Booth Game ROI: A Worked Example

Cost per lead is spend divided by leads. GES's own exhibitor budgeting guidance uses exactly this formula — its worked example is $80,000 in spend against 150 leads, for a cost per lead of roughly $533 (GES, exhibitor trade show budget guide). That figure includes the full show budget — space, travel, staff — not just the lead-capture line item, which is the right way to think about total show ROI. This example isolates just the *capture method* cost, since that is the one line item you can change without renegotiating your whole show budget.

Official show-issued badge scanner rentals run a few hundred dollars up to $1,000 or more per event, once premium data add-ons are included, and third-party lead-retrieval apps commonly land in a similar or higher range depending on the number of seats needed (Wave Connect, badge scanner cost breakdown). Call it $700 for a mid-range rental at a single show, as a representative number for this example — and remember this cost repeats at every show, since it is a rental, not a purchase.

Against, say, 150 badge scans at a mid-size regional show, that is roughly $4.67 per lead on the capture line alone — before accounting for how many of those scans ever get a follow-up (see what to do with trade show leads after the show — fewer than 70% of exhibitors have a formal process to work that list at all).

adgamify's Event Pass is a single $249 purchase, live for 30 days around the show, with no per-show rental repeat — the same $249 covers the booth game, the QR poster, the kiosk mode, and CSV export.

Against the same 150 leads, that is $1.66 per lead on the capture line — roughly a third of the badge-scanner example above — and it does not recur unless you choose to run it again at your next show. If the game also pulls incremental traffic versus a passive scanner (the crowd-drawing effect covered in trade show booth games that draw a crowd), the real cost per lead is lower still, since the fixed $249 is spread across more entries.

| | Badge scanner (mid-range) | adgamify Event Pass | |---|---|---| | Cost | ~$700/show (rental, recurs) | $249/show (one-time) | | Leads (example) | 150 | 150 | | Cost per lead | ~$4.67 | ~$1.66 | | Data ownership | Often routes through organizer | Yours immediately, CSV export | | Captured signal | Name, company, title (registration data) | Score, replays, prize claim — plus name/email |

The cost-per-lead gap widens further at your second, third, and fourth show of the year, since the scanner rental repeats every time and the game license — once you're on a plan rather than a single Event Pass — does not.

Use your own show's realistic lead count, not this example's 150 — a small regional show and a major national conference will produce very different totals. The formula stays the same regardless of scale: total capture-method spend divided by leads captured. Run it for your last show's actual badge-scanner invoice and compare it against a $249 Event Pass before your next one. See adgamify for events for what the pass actually includes.