TriStar Turns Medical Meeting Apps Into High-Value Revenue Generators with EventPilot

The Challenge:

Medical associations tend to treat their event app as a disconnected expense from the event’s overall revenue strategy. This siloed approach leaves valuable advertising space unsold. It overlooks the importance of using a high-quality event app, as sponsors want visibility in a product that attendees engage with throughout the event. Without a high-quality meeting app paired with a clear monetization strategy, associations miss out on substantial revenue opportunities—and sponsors are left without the impactful, brand-safe visibility they expect in today’s digital meeting environment.

The Solution:

TriStar, a leading media agency for healthcare associations, selected the EventPilot conference app to flip the model. Instead of charging associations for the event app, TriStar provides it at no cost and generates revenue through a limited number of thoughtfully designed, exclusive sponsorship packages. These packages, which are tailored for medical meetings and fully comply with ACCME guidelines, are among the most highly targeted opportunities to reach healthcare professionals when they’re most engaged during the meeting. EventPilot’s robust feature set and deep customization capabilities—generally untapped by most associations for sponsorships—allow TriStar to design innovative, high-impact opportunities that enhance sponsor visibility and the attendee experience. EventPilot’s robust platform, built specifically for complex medical meetings, ensures high usage, offline access, and a polished attendee experience that sponsors want to be part of.

The Results:

• Revenue Without Expense: Associations incur no cost for the app while TriStar generates significant association revenue through exclusive, high-value sponsorships.
• Proven Engagement: Attendees open the EventPilot app an average of 100 times per user during the conference, creating 30 to 50 high-visibility splash screen impressions per attendee. In addition, TriStar offers premium app alert sponsorships that deliver an impressive 70% average click-through rate, driving real-time engagement.
• Attendee Trust Preserved: TriStar’s approach to app sponsorships maintains the event app’s credibility by avoiding ad oversaturation, helping attendees stay engaged without feeling spammed.
• Sponsor Appeal: Sponsors value being featured in the modern, robust platform that reflects well on their brand and ensures their message appears in a professional, high-quality environment.

Robin Reynolds, Co-CEO at TriStar, noted, “At TriStar, we don’t just see the event app as a logistical necessity, we see it as one of the most valuable and underutilized digital sponsorship channels in the medical meeting space. Through our expertise in managing complex meeting data and delivering campaign reporting to industry supporters, we’ve unlocked the full potential of the EventPilot platform. It’s more than an app, it’s a high-performing engagement engine that drives measurable ROI for sponsors and creates significant revenue for associations without adding cost or complexity. We manage everything from sales and strategy to execution and reporting so our partners can focus on their meeting while we deliver a digital experience that meets the ROI expectations of industry supporters and advertisers.”

By combining TriStar’s sales and data management expertise with EventPilot’s purpose-built conference app, medical meeting planners can transform the app from just an expense line item into a revenue-generating asset that delivers meaningful value to both attendees and sponsors.

“We’ve unlocked the full potential of the EventPilot platform. It’s more than an app, it’s a high-performing engagement engine that drives measurable ROI!”

Robin Reynolds, Co-CEO
TriStar