Alright, we’ve all been there. You launch something new in the company, a tool, a strategy, a new way of working, and someone in the meeting asks the inevitable question: “Yeah, sounds good, but… what’s the ROI?”
And I don’t blame them. Because in the end, no matter how innovative the idea is, if we can’t measure its impact, we can’t defend it.
So today, I want to talk about something more and more companies are discovering: how to measure the return on investment of digital business cards.
Spoiler: it’s not just about saving paper (although that’s part of it). It’s about measuring real connections, opened opportunities, and time saved.
Start with the basics: what exactly is ROI in this case?
ROI (Return on Investment) is simply about knowing whether what you’re investing in—in this case, digital business cards is paying off.
And yes, I know that measuring something as “intangible” as a networking tool can seem tricky. But believe me, there are very specific metrics that help you see it clearly.
Fun fact: according to Forbes, companies that digitize their business processes reduce operational time by up to 30%. Digital business cards are part of that silent but powerful transformation.
Key KPIs to measure the success of your digital business cards
Here’s the practical part: the indicators (KPIs) you should track to understand if your investment is truly paying off.
✅ Number of views
Every time someone scans your NFC card or opens your digital profile, it’s a measurable impact. Think of this like the “impressions” in a marketing campaign.
At Knowee, you can see how many times your card has been viewed over the last day, 7 days, 30 days, and in total.
💡 Tip: if you notice that one user has more views than another, it could be a signal of where your sales efforts are most active or where you need to strengthen them.
✅ Contact saves
Here’s the magic: it’s not just about being seen, but being saved. Every time someone saves your contact through Knowee, that’s an opportunity that doesn’t get lost in a stack of papers. It’s someone who can come back to you.
📊 This metric measures the quality of networking, not just the quantity.
✅ Contact exchanges
Do you know what happens when you share your card and the other person returns their information? That’s a direct lead. No paper-filled fairs, no endless forms.
Knowee’s Contact Exchange records that key moment when a contact turns into a relationship. Plus, both parties receive an email notifying them that the exchange was successful.
Hidden ROI: time and money saved
Sometimes, the biggest ROI isn’t in click numbers, but in what you stop spending.
📉 Printing Costs Avoided
Printing 1,000 paper business cards for a sales team doesn’t just cost money… it costs trees 🌳.
Digital business cards eliminate that need and, on top of that, they never become outdated (how many times have you changed positions and your cards became obsolete?).
💡 According to SmallBiz Trends, companies that switch to digital save between 50% and 70% on printing materials annually.
⏳ Time Saved
Think about how quickly you can create, update, edit, and delete a card in Knowee or even transform a paper card into digital.
Scan paper cards and gain leads without wasting time
And here comes one of my favorite features, because let’s be honest, we all still get paper business cards from time to time.
Imagine this: you’re at an event, you introduce yourself, and someone hands you their physical card.
Before, that meant either putting it in your pocket or losing it.
But with Knowee’s card scanning tool, you just open the app, take a photo… and the magic of AI does the rest.
In seconds:
It reads all the fields on the card (name, company, email, phone). It automatically creates a digital business card with that information. And it saves it directly to your Knowee digital cardholder.
The best part? All the cards in your cardholder can be synced with your CRM, with no errors, no manual entry, no tedious tasks.
Result: less repetitive work, more time to sell, connect, and close.
And that, my friend, is also ROI.
How to Interpret the results
Measuring for the sake of measuring doesn’t help much. The important thing is to translate those numbers into decisions.
For example:
If you see that a department’s cards have more interactions, maybe their way of sharing is working better.
If contact saves are low, you might need to better educate the team.
If contact exchanges are increasing… congratulations 🎉, you’re seeing digital networking in action.
Tip: set up a monthly or quarterly review of metrics. Not to monitor, but to understand how to optimize the use of the cards within the team. For example, by sending internal communications to guide people on how to make the most of the tool.
El ROI que no se mide, pero se siente
Hay algo que no cabe en una hoja de Excel: la imagen de marca.
Tener un equipo que comparte su información con un simple gesto (sin papeles, sin errores, sin esperas) transmite innovación, coherencia y profesionalidad.
Y eso, aunque no tenga una cifra directa, también es retorno de inversión.
“Tu primera impresión digital dice mucho más que mil tarjetas impresas.”
En resumen, medir el ROI de las tarjetas digitales no es un ejercicio técnico, es una oportunidad para ver en números el impacto del cambio digital en tu empresa.
Desde los escaneos hasta los intercambios, desde el tiempo ahorrado hasta la coherencia de marca, cada métrica te cuenta una historia.
Así que, la próxima vez que alguien te pregunte: “¿Vale la pena invertir en tarjetas digitales?” Solo muéstrales los datos… y una sonrisa. Porque sabes que sí 😉
Descubre más sobre cómo las tarjetas digitales pueden transformar tu networking
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Con el nuevo Flash IA crea tu tarjeta de visita digital en segundos.
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