The Spendesk team was looking to expand their event programs, but found themselves needing key features and capabilities to help them grow. Since using Splash, Spendesk has increased their attendance rates and net-new contacts while decreasing their event setup time. This has allowed their team to expand the value of their programs and meet the needs of their growing community.
Founded in 2016, Spendesk is the complete spend management platform that saves businesses time and money by connecting company spend. Spendesk’s single solution makes agile, efficient spending easy for employees and gives finance leaders complete visibility across the entire company spend. Spendesk has over 200,000 users across brands such as Ubisoft, Aircall, and Depop, alongside CFO Connect, a private finance community.
Over the past six years, they've built CFO Connect into the premier finance community in Europe and the U.S. with over 12,000 vetted members.
CFO Connect relies on events of all shapes and sizes, from intimate workshops to its annual summit that attracts thousands, to engage its members and continue to add value to fulfill its mission of helping its members build successful careers in finance.
Luc Hancock, Head of Community at Spendesk, runs CFO Connect.
It’s a community where 12,000+ finance leaders connect with peers regularly by way of monthly webinars, virtual masterclasses, in-person events, and a large-scale virtual summit.
“CFO Connect is often the first touchpoint where someone will eventually discover Spendesk, but it's a first touchpoint that delivers value to the end user rather than extracting value, which is why it's very powerful,” said Luc. “We're doing it via events. So we're putting on these really great events that are delivering value where people can come learn from experts in the industry about specific skills."
Luc’s goal is to drive visibility to the CFO Connect community. As his community and need for events expanded, he found the reach and impact of his event programs could be taken to the next level if he could scale his process.
“We were using a solution that was very simple and straightforward. This worked well in the beginning however, as we grew, we needed additional features that fit with the needs of our growing community.”
“Events are a moment where the community comes together to exchange on a timely topic, learn from each other, upskill, and become a better finance professional. Events perfectly encapsulate the ethos of our mission to help members develop skills needed to build a successful career in Finance.“
Luc Hancock, Head of Community at Spendesk
When looking for a new tool, Luc stumbled across Splash by chance. He noticed Figma using Splash for one of their conferences and was taken by the fully branded landing page and registration experience.
Luc and his team did their research, and eventually found their way back to Splash.
“We shopped around, but Splash felt like the most comprehensive tool on the market.”
Here’s some of the team’s favorite features:
With Splash’s flexible tools, Luc and his team have one solution for all their event needs. He credits Splash’s built-in reminder emails for the leaps they’ve seen in their average attendance rates.
“We’re able to host all our events in one place, which is great for continuity. Since using Splash, we’ve seen an uptick in registration rate. More recently, our average turnout rate in 2024 has significantly increased from 33% to 40%.”
With a majority of Luc’s events happening online, he needed a tool he could rely on for his virtual events. He’s found that trust in Splash Studio.
“Our speakers have all said it's always been really easy to use. We've never had any technical issues. And from an attendee experience, it's always worked really well and people are able to easily access the events.”
Splash’s integration with HubSpot lets Luc’s team connect their event data with their CRM so they can track registrations and the overall success of their event programs.
“Splash is mostly used to keep a running list of registrant details and send transactional emails ahead of the event. We host the event on Splash and use Splash Studio, which lets us create a dynamic viewing experience for the audience with polls and a Q&A tab.”
Luc Hancock, Head of Community at Spendesk
Luc shared that along with the increase in attendance rates, they’ve seen positive ROI in net-new contacts for events and time saved during event setup.
Here’s a look at the success of their programs:
Moving forward, Luc shared the team is looking to incorporate more in-person events to reward loyal community members and expand the value of their programs even further.
“Operations are smooth and work very well. It has impacted CFO Connect’s reputation as an event provider in a good way. Our events look professional and put together — from the sign-up flow and automated email, to webinar production and hosted video recording.”
Luc Hancock, Head of Community at Spendesk
