One metric is quietly reshaping how the best events grow, yet most event marketers aren’t measuring it yet.
It’s not cost-per-lead. It’s not ad ROI.
It’s the one number revealing how much your audience actually grows your event — and it’s been hiding in plain sight.
The 2026 Snöball Peer-to-Peer Benchmark Report analyzes hundreds of event campaigns to uncover how trusted sharing turns attendees, speakers, and exhibitors into your most powerful marketing channel.
Peer-to-Peer is quietly rewriting the B2B event marketing playbook, and the data proves it.
The trusted growth hack hiding in plain sight
What if your next registration spike didn’t come from a bigger ad budget, but from the people already in your camp?
That’s the question we set out to answer in the latest Snöball Peer-to-Peer Benchmark Report — our most comprehensive look yet at what’s really driving event growth in 2026.
After analyzing hundreds of campaigns across industries and regions, the results tell a clear story:
When you activate your audience to share your event, registrations don’t simply grow. They multiply. Like a forever-expanding snowflake.
That’s because peer-to-peer marketing is built on three things traditional ads can’t replicate: trust, credibility, and authenticity.
And in a world drowning in AI-generated noise, those three things matter more than ever.
We’re not anti-AI (we use it every day). But we are pro-human. Because it’s people who drive real event growth, not pixels and tools.
Peer advocacy in numbers: The Snöball Effect
Across the full dataset, peer-to-peer campaigns consistently outperformed every other marketing channel:
- 31.9% of organic peer shares turned into registrations
- 6.9% of total event audiences** came directly from P2P campaigns
- Top quartile performers achieved 53.7% conversion rates and drove 13.2% of their entire audience through peer referrals
To put that in perspective:
- Most live events average a 12.6% online ticket purchase rate
- Google search ads convert around 4.4%
- Display ads? Below 1%
The gap comes down to one word: trust.
According to Forrester, 97% of buyers trust peers over brands.
When someone in your network says an event is worth attending — that carries a credibility no sponsored post can match.
How do top performing events stand out?
The report identifies three key factors separating average campaigns from top performers:
Scale creates momentum. Larger events generate disproportionate lift from peer referrals, but the principles work across event sizes.
Channel diversity matters. Dark social and professional networks dominate sharing:
- LinkedIn: 34.8% of all shares
- WhatsApp: 23.0% (leading dark social channel)
- Email: 14.7% (core foundation for B2B)
- Facebook: 8.8%
- Direct messaging channels (SMS, Messenger, Teams, Slack): 9.6% combined
Different audiences naturally gravitate toward different platforms.
Timing and activation determine outcomes. The most successful campaigns mobilized attendees, speakers, exhibitors, and sponsors, treating every stakeholder as a potential advocate rather than limiting promotion to the marketing team.
What changes when you activate your audience
The report breaks down performance across industries, regions, and event types. Industry benchmarks reveal distinct patterns:
High-performing sectors:
- Marketing events: 78.5% conversion rate, 8.2% audience attributed
- Transport: 49.9% conversion rate, 11.7% audience attributed
- Technology: 49.5% conversion rate, 8.4% audience attributed
- Energy: 49.5% conversion rate, 8.4% audience attributed
Steady performers:
- Manufacturing: 30.8% conversion rate, 7.8% audience attributed
- Financial Services: 21.9% conversion rate, 8.2% audience attributed
What you’ll find in the full report
You will find a lot more in the complete Peer-to-Peer Benchmark Report. Deep dives include:
- Channel performance by platform
- Industry-by-industry breakdowns
- Regional benchmarks and audience behavior
- Real event case studies from around the world
- Best practices from top-performing organizers
It’s the clearest view yet of how people-powered marketing is reshaping event growth in every region and sector.
See how your event stacks up, and find out what kind of growth is already hiding in your own community 👇
Download the 2026 Peer-to-Peer Benchmark Report
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About Snöball
Snöball is the peer-to-peer event marketing platform that turns your attendees, speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors into your most powerful growth channel.
By making it easy for every participant to share personalized event content with their networks, Snöball helps organizers expand reach, drive qualified registrations, and measure real ROI, right down to who influenced each conversion.
From global conferences to association meetings and corporate events, Snöball powers campaigns that build trust, amplify engagement, and retain your audience so they keep coming back year after year.
