How guest capture works
With a plain meeting link, the only record of who attended usually lives inside the meeting platform, in a report someone has to remember to download. Registration forms help, but they record who signed up, not who actually turned up on the day.
Guest capture records the people who walked through your door. When a guest opens your room link, the first thing they see is a short form asking for a first name and an email address. If your room sits on a site where guests are already signed in, they skip the form and the room recognises them. The guest presses join, the details are recorded and tagged with the event, and the guest moves into your branded waiting room.
You choose for each room whether email is required. Making it required is what powers your follow-up, because every guest then has an address you can thank, send a replay to or invite to the next event. The consent text shown at the door is set in your room settings, so guests know what they are agreeing to.
Which tier includes it
Guest capture is included in every room.
- Free 30-day trial and Generic Room: first name and email at the door, or recognised sign-in, every join tagged by event, and on the Generic Room a CSV export you can open in a spreadsheet or upload wherever your list lives.
- Branded Room: everything in the Generic Room, plus guest details sent to your CRM or email tool with tags, so the list updates without an export step. It pairs with the live attendee list and follow-up funnels.
- Beyond the Branded Room: custom integrations with the systems your company already runs, plus analytics, available through our team, scoped and quoted.
Setting up guest capture, step by step
Guest capture is on by default in every room, but a few minutes of setup make the list far more useful later.
- Name the event clearly in your room settings, for example the spring masterclass rather than event two, because that name becomes the tag on every join.
- Decide whether email is required. For anything with a follow-up, it should be.
- Write the consent line in plain words: what you will send and why.
- On a Branded Room, choose where guests go: the CRM or email tool connected to the room, and the tags each join should carry.
- Join your own room as a test guest on a second device, then check that your test name appears in the list or the export.
- After the event, export the CSV on a Generic Room, or confirm the guests arrived in your tool on a Branded Room, before you send the first follow-up.
Getting more from the list, by use case
The list is only as useful as what you do with it next. A few ways hosts put captured guests to work:
- Masterclass or free training: tag the event by topic, then follow up with the replay and the offer you made live, sent only to the people who came.
- Client webinar: share the list with account managers so each one can follow up with their own clients who attended.
- Internal all-hands or training: export the CSV as a record of attendance for the session, alongside the meeting platform's own reports.
- Community call: spot first-time guests in the list and send them a personal welcome before the next call.
- Book launch or open house: invite every guest to the next event, using the event tag to keep launch guests separate from regular subscribers.
- Fundraiser: thank every guest by first name within a day, and include the giving link once more.
Making the door feel welcoming
A form at the door is a small ask, and hosts who frame it well rarely hear complaints. Keep it to the two fields: first name and email. Say why you are asking in the consent line, for example so we can send you the replay and the resources from today. Put the same promise in your invitation, so guests are not surprised.
Use the first name. The host name is on the waiting room; the guest's name can be in your welcome and in your follow-up. And keep your word on what you send. If the consent line promises a replay, send the replay before you send the offer.
Who owns the guest data
You do. Guest names and emails go to you and to the tools you connect. BrandedRooms does not sell guest details and does not share them with other customers. The room collects a first name, an email and the event the guest joined; nothing else is required.
If your organisation has its own rules about consent, retention or where data may be stored, set the consent text to match and talk to us before a large rollout. Companies with specific data requirements usually start the conversation with our team, where integrations and handling are scoped to the organisation.
Honest limits
Guest capture records the people who come through your room page. Anyone who joins with the regular meeting link in their desktop meeting app skips the door, so they are not on your captured list; your meeting platform's own participant report is where they appear. Share the room link everywhere to keep the two lists close.
A captured join means the guest came through the door for that event. It is not a measure of how long they stayed or how closely they watched. And the quality of the list depends on what guests type: a mistyped email is captured exactly as typed. Asking for email in the invitation and the door, consistently, is the simplest way to keep the list clean.