Martech is marketing — at least an essential part of it. And MarTech is the place to master it.
Next month in Boston, we’ll be hosting the latest and greatest MarTech conference, September 16-18 at the Hynes Convention Center. Come soak up three days worth of educational sessions covering key topics and practices across marketing technology and operations, featuring:
- 6 keynotes from superstars such as Charlene Li and Mitch Joel
- 24 breakout educational sessions across three editorial tracks
- 8 half-day workshops taught by premier experts in their fields
- 2 evenings of networking receptions with over 1,000 of your peers
- 21 sponsored sessions from leading marketing technology providers
- 24 editorial and sponsored micro-sessions in our MarTech Theater
- 60 exhibitors sharing state-of-the-art martech products and services
We reorganized the conference around the theme of martech is marketing, drawing upon over 300 proposed sessions from experienced practitioners and industry experts, to assemble a top-notch educational program that connects the dots between world-changing marketing technology and world-class marketing leadership.
Our three tracks of breakout sessions available to all-access attendees cover:
- Technology & Operations — your “car” that gets you where you’re going
- Data & Analytics — the “fuel” that powers your driving machine
- Marketing & Leadership — your “destination” and the “route” to get there
As a shorthand, I think of these tracks as stacks, facts, and acts.
In between sessions, we’ll also have awesome snacks. And in the evenings, bars where you can relax. (Yes, we have both rhyme and reason for how we’ve structured the agenda.)
Here’s an infographic overview of the whole event, but scroll down for more details:
I’ll tell you more about these sessions, but first — take note: EARLY BIRD “BETA” RATES EXPIRE AUGUST 17. If you like the sound of this program, please purchase an all-access pass before prices go up on August 18.
6 KEYNOTES TO FRAME THE BIG MARTECH PICTURE
I’ll open with a keynote presentation on Platforming Marketing. Platform business models are one of the hottest topics in digital transformation. Can we tap those dynamics by reimagining marketing operations as an organizational platform?
By “platforming marketing” this way, you can orchestrate a powerful, decentralized internal market that moves at incredible speed, leverages the diverse skills and imagination of contributors across the company, and adapts to changes and opportunities faster than top-down, centralized decision-making ever could. It takes the concept of a center of excellence and opens it up into a massively-parallel engine of marketing innovation.
Matt LeMay, author of Agile for Everybody, will follow with a talk on how Agile Is Marketing.
For marketing to have a seat at the table for cross-functional, customer-centric transformations, the question we must ask is not “How do we make Agile a part of marketing?”, but rather, “How do we make marketing a part of Agile?”
In his presentation, Matt will explain why “Agile marketing” is most effective when it starts with an organization-wide vision of Agile principles and values, and how simple and lightweight changes to the way we work can put those principles into practice.
That afternoon, Charlene Li, senior fellow at Altimeter, will give a keynote based on her latest book, The Disruption Mindset: Why Some Organizations Transform While Others Fail. She will help you:
- Define what disruption is — and isn’t — and how it can drive growth.
- Identify and prioritize the right disruptive growth moves and align around them.
- Understand how leaders must show up differently when pursuing a disruption strategy.
- Instill disruption — even into a status-quo culture.
The next morning will kick off strong with two back-to-back keynotes.
First, Mike Volpe, CEO of Lola.com, will present From CMO to CEO: The Journey and Lessons Learned. After stints as CMO at HubSpot and Cybereason, Mike landed the top job at Lola.com. In the last year, he’s been experiencing the journey from marketing leader to CEO.
In this candid keynote, Mike will discuss the transition from CMO to CEO and how the CMO role is a new and fetile breeding ground for CEOs. You’ll get a first hand account of the strengths and weaknesses that a marketer brings to the CEO role, insight on how a CMO should prepare to be CEO, and how being CEO changes the way you think about marketing.
Cesar Brea, Partner at Bain & Company, will follow with a keynote on how Orchestration Beats Sophistication in Marketing & Martech. He’ll share the “secret sauce” that he has seen in high-performing market leaders: they consistently focus on the orchestration and organization of their marketing efforts more than technical sophistication.
Cesar will present excerpts from Bain’s research, examples of leading firms that are demonstrating effective orchestration, and the latest frameworks that you can use to keep your martech efforts on the right path.
To wrap-up the conference at the end of the day, the inimitable Mitch Joel, founder of Six Pixels Group, will give a closing keynote on Disrupting Disruption. A great book-end with Charlene’s presentation from the day before, Mitch will explain how several new — and dramatic — realities are forcing businesses to rethink many of their commonly held beliefs about what works today… and what the future may look like tomorrow.
Perhaps not surprisingly, this is less about the evolution of technology and much more about how consumers are much more efficient in this very different landscape.
8 SESSIONS ON TECHNOLOGY & OPERATIONS
A Strategic Approach to Creating a Healthy Martech Ecosystem, by Eric Olson, CMO of Quick Base, will describe three pillars for a healthy martech ecosystem — strategy, governance, and enablement. You’ll learn a practical and effective way to extend your core applications to automate any process to fit your business, not the other way around.
Marketing Enablement: Building Capabilities and Igniting Marketing’s Potential, by Mary Banks and Fran Sapir, respectively the senior manager of the marketing enablement team and the marketing enablement program success manager at Red Hat, will share with you first-hand insights into RedHat’s development of a comprehensive marketing enablement function — and ideas for how you can build that capability in your organization.
Securing Your Martech Stack: Partnering with IT and Enterprise Security, by Jorge Garcia, senior manager of marketing technology at Akamai Technologies, Inc., will discuss Akamai’s journey to get martech security right, to protect their company data, assets, and brand. Learn how to build a strategic partnership between IT, security, and your marketing technology team.
From Wild West to Business Best: Tales of a New Martech Team, by Emily Cnossen and Shannon Renz, respectively a martech specialist and the director of marketing technology at SAP Concur, will tell the tale of their journey to organize the strategy, governance, and process behind their company’s marketing technology stack. You’ll learn how a small (but mighty) martech team can make a big impact.
Putting the Customer in Custom Objects, by Justin Sharaf, director of marketing technology and operations at LogMeIn, will give you an inside look into how LogMeIn uses custom objects to identify customers and important information about their purchases, their use of LogMeIn products, and their engagement in campaigns. Learn how LogMeIn built this coming from — whoa — 10 different internal customer databases, 5 commerce systems, 15 products/brands, and millions of customers.
Your Personalization is Dead Without the Right Stack Taxonomy, by Dan McGaw, CEO of Effin Amazing (what a great name!), will explain the first crucial step of implementing an effective personalization program: a well structured marketing technology stack “taxonomy.” You’ll learn the do’s and dont’s of creating a taxonomy — and how you can leverage it in personalization to drive engagement and revenue.
Avoiding Random Acts of Martech: Creating a Process for Acquiring New Marketing Technology, by Anita Brearton, CEO of CabinetM, along with Stacy Falkman, senior customer success manager at 6Sense, John Jagelsky, director of marketing operations and demand center at Sovos, and Steve Petersen, marketing technology manager at Western Governors University, will discuss different approaches for acquiring new marketing technology. Stakeholders, procurement, contracts, centralized or distributed purchasing processes… these are just some of the fun topics on the table.
Migration Machine: How to Integrate Martech in a Fast-Moving M&A Environment, by Patrick Slavin, director of web strategy and marketing technology at PTC, will untangle the work of reconciling and integrating disparate martech systems when corporate acquisitions happen. Learn how PTC evaluated their systems, processes, and supporting resources for martech across multiple acquisitions — big and small — to unify their martech infrastructure.
8 SESSIONS ON DATA & ANALYTICS
Applying Data Science and Analytics in Marketing, by Patty Spiller, senior director of growth marketing at Livongo, will discuss the integration of a data science team in the marketing department. You’ll learn about building a scaleable foundation for data science in marketing and how it can enable better experimentation and better customer experiences.
Enabling Agility and Efficiency Through Marketing Data Re-Architecture, by Jonathan Roman, global lead of data and technology at Ancestry, will explain how Ancestry is reinventing their marketing data architecture and technology stack to drive results. They’ll share the strategy behind their stack and explain how they overcame challenges with fragmented data silos and legacy martech systems.
Making the Leap to Multi-Touch Marketing Attribution, by Adam Kirby, director of marketing at Mediacurrent, will describe how a billion dollar brand transitioned its reporting structure from almost no KPIs to a full multi-touch attribution model supported by sales, marketing, and technology. You’ll takeaway an understanding of different attribution models, best practices for preparing your data, and solutions to common data and leadership challenges.
How Credible Are Those Numbers, Really?, by Amos Budde, VP of applied data science at Civis Analytics, will teach you how to identify what’s credible and what’s not in the metrics and statistics you face every day. You’ll learn social science basics that all marketers must understand, questions you can ask to establish the validity of research and data, and the most commonly accepted stats and metrics that marketers should evaluate critically.
5 Practical, Real-World Applications of AI in Marketing, by Christopher Penn, chief data scientist at Trust Insights, will demonstrate real-world applications of AI and machine learning that you can bring back to your organization. You’ll learn about practical marketing uses of text mining, graph analytics, clustering, key driver analysis, and predictive analytics.
Practical Lead Scoring in Google Analytics and Data Studio, by Ruth Burr Reedy, director of strategy at UpBuild, will show you how to close the loop between lead volume and lead quality by programmatically getting lead-quality data into your regular analytics and reporting flow.
Using Scenario Analysis to Improve Your Customer Experience, by Laura Patterson, president of VisionEdge Marketing, will explain how to employ scenario analysis to deliver better customer experiences. Laura will show you how to use scenario analysis techniques to sharpen your CX strategy, challenge your CX assumptions, and detect the early warning signals when customer experience diverges from your expectations (or the customer’s).
Don’t Be Evil: A Framework for Lean Surveillance Marketing, by Duane Schulz, will address the challenges of privacy and responsible data management — and the opportunity to embrace privacy and transparency as core principles of a user-first digital experience. Come learn how a Framework for Lean Surveillance Marketing could change the game.
8 SESSIONS ON MARKETING & LEADERSHIP
Thriving in the Age of Data Privacy Regulations, by Kristina Podnar, digital policy consultant and author of The Power of Digital Policy, will cover GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), Brazil’s General Data Protection Law (LGDP), and, most recently, Maine’s online privacy act. (Have you heard of that one?) You’ll learn how to embed data privacy into your marketing practices and how to structure your team with the required roles and responsibilities you’ll need for success.
Martech Leaders Hit the C-Suite: How to Convey Value of Tech While Rising Above Tactics, by Perry Hewitt of Colechurch Consulting — and an experienced senior executive and board member at many organizations — will teach you how to communicate effectively with senior leaders in the C-suite. You’ll take away useful, practical tips from marketing leaders who have successfully made the transition to top-level corporate leadership roles.
Building a Marketing Technology & Operations Team That Soars, by David Hsu, global VP of marketing data and technology at SAP Concur, and Erica Seidel, CEO of The Connective Good, will discuss recruiting and training a martech team. Dave will explain how he built marketing and martech teams at three major global companies, and Erica will describe what she’s learned after 8 years of helping companies recruit martech leaders. Avoid the mistakes that many martech practitioners make when they transition to leadership roles by learning from their experience!
An SEO Framework for Marketing Operations & Technology Leadership, by Jessica Bowman, author of The Executive SEO Playbook, will provide a framework for SEO success that’s especially relevant to marketing operations and technology teams. Learn Jessica’s 10 pillars of SEO and examples of organizational structures that support — or thwart — SEO, especially at the enterprise level.
How to Organize and Coach Outstanding Marketing Operations Teams, by Kimi Corrigan, head of marketing operations at Duo Security at Cisco, will describe ways to organize, build, and coach successful marketing operations teams in organizations large and small. Kimi will discuss key roles on marketing operations teams and how to align and develop each of them.
Creating and Enabling a Unified Marketing Ecosystem, by Patrick McQuaid, VP marketing technology, analytics, and insights at TD Bank, and Shaunna Conway, partner for marketing transformation and technology at Deloitte, will share a detailed case study of how TD Bank and Deloitte have collaborated to strengthen TD’s entire marketing ecosystem across multiple channels and lines of business. Learn how to map the customer journey across a complex organization, deal with legacy systems, establish good governance and change management practices, prioritize the right resources, and more.
5 Ways to Improve Your Drip and Nurture Campaigns to Increase the Flow, by Correy Honza and Todd McMurtrey, respectively senior director of consumer marketing and senior manager of marketing technology at Healthgrades, will present effective strategies for optimizing drip and nurture campaigns. Learn about a framework for A/B testing, approaches to behavioral segmentation, and multi-channel marketing automation.
Outside-In, CX-Led Architectures to Drive Digital Transformations by Henry Hernandez-Reveron, technology director at AKQA, will explain how a CX-led architecture can transform customer experiences and lead to greater marketing success. Key concepts covered will include: reframing your stack around CX, leveraging the right data in the design of CX, and how to build systems that will serve the customer beyond just marketing’s touchpoints.
SOLUTIONS TRACK & MARTECH THEATER
But wait, there’s more. You can catch shorter editorial sessions in the MarTech Theater in the exhibit hall, from the editors of Marketing Land and MarTech Today, industry experts such as Tony Byrne and David Raab, and practitioners from companies such as Akamai, Civis Analytics, The New York Times, Rosetta Stone, and more, covering topics such as:
- Marketing to the Managed Inbox: Deliverability Meets Optimization
- The Future of Paid Search
- Clarifying The Murky Waters Of Attribution – A Shark’s Perspective
- Integrating Data Scientists Into Your Marketing Team
- The Database Diet: Breaking Up With Bad Contacts
- What’s Next for Customer Data Platforms?
- How The New York Times Runs Agile Marketing Technology Teams
- The Periodic Table Of SEM Factors: 2019 Edition
- Your Data Is A Wonderland
- Visualize Your Martech Stack
Our sponsors will also be presenting terrific educational content in the Solutions Track, the MarTech Theater, and in-depth breakfast and lunch presentations (the latter are only open to All-Access conference attendees):
- Critical Channels of Choice: Meeting Clients at THEIR Moment of Need Pitney Bowes
- What Buyers Want (And Will Never Tell You) VanillaSoft
- Metrics, Metrics, Metrics: The Ins & Outs Of Content Effectiveness Aprimo
- How eBay Grew An Active Grassroots Advocacy Community Using Martech REQ
- How to Leverage Your Web Team to Drive Agile Marketing Transformation Pantheon
- Evolving from Personalization to Individualized Marketing: Success Stories with a CDP BlueConic
- Personalization in the Age of Privacy Crownpeak
- Pain before Tech: How Land O’Lakes Approaches their Martech Stack Allocadia
- The Next Generation of Social Media Monitoring: Introducing Automated Trend Detection & Insights Synthesio
- On the Frontlines of Digital: How to Get Customers to Love Your Brand Acquia
- A Picture is Worth a Thousand Clicks: Optimizing Your Product Images to Boost Conversions AB Tasty
- The Truth About Personalization: Using a CDP to Personalize Marketing on the Channels that Really Matter Arm Treasure Data
- How DestinationXL Is Using Data & AI to Transform Its Retail Business Element
- Forget Luck — Why Sustained Growth Requires the Right Team, Right Strategy and Right Technology Blueshift
- “Do Not Sell”: Comparing and Tackling CCPA and Nevada Requirements OneTrust
- Promise vs. Reality in Marketing Technology Infor
- How Real-Time Decisioning Delivers Great Customer Journeys Kitewheel
- Proving Social Marketing ROI Hootsuite
- How to Unlock the ABM Black Box (Personalization is the Key) Elevated Third
- Machine-Learn, Not Machine-Burn: How to De-risk Your Path to Better Marketing Zeta
- Are You Pushing Products, or Connecting Conversations? The Five Principles of an Always-On Customer Experience Pega
…and other topics to be announced shortly from Workfront, Magnolia, Acoustic, Open Text, VWO, Zylotech, Tealium, Lytics, Mailchimp, Teamwork, Cordial, and more.
8 IN-DEPTH MARTECH WORKSHOPS
Want even more in-depth martech learning on site? Sign up for one of these optional half-day MarTech workshops for the afternoon of September 16:
Your Lifeboat For The Coming Data Privacy Storm
Instructor: Kristina Podnar, Author of The Power of Digital Policy
Nearly everyone at MarTech is, or ought to be, thinking about GDPR, CCPA, LGDP and the slew of privacy regulations engulfing marketing efforts. What everyone should not be doing is worrying or slowing down day-to-day operations to play the privacy compliance whack-a-mole. Join this session where Kristina will provide you with a framework for immunizing your organizations against the growing data regulation trends so that you can get back to the business of marketing.
Optimizing SEO Operations for Marketing Leaders
Instructor: Jessica Bowman, Author of The Executive SEO Playbook
SEO won’t deliver the results you expect, no matter how skilled your team is, if SEO operations aren’t properly integrated into your organization. Traffic from SEO may grow, but probably not at the pace it could be growing. SEO expert Jessica Bowman will reveal an SEO framework for marketing operations leadership, what your responsibilities are as a marketing leader, and much more in this immersive workshop.
The Right Way to Buy Marketing Technology
Instructor: Tony Byrne, Founder of Real Story Group
Nearly everyone attending MarTech is planning to implement a new technology solution in the next year. But what are the best practices for evaluating technologies, choosing vendors, and getting your colleagues on board with the process? Tony Byrne will answer those questions and more in this in-depth workshop.
Agile Marketing Advantage
Instructor: Andrea Fryrear, President of AgileSherpas
The pace of marketing is accelerating. And marketing teams need to keep pace. This workshop will show you how to do just that! Marketing pioneer Andrea Fryrear will show you how adopting “agile” and “lean” methods will lead to better marketing results.
Creating Connected Experiences
Instructor: Jeff Cram, Chief Strategy Officer of Connective DX
Want to get the full payoff from your marketing technology investments? Align them with your customer experience strategy and digital execution. Attend this workshop for practical frameworks and models to identify and fix cracks in your digital customer experience.
Using CDP to Make the Most of Your Customer Data
Instructor: David Raab, Principal at Raab & Associates
Most marketers, if you really push them, admit that their data is a mess. If you’re one of them, join David Raab for a comprehensive dive into customer data platforms: what are they, why you need one, choosing the right solution, and preparing the business case for adoption.
Building a Badass Marketing Team with Talent Optimization
Instructor: Erica Seidel, CEO of The Connective Good
Great marketing results start with a great marketing team. How do you know that the team you have in place is capable of achieving optimal results? Attend this workshop to learn a Talent Design & Optimization framework so you can strategically design your team, align team members to your culture and goals, hire purposefully, and manage the team smartly as your business grows.
A Marketer’s Guide To Attribution Analysis
Instructor: Christopher Penn, Chief Data Scientist at Trust Insights
What if you could accomplish attribution analysis with tools you already have? What if you could know the value of your marketing based on data you’ve already collected? It’s possible. Christopher Penn will explore why attribution analysis is important, why it’s broken, what kinds of attribution models exist, and how you can get started with 5 different kinds of models.
EARLY BIRD “BETA” RATES EXPIRE AUGUST 17
If you’ve made it this far in this post — congratulations, by the way — then it should be clear: MarTech is going to be an epic event for learning about real-world success with marketing technology and marketing operations. You should be there.
Our “beta” early bird rate for tickets expires on August 17. Buy your ticket now to get it at a discounted price and reserve a seat for any optional workshop that you wish to attend (their capacity is limited and most of them get sold out).
In spite of the length of this write-up, I’ve barely done justice to all of the great content and activities that will be at MarTech. Speed networking. MarTech Connect for one-on-one meetings. All the incredible opportunities to meet your peers and connect with new friends and colleagues who will become an invaluable resource in your career.
Come join us as we continue the journey of this new industry and discipline together. Martech is marketing — and it’s a very bright future for marketing indeed.
See you there!
