Virtual events have become a durable part of how organizations share ideas, build audiences, and move people through a journey. Recent benchmark data shows that scale is growing alongside participation: webinar attendance, interaction, on-demand viewing, and event personalization all point to a more deliberate digital experience.
Contents
- Virtual event adoption and outlook
- Attendance and viewing patterns
- Engagement during virtual events
- What attendees value
- Personalization and nurture experiences
- AI and virtual event marketing
Virtual event adoption and outlook
The long-term role of virtual events is clear in the Airmeet Forrester Opportunity Snapshot. Seventy-seven percent of virtual events leaders said virtual events were now a permanent part of their organization’s event mix. The same research found that 82% planned to conduct the same number or more virtual events during the next 12 months.
Expectations were not uniform, but the direction remained active. Thirty-two percent expected to run more virtual events than the previous year, while 50% expected about the same number. Seventeen percent expected fewer virtual events, and 1% said they would only conduct in-person events. Together, these figures describe a market where continuation is more common than retreat.
Leaders were also looking for broader capabilities. In the Airmeet Forrester Opportunity Snapshot, 76% of respondents said they wanted to diversify their virtual event offerings. Seventy-four percent of surveyed event leaders said they were looking to hire talent with the right skills for virtual event outcomes. This suggests that virtual production is being treated as a discipline with its own operating requirements, not simply as a substitute for a physical room.
Webinar activity shows a similar pattern. Livestorm’s 2024 Webinar Marketing Report found that 62% of marketers increased their webinar activities in 2024 compared with 2023. In Livestorm’s 2025 Webinar Benchmark guide, organizations hosted an average of 8 webinars during the first half of 2024. A separate Livestorm webinar trends page reported an average of 11 webinars hosted during 2024.
Purpose matters as much as volume. Livestorm’s 2025 Webinar Benchmark guide reported that 62% of marketers cited brand awareness as the primary purpose of webinars, while 53% focused webinars on lead generation and revenue. Virtual events therefore sit across the storytelling and commercial parts of a strategy: they can introduce an idea, strengthen recognition, or support a measurable next step.
Attendance and viewing patterns
Banzai’s 2024 Webinar Statistics reported that its customers hosted more than 800,000 webinars on Demio in 2023, which was over 20% more than in 2022. In the same source, Demio customers averaged 27 on-demand webinars per customer in 2023, compared with 9 live webinars per customer. These figures describe a substantial production footprint and a strong role for content that remains available after a scheduled broadcast.
ON24’s 2025 Webinar Benchmarks Report recorded an average of 216 attendees per webinar in 2024, with webinar attendance up 7% year over year. The report also found that the average conversion rate from registrations to attendees was 57%. Average engagement lasted 51 minutes, giving organizers a meaningful span in which to communicate a narrative, invite participation, or present a next action.
The quarter-level comparison in the ON24 report shows how attendance can vary over time. Q3 2024 averaged 229 attendees per webinar, compared with 192 in Q3 2023. ON24 described that difference as a 19% year-over-year increase. Livestorm’s webinar trends page reported a 48% webinar attendance rate in 2024, a separate benchmark with its own methodology and definition of attendance.
Viewing behavior was split between scheduled and flexible access. ON24 reported that live webinar attendance accounted for 56% of attendees in 2024, while on-demand webinars accounted for 45%. The report also said the share of attendees choosing on-demand webinars rose by 1 percentage point each year from 2022 to 2024. Because these figures are reported as separate benchmark shares, they should be read as indicators of format preference rather than combined into a single total.
The same ON24 report estimated that making webinars on-demand by default could increase total views by up to 80%. That is an estimate of potential uplift, not a guaranteed result. It reinforces a practical lesson for media-led events: a live session can be the premiere, while the on-demand version extends the life of the story.
Engagement during virtual events
Attendance is only one measure of whether a virtual event works. ON24 reported that each webinar produced over 300 individual interactions in 2024. Average engagement across all webinars increased by 2% that year, while average interactions per attendee were 1.7.
The report’s interaction averages show the different ways audiences participated. Poll responses averaged 130 per webinar, resource downloads averaged 91, engagement reactions averaged 37, survey responses averaged 19, and attendee questions averaged 14. These measures are not interchangeable: a poll reflects a structured prompt, a download reflects resource interest, and a question signals a more explicit request for dialogue.
Several high-intent actions increased during 2024. Demo bookings rose by 18%, engagement with all calls-to-action per attendee increased by 21%, and webinar-channel engagement reactions per attendee increased by 68%, according to ON24’s 2025 Webinar Benchmarks Report. Meeting bookings during webinars increased 3X, while live chat with sales teams increased 51%.
Content hubs also showed stronger commercial activity in the ON24 benchmark. Contact-us requests per content hub rose by 37%, demo requests per content hub increased by 44%, and pricing-quote requests per content hub increased by 83%. Price-quote requests per visitor rose by 53%. These are reported changes in benchmark outcomes, not a prediction that every event will produce the same lift.
On-demand formats were not passive in the data. ON24 reported that on-demand webinar engagement increased 9% year over year. Breakout-session attendance grew 69% across all webinars, and engagement-reaction use increased 68% per attendee year over year. The figures point toward a broader definition of virtual participation, one that includes reactions, questions, sessions, downloads, and follow-up actions.
What attendees value
Virtual conferences still need a reason to feel different from a recording or a generic video call. The Airmeet Forrester Opportunity Snapshot found that 23% of event attendees considered virtual conferences unique and 33% considered them engaging. Those results leave room for improvement, but they also identify the creative task: digital events need designed moments of participation and connection.
Attendees named several differentiators. Forty-eight percent said unique activities were a top differentiator for virtual events. Forty-four percent selected a high-energy host, 41% selected seamless networking, and 38% selected an immersive virtual environment. Great content was selected by 45%, while 44% selected personalized experiences. Compelling speakers were selected by 41%.
| Virtual event differentiator | Share selecting it |
|---|---|
| Unique activities | 48% |
| Great content | 45% |
| High-energy host | 44% |
| Personalized experiences | 44% |
| Seamless networking | 41% |
| Compelling speakers | 41% |
| Immersive virtual environment | 38% |
Source: Airmeet Forrester Opportunity Snapshot. The shares indicate respondents selecting each top differentiator; they are not intended to sum to 100%.
Journey design was another priority. In the Airmeet Forrester Opportunity Snapshot, 73% said aligning the right event, audience, and stage in the journey was important. This frames a virtual event as one part of a larger experience. The invitation, the live program, the replay, the resources, and the next conversation can each serve a different audience need.
Personalization and nurture experiences
ON24’s 2025 Webinar Benchmarks Report found substantial differences when experiences were personalized. Personalized landing pages generated 3X more registrations in 2024. Personalized experiences generated 61% more resource downloads and 28% more visits to external web pages.
The attendance difference was especially pronounced for on-demand content. Average on-demand attendance rose from 90 to 146 when businesses used personalization. ON24 described that as a 62% increase in on-demand attendees. The same report found that CTA conversion rates with personalization were 48% higher than without personalization.
Engagement also moved upward, although the change was smaller in absolute terms. Engagement interactions per attendee rose from 1.7 to 1.9 with personalization. This is a useful distinction: personalization can affect both the number of people who arrive and the number of actions each attendee takes after arriving.
Nurture pages were associated with another set of lifts in the ON24 benchmark. Using nurture pages increased average attendance from 208 to 275, a 32% lift. On-demand attendees increased from 89 to 151, a 69% lift. Average attendance length increased from 48 to 53 minutes, a 10% lift.
These results support a content journey built around continuity. A registration page can set expectations, a live or on-demand event can deliver the central story, and a nurture page can make the next resource easier to find. The benchmark figures describe associations reported by ON24; they do not establish that one particular page design caused every outcome.
AI and virtual event marketing
AI adoption was already widespread among the B2B marketers covered by ON24’s 2025 Webinar Benchmarks Report. Eighty-seven percent were directly using or testing AI, and 63% of AI-adopting marketers used AI for promotional content. B2B marketers using AI were 7X more likely to hit their goals than miss them, according to the report’s comparison.
Use of AI-related content workflows expanded during 2024. SmartText usage for promotional copy creation increased 72%. AI-generated content production increased 3.5X after events. Articles produced with AI rose 2.8X between Q1 and Q4 2024, while engagement with AI-generated written content increased by more than 7X between Q1 and Q4 2024.
The timing of those uses matters for storytelling across media. Promotional copy supports discovery before an event; post-event content supports continued discovery afterward. The ON24 figures show growth in both stages, but they do not specify that AI alone caused the change. They are best read as indicators of where marketing teams were applying AI within the virtual-event workflow.
Across the available benchmarks, the strongest pattern is not simply more online events. It is a shift toward richer, longer-lived experiences: more attendance, more on-demand access, measurable interaction, tailored journeys, and content that continues after the live moment.