INSTITUTE OF INTERNAL AUDITORS

The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) is the author and curator of the Global Internal Audit Standards™. The association includes hundreds of global chapters in their mission to advance the internal auditing profession and support internal auditors. “Essentially, the Institute of Internal Auditors writes the standards and provides guidance on how to properly conduct internal audits across the world,” explains Landon Cohen, Director of Learning Operations & Technology. “We conduct 30 to 40 webinars per year, six virtual conferences, six hybrid conferences, and over 300 instructor-led trainings.” Many of these events include continuing education credits (CPEs). “The goal of our events are ultimately, at the end of the day, to provide member value,” Landon shares.

BACKGROUND & GOALS

Discovering the value of Cvent’s unified Event Marketing and Management platform 

The IIA previously struggled to successfully engage attendees, particularly with webinars. “We looked at our previous platform as simply a content delivery tool,” Landon shares. “We were missing a lot of opportunity to provide value, collect data to better understand our own members, and tie everything more closely together with our marketing strategy.” He notes the webinar platform had a largely passive user experience, with attendees questioning the value of attending live and providing negative feedback. With this in mind, the IIA decided to source a new solution to replace their underperforming webinar platform.

Soon after, the IIA discovered Cvent. Though their intent was to purchase a webinar platform, they began to see the value of having a single integrated system to manage their entire events program. “We had grown so accustomed to separate systems for everything – for registration, for webinars, for apps – that we found ourselves building products to fit within those technology parameters,” Landon explains. “With Cvent, we learned we should have been looking at our program holistically and we had a real lightbulb moment where we could see the tremendous value of doing a full events platform replacement.”

Landon explains, “This really had the opportunity to impact everyone around the organization, so we had to engage a holistic group of stakeholders and Cvent was an instrumental part of the process to understand their challenges and how the platform could help solve them – and quite frankly, that’s how we’ve become so successful.” 

The IIA now leverages a number of Cvent solutions to power not just their webinars, but their larger events program. These includes Cvent Registration, Attendee Hub, Spend & Workflow tools, Passkey, Abstract Management, Appointments, Onsite Solutions, and API integrations. 

APPROACH

Connecting Cvent Registration and integrations for a personalized member experience

Cvent’s Registration solution streamlines the processes for IIA attendees, whether they’re registering for a webinar, training, or conference. Fully branded sites can be customized for different attendee types and registration paths, delivering a more personalized experience. Landon’s team can easily track key metrics by using code snippets and reference IDs to identify where registrants are coming from and which marketing tactics are most effective. Attendees can also self-manage their registrations – modifying or canceling as needed — which allows the IIA to focus on more strategic priorities.

The registration data then seamlessly syncs with integrated platforms like the IIA’s eCommerce system, meaning attendees can manage payments during registration. “Once they purchase an event on our site, there’s an API call that goes on behind the scenes that gets them registered into the event,” Landon explains. With the addition of a CRM integration, the IIA is now able to seamlessly connect registration, payment, and attendee information with their CRM for real-time data synchronization. This connectivity enhances targeting and personalizes attendee experiences with automated follow-up to save time and reduce manual work for the team.

These integrations also improve data accuracy, giving other areas of the organization deeper insights into event ROI and attendee behavior. “The API integrations have provided consistent data for finance and marketing, ensuring they have everything in one location,” Landon shares. He adds that one unexpected advantage of using Cvent has been in finding cost saving opportunities. “Because Cvent doesn’t allow for duplicate registrations, we’ve seen a drastic reduction in excess spend,” he notes.

Moving from passive to proactive engagement with the Cvent Attendee Hub 

The IIA has been able to streamline and enhance the attendee experience using the Cvent Attendee Hub. “Attendee Hub has really changed the way our users are experiencing our events,” Landon shares. Previously, they had a separate tool to contact attendees prior to the event with instructions on how to access and attend, often only a few hours before the event start. “We’re able to get them into the platform much earlier with Attendee Hub, so it has drastically reduced our customer satisfaction issues when it comes to access,” Landon notes. “Now, we’re using Attendee Hub for all of our events, whether it’s a webinar or a conference or any of the other events we put on.” 

The Attendee Hub provides a single, centralized platform for attendees to easily manage every aspect of the event experience. They can easily build personalized agendas, access up-to-date session and speaker information, and receive real-time updates throughout the event. They’re also able to build connections with integrated features like one-to-one messaging, attendee recommendations, and discussion forums. Importantly, Attendee Hub allows the IIA to maintain consistent branding across their events, and they’re able to cross-promote resources and other events using custom cards and pages.

Landon adds that the tool has been a game changer in transforming how attendees are interacting with their events. Features like polling and Q&A ensure attendees are engaging with content, speakers, and one another. In addition to driving engagement, these features can help automate CPE credit management. “We issue a CPE credit by the governing body called NASBA, and there are very strict guidelines on how you measure engagement for people who attend virtually,” he explains. “The polling feature is a great way for us to measure that engagement so we can award credits for our audience.” They’re now able to automate this process and ensure greater accuracy – speeding up timelines from what could take several months to only 48 hours.

Elevating sponsor ROI with data‑driven engagement 

Landon credits Attendee Hub with helping to elevate the sponsor experience. “Before, we were just providing a list of attendees to our sponsors without really quantifying who is engaged and who might be a more impactful or smarter lead,” he says. “We’ve actually been able to use the engagement features in Attendee Hub to measure and track who’s more engaged, and drive that traffic to our sponsors.”  This data-driven approach has helped the IIA attract new sponsors, grow repeat sponsorship, and increase non-dues revenue. “Sponsorship revenue has gone up because we’re giving them more qualified leads,” Landon adds. 

Within Attendee Hub, attendees and sponsors can also easily navigate appointment scheduling using the embedded Appointments tool. This allows them to create, reject, or accept appointment requests directly in Attendee Hub, defining appointment details like location and including notes. Landon’s team has the flexibility to set appointment parameters, configure automated web and in-app notifications for changes or cancellations, and control visibility, permissions, and scheduling rules. This ensures a seamless, user-friendly experience for attendees and sponsors while giving the IIA the oversight and control they need to manage appointments effectively.

Embedded surveys within Attendee Hub enable the IIA to collect targeted feedback at both the event and session level, providing valuable insights into attendee experiences. Surveys can be directed to specific groups or deployed at key moments throughout the event lifecycle, ensuring the right feedback is captured when it matters most. By pairing survey results with engagement scoring, the IIA can more effectively assess event performance year over year and personalize post-event follow-up. This approach supports continuous improvement, helping the IIA deliver even better experiences with each event. 

The IIA also uses Cvent Passkey to automate and streamline housing management for in-person events. Instead of relying on manual communication and cumbersome lists, the Passkey reservation process is fully integrated into the registration site, creating a single, unified booking experience. Registrants can easily self-manage their bookings and shoulder night requests, speeding up the process and reducing administrative effort. The IIA then benefits from real-time insights into pickup rates, room availability, and specific requests through integrated dashboards. By consolidating all housing information in one place, the IIA gains improved visibility and coordination for even the most complex room blocks.

In addition, the IIA uses OnArrival Premium to create a seamless first touchpoint for attendees onsite. The effortless check-in and badging experience eliminates long lines and the need to pre-print badges, which often results in wasted time and resources. OnArrival Premium offers session scanning and attendance tracking through RFID or NFC badges to not only capture session attendance, but to allow the IIA to monitor capacity and track attendance in real time via the OnArrival app. This not only allows the team to track event progress, but also provides valuable insights into attendee interests and behaviors to inform future planning.

RESULTS

Building on impressive results to power the future of IIA meetings and events

By implementing a unified event management solution, the IIA has achieved several key goals including record attendance. “We recently had a webinar with over 30,000 people, whereas our record before that was a little over 10,000 – so that’s three times the number of attendees,” says Landon. “That’s measurable data you can see, and that’s obviously led to an increase in revenue.” He adds that one benefit they didn’t anticipate was a greater frequency of repeat customers as the platform was no longer a barrier to entry. “We have more customers coming back now and we’ve seen a great uptick in customer satisfaction,” he shares.

LOOKING FORWARD

In the near future, Landon is excited to explore new opportunities for self-service meetings and events. “Finding an ecosystem that can provide value to the larger business and having tools that talk to each other has been a life changing experience,” he says. By implementing self-service options for stakeholders to run their own events, he feels they could streamline processes even further and potentially create even more impact.

In the meantime, Landon is extremely grateful for the opportunities Cvent has provided for his team. “I just can’t thank Cvent enough,” he says. “We went in thinking Cvent is the best and there’s no way we’re going to be able to afford them – when in fact, they beat our webinar platform pricing alone.” Perhaps most importantly, though, Landon says using Cvent has led to an undeniable boost in team morale. Tasks that once took weeks or months can now be completed in minutes, allowing staff to focus on high-impact projects and continuous innovation. “I really have to thank Cvent for literally changing everyone’s lives at my company, specifically my team,” Landon smiles. “In terms of actual resource retention, this platform has really opened up the ability for them to be creative and innovative, and really just changed the way that we deliver and look at events.”