October 14, 2025 • 16 mins
In this special episode of Sales Pipeline Radio from the Innovation Pavilion at Cvent CONNECT 2025, Matt spoke with Andrew DePaul, Director, Digital Marketing at CAIS.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Heinz (00:15):
All right.
Welcome back to Cvent CONNECT.
Excited to be joining you live fromthe Convention Center here outside
of the Stars at Night Ballroom.
Excited to have withus here, Andrew DePaul.
He's the SVP of DigitalMarketing for CAIS.
Thanks so much for joining us, man.
Andrew DePaul (00:27):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Matt Heinz (00:28):
How's the event been so far?
Andrew DePaul (00:29):
It's been great.
You know, this is my third time here.
Matt Heinz (00:32):
Yeah.
Andrew DePaul (00:33):
So, it has been fascinating.
You know, there's some oldfriends that you meet up.
Matt Heinz (00:37):
Sure.
Andrew DePaul (00:37):
I was just telling your team that I walked into the ballroom
on Monday in shorts and a t-shirt,and Carissa saw me and she's like,
"I have 50 things for you to do."
Matt Heinz (00:45):
Oh.
Andrew DePaul (00:45):
And one of 'em is this podcast.
Matt Heinz (00:46):
Yes.
Andrew DePaul (00:47):
So I'm really excited.
And it was like, goodtiming, perfect timing.
So it's been great.
Matt Heinz (00:50):
You don't say no to Carissa.
Andrew DePaul (00:51):
You can't say no to her.
So it's been fabulous, you know.
Downstairs today meeting a lot of vendors.
Sitting in on some of the flash sessions.
I love the roadmap session.
I have like 50 ideas coming outof this, of what we're gonna do.
Matt Heinz (01:03):
It's interesting like, because you're a marketer, right?
Andrew DePaul (01:05):
Yeah.
Matt Heinz (01:05):
Like I'm coming in the marketing space to, to go to an event
that is not really, that is emergingas a marketing event, but is really
more of a travel industry event.
Andrew DePaul (01:12):
Yeah.
Matt Heinz (01:12):
And to sort of feel the energy in the room among event planners,
event producers, you know, the venue,evangelists down on the trade show floor.
I mean, it, it didn't feel likethe pandemic was that long ago.
And yet the events are back.
Andrew DePaul (01:25):
They're back.
They're back.
For us especially.
During the pandemic when I starteda CAIS, it was all virtual.
Matt Heinz (01:30):
Yeah.
Andrew DePaul (01:30):
So it was webinars and then we started to tiptoe back into
this space and we've just seen suchtremendous growth over the years.
And it's great to see, you know,the event planners get to kick back
here and relax a little bit andnot have to stress about an event.
Matt Heinz (01:44):
Oh, these people can party.
Andrew DePaul (01:44):
Yeah.
They're ready to go.
They're ready to go.
Matt Heinz (01:47):
Yeah.
Alright, so I wanna talk aboutwhat you guys are doing to
have built your event program.
I wanna talk about yourflagship CAIS Summit.
Andrew DePaul (01:52):
Yeah.
Matt Heinz (01:52):
But first, like, who is CAIS?
What is CAIS and who are your customers?
Andrew DePaul (01:55):
So we are a two-sided marketplace.
So we sit between financialadvisors and asset managers.
Matt Heinz (02:02):
Yeah.
Andrew DePaul (02:02):
And we deal in anything that is not a stock
or a bond, so alternatives.
So we are dealing with about2,000 wealth management firms.
Matt Heinz (02:10):
Wow.
Andrew DePaul (02:10):
And that is 50,000 plus advisors.
And those advisors have $6.5trillion in client assets.
So there's a lot of money in this space,and we're trying to capitalize on it.
We are working with alternative assetmanagers and bank issuers to help
streamline and scale their efficiency.
So we're trying to be thatone-stop-shop for advisors.
(02:30):
It deals with pre-trade, trade andpost-trade parts of the life cycle.
So we're there for them to come on,look at some products that these asset
managers have, help them with the tradeprocess, and then help them look at
their holdings and everything after.
We also really dive intothe education of alts.
It's a newer space to some people.
You know, even when we have thesefinancial advisors at our events, some
of them are like, this is very detailedand this is a difficult space, and so
(02:54):
we dove into that education part of it.
We have a tool called CAISIQ, which helps manage this.
We are just like on the ground promotingalts, promoting the democratization
of alts, really trying to amplify it.
So we've been around since 2009.
We kind of operate like astartup, but not really anymore.
This is a, you know, all steam ahead.
We've seen so much tremendousgrowth through just the platform
(03:17):
and through our event space.
Matt Heinz (03:18):
So diverse go-to market program, lots of stuff going on
the marketing side, sales side.
Talk about how events fit intothat go-to market program.
Andrew DePaul (03:25):
Yeah, I mean, we started with Cvent four years ago with a single
event; an internal offsite event.
And it was a success.
And then we stepped into our flagshipevent, the CAIS Summit in Beverly Hills.
Matt Heinz (03:37):
Nice.
Andrew DePaul (03:37):
It was another success and it's just ramped up from that.
So three years of that, we've had about2,500 advisors and attendees total at
those events over those three years.
Then we started doingmore regional events.
So we've been growing that space.
We did about 15 last year.
Matt Heinz (03:54):
Wow.
Andrew DePaul (03:54):
And then we've just seen tremendous growth there and we
are just full steam ahead with, youknow, using Cvent to get in front of
the advisors and also get the assetmanagers on the ground with them.
And it has that angle ofeducation that I talked about.
It's not just this productpush of like, "Hey, buy this".
They're coming in, they're talkingabout the changes in private equity,
sports and entertainment investinginto that is now an emerging market.
Matt Heinz (04:17):
Interesting.
So one of the risks sometimes yourun, like, especially I think in your
industry is, you know, events canbe seen as a commodity, sometimes
you run the risk of that contentfeeling the same in a lot of context?
How do you keep it unique and fresh?
How do you sort of keep the contentstrategy before, during, and after the
events, you know, unique and relevant?
Andrew DePaul (04:31):
We are really focusing on what's happening now.
Last year at our CAIS Summit, wedove into politics a little bit
more, you know, it was an electioncycle, and talking about that.
This year, you know, we'll be focusinga lot on sports and entertainment.
So it's really finding out, andwe use data all the time to find
out what people are interested in.
We are talking to our advisors orwe're talking to our sponsors and our
(04:51):
asset managers about what's happening.
And we're surveying them.
We're just having the discussionswhen we set up our sponsorship
calls, which are really important.
We're really talking to 'them about"What do you guys wanna talk about?
What's happening in the market?"And that's how we tailor our agenda.
So it's trying to have somethingnew and exciting every year.
And some of it can be, youknow, rinse and repeat.
We know what works.
Matt Heinz (05:11):
Sure, sure, sure.
Andrew DePaul (05:12):
But that's a lot of the background stuff.
Matt Heinz (05:13):
Yeah.
And it's, we need to have those playbooks.
You need to have thethings that are all in
- Andrew DePaul: Exactly.
But I think one of the things that you mentioned earlier is that your
programs are highly measurable, right?
It's not only highly measuringthe ROI, but making sure that
there isn't a deterioration of theeffectiveness of those programs.
Can you unpack "highly measurable"and sort of how that gives
you an edge with your event.
Andrew DePaul (05:30):
Yeah.
So we are looking at every single stepin activity that an advisor takes.
We're looking at from did theyopen a registration email?
To did they badge into a session?
And we're taking those badge ins andwe're doing anything from returning
that back to the sponsor saying,"Hey, here's who attended" to
providing the person with CE credit.
'Cause these advisors, they needthat credit with the national
(05:50):
institutions to make sure that theycan keep their licenses and then we're
just really diving into that data.
We are taking all of that andfolding it back into dashboards.
We are putting them into post-eventcampaigns and we're really driving
them and just hammering home thesuccess of the event, and giving them
the information that they requested.
Matt Heinz (06:08):
Awesome.
Excited to have Andrew DePauljoining us here as the SVP of
Digital Marketing at CAIS here onthe show floor at Cvent CONNECT.
We talked a little about measurability,let's talk about integration.
Now, you talk a lot about howfully integrated your events are.
What does that mean, andwhy is that important?
Andrew DePaul (06:22):
There's kind of the two parts of the integration.
There's the, it's become a part ofthe discussion when we talk to sales.
I mean, it is the number onething we're talking about.
We're getting on thesales calls internally.
The first thing we're leading ishere's how many people are coming to
the event this week and everything, soit's integrated into the conversation.
Our sales folks, when they'reon the ground, it's integrated
into their conversation.
(06:43):
It's like, "Hey, why don't you comeout, we're having an event in Chicago
this week. Stop by and come and seethese great speakers and learn this
great information." And then there'sthe technical integration, right?
This, the boring stuff that Ihave to do there is the Salesforce
integrations; all the data.
Making sure every single touch point ismarked and captured as we go through.
Matt Heinz (07:01):
You can call it boring if you want.
I think if that generates theresults, that sounds sexy to me.
Andrew DePaul (07:05):
It's boring to some people because it's just ones and
zeros, but, it really gets the job done.
A perfect example this week, acolleague of mine asked me, "Hey,
can you give me every single personfrom this specific firm that attended
events since 2020? 2022", excuse me.
You know that if I would've beenlike, oh, we didn't, you know,
really track that really well, orwe lost that, or it's in an Excel
(07:26):
somewhere, I wouldn't be able to do it.
I did it in a couple seconds thismorning when I was drinking coffee
and sent her the report, and it'sjust because we have the data on hand.
We know how to find it, we know whereit is, and it's been integrated and it's
just, you know, part of my day to day,
Matt Heinz (07:37):
I mean, having the data is only one part of the solution, right?
Like having the tools to be able toleverage it and activate is another thing.
Like when we talk about having sortof a strategy process, playbook
for doing events well, you know,the hidden sort of secret weapon
oftentimes is the platform behind it.
Talk about the role of technologyand enabling this growing
integrated strategy of yours?
Andrew DePaul (07:55):
We are you doing a lot with Tableau and just marrying
all these points of data up.
I see it really moving though into AI.
I think that's gonna be the future of howwe take that data and what we do with it.
I wish I knew where that was gonna go.
Matt Heinz (08:11):
Right.
So do I.
Andrew DePaul (08:13):
I think it'd be make a lot more money than I do now if
I did that, but, I don't know yet.
And I think, you know, as anorganization, we're being AI focused
and trying to lead with that.
Matt Heinz (08:20):
Yeah.
Andrew DePaul (08:21):
And we're trying to find ways and, you know, hearing all the
great stuff this week about how Cventis gonna be pulling AI in with Cvent
IQ to enable that and just have thatactually built into the system where I
don't have to take files out and drop 'eminto ChatGPT and do the analysis there.
I can probably do it in the system.
I think it's just going to, you know,ramp this up, you know, 10 times.
Matt Heinz (08:40):
I agree.
You gave some great examples of sortof how well your events are integrated.
That is not a trivial thing.
A lot of organizations really strugglewith getting every department to lean in
and have a coordinated approach with someconsensus around the why and the how.
Was that a journey for you?
Andrew DePaul (08:56):
Yes.
Matt Heinz (08:56):
I think a lot of people hear that and think, oh,
it's just asking them to do it.
No, it is not.
Talk a little bit about that journey.
Andrew DePaul (09:01):
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it was selling it.
And I think it really did take thatfirst CAIS Summit to get everybody on the
ground to go, this is the way forward.
And that first one was hard.
It was just, you know, beingin the trenches, I think is
the word I'm looking for.
Matt Heinz (09:17):
It doesn't happen automatically.
Andrew DePaul (09:18):
It was difficult.
And now, you know, this one, this yearwe're outpacing our registration rate.
Matt Heinz (09:23):
Nice.
Andrew DePaul (09:24):
And we have seen an uptick because all the tracking we can do.
I can now see the people that I invited,if they registered, versus the people
sales invited if they registered.
And we're seeing the salesoutpace the people I invite.
And I invite way more because I'msending out these blast emails, and
we're just seeing that outpace, andwe're seeing the adoption, and we're
seeing, you know, our sales folks askingus, "When is the invite gonna be ready?
(09:47):
I really need it.
I really wanna send it.
And we love it." It puts pressure onus as the marketing team to get that
stuff done, and we have just seen itcapitalize, and the proof was that first
event, and we couldn't have proved itwithout Cvent, 'cause Cvent gave us
the data and the enablement to do it.
Matt Heinz (10:01):
So on a platform of having a strong, measurable, highly
integrated event platform, like oneway to apply rocket fuel to that is
activating your partner ecosystem.
Talk a little about howpartners are involved in your
event strategy now as well?
Andrew DePaul (10:13):
Yeah.
So they have helped us sponsor theseevents, so we have different sponsorship
tiers that come in at different valuesand they get different enablement for
their events and where they're placed at.
I remember we were sitting in theevent staff room, and one of the
lead Asset Managers came in andjust said, "I'm in next year."
Matt Heinz (10:32):
Nice.
Andrew DePaul (10:33):
It just, he's, he was sold.
Matt Heinz (10:34):
That's awesome.
Andrew DePaul (10:34):
And it was just, we had our first one right when we wrapped up;
the one we were at and without the datathat we have, we've created this beautiful
dashboard that can basically show anindividual firm and then the transactions
that people have made in their product.
So it's not just a generalization of,"Hey, you know, the average investor has
made X amount of transactions", we cansay they've transacted in your stuff.
(10:56):
And then we can also show them howthey've engaged with the exhibitor
hub, who they are, what they did.
And it's just been great and it's justgreat data and sometimes I'm shocked
because it's so readily accessible to me.
People are amazed when we give themthis report that shows them all
this breakdown of what people did.
It's like I look at it every dayand so it makes my job kind of
(11:16):
easy where I can show them thesegreat reports and all this data.
And the sponsors love it, and we're tryingto, this year, to dabble into a little bit
more lead capture scanning we're thinking.
Giving people just the ability to tracktheir own leads and maybe have their
own targeted outreach after the event.
Matt Heinz (11:33):
What does planning look like to make all of this happen?
You know, what's thecadence of doing that?
How often does that happen?
And then what happens when rubbermeets the road and the great well-laid
plan starts to sort of adjust.
Andrew DePaul (11:43):
We get about two months after Summit's over before we
start talking about the next Summit.
And I'm sure it's the same way withCONNECT, you get this little bit of
a break and then now with the addedregional events, it kind of is nonstop.
It's really the regional events.
The first couple are difficult.
And then they start tokind of do themselves.
And then when there's an error, you know,luckily we have such a great integrated
(12:07):
team that if something happens, weall kind of put our heads together.
Our CMO has been amazing with having us,you know, making this the focal point.
Our CEO has said this is aprimary goal for the organization.
So everybody knows that like,hey, there's an issue with Summit.
Whatever that issue is, it'sall hands on deck to fix.
Matt Heinz (12:24):
Got it.
Talking a lot about best practices, thethings you guys are doing well along
the path to achieve those best practicesthat are always cautionary tales, the
things that didn't always go well.
What are like one or two cautionarytales for folks that are sort of
earlier in the progression of thisjourney that you might caution and
make sure, like, don't try that.
Andrew DePaul (12:38):
I have the perfect one.
My first year here, Carissa pulledme in to do a talk on stage.
So I had talked about our first year andI had looked at the email system in Cvent
and thought, I don't want to use this.
We use HubSpot to doour marketing outreach.
I'm gonna do all the emaildeployment through that.
And it just didn't work.
And I had noticed deliverability issues.
(13:00):
I had noticed, open rates were tanking.
We were having advisors all overthe place saying, "I'm not getting
the emails." So the biggestpivot I made was the second year.
I was like, we're doingeverything in Cvent.
We're adopting it from the start . We'redoing all the invitation emails, we're
organizing people in the [register]paths, we're doing the real basic best
practice stuff that I should have done.
I should have been smarter and kindof read the instructions versus
(13:20):
trying to figure it on my own.
And it was a total 180.
I mean, it was the, probably the biggestsuccess story that we had was just doing
that, of just seeing registration numberspour in versus bounce rates pour in.
It was just a huge success for us.
So I would tell anybody,just lean into what you have.
Especially for an event like ours,that's invitation only, we're not
(13:42):
publicizing who can come and we'rereally targeting our network.
Matt Heinz (13:46):
Just got a couple more minutes here with Andrew DePaul from CAIS.
And I think, you know, for folks likeyourself that have a pretty advanced
approach to event led growth andevent strategy, it can be intimidating
to hear these kind of conversationsfor folks that aren't there.
Kind of talk about the journeyand the steps to get there.
That this isn't something you justturn on and it's happening right away.
And you've been, I mean, you've been atCAIS for a while, and it continues to
evolve, but this has been progressive.
Andrew DePaul (14:07):
Yeah.
And I, and I got lucky.
So I got lucky where I washere when we got Cvent.
I didn't inherit Cvent.
I didn't inherit some other system.
And I would say if you're luckyenough to start from scratch, work
directly with the team, figure it out.
If you weren't lucky enough and you maybeinherited something that's a little bit
more messy, it's gonna be a lot harder.
It's got a lot of uphill battle.
(14:27):
I think keeping it simpleis always the best approach.
I've always had that of, you know,find the integrations, do the out
of the box stuff, start small.
Don't try to do something too advanced.
And, you know, get the basics right beforeyou start to do more advanced techniques.
Matt Heinz (14:44):
So we started this conversation with a comment.
It's about just like, events are back.
I mean, just the volume of peoplethat are here and the energy
in the room is just palpable.
There's also a higherbar for events, right?
I mean, we still see people sort of sayinglike, "Ah, I can just get this online, or
I can get the on demand pass, or I can getsome of the value of this elsewhere." I
don't necessarily buy into that in a lotof functions, but I think that that bar
is continuing; gonna continue to rise.
(15:05):
Why will events continue to becritical for companies like CAIS
to drive your go-to-market success?
Andrew DePaul (15:11):
It was touched on a little bit yesterday during the keynote, and I
think with the increasing amount of AI,as great as AI can be, I forget the stat;
it was something like 90% of contentonline will be AI generated by 2028.
These face-to-face interactions,you can't replace that.
So I think having, you know, getting oursales folk on the ground directly with
(15:36):
advisors, getting them to walk over to anAsset Manager that they didn't know had a
certain product, or they didn't know had acertain tactic, and introducing these two
people together is just gonna be crucial.
And it's gonna be harderto find that as time goes.
And I think people are lookingmore for that face-to-face
interaction for things like that.
Especially when they're doing theirresearch and digging into products.
Matt Heinz (15:58):
Well, I find myself as we leverage AI more and more, and as
things become more sort of digital,more saturated, you know, if, if you
think you could replace doing thiswith a lot of digital strategies and a
lot of AI, I find myself increasinglysaying, boy, hope my competitors do that.
Because it'll give me an advantageto continue to go out and leverage
human element and not just do anevent, great events, but have a real
event led growth integrated strategylike you guys have built a CAIS.
(16:18):
So congrats.
Andrew DePaul (16:19):
Thank you.
Matt Heinz (16:19):
Thanks very much for being here.
Appreciate it.
Andrew DePaul (16:21):
Yeah, thank you.
I really appreciate it.
Matt Heinz (16:22):
All right.
Take care.
Andrew DePaul (16:22):
Thank you.
All right.
Welcome back to Cvent CONNECT.
Excited to be joining you live fromthe Convention Center here outside
of the Stars at Night Ballroom.
Excited to have withus here, Andrew DePaul.
He's the SVP of DigitalMarketing for CAIS.
Thanks so much for joining us, man.
Andrew DePaul (00:27):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Matt Heinz (00:28):
How's the event been so far?
Andrew DePaul (00:29):
It's been great.
You know, this is my third time here.
Matt Heinz (00:32):
Yeah.
Andrew DePaul (00:33):
So, it has been fascinating.
You know, there's some oldfriends that you meet up.
Matt Heinz (00:37):
Sure.
Andrew DePaul (00:37):
I was just telling your team that I walked into the ballroom
on Monday in shorts and a t-shirt,and Carissa saw me and she's like,
"I have 50 things for you to do."
Matt Heinz (00:45):
Oh.
Andrew DePaul (00:45):
And one of 'em is this podcast.
Matt Heinz (00:46):
Yes.
Andrew DePaul (00:47):
So I'm really excited.
And it was like, goodtiming, perfect timing.
So it's been great.
Matt Heinz (00:50):
You don't say no to Carissa.
Andrew DePaul (00:51):
You can't say no to her.
So it's been fabulous, you know.
Downstairs today meeting a lot of vendors.
Sitting in on some of the flash sessions.
I love the roadmap session.
I have like 50 ideas coming outof this, of what we're gonna do.
Matt Heinz (01:03):
It's interesting like, because you're a marketer, right?
Andrew DePaul (01:05):
Yeah.
Matt Heinz (01:05):
Like I'm coming in the marketing space to, to go to an event
that is not really, that is emergingas a marketing event, but is really
more of a travel industry event.
Andrew DePaul (01:12):
Yeah.
Matt Heinz (01:12):
And to sort of feel the energy in the room among event planners,
event producers, you know, the venue,evangelists down on the trade show floor.
I mean, it, it didn't feel likethe pandemic was that long ago.
And yet the events are back.
Andrew DePaul (01:25):
They're back.
They're back.
For us especially.
During the pandemic when I starteda CAIS, it was all virtual.
Matt Heinz (01:30):
Yeah.
Andrew DePaul (01:30):
So it was webinars and then we started to tiptoe back into
this space and we've just seen suchtremendous growth over the years.
And it's great to see, you know,the event planners get to kick back
here and relax a little bit andnot have to stress about an event.
Matt Heinz (01:44):
Oh, these people can party.
Andrew DePaul (01:44):
Yeah.
They're ready to go.
They're ready to go.
Matt Heinz (01:47):
Yeah.
Alright, so I wanna talk aboutwhat you guys are doing to
have built your event program.
I wanna talk about yourflagship CAIS Summit.
Andrew DePaul (01:52):
Yeah.
Matt Heinz (01:52):
But first, like, who is CAIS?
What is CAIS and who are your customers?
Andrew DePaul (01:55):
So we are a two-sided marketplace.
So we sit between financialadvisors and asset managers.
Matt Heinz (02:02):
Yeah.
Andrew DePaul (02:02):
And we deal in anything that is not a stock
or a bond, so alternatives.
So we are dealing with about2,000 wealth management firms.
Matt Heinz (02:10):
Wow.
Andrew DePaul (02:10):
And that is 50,000 plus advisors.
And those advisors have $6.5trillion in client assets.
So there's a lot of money in this space,and we're trying to capitalize on it.
We are working with alternative assetmanagers and bank issuers to help
streamline and scale their efficiency.
So we're trying to be thatone-stop-shop for advisors.
(02:30):
It deals with pre-trade, trade andpost-trade parts of the life cycle.
So we're there for them to come on,look at some products that these asset
managers have, help them with the tradeprocess, and then help them look at
their holdings and everything after.
We also really dive intothe education of alts.
It's a newer space to some people.
You know, even when we have thesefinancial advisors at our events, some
of them are like, this is very detailedand this is a difficult space, and so
(02:54):
we dove into that education part of it.
We have a tool called CAISIQ, which helps manage this.
We are just like on the ground promotingalts, promoting the democratization
of alts, really trying to amplify it.
So we've been around since 2009.
We kind of operate like astartup, but not really anymore.
This is a, you know, all steam ahead.
We've seen so much tremendousgrowth through just the platform
(03:17):
and through our event space.
Matt Heinz (03:18):
So diverse go-to market program, lots of stuff going on
the marketing side, sales side.
Talk about how events fit intothat go-to market program.
Andrew DePaul (03:25):
Yeah, I mean, we started with Cvent four years ago with a single
event; an internal offsite event.
And it was a success.
And then we stepped into our flagshipevent, the CAIS Summit in Beverly Hills.
Matt Heinz (03:37):
Nice.
Andrew DePaul (03:37):
It was another success and it's just ramped up from that.
So three years of that, we've had about2,500 advisors and attendees total at
those events over those three years.
Then we started doingmore regional events.
So we've been growing that space.
We did about 15 last year.
Matt Heinz (03:54):
Wow.
Andrew DePaul (03:54):
And then we've just seen tremendous growth there and we
are just full steam ahead with, youknow, using Cvent to get in front of
the advisors and also get the assetmanagers on the ground with them.
And it has that angle ofeducation that I talked about.
It's not just this productpush of like, "Hey, buy this".
They're coming in, they're talkingabout the changes in private equity,
sports and entertainment investinginto that is now an emerging market.
Matt Heinz (04:17):
Interesting.
So one of the risks sometimes yourun, like, especially I think in your
industry is, you know, events canbe seen as a commodity, sometimes
you run the risk of that contentfeeling the same in a lot of context?
How do you keep it unique and fresh?
How do you sort of keep the contentstrategy before, during, and after the
events, you know, unique and relevant?
Andrew DePaul (04:31):
We are really focusing on what's happening now.
Last year at our CAIS Summit, wedove into politics a little bit
more, you know, it was an electioncycle, and talking about that.
This year, you know, we'll be focusinga lot on sports and entertainment.
So it's really finding out, andwe use data all the time to find
out what people are interested in.
We are talking to our advisors orwe're talking to our sponsors and our
(04:51):
asset managers about what's happening.
And we're surveying them.
We're just having the discussionswhen we set up our sponsorship
calls, which are really important.
We're really talking to 'them about"What do you guys wanna talk about?
What's happening in the market?"And that's how we tailor our agenda.
So it's trying to have somethingnew and exciting every year.
And some of it can be, youknow, rinse and repeat.
We know what works.
Matt Heinz (05:11):
Sure, sure, sure.
Andrew DePaul (05:12):
But that's a lot of the background stuff.
Matt Heinz (05:13):
Yeah.
And it's, we need to have those playbooks.
You need to have thethings that are all in
- Andrew DePaul: Exactly.
But I think one of the things that you mentioned earlier is that your
programs are highly measurable, right?
It's not only highly measuringthe ROI, but making sure that
there isn't a deterioration of theeffectiveness of those programs.
Can you unpack "highly measurable"and sort of how that gives
you an edge with your event.
Andrew DePaul (05:30):
Yeah.
So we are looking at every single stepin activity that an advisor takes.
We're looking at from did theyopen a registration email?
To did they badge into a session?
And we're taking those badge ins andwe're doing anything from returning
that back to the sponsor saying,"Hey, here's who attended" to
providing the person with CE credit.
'Cause these advisors, they needthat credit with the national
(05:50):
institutions to make sure that theycan keep their licenses and then we're
just really diving into that data.
We are taking all of that andfolding it back into dashboards.
We are putting them into post-eventcampaigns and we're really driving
them and just hammering home thesuccess of the event, and giving them
the information that they requested.
Matt Heinz (06:08):
Awesome.
Excited to have Andrew DePauljoining us here as the SVP of
Digital Marketing at CAIS here onthe show floor at Cvent CONNECT.
We talked a little about measurability,let's talk about integration.
Now, you talk a lot about howfully integrated your events are.
What does that mean, andwhy is that important?
Andrew DePaul (06:22):
There's kind of the two parts of the integration.
There's the, it's become a part ofthe discussion when we talk to sales.
I mean, it is the number onething we're talking about.
We're getting on thesales calls internally.
The first thing we're leading ishere's how many people are coming to
the event this week and everything, soit's integrated into the conversation.
Our sales folks, when they'reon the ground, it's integrated
into their conversation.
(06:43):
It's like, "Hey, why don't you comeout, we're having an event in Chicago
this week. Stop by and come and seethese great speakers and learn this
great information." And then there'sthe technical integration, right?
This, the boring stuff that Ihave to do there is the Salesforce
integrations; all the data.
Making sure every single touch point ismarked and captured as we go through.
Matt Heinz (07:01):
You can call it boring if you want.
I think if that generates theresults, that sounds sexy to me.
Andrew DePaul (07:05):
It's boring to some people because it's just ones and
zeros, but, it really gets the job done.
A perfect example this week, acolleague of mine asked me, "Hey,
can you give me every single personfrom this specific firm that attended
events since 2020? 2022", excuse me.
You know that if I would've beenlike, oh, we didn't, you know,
really track that really well, orwe lost that, or it's in an Excel
(07:26):
somewhere, I wouldn't be able to do it.
I did it in a couple seconds thismorning when I was drinking coffee
and sent her the report, and it'sjust because we have the data on hand.
We know how to find it, we know whereit is, and it's been integrated and it's
just, you know, part of my day to day,
Matt Heinz (07:37):
I mean, having the data is only one part of the solution, right?
Like having the tools to be able toleverage it and activate is another thing.
Like when we talk about having sortof a strategy process, playbook
for doing events well, you know,the hidden sort of secret weapon
oftentimes is the platform behind it.
Talk about the role of technologyand enabling this growing
integrated strategy of yours?
Andrew DePaul (07:55):
We are you doing a lot with Tableau and just marrying
all these points of data up.
I see it really moving though into AI.
I think that's gonna be the future of howwe take that data and what we do with it.
I wish I knew where that was gonna go.
Matt Heinz (08:11):
Right.
So do I.
Andrew DePaul (08:13):
I think it'd be make a lot more money than I do now if
I did that, but, I don't know yet.
And I think, you know, as anorganization, we're being AI focused
and trying to lead with that.
Matt Heinz (08:20):
Yeah.
Andrew DePaul (08:21):
And we're trying to find ways and, you know, hearing all the
great stuff this week about how Cventis gonna be pulling AI in with Cvent
IQ to enable that and just have thatactually built into the system where I
don't have to take files out and drop 'eminto ChatGPT and do the analysis there.
I can probably do it in the system.
I think it's just going to, you know,ramp this up, you know, 10 times.
Matt Heinz (08:40):
I agree.
You gave some great examples of sortof how well your events are integrated.
That is not a trivial thing.
A lot of organizations really strugglewith getting every department to lean in
and have a coordinated approach with someconsensus around the why and the how.
Was that a journey for you?
Andrew DePaul (08:56):
Yes.
Matt Heinz (08:56):
I think a lot of people hear that and think, oh,
it's just asking them to do it.
No, it is not.
Talk a little bit about that journey.
Andrew DePaul (09:01):
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it was selling it.
And I think it really did take thatfirst CAIS Summit to get everybody on the
ground to go, this is the way forward.
And that first one was hard.
It was just, you know, beingin the trenches, I think is
the word I'm looking for.
Matt Heinz (09:17):
It doesn't happen automatically.
Andrew DePaul (09:18):
It was difficult.
And now, you know, this one, this yearwe're outpacing our registration rate.
Matt Heinz (09:23):
Nice.
Andrew DePaul (09:24):
And we have seen an uptick because all the tracking we can do.
I can now see the people that I invited,if they registered, versus the people
sales invited if they registered.
And we're seeing the salesoutpace the people I invite.
And I invite way more because I'msending out these blast emails, and
we're just seeing that outpace, andwe're seeing the adoption, and we're
seeing, you know, our sales folks askingus, "When is the invite gonna be ready?
(09:47):
I really need it.
I really wanna send it.
And we love it." It puts pressure onus as the marketing team to get that
stuff done, and we have just seen itcapitalize, and the proof was that first
event, and we couldn't have proved itwithout Cvent, 'cause Cvent gave us
the data and the enablement to do it.
Matt Heinz (10:01):
So on a platform of having a strong, measurable, highly
integrated event platform, like oneway to apply rocket fuel to that is
activating your partner ecosystem.
Talk a little about howpartners are involved in your
event strategy now as well?
Andrew DePaul (10:13):
Yeah.
So they have helped us sponsor theseevents, so we have different sponsorship
tiers that come in at different valuesand they get different enablement for
their events and where they're placed at.
I remember we were sitting in theevent staff room, and one of the
lead Asset Managers came in andjust said, "I'm in next year."
Matt Heinz (10:32):
Nice.
Andrew DePaul (10:33):
It just, he's, he was sold.
Matt Heinz (10:34):
That's awesome.
Andrew DePaul (10:34):
And it was just, we had our first one right when we wrapped up;
the one we were at and without the datathat we have, we've created this beautiful
dashboard that can basically show anindividual firm and then the transactions
that people have made in their product.
So it's not just a generalization of,"Hey, you know, the average investor has
made X amount of transactions", we cansay they've transacted in your stuff.
(10:56):
And then we can also show them howthey've engaged with the exhibitor
hub, who they are, what they did.
And it's just been great and it's justgreat data and sometimes I'm shocked
because it's so readily accessible to me.
People are amazed when we give themthis report that shows them all
this breakdown of what people did.
It's like I look at it every dayand so it makes my job kind of
(11:16):
easy where I can show them thesegreat reports and all this data.
And the sponsors love it, and we're tryingto, this year, to dabble into a little bit
more lead capture scanning we're thinking.
Giving people just the ability to tracktheir own leads and maybe have their
own targeted outreach after the event.
Matt Heinz (11:33):
What does planning look like to make all of this happen?
You know, what's thecadence of doing that?
How often does that happen?
And then what happens when rubbermeets the road and the great well-laid
plan starts to sort of adjust.
Andrew DePaul (11:43):
We get about two months after Summit's over before we
start talking about the next Summit.
And I'm sure it's the same way withCONNECT, you get this little bit of
a break and then now with the addedregional events, it kind of is nonstop.
It's really the regional events.
The first couple are difficult.
And then they start tokind of do themselves.
And then when there's an error, you know,luckily we have such a great integrated
(12:07):
team that if something happens, weall kind of put our heads together.
Our CMO has been amazing with having us,you know, making this the focal point.
Our CEO has said this is aprimary goal for the organization.
So everybody knows that like,hey, there's an issue with Summit.
Whatever that issue is, it'sall hands on deck to fix.
Matt Heinz (12:24):
Got it.
Talking a lot about best practices, thethings you guys are doing well along
the path to achieve those best practicesthat are always cautionary tales, the
things that didn't always go well.
What are like one or two cautionarytales for folks that are sort of
earlier in the progression of thisjourney that you might caution and
make sure, like, don't try that.
Andrew DePaul (12:38):
I have the perfect one.
My first year here, Carissa pulledme in to do a talk on stage.
So I had talked about our first year andI had looked at the email system in Cvent
and thought, I don't want to use this.
We use HubSpot to doour marketing outreach.
I'm gonna do all the emaildeployment through that.
And it just didn't work.
And I had noticed deliverability issues.
(13:00):
I had noticed, open rates were tanking.
We were having advisors all overthe place saying, "I'm not getting
the emails." So the biggestpivot I made was the second year.
I was like, we're doingeverything in Cvent.
We're adopting it from the start . We'redoing all the invitation emails, we're
organizing people in the [register]paths, we're doing the real basic best
practice stuff that I should have done.
I should have been smarter and kindof read the instructions versus
(13:20):
trying to figure it on my own.
And it was a total 180.
I mean, it was the, probably the biggestsuccess story that we had was just doing
that, of just seeing registration numberspour in versus bounce rates pour in.
It was just a huge success for us.
So I would tell anybody,just lean into what you have.
Especially for an event like ours,that's invitation only, we're not
(13:42):
publicizing who can come and we'rereally targeting our network.
Matt Heinz (13:46):
Just got a couple more minutes here with Andrew DePaul from CAIS.
And I think, you know, for folks likeyourself that have a pretty advanced
approach to event led growth andevent strategy, it can be intimidating
to hear these kind of conversationsfor folks that aren't there.
Kind of talk about the journeyand the steps to get there.
That this isn't something you justturn on and it's happening right away.
And you've been, I mean, you've been atCAIS for a while, and it continues to
evolve, but this has been progressive.
Andrew DePaul (14:07):
Yeah.
And I, and I got lucky.
So I got lucky where I washere when we got Cvent.
I didn't inherit Cvent.
I didn't inherit some other system.
And I would say if you're luckyenough to start from scratch, work
directly with the team, figure it out.
If you weren't lucky enough and you maybeinherited something that's a little bit
more messy, it's gonna be a lot harder.
It's got a lot of uphill battle.
(14:27):
I think keeping it simpleis always the best approach.
I've always had that of, you know,find the integrations, do the out
of the box stuff, start small.
Don't try to do something too advanced.
And, you know, get the basics right beforeyou start to do more advanced techniques.
Matt Heinz (14:44):
So we started this conversation with a comment.
It's about just like, events are back.
I mean, just the volume of peoplethat are here and the energy
in the room is just palpable.
There's also a higherbar for events, right?
I mean, we still see people sort of sayinglike, "Ah, I can just get this online, or
I can get the on demand pass, or I can getsome of the value of this elsewhere." I
don't necessarily buy into that in a lotof functions, but I think that that bar
is continuing; gonna continue to rise.
(15:05):
Why will events continue to becritical for companies like CAIS
to drive your go-to-market success?
Andrew DePaul (15:11):
It was touched on a little bit yesterday during the keynote, and I
think with the increasing amount of AI,as great as AI can be, I forget the stat;
it was something like 90% of contentonline will be AI generated by 2028.
These face-to-face interactions,you can't replace that.
So I think having, you know, getting oursales folk on the ground directly with
(15:36):
advisors, getting them to walk over to anAsset Manager that they didn't know had a
certain product, or they didn't know had acertain tactic, and introducing these two
people together is just gonna be crucial.
And it's gonna be harderto find that as time goes.
And I think people are lookingmore for that face-to-face
interaction for things like that.
Especially when they're doing theirresearch and digging into products.
Matt Heinz (15:58):
Well, I find myself as we leverage AI more and more, and as
things become more sort of digital,more saturated, you know, if, if you
think you could replace doing thiswith a lot of digital strategies and a
lot of AI, I find myself increasinglysaying, boy, hope my competitors do that.
Because it'll give me an advantageto continue to go out and leverage
human element and not just do anevent, great events, but have a real
event led growth integrated strategylike you guys have built a CAIS.
(16:18):
So congrats.
Andrew DePaul (16:19):
Thank you.
Matt Heinz (16:19):
Thanks very much for being here.
Appreciate it.
Andrew DePaul (16:21):
Yeah, thank you.
I really appreciate it.
Matt Heinz (16:22):
All right.
Take care.
Andrew DePaul (16:22):
Thank you.
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