FABTECH logo

Sep 8-11, 2025

Event Overview

FABTECH is North America’s largest metal forming, fabricating, welding, and finishing event for the global manufacturing community. It is organized by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME).

FABTECH 2025 was held from September 8–11 at McCormick Place in Chicago, drawing more than 45,000 attendees and showcasing innovations and advancements in industrial production from 1,500+ exhibiting companies.

For this year’s edition, SME sought to streamline and scale their outreach strategy under one unified solution. Snöball’s peer-to-peer event marketing solutions became the backbone of that effort, empowering attendees, speakers, and exhibitors to amplify FABTECH’s reach through personalized advocacy.

By activating 32,896 advocates, Snöball’s campaigns generated a wave of authentic digital engagement that expanded awareness, boosted social visibility, and drove 2,290 additional sign-ups, underscoring the game-changing impact of peer-to-peer marketing.

Attendees mobilized
0
Exhibitors mobilized
0
Speakers mobilized
0

How we
did it

To extend FABTECH’s reach, Snöball executed a multi-touch peer-to-peer campaign that transformed participants into event promoters. 

Each rollout phase aligned with registration milestones and major announcements to maintain consistent engagement.

A Snöball share widget on the registration page made advocacy seamless and instant.

Executed 27 reminder campaigns to maintain consistent, multi-touch engagement during the registration cycle.

Deployed segmented campaigns tailored for attendees, exhibitors, and speakers, each aligned with unique communication timelines.

Provided SME with real-time dashboard access for tracking shares, clicks, and conversions.

Identified top-performing advocates across audience groups to guide targeting and reward programs.

Introduced a tiered incentive program offering rewards such as VIP show access, exclusive event merchandise, and enhanced exhibitor listings.

Collaborated with Maritz to ensure registration sync accuracy and transparent performance reporting.

Mobilizing Participants

30,784

attendees mobilized

Meet Mick, a metallurgist!

He just signed up to attend FABTECH 2025.
Neil is instantly shown a personalized social card through which he can invite his peers and friends to the event.

FABTECH 2025 attendee advocate

Mobilizing
industry speakers

274

Speakers mobilized

Meet Emily, a metal marketing pro!

She is set to speak at FABTECH 2025. She gets a personalized toolkit through which she can invite her network to sign up for the event and attend her sessions.

FABTECH 2025 speaker advocate

Mobilizing
Exhibitors

1,835

Exhibitors mobilized

Meet Ron, an exhibitor with a metal manufacturing company!

He is set to exhibit at FABTECH 2025.
Ron gets a custom promo kit from Snöball with trackable links, helping spotlight their stand and invite prospects.

Tech stack

Snöball partnered with Maritz to enable seamless data sync and real-time tracking across FABTECH’s registration system. This integration ensured every new registrant was instantly connected to Snöball’s peer-to-peer sharing tools, turning sign-ups into active event advocates.

In parallel, API integrations with A2Z and Cadmium pulled live exhibitor and speaker data into the platform, powering dynamically personalized share cards and landing pages that amplified FABTECH’s digital reach with every interaction.

Peer-to-peer marketing campaign performance

41%

Social shares on LinkedIn, followed by Email (24.7%), Facebook (13.1%), Instagram (7.9%)

56.15%

Speaker adoption rate

26.14%

Share to conversion rate

31,417

Email engagements with a 37.5% open rate and 7.8% click rate

Scroll to Top
Peer to Peer Marketing Benchmark Report 2026

Get the latest P2P Report

What’s Really Working in 
Peer-to-Peer Event Marketing​