The short version. Almost every show puts registration on a separate platform, often on a separate domain. Without cross-domain measurement configured, the analytics treats the handoff as a visitor leaving your site and a different visitor arriving at the platform. Every registration is then credited to your own domain as a referral, and the campaign that produced it disappears. This is the second of the four faults we find most often in inherited show measurement, and it is the one that...

The short version. Capability lists are easy to write and every agency's looks similar. Refusals are harder, because each one costs the agency work. Six things a serious organiser-side partner should decline and what to conclude if it is offered to you instead. Every agency will tell you what it does. Fewer will tell you what they will not take on, and those are the more informative sentences, because a refusal has a price attached. 1. Guaranteeing a registration number A guaranteed...

The short version. Registrations are the one number that does not persuade an exhibitor. Every agency reports them because they are the easiest number to move and the hardest to dispute. Six tests separate the agencies that can attribute a registration from the agencies that can only count one — and the sixth test is the one nobody expects. Most organisers audit a trade show marketing agency by asking what it can do. That is the wrong question, and it is the question every agency is built to...