Event Map Monetization Ideas for 2025

Events are expensive. Each facet and feature you add makes it more interesting and attractive to attendees, but also increases the cost. Sponsorships are absolutely key to offsetting and even negating costs, so finding every opportunity to woo sponsors and exhibitors to your event is crucial. Each aspect of your event can offer unique opportunities to showcase supporters and increase value for them. Sponsored sessions, printed signage, dedicated booth spaces, breakout rooms, and more are all very common. 

Beyond the physical aspects, your event’s digital experiences, such as the event app, offer even more opportunities with each feature you add.

This article explores some of the many sponsorship opportunities your event’s digital map enables. Use these ideas when crafting your sponsorship packages and tiers to deliver rich sponsorship ROI (Return on Investment) that spans the entire event experience.

How do maps fit into my event sponsorship packages?

The word “sponsorship” probably doesn’t immediately make you think of maps. Yet a fully interactive event map with rich POI (Point of Interest) information, customizable names and graphics, and in-depth analytics can offer dozens or even hundreds of opportunities to mention and highlight sponsors with provable ROI. (Curious as to why maps are extremely useful for events? Click here).

Based on data from events like CES 2025 and NRF, attendees open the event map an average of eight times over the course of an event. Each time they open the map presents multiple opportunities to highlight key sponsors. While map features aren’t generally the headlines you’ll use to woo sponsors and exhibitors to your event, they enrich your sponsorship packages and make supporting your event more attractive overall.

What are my options for event map monetization?

An event map’s first job is to show attendees what your event has to offer and guide them to where they want to go. You’d never leave a sponsor or exhibitor’s booth off the map because they didn’t pay enough sponsorship money, so including each one on the map is “table stakes”. How detailed each sponsor or exhibitor’s POI information is within the app and the digital real estate of the map itself is where monetization opportunity starts.

Note: The ideas below aren't meant to all be implemented in a single map—they’re options to tactfully choose from when trying to offset the cost of your maps and enrich sponsor and exhibitor ROI.

Map labels

The first kind of event map sponsorship opportunity is simply a digital extension of physical features and signage at your event. Adding sponsor names to amenities like “Water Station by Nike” is a common practice. However, not all attendees will visit that station, limiting ROI for printed signage there. Adding these sponsor attributions to event map labels drastically increases the chances that attendees will notice a specific sponsorship while browsing the map or searching for related items.

Here are our top ideas for adding sponsored map labels:

• Check-in/registration area - This is often the first place attendees look for and the first place they go at your venue. Just like the overall map sponsor label, this is an incredibly high-visibility map feature, but only at first. Registration and check-in traffic dwindles as the event progresses, so place this opportunity in your sponsorship packages accordingly.

• Sponsored parking - This is another high-visibility opportunity! For multiple lots or complexes, label each one with a different sponsor name, or have one headline parking sponsor.
• Breakout rooms - Even if sponsors aren’t running breakout sessions themselves, any rooms reserved for general session breakouts are an opportunity to brand the maps experience. Give that boring “Room 7” title some snazz with a sponsor name!
• Refreshment and charging stations - Convenient places to top up devices, rehydrate, and grab a snack at an event are tremendous boons for attendees. Make sure they know who to thank!
• Lounges, VIP rooms, quiet spaces, nurseries, and fitness rooms - If sponsors are furnishing special areas in the venue where attendees can relax, unwind, and stay well, it’s a good opportunity to give them credit in the map.
• Sponsored stages, ballrooms, and hallways - While sponsors likely aren’t setting up these physical areas, they do provide one more opportunity to mention sponsors.

Map visuals

The next type of sponsorship opportunity that event maps give you is the ability to add graphical elements to the map or alter its basic colors. One neat trick that interactive maps enable is the ability to only show these visual alterations at certain zoom levels. This keeps them from being too distracting or overwhelming. To keep things tasteful and simple, reserve these for higher tiers.

• Logos - When attendees first open the map, it usually appears zoomed all the way out. Add one or two logos on the edge of the map at the highest level as incentives for top-tier sponsors. As attendees zoom in, the logos vanish to avoid a crowded experience.
• Sponsored area coloring - This is a great way to draw attendees’ attention to specific areas of the map related to key sponsors, such as parking, ballrooms, and amenities. However, we don’t recommend coloring each sponsor’s booth space with their colors! Use map recoloring very sparingly to avoid overwhelming attendees and sweeten the deal for your higher tiers.

Map details

Beyond the basic labels and visuals of the map itself, each POI has its own “pin drop” showing where it’s located. Each sponsor or exhibitor who has a booth at your event will have a POI on the map. When an attendee taps on the POI, the organization’s name, logo, and a brief description appear. Attendees can also browse POI categories or search for specific names. All of these event map facets offer sponsorship opportunities. 

Here’s the scoop:

• POI pin prioritization - Say that five times fast! Making specific sponsor and exhibitor pin drops more prominent is an easy way to add value to your sponsorship packages. For example, top-tier sponsors’ pin drops show up at the minimum zoom level, then others appear as attendees zoom closer.
• Paid search priority - You know how Google always shows sponsored search results before you get to the “organic” ones? Your sponsors and exhibitors can pay to have their name appear at the top of search results for related terms in your event map. Since the goal is to give attendees a good mapping experience, use this one sparingly. 
• POI information complexity - With advanced solutions like Pointr, you can turn basic map profiles into detailed, feature-rich mini landing pages for each sponsor and exhibitor. Besides the basic logo, title, and description, options include:
  • Ratings
  • Hours of operation
  • An image carousel
  • Links
  • Custom Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons

As you build your packages and tiers, enhance their value and make higher tiers more attractive with access to more POI details. For example, offer three unique images on the POI instead of one and offer links and CTAs to only certain tiers.

Personalized map resources

“Come find us at booth 112” is a good call to action, but how do attendees find booth 112? A good mapping and wayfinding solution will offer sponsors and exhibitors multiple different methods and resources to effortlessly route attendees to their booths. These resources make it easy to design experiences that increase attendee traffic and boost overall ROI.

• Unique QR codes - At this point in human history, most people know how to access a restaurant menu or log in to their favorite streaming platforms with a QR code. With a capable mapping solution like Pointr, each sponsor and exhibitor can have their own unique QR code that both opens the map and shows attendees exactly how to get to the booth! Offer your sponsors the chance to have their QR codes on signage around the venue, too. Let them post their QR code in their social spaces and their website.
• NFC cards - Just as prolific as QR codes, NFC (Near Field Communication) is another common method for accessing and sharing information, authorizing purchases, and more. Offer your sponsors and exhibitors several hundred or thousand branded, NFC-enabled cards that they can hand out to attendees. Each card is an advertisement, a business card, and a helpful map back to their booth, accessible with a quick scan.
• Personalized booth map URL - Give your sponsors and exhibitors a personalized map link they can share in email campaigns, social spaces, websites, and more before the event. With Pointr, the URL opens the event map and focuses on the sponsor’s branded POI with a lovely animation. This shows attendees exactly where the booth will be in the venue and how to get there from anywhere.

Map games

People love a challenge and a little healthy competition. Maps offer unique opportunities for you and your team to get creative and design memorable event games that enhance your event’s monetization! Each of the ideas below gets attendees using and browsing the map, which is a win-win for your event, your attendees, and your stakeholders.

• Scavenger hunt - Give sponsors and exhibitors the opportunity to make their booth or promotional signage a waypoint in an event scavenger hunt. This is an excellent opportunity to increase traffic and generate interest. Have attendees take a selfie at each booth and post it on social spaces or the event’s wall feature as proof they visited.
• “Event 500” game - Create a race-themed game where attendees vie to be the first to visit a certain number of booths. Sponsors and exhibitors can foot the bill for prizes and/or pay to be one of the booths on the route.
• “Where’s Waldo” game - Each day of your event, you can add a small, secret POI to your map. The first several attendees who find it, tap it, and follow the instructions win a prize! Give your sponsors and exhibitors the chance to sponsor the game rewards and have their booth be one where attendees claim prizes.

Map analytics

You can add logos to the map, add sponsorship labels to map features, and create wonderfully detailed POIs to give your sponsors more opportunities to get noticed. However, people put their money where the metrics are, so proving that supporting your event is worth the investment is a crucial part of making your sponsorship packages irresistible! When you talk to sponsors and exhibitors about supporting your events, weave in the metrics they’ll get access to when the event is over.

Here are the key event map metrics to advertise with your sponsorship packages:

• Booth and promotion positioning - Show the data from last year’s event to back up charging more for prime booth and signage positioning in the venue. No data from last year? Ask your venue if they have any insights you can leverage.
• Search analytics - How many times attendees search for the sponsor’s booth or related categories.
• Click analytics - How many times attendees click on the sponsor’s map pin or unique link. Also how many times attendees scan the sponsor’s unique QR code or NFC tag.
• Navigation metrics - How many times attendees use wayfinding to get to the sponsor’s booth.
• Ranking - How the sponsor ranked in overall searches, click metrics, and navigations across the event, their business segment, and other categories
• Deeper POI metrics - How many clicks the sponsor’s POI images, buttons, and links each get. This involves more work for your team, so this level of data investigation could be something you only include for high-tier sponsors and exhibitors.

Tip: Use real data from past events to prove impact and help woo your potential sponsors and exhibitors. A simple statement like “Exhibitors each got an average of 500 clicks on their custom map link at our last event” says a lot with a little.

Event map monetization best practices

Now that you know what the options are for event map monetization, here are some tips and tricks to make sure you, your attendees, and your sponsors all have a good time.

• Keep it simple - Attendees deserve an excellent experience at your event. Clogging your maps with too many logos, colors, and “sponsored by” tags can easily overwhelm or desensitize attendees and discourage them from using the map. This creates a lose-lose situation where map monetization and the attendee experience are both ruined! As you think about monetizing your map, be thoughtful, intentional, and kind. ♥️
• Important info first - Changing the names of conference rooms and halls in the venue may not always be practical and could confuse attendees. Carefully consider if and how to use this sponsorship opportunity. For the best experience, include original names. For example, if a ballroom’s name is “Magnolia”, you can label it “Magnolia by IBM” on the map. You can also add the original name as a parenthetical at the end if it’s a simple letter/number combo like “Room C”, which could be labeled as “Nike Room (C)”. Whichever option you choose, keep the tip below in mind.
• Stay familiar - Adding to or changing existing venue names can cause a poor search experience. Imagine an attendee is trying to get to a specific breakout room officially called “Room C”. They search the event map for “Room C”, but its label has been changed to “Rural Farm Equipment Inc. Room (C)”, the attendee may skip past it at first because it doesn’t seem to be what they’re looking for. For the best attendee experience, show the venue’s official name for any map feature before a sponsor’s name.
• Keep it unique - Limit each sponsor to a maximum of three unique labels so attendees can still easily find their actual booths and demo spaces when they want to.
• Set expectations for ROI data - When the event is over (and maybe before), sponsors and exhibitors will be hungry for the tasty data that shows how well they performed at your event. Depending on your event’s size, capturing and formatting the data can take a while. Be sure to give a specific timeline for when stakeholders can expect their data, then deliver.

Enhance event ROI with Pointr

All of the ideas and options above are possible with Pointr, and our team has the experience and insight to help guide you through the best options for your event and venue. With our unbeatable mapping and wayfinding experiences and deep metrics, enabling and proving ROI for map sponsorships has never been easier! Ask for your free, personalized discussion today.