Zerista: Extend the Life Cycle of Your Event [Review]

Zerista: What Is It?

Zerista offers enterprise event tools with a view to creating meaningful connections and experiences by personalizing the content and functionality to each user’s needs.

The creators designed the app as a productivity tool that could be personalized to different types of event stakeholders, networking and matchmaking are at the crux of its offerings.

When a lot of app tech is choosing to offer only mobile versions of itself, Zerista’s product functions well on all devices. They’ve designed it for mobile, tablet, and desktop because their users use multiple devices. Since their app is intended to be a productivity tool and to be used year-round, the data and interaction with the app syncs across all formats.

Let’s take a closer look at how Zerista works.

Main Feature Categories

Assignable Permissions and Roles.

Permissions and roles power the Zerista app, allowing for different experiences based on categories of event participants. Features that can be customized based on user category include the following:

User-Driven Activities.

The app asks each stakeholder who they would like to meet. Then, it suggests personalized activities and content based on shared interests. Suggestions might include sessions with shared topics of interest or meetings with exhibitors who offer solutions to shared challenges.

AI Learning.

While personalized suggestions begin with qualifying questions, the app continues to use AI learning to make smarter user suggestions based on participant activities as the event goes on.

Gamification.

Games can be created with custom rules for different types of stakeholders to ensure everyone has an experience that is meaningful to them and speaks to their event goals.

Posters and Abstracts.

With a strong user base in the life sciences, Zerista has prioritized poster and abstract access, allowing users to search for them using filters and groups.

Review

While Zerista’s app includes many of the common event engagement features event planners are used to, its above-average matchmaking and personalization capabilities set it apart.

Their matching involves two points of inquiry:

What do you offer?

What do you seek/interests you?

The offer section allows event participants to talk about their skills, knowledge in a specific area, and products or services, while the interests section is the place where participants share what they want out of the conference or event.

These answers are then tagged and matched with others who share similar or complementary needs or interests.

While it’s easy to see the benefits for this type of tagging when it comes to attendees and matchmaking/networking, it also has positive implications for sponsorships and ad-based app revenue. Through the Smart Sponsorship features, organizers can create a campaign within the app that consists of targeted ads and messaging.

Where some apps have banner ads that rotate at random, Zerista displays sponsors’ ads to people who have essentially self-qualified by indicating an interest in their type of product or service, making the ads much more effective.

For example, attendees who’ve indicated an interest in digital marketing might see a sponsored ad from an exhibitor at the event that sells a digital marketing platform. Other attendees would similarly see ads that speak to what they are looking for at the conference.

Zerista also recognizes that a lot of meaningful networking and meeting scheduling happens before the event, and that people are much more likely to use their desktop for that. To accommodate the need to extend the app lifecycle beyond the live event, they’ve created a platform that works and syncs across devices.

Another notable feature is the ability to connect beacon technology to participants’ desired connections or interactions. For instance, you can advise attendees when they’re passing by an exhibitor who sells something they indicated an interest in.

While the app can make early suggestions based on the initial offer/interest questionnaire, the system will also note user behaviour and try to learn from it to provide “smarter” suggestions in the future.

The app also helps exhibitors qualify attendees with lead-scoring questions that appear for all their leads, which ultimately means a greater ROI and, likely, an easier time for planners trying to book exhibitors.

The app’s role-based permission structure ensures that each type of attendee or exhibitor sees content that is valuable to them. This level of customization should increase app adoption and the continued use of the app during and after the event.

The app definitely aims to solve the challenge of creating meaningful connections for everyone present at the event no matter what their role.

Full Features

Who Is It For?

Zerista’s feature suite is quite expansive and involves smart technology and personalization. For this reason, it is not a good option for a very small event on a proportionately small budget.

It is also not ideal for someone who wants a DIY, out-of-the-box solution. Zerista will work closely with planners to ensure the optimal use and execution of the product to support fully-defined goals. This typically occurs over a 12-week timeline that includes calls, quality checks, etc.

Like the level of personalization in its app, Zerista works with its clients to build the experience and cater to the client’s needs. This is not a templated solution that you can set up in five minutes.

Zerista’s clients use a lot of different software, like speaker/abstract management software, sales CRMs, and digital marketing platforms. If you have an integration need, it’s likely Zerista can perform it. They work to integrate their app with other tools event planners use, and have very few limitations on their integrations. If you use it, they can likely tie it in with their app.

Pricing

Due to the personalized approach Zerista uses, each app is customized to the needs of the event planner, the event, and the business. Pricing is configured on a per-client basis.

IN CONCLUSION

Zerista has created an event app that covers all of the standard event engagement needs, but set itself apart with notable personalization and AI-driven matchmaking that will keep stakeholders engaged and invested in the event from year-to-year.

They accomplish this through a combination of content curation at the user level and activity suggestions based on individual goals for the event. Beacon technology, smart matchmaking, and smart sponsorship opportunities flesh out a very customizable experience for each user.

With all of those features, your event stakeholders have valuable reasons to download and engage with the app, and it can become a powerful tool in shaping their event experience for the better.

If you’d like to know more about Zerista, you can reach them here to schedule a demo.

Disclaimer: Reviews are paid for placements. While Event Manager Blog receives a fee to extensively look at the tool and review it in detail, the content of the review is independent and by no means influenced by the company. If you have any questions please use the contact us section.