One Horizon x Customer.io: Hacking lead capture at tech events 

For One Horizon, reaching the right people hasn't been the challenge. The product resonates deeply with engineering leaders like CTOs, VPs of Engineering, and team leads. The real challenge is capturing and sustaining that interest at scale, especially in fast-paced event environments where conversations are brief and follow-up can fall through the cracks.

By combining a simple lead capture flow with Customer.io’s real-time automation and enrichment capabilities, our team at One Horizon built a system that turns quick event interactions into timely, personalized follow-ups without slowing the team down. Here's how.

At One Horizon, our target audience for Go-To-Market is decision-makers on software teams: VP of Engineering, engineering leads, CTOs, and similar roles. These people quickly understand One Horizon's value, but getting their attention at scale is hard. Events like Web Summit, Slush, and JetBrains Demo Day let us reach them in person, but conversations are short and chaotic. We needed a fast, low-friction system to capture interest and turn it into a follow-up that felt personal and timely.

1. At events, we display a simple QR code linked to onehorizon.ai/register. We put it on our phones, event badges, etc.
2. Interested decision makers scan the code and submit a minimal form: name and email only.
3. Submissions flow into Customer.io as new leads. Immediately, Customer.io triggers an "Event Follow Up" workflow.
4. Before or during the workflow, we enrich the lead using People Data Labs & Perplexity based on the email domain. Enrichment returns company description, company size, industry, revenue band, location, and other signals when available.
5. The workflow sends an immediate welcome email, then a second reminder email 4 days after the event if the lead has not set user_signed_in to true. If there is still no signup after another week, a final, more urgent reminder is sent.
6. The workflow also posts a real-time Slack message into our #winners channel with the enriched company context so the team has live visibility during the event. This helps prioritize outreach and adds a fun, competitive element to registrations.

• Speed and low friction. A two-field form fits the pace of events. People are more likely to share an email at a conference than complete a full sign-up.
• Contextual follow-up. People Data Labs / Perplexity enrichment lets us tailor messaging and prioritize leads who look like ideal customers. Customer.io allows us to dynamically pass only relevant parameters since these often differ.
• Automated persistence. Multiple follow-up touches spaced over a few days convert those who meant to sign up but forgot. The user_signed_in flag prevents chasing already converted users.
• Team motivation and prioritization. Slack notifications make the data visible to the whole team in real time, creating friendly competition and clearer follow-up prioritization.

Scalable and repeatable. The same Customer.io workflow runs across events, freeing founders and the team to sell on-site rather than spend hours on manual follow-up afterward. After Web Summit, we only had to replace the event name and image with Slush.

• Registration endpoint: onehorizon.ai/register captures name and email and fires an event into Customer.io. Intentionally set up in a generic way so we can reuse it for future events.
• Enrichment: After Customer.io receives the lead, a server-side job calls People Data Labs & Perplexity to enrich based on the email domain. Enrichment results are written to the lead profile in Customer.io.
• Workflow triggers and conditions: The workflow triggers on the registration event. Branch logic checks user_signed_in before sending reminder emails. Timing nodes send the first follow-up immediately, the second 4 days later, and the final reminder 7 days after the second if user_signed_in remains false.
• Slack integration: Customer.io posts to a webhook that pushes a formatted message into #winners, including enrichment snippets. The message template highlights company size and industry to help SDRs or founders prioritize.

Privacy and compliance: Request only minimal data at events and add a link to the privacy policy on the registration page. Use enrichment responsibly and provide opt-out options in emails.

• Faster follow-up: We reduced manual post-event outreach by automating immediate and timed follow-ups.
• Higher event-to-signup conversion: The combination of enrichment and timely reminders increased event-to-signup conversion rates compared to our previous manual process.
• Better prioritization: Enriched data and Slack alerts allowed us to focus on the most promising decision makers during and after events.
• Team engagement: Real-time pings created momentum and a positive competitive dynamic, boosting registrations.

Because we attended back-to-back events like Web Summit followed by Slush, this automation was essential. There was simply no time to manually follow up between events. The workflow allowed us to capture interest at scale, make quick decisions, and keep momentum without burning hours on spreadsheets.

Customer.io is not only our event follow-up engine. We also use it for:

• Regular signups from the website with tailored onboarding sequences.
• Waitlist management prior to opening beta, including segmented invitations and chronological onboarding.
• Release notes generated by One Horizon.
• Reuse of flows and templates from past companies: We had success with Customer.io at a previous company exit, which gave us confidence to adopt it again at One Horizon. The events workflow is the standout example because it showcases creative integrations and real-time enrichment, but Customer.io powers multiple stages of our funnel.

One Horizon helps software development teams stay focused by removing the paperwork that slows them down. Developers can dedicate their energy to building great products without constant interruptions, while managers receive clear, data-grounded insights instead of relying on guesswork. The platform streamlines reporting, standups, release notes, and team visibility so engineering organizations operate with more clarity, speed, and confidence.

Customer.io is a marketing automation platform designed for product-led growth teams. It enables event-triggered workflows, targeted email and messaging, user data segmentation, and integrations with third-party enrichment and messaging tools. For teams that need real-time responses to user actions and deep personalization based on enriched company or user data, Customer.io provides the building blocks to automate follow-up, reduce manual work, and increase conversion.