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How to track session engagement at your event

Understand attendee behavior, demonstrate value to sponsors, and make data-driven programming decisions with Grip’s session engagement tools.

This article is for event organisers who want to track how attendees engage with sessions in their event.

Tracking session engagement on your event platform gives you valuable insight into what content your attendees care about, which sessions are most effective, and how to demonstrate success to stakeholders. Grip provides several tools to help you monitor engagement both digitally and onsite—no guesswork needed.

Whether you're running a small conference or a large hybrid trade show, understanding session engagement can help you:

  • Gauge attendee interest in specific topics, formats, or speakers

  • Share qualified leads with sponsors based on real interaction

  • Measure content performance to improve future events

  • Verify participation for continuing education or certification credit

Table of contents

What Is Session Engagement?

Session engagement refers to how attendees interact with individual sessions at your event—whether that means watching a live stream, joining a session onsite, or saving it to their personal agenda. Tracking this engagement helps organisers understand what’s resonating with attendees and provides data to justify investments or sponsor participation.

Why Track Session Engagement?

Event organisers often need to justify ROI, support sponsors, or meet education requirements. Here are some common reasons to track session activity:

  • ✅ Understand attendee preferences: Use data to see which formats, topics, or speakers attracted the most attention.

  • ✅ Support sponsor ROI: Provide sponsors with real engagement metrics tied to their sessions.

  • ✅ Optimize content strategy: Plan future sessions based on proven popularity and performance.

  • ✅ Verify attendance for credits: Track who attended sessions for CEU or certification purposes.

Ways to Track Engagement with Grip

Grip supports both digital and physical engagement tracking, depending on your event format and needs:

Engagement Type Description Example Use Case
Digital Engagement Tracks when a participant adds a session to their schedule or streams it virtually Ideal for online or hybrid events
Physical Attendance Tracks onsite session check-ins through badge scanning or manual check-in Ideal for in-person events needing CEU tracking
 

Choosing the Right Feature for Your Goalsv3 - use case only + session attendancev2 (1)Grip offers three features to help you track session engagement. You can use one or a combination based on your goals.

1. Session attendance

This feature tracks digital interactions—like when an attendee bookmarks or adds a session to their agenda. It’s automatically enabled and requires no setup.

✅ Great for:

  • Getting a general sense of session popularity

  • Measuring digital engagement

  • Tracking interest in virtual or hybrid sessions

Learn more about Session Attendance »

2. Session sponsorship

Assign sponsors to sessions and track who engaged with that content. This helps deliver real value to your sponsors by showing exactly who interacted with their branded content.

✅ Great for:

  • Delivering lead data to sponsors

  • Offering premium sponsorship opportunities

  • Proving content-driven ROI

Learn more about Session Sponsorship »

3. Session check-in

Allows you to scan attendees into sessions onsite or enable them to self-check-in. This is the most accurate way to verify actual attendance.

✅ Great for:

  • Tracking physical presence

  • Verifying attendance for CEUs

Learn more about Session Check-In »

Feature comparison chart

Use this chart to identify which Grip features match your event goals:

Use case Session attendance Session sponsorship Session check-in
Want to follow up with participants who physically attended a breakout session?     ✅
Want to assess the difference between anticipated and actual session attendance? ✅   ✅
Want to track how many people attended your keynote session physically onsite?     ✅
Want to gauge session popularity ahead of the event? ✅    
Have companies sponsoring sessions and want to provide them data on who attended physically and/or digitally?   ✅ ✅
Want to verify attendance for continuing education or certifications?     ✅
Want to share profile information of participants who watched sponsored virtual sessions with the sponsor?   ✅  
Want to track digital and physical engagement together to fully understand hybrid session performance? ✅   ✅
Want to showcase a company profile as a session sponsor and provide them data on who added the session to their schedule?   ✅  

FAQs

Do I need to enable Session Attendance manually?
No. Session Attendance is included by default and requires no configuration.

Can I use more than one tracking method?
Yes! Many organisers use Session Check-In for in-person verification and Session Sponsorship for sponsor reporting.

Where do I access the engagement data?
Data is available in the Grip dashboard under the Sessions section. You can export reports or view individual engagement metrics.