Keeping up is essential. Are you? Test your martech IQ with our fun and informative 10-question quiz!

Once you’re done, share this quiz and challenge your friends!

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Kicking and screaming it is. Despite grumbling about Google Analytics 4, the vast majority of marketers tell us they plan to make the switch anyway, even if they aren’t very excited about it.

What we found. About 70% of the 250 marketers we polled said they planned to switch and will handle the migration internally. Another 14% of respondents said they planned to switch but would hire outside consultants to help them get set up with GA4. Only 12% said they planned to explore other analytics platforms to use instead of GA4. The remaining 4% cited “other” scenarios, such as having already installed GA4 or that they use a different tool to handle their analytics now. Adobe Analytics was most cited in that “other” bracket.

Why this is happening. Google this month said it plans to sunset Universal Analytics, the current version of GA, in July 2023. The company also said users would not be able to port over data from the older version to the new GA4. That news both stung users and gave them a reason to migrate sooner than later so they will have at least some historical data in the new platform.

Why we care (and why we’re not surprised). On one hand, Google has never been shy about retiring platforms, or making platform changes, despite user outcry. But the pushback on Google’s decision here highlights the ubiquity of Google Analytics and its power as a free tool. If there were equivalent free alternatives then more people would be using them. While making to switch to something like Adobe Analytics could give users more control over their data, that comes with a price that may be too steep for some organizations. Adobe, for example, could cost an organization upwards of five figures.

It’s notable, though, that 14% said they plan to hire outside help. That shows how intricate some GA instances are today. That must seem more daunting to an organization when the platform you are migrating to is confusing and complicated, as marketers have complained.

The bright side. Analytics expert Charles Farina this week took the glass-half-full approach, highlighting 10 features in GA 4 that he’s looking forward to in a long Twitter thread. These include audience-based conversion tracking, time between interactions data, custom and trended funnels, improved event segments and massive improvements in debugging.

“At first look, Google Analytics 4 seems drastically different and that change can scare people off,” wrote Colleen Harris, a Google Analytics expert who runs our SMX Master Class on GA4, wrote for Search Engine Land around the time GA4 was first announced.  “The good news is, as digital marketers, we’re all in the same boat of learning a whole new system. We also have time to learn this new tool.”

It’s true. We have 16 months.

The post Most will stick with Google Analytics 4, but some are shopping for new platforms appeared first on MarTech.

And, if you at least want some year-over-year data once the switch happens, you really need to set up your GA 4 before July 2022.

That leaves marketers with two options: Make the switch or seek alternative analytics platforms.

We’re asking you that question so we can find out how the MarTech community is thinking. Please take our poll by clicking on the image below. We’ll report back in a few days on what the data tell us.

And if you are looking for more resources about GA4, here are a few to get you started:

• Google to end Universal Analytics in 2023
• Meet Google Analytics 4: Google’s vision for the future of analytics
• Google Analytics 4 and Data Studio training 

The post Google Analytics 4 or bust: Will you stay or go? appeared first on MarTech.

While giving teams tools needed to implement common agile marketing practices was the goal of the first ebook, for those to work the way they were intended to, organizations must also make cultural changes. And often what determines success or failure is good leadership.

That’s why today we are launching another ebook from Ackerman, “MarTech’s guide to agile marketing for leaders.”

This ebook is designed to give you the needed skills and perspective, to effectively lead an agile marketing organization. We’ll explore how to create a vision for change, a value-based approach to leadership, leadership behaviors needed for marketing agility, a new way of marketing planning, how marketers embrace agile ways of working and what agile marketing teams need from you. Click the button below to get your free copy.

The post Introducing MarTech’s guide to agile marketing for leaders appeared first on MarTech.

Because email is one of the most complex ways you can communicate with customers and prospects – through different mail clients, different ISPs, mobile and desktop, etc. – there are a lot of obstacles that can get between you and your intended recipients. 

Each element in this table represents a factor that you need to consider to be successful in email. The elements are gathered into categories based on their relationships to one another, and the categories are designated as related to either Optimization or Deliverability. Further down on the table, you’ll see Toxins, a category for practices that can poison your email marketing efforts, and Traps, which you’ll want to be aware of falling into.

This updated Email Marketing Periodic table adds a few new elements and a new category, Compliance, that addresses recent and ongoing developments tied to state laws, inclusion and more. We have also changed our language to refer to safelists and blocklists, terms that are inclusive and respectful to all.

Like the previous version, each element in this Periodic Table also includes the following information:

• An Element symbol
• A short description of the element
• a label showing what category it belongs to
• A correlation symbol that shows whether it is a positive or negative contributor to optimization or deliverability

Below you will find the complete Email Marketing Periodic Table, broken into the following categories:

And if you would like a copy to save or print out for your teams, click here to download the high-res version.

Compliance

Compliance has emerged as one of the most essential factors to consider in your email marketing strategy, especially in the face of growing privacy and accessibility concerns.

For starters, before you send emails you must ensure that your audience has given you Permission (P) to send emails to them. Permission means that the recipient has given you explicit and informed consent to send messages to them. This happens when your subscribers Opt-in (In) through a sign-up form.

The first thing that your email system should trigger is a Double opt-in (In2) email. The double opt-in requires the subscriber to confirm that they sincerely want to receive emails from you or your brand. This can be executed as a “welcome” email.

The second agreement from the subscriber is critical. It stops people and bots that put in email addresses that don’t belong to them. Legally, under the United States’ CAN-SPAM Act, you must share your Physical address (Ph). You are also required to own the sender domain that your emails come from and include an Opt-out (Oo) for subscribers who want to stop receiving your emails.

Another critical component of email law is compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (Ac). To meet basic accessibility requirements, your emails must maintain a logical reading order; this includes using heading elements in code and proper color contrast between your text, other content and the background you choose..

It is absolutely critical to understand the Laws (La) when you are collecting information from your subscribers. Laws include the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Canadian Anti-Spam Law (CASL). In the United States alone, 16 different states are currently trying to create privacy laws as of May 2021.

Trust

Last year trust and compliance were grouped together but this year we decided to pull out these crucial elements related to how much trust affects email deliverability.

Landing on Safelists (Si) is one of the best ways to ensure your messages are getting to your subscriber’s inbox. It is also one of the most important strategies for building a positive Sender Reputation (Sr). Sender reputation refers to the reputation of your email-sending IP address that signals to email inbox providers whether or not you’re a spammer. Depending on your email service provider (ESP), monitoring your sender reputation may require investment in additional software.

Infrastructure

Emails don’t just get sent on their own. In fact, there is a robust list of elements you need to consider in order to have an effective email marketing infrastructure.

For starters, there’s the Domain Name System (Dn), known as the phonebook of the internet. The DNS maps a domain name to the IP (Ip) address hosting the website and the IP sending mail for a particular entity with a different domain name.

A Mail Transfer Agent (Mt) is the software that transfers electronic messages from one user to another by using a SMTP server (Ss) which enables outbound email. A Mail User Agent (UA) is the software that enables emails to be sent and received. These two separate pieces are key to getting emails through to your customers and prospects.

A Sender Policy Framework (Sf) is also required as an email authentication method that detects forged sender addresses during the delivery of your email. On the other end, the user’s inbox uses a POP3 Server (P3). When subscribers complain, Feedback Loops (Fl) ensure that these complaints are routed to the sender so they can be acted upon.

Typically, your IP address will be associated with a domain name or a subdomain through the Domain Name System. Subdomains (Sd) help your customers recognize your brand’s name through the top-level domain; this prevents phishing attempts.

If you are considering adding BIMI (see the Experimental section below), two critical steps come first. Logo Trademark Ownership (Lt) is a key element that is necessary for implementing BIMI. You also need to apply for a Verified Mark Certificate (Vc). Lastly, for the brand’s logo to be displayed, the email must pass DMARC (Dm) authentication checks, ensuring that the organization’s domain has not been impersonated.

Audience

Building a positive relationship with your audience is another important component of email marketing; these relationships are critical for reaching your subscribers’ Inbox (I). A valid email address (E) is one of the most valuable pieces of information you can receive from your customers. Email addresses are typically uploaded by marketers as Lists (L) in the email service provider or database.

From here, you should be employing Segmentation (Sg) based on each subscriber’s level of Engagement (Eg). This includes Opens (O) and Clicks (Ck) on specific links within your email. Understanding what this data means about your audience will help drive strategic decisions in your email marketing program. For example, knowing what inbox providers your audience members are using will give you insight into how they view and interact with your messages and what tactics work best to help you meet your email marketing goals.

Send time (T) is another element that can assist you in reaching your audience; if your subscribers aren’t opening emails sent first thing in the morning, try sending in the afternoon or evening. Finding the optimal send time can be challenging, but is certainly worth the investment of your time to determine what is best.

Personalization (Me) is a strategy that involves creating content specifically for the individual subscriber. It requires knowing about your audience (the actual people behind the email addresses) and how they prefer to consume your content. Providing a subscriber Preference Center (Pc) gives your audience a portal to update their communication preferences; it allows subscribers to choose what types of emails they want to receive, how often they want to receive them and the opportunity to opt-out from your messages.

Send frequency (Sq) should be based on gauging how frequently your audience interacts with your emails. If you are sending too frequently, you may see a drop in your open rates. There is such a thing as sending too many emails, and your subscribers may not want to regularly receive messages that aren’t directly relevant to them.

Content

The content provided within the email is just as important as the infrastructure and strategy behind it. From creating compelling Subject Lines (Sj) that drive opens to using Responsive designs (Rs) that adjust to all devices — mobile, desktop, etc. — the content of your email will be the main driver of results.

The Structure (St) of your email, whether HTML or plain text, should be scannable and easy to read. Readability (Rd) is a critical element to consider when building your emails, but have you evaluated whether the content is relevant to your audience? Relevance (R) is a key element to consider before sending an email. If your audience doesn’t care about the content you deliver, they won’t be opening your emails very often.

When it comes to relevance, having an email marketing Calendar (Cl) will help create a strategic schedule for your email campaigns. Use your data to determine what days and times have the highest engagement rates to build out your calendar.

Most email service providers have new, innovative capabilities in their toolbox. Interactive (Iv) emails can drive increased engagement from subscribers. Emojis (Mj) are another element that can make your message more relatable. But knowing your audience should be the driving force behind whether you implement emojis in your subject lines and emails.

Transactional (Tr) emails do not require the recipient to opt-in as they are confirmation emails triggered by a user’s action. These emails provide an opportunity to gain new subscribers with a simple call-to-action.

Toxins

Now that we’ve shown you what good elements can do for email optimization and deliverability, now it’s time to look at the elements your marketing team should stay away from, starting with the Toxins.

There are several toxic elements that you need to be aware of before creating and sending your email. Hard bounces (Hb) are permanent delivery failures that indicate an email address is invalid; removing these email addresses will significantly improve your deliverability. Soft bounces (Sb) are caused by full mailboxes or vacation responders. While these aren’t as detrimental as hard bounces, it is important to keep an eye on these email addresses as some may need to be removed if they continue to result in soft bounces.

Using a No-reply (Nr) email address will typically send your emails directly to the junk folder. Use a “reply to” address instead, and reap the benefits of higher delivery rates and brand awareness by including your brand’s domain in your sending address. When your recipient marks an email as spam, it is considered a Complaint (Cm). Too many complaints will hurt your deliverability rate and sender reputation.

Legally, you are allowed to buy or rent email addresses, and the law does not require consent from the recipient. but using a Purchased List (Pl) is one of the quickest ways to end up on a blocklist.

Your email content can also contain toxic elements. URL Shorteners (S) are commonly used in phishing attempts, and inbox providers flag shortened URLs as spam. Image Heavy (Ih) emails that take a long time to load will aggravate subscribers who may mark your email as spam or simply unsubscribe from your email program.

Traps

Finally, while Toxins may be detrimental to your email marketing, Traps will hurt your efforts even further. There are several types of traps, usually configured by a company’s IT department, that will ensure your messages are never seen by the intended recipient. Corporate Filters (Cf) are an unforgiving filter for corporate email servers.

Desktop Filters (Df) are filters that your subscribers set up in their own inboxes. Consistently relevant content can help you stay in the inbox, but falling into too many spam folders will significantly impact your
sender reputation and delivery rates.

If you land on a Blocklist (Bl), a list of unreputable and untrustworthy senders, you’ll run into a lot of trouble trying to get your emails to your subscribers.

Internet service providers (ISPs) also have traps that can hurt your email deliverability. Grey Spam Traps (Gt) are set up by ISPs using recycled email addresses to flag spammers. Pristine Traps (Pt), on the other hand, are fake email addresses created by either corporate IT departments or the ISPs themselves to identify and redirect spammers to the Spam Filter (Sf).

Experimental

Now that we’ve shown your the good and the bad when it comes to email marketing elements, now come a few elements that are experimental today and likely transformational for tomorrow.

For example, everyone is talking about Artificial Intelligence (Ai) right now. AI is rapidly evolving and will likely be
part of nearly every business process in the future. For email, strategies including segmentation, personalization and messaging will be quick-wins in the near future for implementing artificial intelligence in an email marketing program.

Accelerated Mobile Pages (Am), also known as AMP for Email, are dynamic emails that allow email marketers to embed interactive features — rotating carousel images, confirmation buttons and even direct-purchase calls-to-action. While many brands are experimenting with the different atoms of AMP elements, the ultimate goal is to drive customer conversions (purchases) directly in the body of the email without ever visiting the website.

Brand Indicator for Messaging Identification (Bm), known also as BIMI, is an experimental element that brands have been buzzing about since the concept was first introduced several years ago. The idea is that with the combination and proper configuration of elements from the Trust and Infrastructure families, brands will be able
to display their logos next to the sender name in the inbox.

BIMI is one element you need to start investing your time in to properly configure everything necessary for implementation. This includes DMARC, VMC, and ensuring that your organization owns the trademark to your logos.

Voice Assistants (V) are everywhere, taking commands from mobile users and repeating information back to people regularly. Have you considered how your subject line or your email will read aloud to your audience using voice assistance? Use too much text, and your subscriber will probably lose interest seconds in. Too little text and your message will be easily forgettable. Finding the right balance will take practice, but with more emerging voice-enabled devices coming to the marketplace, Voice is an element worth experimenting with.

That’s it. We hope you find MarTech’s Email Marketing Period Table valuable and encourage you to please download the high-res, beautifully designed version to share with your teams.

Digital marketing is indeed an art, but it is also a science. We hope this tool serves as an essential reference for your experiments.

Everything you need to know about email marketing deliverability that your customers want and that inboxes won’t block. Get MarTech’s Email Marketing Periodic Table.

Click here to check it out!

The post MarTech’s Email Marketing Periodic Table: Manage deliverability and optimization like a scientist appeared first on MarTech.

The COVID pandemic has accelerated change in marketing organizations at a pace not seen since the smartphone first launched. Digital has truly become the dominant experience for customers, stretching from how we buy things to how we work, learn and play. The result: boons for digital advertising, commerce, virtual events, content marketing and so much more.

But that disruption has certainly made its mark on the profession. With new demands came new responsibilities and pressures. Changes in martech stacks meant teams had to learn new skills. The “great resignation” saw professionals walk out on roles in search of other opportunities that fit better with their career goals and values. Just look at your LinkedIn feed you’ll likely see a daily stream of new job and promotion announcements.

We want to find out just how much all of this upheaval has affected the salaries marketers are earning and the roles you find yourselves focused on in this new pandemic era of digital marketing. That’s why MarTech is partnering with marketing transformation expert Scott Brinker to launch the 2022 MarTech Salary and Career Survey today.

Please help us by completing this anonymous survey so we can better understand all of this change. The survey should not take longer than five minutes and the results will be shared on MarTech and chiefmartec.com in a few weeks.

The post Help us understand how marketing salaries and roles have changed: Take our survey appeared first on MarTech.

MarTech is currently recruiting for Managing Editor to coordinate the day-to-day publishing of news, features, newsletters, analysis, special projects and more.

As one of several authoritative journalists on the team, the Managing Editor also helps the Director of Events Content to create agendas for the MarTech Conference. The Managing Editor will also moderate panels and discussions at MarTech, and even may lead presentations on marketing developments.

This is a remote position.

Core job responsibilities

• Write daily news articles on developments in digital marketing, marketing operations, commerce marketing, marketing transformation, marketing technology and more.
• Regularly write feature articles, guides, and other forms of in-depth content to advance our mission to inform, engage, convene and support our audience of digital marketers.
• Manage day-to-day assignment flow for the site, leveraging daily meetings, editorial calendars and other digital tools to coordinate publishing.
• Coordinate our daily newsletters.
• Speak and moderate panel discussions and support agenda development for MarTech Conference.
• Edits some staff and contributed content.

Who we are looking for

While past experience covering marketing topics for a news or content marketing department is a plus, we know that any hard-charging reporter who knows the craft can learn a new beat, so it’s not a prerequisite. Instead, the perfect candidate is someone who:

• Is a hard-charging reporter with a passion for breaking news and engaging a readership
• Is endlessly curious about our subject matter
• Knows how to cultivate a large body of reliable authoritative sources
• Empathizes with our audience’s challenges
• Is a strong writer who holds the clarity and impact of a piece above flowery language, Oxford commas and whether it follows AP style, etc.
• Is confident on stage or leading a video-based discussion
• Has at least 5 years experience at a digital news outfit, newspaper, B2B media brand or in-house content marketing department

Who we serve

Today’s marketers wear many hats, from the digital marketers leveraging automation and content management applications to deliver campaigns, the marketing operations pros who orchestrate those systems for their organization, the data analysts who measure effectiveness, and the citizen developers who create new applications by leveraging software, apps and other no-code solutions. MarTech serves them all. Learn more about our mission here: https://martech.org/what-is-martech/

If you are interested, please email your resume and clips to Henry Powderly, VP of Content at hpowderly@thirddoormedia.com.

The post Join the MarTech team: We’re hiring a managing editor appeared first on MarTech.

What’s new? Wrike said it has added a new artificial intelligence layer to the platform dubbed AI Project Risk Prediction. The AI portends to be able to gauge success level by comparing projects set up in the platform to the millions of other projects that exist across its pool of customers. Based on things like how complex the project set-up is, or the number of overdue items, and the success of your team’s previous projects, the platform can assess the likelihood of your current project’s success. Wrike also said the AI will make recommendations when it spots red flags in order to help get your projects back on track.

Dig deeper: What is Scrum, the project management framework agile teams rely on?

Anything else? If there’s a theme to this release, it’s all about the machines. Wrike said it is also adding more machine-driven actions like automated @ mention suggestions and assignment tagging in order to reduce human error. The platform also improved its native search to server better, more relevant results based on the queries.

Why we care. Cast aside the knee-jerk “here comes Skynet” reaction to machines being able to do things like predicting a project’s success. If you could compare your project’s setup to millions of others you probably could predict it too. AI and machine learning is transforming so many of the daily tasks we use software for by adding capabilities that go far beyond what marketers can do on their own. These enhancements are just the latest.

Project management tools like Wrike have seen a big uptick since the pandemic began, especially since workforces shifted from being office-based to distributed. But any agile marketer will tell you that just using a tool to track tasks and projects is not enough. You need strategy and you need the discipline to use them correctly otherwise you’re just logging tasks and not truly organizing your work.

The post Release Notes: Wrike beefs up AI to predict if your project will succeed or fail appeared first on MarTech.

Marketers give it a 50/50 chance they will attend an in-person event, conference or trade show in the first half of 2022, a new MarTech survey has found. It’s a statistic that should scare any event organizer who had hoped this two-year uncertainty for in-person gatherings was nearing an end.

Respondents to MarTech’s Event Participation Index gave the likelihood they would attend an in-person business event in the first half of 2022 a 5 out of 10. That outlook improved slightly for the second half of 2022, when marketers gave the likelihood a 6 out of 10.

Marketers gave it a 7 out of 10 likelihood they would attend an in-person event in the first half of 2023, but the pandemic has shown us just how much can change in a year.

This past survey marked the eighth time we have fielded the Events Participation Index, and there’s a clear pattern in the data. When asked about the likelihood of attending events more than 6 months away, respondents were always more optimistic. But each time those far-away dates got closer, their comfort level fell.

For example, respondents in March 2021 gave the likelihood of attending an event in the first quarter of 2022 a 7 out of 10. But marketers give the entire first half a 5 out of 10 when asked again this November.

It’s not surprising, given the rise of new variants like Omicron and the reluctance by many to get vaccinated against the virus. But for event planners, it just means the optimism your registrants have today may not be there come event time.

The chart below shows the likelihood respondents gave for attending events within three months of the time the survey was fielded. It shows that we are indeed out of those darker periods where in-person gatherings were either canceled or not remotely feasible. But it also shows that we’ve yet to see a period where likelihood crosses 50%.

That hesitancy is also playing out in budgets. About 78% of the 220 marketers who took our survey said they are budgeted to attend only a small number of events in 2022.

“I think event producers should expect continued reduced attendance and plan for smaller, regional events,” one respondent said. “I think events need to shift away from the model where exhibitors need to commit a year or more out. Perhaps more pop-up type events that are more nimble and have more allure because of the intimacy and the opportunity for deeper connections.”

Virtual events or bust?

Just because potential attendees are wary of in-person events, that doesn’t mean they are all-in on virtual events. Respondents gave the likelihood they would attend a virtual event in the first half of 2022 a 6 out of 10 chance. What’s interesting is that was the same likelihood they gave for the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023.

It suggests that just as there are likely people who will never feel comfortable at an in-person event, there are others who either do not see the value in virtual events or are “fatigued” by the sheer volume of virtual events that are available now.

“Virtual events are convenient, but they aren’t the same. I don’t want to sit on a virtual conference all day; the times are always weird and it’s too easy to skip a session if I have a project due,” one respondent wrote.

However, that comment represents the minority. Most respondents suggested that organizers continue to focus on hybrid and virtual experiences, especially if they need to once again cancel in-person shows.

“I prefer virtual events as an attendee,” wrote one respondent. “Limiting travel expenses and time has allowed me to attend more events than ever before. Some in-person is nice, but prefer this to be after an initial relationship is established and the goal and value of the offerings are clearly established.”

Our data also supported that. When asked whether they would prefer to attend events in-person or virtually, 27% said they preferred to attend in-person only, 34% said they preferred to attend virtually and 39% said they would prefer to attend in-person and access virtual components.

“I think people will expect hybrid events to become the norm,” wrote one respondent. “In-person attendance may stay a bit lower than historical numbers and virtual attendance will increase overall attendance significantly. Event hosts will play with pricing to figure out the ideal gap between in-person and virtual prices.”

No clear path for event organizers

Salesforce last week held its Dreamforce NYC event in New York, but concerns over the new Omicron variant led the marketing technology giant to step up safeguards, according to an email sent to attendees before the event that laid out the protocol.

“Complete an onsite rapid test through testing partner Senneca on December 9. Testing hours are 7:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. ET. COVID testing may take up to an hour so please arrive early and plan accordingly. Look for your Dreampass in your email once your vaccine record and tests are verified. You must have your Dreampass to enter the event space. Bring your favorite mask and be prepared to wear it while you’re onsite.”

While these safeguards certainly add a new hassle to in-person experiences, people are generally in favor of protocols like this if it means they can attend conferences. For example, more than 70% of respondents to our survey said organizers should mandate that attendees be vaccinated.

In fact, despite the Delta variant wave this year, marketers did attend in-person events in 2021. About 30% of our respondents said they attended up to two in-person business events this year. About 16% said they attended up to five events, 4% attended up to nine, and 4% said they attended 10 or more.

Of course, that also meant 46% attended no in-person events this year.

So what are organizers to do? Many companies are moving ahead with in-person conferences in 2022, as of now, but our data suggests that attendance at least for the first half of the year will continue to be below pre-pandemic levels.

If anything, the data we gathered highlights how deliberate companies need to be in making decisions on holding events. There is hope but also plenty of concern on the part of audiences about in-person safety that will certainly affect attendance. Meanwhile, just because virtual is cost-effective, that doesn’t mean audiences, particularly those who valued events for networking purposes, are going to accept virtual as an alternative to in-person.

“I think they should expect a pretty even split in their audience of folks who choose to take part in only virtual sessions versus attending in-person. Even for myself, I much prefer attending in-person but am starting to heavily use any virtual content, especially post-event,” wrote one respondent.

“I think two things are equally true,” wrote another. “Some people miss in-person events, but others have appreciated the time and money saved by attending virtual events. The companies that do virtual well will have an advantage going forward. Teleconferencing companies have made it easier for things like break-out sessions, replicating the networking benefits that come from in-person events.”

Events Participation Index timeline

• August 2021: Delta variant has marketers less eager to return to in-person events this year
• April 2021: Most marketers expect to attend in-person conferences by early 2022
• February 2021: Marketers say COVID vaccines create hope for quick return of in-person events
• September 2020: Marketers hopeful for late 2021 in-person conferences
• July 2020: No in-person events until 2nd half of 2021, marketers say
• June 2020: Prospect for in-person conferences fades for 2020
• May 2020: Many marketers unlikely to attend in-person conferences until COVID-19 vaccine

The post Fearing Omicron wave, marketers less likely to attend upcoming in-person conferences appeared first on MarTech.

As the Omicron variant starts to raise global concerns about the path of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is certainly creating uncertainty for event organizers. In fact, this week the World Trade Organization cancelled its planned Geneva summit and more cancellations are likely to follow.

Through our Events Participation Index, we’ve been tracking how marketers feel about attending in-person events in order to help organizers take the pulse of the community. Once again, we’d love your input.

How are you feeling about attending in-person events in 2022? Please click here to take our new survey.

Henry Powderly,

VP, Content

Shorts 

What we’re reading. AR and VR, autonomous vehicles, cryptocurrencies, even the metaverse. “To be successful, each of these new technologies will likely need to find the edge between innovation and familiarity,” says Roku’s Vice President of Ad Marketing, Dan Robbins, in Forbes.

Each of these technologies are also likely marketing channels or intersections with customer experience. Marketers, then, should be thinking about how this emerging technology can be made innovative and familiar — to consumers, certainly. But also to business partners at brands, publishers, agencies and elsewhere in the marketing universe.

But marketing leaders already know about new tech challenges from implementing new technology internally within their own organization! 

Quote of the day. “While there are lingering concerns over inbound supply chain bottlenecks, retailers have scaled their last mile delivery capabilities to ensure orders are efficiently fulfilled in time for holiday festivities this season.” Rob Garf, Vice President and General Manager of Retail, Salesforce

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