbers often prove to be just a vanity metric, as the percentage of attendees who actually show up is proportionally much smaller.)
Content commoditization – Today, sales content – articles, videos, images, information and more – has become abundant and readily accessible on the internet and there’s less motivation for truly interested and immersed buyers to attend in-person.
Reliance on digital research – On a related note, today’s B2B buyers are researching and consuming content to inform their decision-making process before they even consider speaking with a seller. By the time most B2B buyers start reaching out to a sales rep, 81 percent already have a preferred vendor.
Preference for peer-to-peer engagement – B2B buyers are most likely to trust information from people in similar roles and challenges, with peer review websites and independent peer forums and communities emerging as top consulted information sources.
But perhaps most of all, the biggest factor driving the transition is the current age of information overload, where the constant barrage of apps, messages, and updates exceeds the brain’s capacity to process. According to one study, about 60% of people claim they receive notifications for things they don’t care about more than once per hour, with 30% receiving them every 15 minutes, or even more often. The result? Ever-diminishing attention spans, which means that in a purely digital B2B sales context, the bar for garnering a prospect’s attention is higher than it’s ever been.
While digital channels like LinkedIn and X, email marketing, content marketing and more can play a key role in the sales process, overreliance on them can exacerbate feelings of information bombardment, as can the cacophony of competing vendor voices at mega events. What sometimes gets diluted is the authentic, genuine human interaction and an opportunity to match a face to a selling company’s name, which has been shown to significantly increase the likelihood of deal closure.
Today’s B2B sellers want and need events fostering highly targeted connections with an intimate, focused set of high-intent enterprise buyers. Prospective buyers tend to want the same thing – no more one-way communications and “first pitches,” but rather, an opportunity to connect with truly value-added vendors while connecting with industry peers in an interactive, immersive, and collegial format.
In this context, B2B sellers must strive for an optimal balance across buyer touchpoints,- combining digital channels, AI-powered networking tools, and more with a return to in-person business basics. The most effective vendors will be those that engage buyers seamlessly across channels while capitalizing on the uniquely human, irreplaceable experiences that only selectively assembled, face-to-face events can deliver, marking a significant departure (and may I say improvement) from the anonymous mega events of years past.
