The 2020 agenda featured 60+ sessions across 7 different tracks, addressing the challenges most critical to CMOs and marketing leaders. This allowed marketing leaders to hear the year's best Gartner marketing research, respond to changes in consumer behavior and navigate the rapidly shifting technology and media landscape.
Keep an eye out for the 2021 agenda, coming soon!
Strategizing, communicating and executing your vision as a marketing leader is critical and increasingly complex. Bring your innovations to life and deliver results for your brand.
Identify your customer needs, expectations and perceptions, and their impacts on consumer behavior. Learn to use marketing data, analytics and insights to make critical decisions.
Customer experience that delivers impactful experiences affects the bottom line. Discover what mindset, tools, research, insight and goals CX leaders need to adopt and embody.
Learn how to manage core multichannel marketing challenges, from strategy design to campaign planning to technology selection.
Marketing leaders are increasingly responsible for contributing to closing sales and generating revenue. Learn how to manage and optimize your results across channels.
The fragmented martech vendor landscape is changing rapidly. Marketers must stay ahead of the curve on emerging technologies while getting the most from existing partnerships.
CMOs are rebounding from disruption, responding to significant changes in consumer behavior, and staying ahead of pandemic forces. Take a deeper dive into addressing these challenges and achieve your goals.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 01:00 PM EST
Bryan VanDyke, GVP, Gartner
After the challenge of articulating a marketing vision, there is no more important task than getting buy-in from executive peers and stakeholders across the organization. CMOs cannot deliver agile strategies in isolation, and gaining top-level direction from the board and CEO is essential. We'll discuss how the empowered CMO builds support through partnerships, governance programs and strategic investments. You'll gain a new understanding of how to build consensus and win support for your strategic vision, guide corporate decision making processes, and lead your organization through change.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 04:15 PM EST
Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone, Director, Advisory, Gartner
Sharon Cantor Ceurvorst, Director, Research, Gartner
The unparalleled disruption of 2020 has impacted customers and suppliers in every sector, while increasing the urgency for today’s CMOs to optimize engagement strategies designed to keep brands top-of-mind and generate demand amidst unprecedented uncertainty. In this discussion-oriented, 105-minute session, join your peers to unpack how marketing leaders should engage customers, through both content and digital experiences, to drive growth for your brand.
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 01:00 PM EST
Sally Witzky, Sr Director, Analyst, Gartner
Although analytics and data management are found in a variety of organizational models, more and more marketing leaders are consolidating their analytics and data management capability within the marketing operations function. Join this CMO discussion to review organizational design trends and the reasons behind the shift, and to explore the pros and cons of each configuration.
Strategizing, communicating and executing your vision as a marketing leader is critical and increasingly complex. Through Gartner experts and innovative ideas from industry leaders, we inspire you to bring your innovations to life and deliver results for your brand.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 09:00 AM - 09:30 AM EST
Dan Winterbottom, VP, Program Management, Gartner
We'll help you quickly learn the ins and outs of this Gartner virtual conference. We'll make sure you know how the platform works, and direct you to the right sessions and speakers, ensuring your time spent with us is as valuable as possible.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM EST
Cassandra Nordlund, Director, Advisory, Gartner
The year 2020 has been a time like no other for marketing leaders. Massive disruption has presented the enterprise with immense challenges (and opportunities). Marketing leaders have acted decisively, and with speed and agility, reshaping the strategy on the fly. In short, 2020 has been the year of the pivot.
As the adrenaline-rush of COVID crisis response recedes, marketing needs to develop the muscle that will power the enterprise to recovery and renewal. Surviving, and thriving in the year ahead requires adaptive marketing strategies. Strategies that are laser-focused on optimizing marketing’s resources, and that are grounded delivering meaning and value to customers in a time of significant change.
Get ready for your 2021 training camp.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Ewan McIntyre, VP Analyst, Gartner
Gartner's CMO Spend Survey has helped marketing leaders build plans and budgets since 2012. In 2020, as budgets have been placed under pressure and marketing's priorities have shifted, the survey is more vital than ever. You'll learn:
- The impact of COVID-19 on marketing spend
- The strategically important channels and capabilities in 2020 and 2021
- The balance of in-house and outsource spending
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Michael McCune, Sr Director, Advisory, Gartner
Making structural changes to optimize the marketing function is an important (and oft-pondered) decision. What should prompt a change? Do we need to make a change? Can we improve efficiency and efficacy via other actions? Come ask these questions and more on topics such as: organizational structure trends; pros and cons of common changes; how to deal with centralization vs decentralization; and how best to lead teams through change.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Sally Witzky, Sr Director, Analyst, Gartner
As marketing’s expected contribution to business success increases, marketing leaders need to establish a discrete function with operational skills that enable efficient and scalable process excellence and marketing accountability. The marketing operations function is evolving, advancing and adding several new strategic responsibilities. You will learn:
- How strategy and planning facilitation has become a cornerstone of marketing operations
- How marketing analytics capabilities are providing essential insights, fueling operational and effectiveness gains
- Why marketing technology strategy belongs in operations
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Carlos Guerrero, Sr Director, Advisory, Gartner
Trust is declining as customers hold brands to higher expectations, with 83 percent refusing to do business with brands they don’t trust. Brands build trust through transparency, warmth, honesty and reliability, and we've uncovered an even more powerful driver of trust in brands. You will learn best practices to provide customers with a clear, reciprocal value exchange while demonstrating capability by:
- Providing immediate value during interactions and clarity on future value
- Focusing on key moments in customer buying journeys and lives
- Appealing to shared higher-order customer values while respecting privacy
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Christopher Ross, VP Analyst, Gartner
Brand is a critical driver of consumer behavior, yet consumers are more fickle and less trusting of brands than ever before. Building an authentic, resonant brand is critical. We'll help you:
- Understand the brand and marketing landscape
- Connect consumer and brand values
- Assess your current brand profile to guide messaging and behavior
- Create a plan for creating an effective, aligned brand
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Kate Muhl, VP Analyst, Gartner
Culture is the context into which all marketing teams’ efforts flow, and that context has shifted mightily since the pandemic struck. We will cover the shifts in consumer attitudes, behaviors and brand expectations most relevant and urgent for marketers to not only understand but to act on during the next 18 months.
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Nicole Greene, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Helen Loh, Senior Vice President, Digital, Product & Content Marketing, Charles Schwab
How do you attract consumer engagement in the face of shorter attention span, more distractions and lower trust in brands? Innovate your content marketing strategy to focus on delivering value for consumers, ensure an engaging narrative and achieve business results at scale. In this session, You'll learn how a major financial-services firm and Genius brand tackles these challenges and how you can:
● Become a trusted content resource
● Build empathy and show consumers that your brand gets them
● Expand your audience funnel and drive conversion
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Sally Witzky, Sr Director, Analyst, Gartner
Whether you direct an in-house agency, a center of excellence (CoE) or shared services model, effective leadership relies on maximizing the potential of resources. Serving a multitude of internal clients and balancing priorities isn’t easy. Lead with intention and build the infrastructure to multiply business results and create unprecedented value. You will learn how to:
- Use more than one model to align work and talent
- Leverage process and partners to increase productivity
- Assemble a martech stack for end-to-end visibility and control
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Ewan McIntyre, VP Analyst, Gartner
Innovation is essential in marketing's path to postpandemic recovery, yet measuring innovation and proving its value is a perennial issue. A holistic measure of innovation value is required. You'll learn:
- How to align innovation objectives to business goals
- How to build a framework that captures leading indicators of success
- How to capture the lagging indicators of innovation success — the outcomes
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Andrew Frank, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
As post-pandemic planning accelerates digital initiatives, marketers face polarized audiences and dire loss of trust. Influence engineering (IE) combines behavioral economics, social physics and machine learning to achieve short- and long-term goals.
● What is IE and why is it important?
● How can we use IE technology to improve performance without losing sight of long-term goals?
● What about ethical implications and aligning with better social outcomes?
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 01:00 PM - 01:20 PM EST
Jay Wilson, VP Analyst, Gartner
We'll introduce marketers to the latest update to the Magic Quadrant for Global Marketing Agencies. Marketers spend 22% of their budgets on outsourced marketing services, making agencies a massive investment that requires careful vetting. You'll learn:
- Significant trends in the agency world that marketers need to pay attention to
- How Gartner evaluates agencies
- Who are the leaders, challengers, visionaries and niche players in the agency world
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Anna Krasniewska, Practice Vice President, Gartner
Diversity and inclusion (D&I) efforts resonate with consumers, and can become a brand advantage. Data shows that companies with an ethnically diverse board of directors are 43% more likely to experience higher profits. But that’s just the start. Gartner data shows that teams that prioritize D&I outperform teams that don’t. An increasingly diverse customer base demands that brands reflect D&I in their marketing communications, while practicing what they preach in their own hiring practices. Clients tell us they increasingly prioritize D&I when selecting agency partners. Especially in creative fields like advertising and marketing, a diversity of ideas can be differentiating. You'll learn:
- How D&I can have a positive impact on your brand, your employees and society
- How to audit your own organization’s D&I efforts and make improvements
- How D&I has given a competitive advantage to leading global brands
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Jason McNellis, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
For many marketing departments, data and analytics is a top priority investment. As the role of marketing data and analytics elevates, so do expectations and scrutiny. The "classic," stand-alone marketing analytics program is no longer enough. To help you build a modern marketing analytics function, we'll cover:
- The three goals of effective marketing analytics
- The crucial elements of a modern marketing analytics strategy
- Key frameworks to apply each element to your organization
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Andrew Frank, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
Marketers rely increasingly on customer analytics to make critical decisions, but their connection to business goals and ethical considerations is often unclear and divergent. Marketing leaders need to understand the trade-offs and hidden implications of customer data-based machine learning and analytics. This session will focus on how we can predict and measure the consumer impact of customer analytics, address ethical implications and strike a balance between economic goals and corporate values.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Jennifer Polk, VP Analyst, Gartner
E-commerce is more than 10 percent of a marketer's budget, but much of that spend is wasted if you can't measure its impact on top- and bottom-line growth. Gartner's Hierarchy of Digital Commerce Metrics shows the link between strategic business goals and tactical execution to ensure spend and effort to drive digital growth. You'll learn:
- Which marketing metrics to use to track your impact on digital growth
- How to connect digital growth to marketing strategy, operations and tactics
- How to use the hierarchy of metrics to communicate, evaluate and optimize results
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Lindsey Roeschke, Director Analyst, Gartner
The pandemic has reshaped consumer attitudes, behaviors and expectations for brands profoundly, but unevenly, as some sectors and consumer segments experience more impact than others. Using Gartner’s proprietary quantitative data, including 11 years of contextual information, we will highlight the shifts that are most meaningful and actionable for marketing leaders.
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Derek Stubbs, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
We are once again in a recession in the United States. Building on our exhaustive coverage of consumers during the Great Recession, we will:
- Share new research into consumer anxieties about, and expectations for, how they’ll spend and save in a downturn
- Map out possible consumer outcomes
- Provide marketers with a roadmap for navigating turbulent times
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Claire Tassin, Director Analyst, Gartner
There’s a disconnect between marketers’ and consumers’ views of brand loyalty. Marketers can ensure loyalty efforts and programs are meaningful to consumers by going beyond transactions to reward attitudinal loyalty and other desired consumer behaviors. You will learn:
- What brand loyalty means to consumers
- How to use loyalty programs to engage consumers beyond points and discounts
- What evolving consumer behaviors mean for measuring the success of loyalty programs
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Jason McNellis, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
When it comes to improving marketing effectiveness and ROI, leading marketers plan for the long term and optimize in the short term with different tools. Why not have just one measurement tool to rule them all? We'll explain why two distinct classes of tools makes sense for most marketers and the key differences between them. You'll learn:
- Evidence demonstrating why mastering measurement matters
- A clear understanding of the benefits of the two-tool approach to measure marketing performance
- Examples of methods and suppliers of each measurement tool
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 11:30 AM - 11:50 AM EST
Ross Cosner, VP Analyst, Gartner
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of online acquisition and digital banking channels. Banks need to provide prospects and customers with digital experiences that are frictionless, personalized, and stand out from the crowd. You'll learn:
● How to reach consumers at the consideration stage
● Importance of website guided selling tools to increase conversion
● Best practice approaches to differentiation
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 11:30 AM - 11:50 AM EST
Chris Beland, VP Analyst, Gartner
PharmaRx marketers are being challenged with a fundamental shift in the way and settings in which healthcare is practiced. This disruption amplifies the importance of digital initiatives, and marketing leaders must commit to these efforts or risk losing share of voice. You’ll learn:
● What digital marketing trends are relevant to PharmaRx
● Which therapeutic areas excel in which marketing channels
● Who are leading and lagging brands
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 01:00 PM - 01:20 PM EST
Ross Cosner, VP Analyst, Gartner
Insurance marketers (Property & Casualty, Life & Annuity) face a highly competitive market from industry peers and comparison websites. The increase in time spent online due to COVID-19 has accelerated investments in online acquisition tools like 'get a quote' and 'find an agent' and competition from product aggregators. You'll learn:
● Strategies to co-exist with product aggregators
● Best practices for bundled quote and agent finder tools
● Importance of ratings, reviews, and product comparison to address consumer needs
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 01:00 PM - 01:20 PM EST
Chelsea Gross, Director Analyst, Gartner
Major brick-and-mortar retailers have rapidly adjusted their omnichannel strategies, leveraging stores as assets both in person and online. These fast-paced innovations around fulfillment and digital marketing were driven by COVID-19, but support long term goals. You'll learn:
● Brand performance across digital channels
● Actionable insights to improve digital competence
● What's next for 2021
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Kate Muhl, VP Analyst, Gartner
Consumers who game or subvert algorithms – skewing systems and corrupting data – aren’t suspicious trolls. They’re positive about AI and confident they can beat it. As their numbers grow, marketers’ current strategy – educate and allay fear – will be insufficient. New strategies and tactics are required to mitigate the complications and seize the opportunities posed by this underappreciated threat. You will learn:
- What’s happening with consumer behavior and attitudes around AI
- What threats are just around the corner for marketers who rely on AI
- How to engage (and constructively redirect) the consumers who might seek to subvert your algorithms
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:30 PM EST
Joseph Enever, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Lizzy Foo Kune, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Marketing leaders struggle to connect analysis to insight and then insight to business value. Join to discuss with your peers:
- What marketing metrics do others use to report to specific stakeholders?
- How are metrics selected for dashboards?
- How do other organizations translate the analysis into the value it brings to the business?
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Joseph Enever, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Marketing analytics is the CMO's biggest operational expense and, with advancing martech and marketer remit, measurement is a progressive challenge. Do your plans for measurement meet this challenge in the long-term? Doing so will be your competitive advantage. You'll learn:
- Exploring the competitive advantage of effective measurement
- The role of the measurement framework and how to approach
- The three steps to long-term measurement success
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Derek Stubbs, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Dawn Morris, Executive VP, Chief Digital and Marketing Officer, First Horizon National
Consumer insights drive great marketing communications, but they can also drive business results. We'll have as our guest a banking CMO who has had great success in using consumer insights to drive great business decisions.
You’ll learn:
- How to leverage consumer insights for agile and effective decision making
- How to identify great insights
- How to integrate consumer insights into strategy
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Jane-Anne Mennella, VP Analyst, Gartner
Empathetic companies outperform peers and 91% of CEOs say empathy is directly linked to their company's financial performance. Empathy is most important during times of crisis, but gaining the understanding needed is also more difficult during those times. You will learn:
- What empathy is and is not
- How you obtain and use empathy effectively during times of crisis to help your customers and company
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone, Director, Advisory, Gartner
To drive high-impact customer experience (CX) improvement, companies must execute lengthy, complex, cross-functional initiatives. Unfortunately, about half of all such projects are significantly de-scoped or de-prioritized along the way. You will learn:
- Best practices for CX leaders tasked with guiding high-impact projects to the finish line
- Key organizational capabilities to cultivate when shifting from initiative approval to execution
- The most important drivers of CX initiative success
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Leah Leachman, Sr Principal Analyst, Gartner
Customer experience journey mapping is a collaborative process of gathering qualitative and quantitative data to understand customers’ current and desired journeys. This process allows organizations to identify and visualize customers’ pain points and opportunities to optimize their experience. Come ask questions about best practices in creating journey maps that deliver actionable and informative insights.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:30 PM EST
Jane-Anne Mennella, VP Analyst, Gartner
Personas and journey maps are essential for successful CX programs, but securing the right insights from customers can be difficult. Come share with and learn from your peers what processes, methodologies and resources are used to collect the actionable insights needed to inform these valuable assets.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Even before COVID, virtually every company was experiencing changes in customer needs. Now, in a world of constant change, how can you know what will matter most to customers in the months and years ahead? We’ll show you how to use progressive customer listening and project prioritization techniques to ensure you can confidently stay a step ahead in the battle for customer acquisition and loyalty.
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Cassandra Nordlund, Director, Advisory, Gartner
Customer experience (CX) leaders must embed the customer into countless decisions made by their business partners, but the complexity of internal decisions makes this challenging. You will learn:
- The key factors that drive business partners to be more customer-centric
- The recommended approach to influencing decisions across the organization
- Proven best practices to enable more customer centricity in business partners’ decision-making processes
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:30 AM EST
Augie Ray, VP Analyst, Gartner
It takes more than a budgetary commitment to provide differentiated levels of customer experience. It requires an intimate knowledge of customers, as well as a companywide commitment spanning numerous stakeholders and departments. Join a discussion of your peers to explore how and what methods and processes they are using to build and maintain a customer-centric culture.
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Laurel Erickson, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Audiences, segments and personas — what are the differences, and when do you use each? As personalization becomes an expectation, understanding whom you’re targeting is key. We'll take a back-to-basics approach to understanding the difference between audiences and segments and personas, then explore how to incorporate the logic of segmentation into the development of actionable personas.
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone, Director, Advisory, Gartner
We'll delve into how you create personas in B2B marketing. Between enterprise personas, segmentation, stakeholder mapping and stakeholder personas, B2B persona-building can be tough and confusing. Yet we know personas can have a huge impact on improving the customer experience, bringing precision to marketing efforts, and advancing B2B deals in a group-buying dynamic. You'll learn:
- What information to include or draw on in building B2B personas
- Where to start in finding data to support B2B-persona building
- How to use personas in B2B marketing to improve marketing success, sales success and customer experience
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Laurel Erickson, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
It’s hard to design something for someone you don’t know. Personas humanize our customers, making it easier for everyone in an organization to realize exactly who they are building for or supporting within an experience. We'll discuss key components of personas and how to enable key stakeholders to leverage CX personas and insights in their projects.
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
We'll reveal brand new Gartner research that demonstrates a clear connection between “how your employees feel about the way they’re being managed” and “how your customers feel about doing business with you.” While hundreds of companies have been working to reduce customer effort, new research has uncovered the critical importance of reducing employee effort, as well. You will learn strategies and techniques that leaders and managers across your company can use immediately with employees — linked directly to a greatly improved customer experience.
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Augie Ray, VP Analyst, Gartner
With the rising importance of voice of the customer (VoC) in customer experience (CX) management, marketing leaders are increasingly engaging vendors and platform solutions to help them listen to and analyze customer feedback. Marketing and CX leaders are invited to ask questions about VoC practices involving survey design, the value of relationship and transactional surveys, survey design, and the democratization of VoC data.
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:30 AM EST
Jane-Anne Mennella, VP Analyst, Gartner
Share and learn insights on how your peers champion user research and testing efforts, and what processes and methodologies are used for successful user research and testing.
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Leah Leachman, Sr Principal Analyst, Gartner
Customers exposed to brand advocacy are more likely to buy more and spend more in both B2B and B2C worlds. CX and marketing leaders can harness this value by using CX principles to design the very experiences that generate customer advocacy and positive returns. You will learn:
● How CX generates positive advocacy and drives value
● The most-effective forms of advocacy
● How to design experiences that increase - and activate - customer advocates
Evolving customer buying behaviors drive fundamental shifts in the way organizations must approach marketing orchestration and execution. Learn how to manage core multichannel marketing challenges, from strategy design to campaign planning to technology selection.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Evan Bakker, Principal, Research, Gartner
Digital has revolutionized the way consumers shop and think about brand loyalty, unraveling the traditional brand equity equation. Today, only 9% of U.S. consumers say they are brand loyal. In times of traditional equity erosion, both formal loyalty programs as well as features that reward regular engagement form an important bulwark against defections. Successful brands diversify both monetary and experiential rewards, boost personalization efforts, and create a seamless mobile experience online and in-store. You will learn:
- How best-in-class brands win the loyalty fight
- How to structure loyalty programs to engage your key customers
- How to identify white-space opportunities to improve the effectiveness of your loyalty programs both on and offline
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Ashley Tolbert, VP, Team Manager, Gartner
We will review how leading brands have shifted their digital marketing mix and messaging in response to a season of unpredictability. Examining leading strategies across social media, display and email marketing, we will show how you can refocus messaging and spend to optimize budgets and resonate better with consumers.
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Chad Bright, Managing Vice President, Gartner
As more and more consumers begin their purchase journey online, the need for brands to create rich, engaging content is greater than ever, but only a few organizations have a clear and documented content strategy aligned to business goals. Too often content relies on traditional marketing practices and is created to “check the box," instead of being positioned as a solution to consumer needs. Best-in-class digital content strategies address consumer needs, help with decision making, and are tailored to the digital world. You will learn:
- How to create and optimize platform-specific assets that resonate with consumers’ behaviors in the digital world
- How to implement internal mechanisms to develop and deploy content efficiently
- How to measure and evaluate your content performance
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Andrew Frank, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
Many of you are considering in-sourcing digital advertising operations but aren't ad tech experts. Following a quick a crash course in how the ad tech ecosystem works, we’ll answer your questions about how to source the skills and technology you’ll need to take control. Beginners only please.
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 01:00 PM - 01:20 PM EST
Noah Elkin, VP Analyst, Gartner
Multichannel marketing hubs (MMHs) help marketers orchestrate communications and offers to customer segments across a multichannel environment. The continuing evolution of this market brings a deepening level of customer understanding and advancing criteria demands to meet both marketer and customer needs. You'll learn:
● Mission-critical MMH capabilities
● Details of Gartner's 2020 Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs
● Best practices for finding a MMH to meet your needs
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 01:00 PM - 01:20 PM EST
Mike McGuire, VP Analyst, Gartner
Customer data platforms? AI for marketing? What are they? Why do I really need to invest in one (or all)? Gartner's Digital Marketing Hype Cycle, 2020, provides a snapshot of the maturity of these and other marketing technologies, and assesses their impact on marketing effectiveness. We'll highlight these technologies and others that are important but that maybe don't get the "hype" they deserve.
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Nicole Greene, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Marketers spend more than 11 percent of their budgets on websites, and getting the experience right is critical to multichannel marketing success. But with more than 80 percent of website projects failing, how can marketers ensure they get the most from their investments? You will learn:
- How websites have evolved and how changing consumer expectations continue to transform journeys
- How you can use Gartner data to understand how leading brands focus their websites
- What steps you need to take to refine your website strategy
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Lindsey Roeschke, Director Analyst, Gartner
As COVID-19 has upended nearly all aspects of consumer life, advertisers have been forced to quickly adapt to new realities of appropriate tone, messaging and cadence in advertising. Our consumer research will shine a light on how expectations have shifted in this new reality, and what advertisers must do to adjust. In this session, you will learn:
- How advertising is resonating with consumers in the context of the pandemic
- How different sectors are tackling unique challenges and behavior shifts
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Rick LaFond, Sr Principal Analyst, Gartner
Most B2B marketers have been deploying elements of personalization for a while, but the promise of breakthrough personalization has never been higher, particularly as adoption of account-based marketing (ABM) grows. With seemingly limitless ways to personalize interactions with target accounts, B2B marketing teams must take an approach that affords them the balance they need to achieve both message resonance and scale. You will learn:
- How to approach ABM personalization at scale, given capacity constraints and data gaps
- The nature of personalized content statistically proven to drive high-quality deals
- How other B2B organizations have executed personalization tactics
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 11:30 AM - 11:50 AM EST
Andrew Frank, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
As marketing leaders seek cost optimization and greater accountability from digital advertising investments, licensing ad tech directly offers a promising approach. But choosing the right ad tech vendor requires detailed knowledge and a solid vision of how tools will support brand goals. We'll introduce the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for Ad Tech, which features 10 of the leading contenders in the ongoing battle for a durable spot in the ever-shifting, ever-growing, much-maligned ecosystem of digital advertising. Who are the leaders, the challengers, the visionaries, and the niche players? What are their strengths and weaknesses? All will be revealed.
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Eric Schmitt, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
To get the most out of paid media spend, advertisers turn to variety of targeting and measurement techniques, data sources, and vendors. Come ask questions about data-enabled ad targeting and measurement. Topics may include everything from media to ad tech, performance to branding, TV to digital, agency to in-house, machine learning to data clean rooms.
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Leah Leachman, Sr Principal Analyst, Gartner
The brands that are successful in driving customer engagement and loyalty take a channel agnostic position and focus first, on understanding the end-to-end customer journey. Marketers should use a strategy that optimizes costs and ROI by understanding customer journeys and identifying experiences that their brand can best provide. In this session you will learn:
- A framework for developing a clear customer and company value statement that aligns customer and company goals using CX best practices.
- How to focus your design strategy on what matters the most to customers.
- How to prioritize those experiences based on where your brand is best positioned to deliver.
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Eric Schmitt, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
As traditional TV tanks, streaming is soaring. Viewers gorge on a sprawling video buffet, from standbys YouTube and Netflix to a parade of new options from network TV powerhouses. Ad spend is ready to follow, but marketing leaders need new playbooks for over-the-top (OTT) and connected TV (CTV). This session will unpack the ad-supported streaming video landscape, and provide practical tips for campaign planning, execution and measurement.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Brent Adamson, Distinguished VP, Advisory, Gartner
Fewer than half of forecast deals close, and 21% are indefinitely stalled. A major contributor to the problem is that B2B customers are overloaded with information, organizational change, and an increasing uncertainty about future business conditions. During this session, you will learn best practices to engage B2B buying groups in productive interactions, despite overwhelming uncertainty, by helping customers:
● Collectively make sense of available information and options
● Overcome risks and challenges within their organization
● Feel confident in moving forward with a seemingly ambitious purchase
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:30 AM EST
In Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey 2020 to 2021, 26% of respondents ranked digital commerce as a capability they consider vital in supporting the delivery of their marketing strategy, ranking fourth behind brand strategy, market analytics, and marketing operations. Join a discussion where you'll share with and learn from peers which disciplines drive the most return on their human capital investment and what a well-rounded, best-in-class, e-commerce marketing team looks like.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Jennifer Polk, VP Analyst, Gartner
Revenue is a key success metric for personalization. Despite marketers' investment in personalization, their efforts routinely fall short of this goal, focusing instead on marketing channel and campaign performance. You'll learn:
● How to align your personalization strategy to growth objectives
● Best practices for choosing personalization tactics that deliver growth
● Examples of growth-oriented personalization tactics from best-in-class brands
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Colin Gilbert, VP Analyst, Gartner
One of the biggest threats B2B companies see comes from digital-commerce natives like Amazon. Despite their concerns, 52% of B2B companies lack a formal strategy to compete against Amazon, or even on the platform itself by year-end 2020. You will learn:
- The types of, and price points for, best-selling B2B products on Amazon
- Trends in B2B manufacturer use of Amazon Sponsored Products
- Strategies to boost organic visibility to increase organic visibility on Amazon
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Rick LaFond, Sr Principal Analyst, Gartner
While an increasing number B2B marketing leaders are choosing to invest in account-based marketing (ABM) programs, brands frequently struggle to get those programs off the ground—often due to uncertainty as to where to start or because initial efforts have fallen flat. Thorough upfront planning, with input from both marketing and sales, is essential for ABM success. You will learn:
- The key components of an ABM plan that will put you in a position for both short- and long-term success
- Best practices in collaborating with sales partners to assemble and refine inputs for an ABM plan
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Rebecca Edelman, Sr Principal Analyst, Gartner
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) selling models continue to be hot among manufacturers who want to retake control of their brand, develop more-margin-friendly business models, and create a direct relationship with consumers. At the same time, the product assortment and core competencies of manufacturers rarely lend themselves well to a scalable DTC business model. You will learn:
- What product types, characteristics and business models are best-suited for DTC?
- How have brands created best-in-class DTC site experiences and differentiated value propositions to drive ongoing consumer engagement?
- How should you navigate the dynamics of a B2B2C and B2C business?
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Brent Adamson, Distinguished VP, Advisory, Gartner
Incumbent suppliers have little advantage over competitors, and the advantage they do have peaks early in a decision-making process. We'll showcase how to orchestrate a compelling experience using digital and in-person channels to help customers realize immediate value from what they’ve purchased, and influence consideration of additional purchases with their current supplier. You will learn how marketing can:
- Help identify the right account-level opportunities for growth
- Create and orchestrate messaging, content, and digital experiences that influence B2B buyers’ likelihood of growing their business with existing suppliers
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Colin Gilbert, VP Analyst, Gartner
As more B2B organizations consider the role digital commerce plays in meeting their organization's growth objectives, knowing where to start and what to focus on presents serious challenges. You will learn:
- The prerequisites for building a digital commerce website
- The ways leading B2B brands enhance the digital commerce experience for their buyers
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Carlos Guerrero, Sr Director, Advisory, Gartner
Building and maintaining a healthy pipeline of high-quality leads, as well as driving those leads towards purchase, remains a top priority among B2B marketing leaders. To achieve these objectives, marketing team activities need to be grounded in a strategic and comprehensive demand generation program that promotes both effectiveness and scale. In this session, attendees will learn:
● The key elements of a focused demand generation strategy
● The practical steps required to ensure demand generation programs meet strategic goals
The fragmented martech vendor landscape is changing rapidly, and marketers must stay ahead of the curve on emerging technologies while getting the most from existing partnerships. We help you stay ahead of the competition through marketing technology leadership.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Colin Reid, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Marketing technology (martech) leaders have more responsibility for planning, building and maintaining martech ecosystems, but declining budgets increase the scrutiny of martech ROI. You will learn:
1. The core components of an effective stack
2. The practical steps to deliver both innovation and efficiency
3. How to create an actionable roadmap for upgrading your martech
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Jason McNellis, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Increasingly, CMOs want to leverage data science to make marketing more impactful, and they have invested heavily in tools, technology and, most important, people to that effect. The results have been mixed, with some deriving exceptional gains from having a data science team, and others still unsure how to realize similar gains. Bring your questions to learn how to overcome these challenges and bridge the gap between data science and marketing.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Benjamin Bloom, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Marketing technology (martech) leaders help CMOs craft well-informed technology strategies and roadmaps. Martech success increasingly relies on identifying leaders who can develop and manage the martech portfolio. You’ll learn:
- The trending skills that set martech leaders apart
- How to align job roles to your organization’s marketing and business objectives
- Ways to maximize martech effectiveness by transforming talent gaps into mature capabilities
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:30 PM EST
Michael McCune, Sr Director, Advisory, Gartner
You'll be able to step outside your vendor-specific issues and talk with peers about stack management and stack innovation best practices, as well as stack optimization strategies. We’ll also facilitate discussions on the evolution of marketing technology (martech) leader responsibilities, successful cross-functional partnerships, and new use cases for the marketing organization.
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Danielle Bailey, Managing Vice President, Gartner
The digital future of retail is now — it’s just not in the United States. Racing ahead to become the world’s omnichannel and e-commerce capital, China is a global testing ground for brands’ most innovative digital initiatives. We'll explain how the China market functions as a digital bellwether for global retail. You will learn:
- What the future holds for social commerce in the U.S. based on what’s happening on apps like WeChat and TikTok in China
- How China is ahead on omnichannel technology in areas including AI, mobile payments and data-driven product development
- How brands in China are digitizing experiential marketing and bridging the gap between online and offline
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Lizzy Foo Kune, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Customer data platforms (CDPs) continue to be all the rage, but they're only one piece of the puzzle that is managing customer data. We'll focus on your questions about customer data, customer profiles and technologies for managing your customer data (e.g., CDPs, DMPs and identity management). You'll learn:
- What is a "360-degree view of the customer?"
- What marketing technologies help me manage my customer data?
- What's the role of identity management in unifying customer data?
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Benjamin Bloom, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Building a Genius brand takes more than marketing strategy and tactics. We've identified the marketing technologies behind brands with the highest digital IQ. You'll learn:
- The most frequently adopted technologies among Genius and gifted brands?
- The four archetypes of marketing technology product combinations that power Genius martech stacks.
- The value of integration, utilization and collaboration to determine success.
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 01:00 PM - 01:20 PM EST
Colin Reid, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
We'll assemble, from more than 100 Hype Cycles Gartner has published in 2020, the innovations that will have the biggest impact, both positive and negative, on marketing in 2021. CMOs must be aware of, and have a plan to embrace or mitigate the risks of, each of them.
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Colin Reid, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Go beyond the hype and promises. As the CDP market and individual vendors mature, key use cases emerge from leading global marketers. With case studies and research, we will examine how to scope, test and evaluate CDPs. You will learn:
- How CDPs are used today, successfully and unsuccessfully
- How to evaluate and quantify their value to you
- How they will evolve and develop in the coming years
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Jennifer Polk, VP Analyst, Gartner
Predicting the future in the midst of unprecedented global change has never been more difficult. Yet, the need for vision, innovation and transformation has never been more pronounced. COVID-19 has reshaped lives of customers and employees, demands on businesses and brands and the landscape in which we operate. This presentation will project a future of marketing based on a present filled with uncertainty.
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Lizzy Foo Kune, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
People accept robots that look like cartoons, or seem to be human, but reject uncanny resemblances, those resemblances somewhere between a person and a cartoonish depiction. The Uncanny Cliff of Privacy occurs when too much (rather than too little) data is used to personalize customer experiences, and begins to feel creepy. How do marketers figure out where the right balance is, and respect consumers' privacy preference? We'll explore the following:
- How do consumers feel about their privacy and their data?
- How do brands and platforms plan for a future that includes more regulation and increasingly limited access to data?
- How should I construct marketing and advertising programs that respect consumers' privacy preferences?
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 01:00 PM - 01:20 PM EST
Jennifer Polk, VP Analyst, Gartner
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for personalization engines profiles leading providers and illustrates the evolution of one of the most in-demand marketing technologies. You’ll learn:
- Who are the leading providers in the personalization engine market, and why?
- What capabilities and characteristics should you seek in a personalization engine vendor?
- How is the market for personalization tools evolving and converging, and what are the implications?
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Mike McGuire, VP Analyst, Gartner
AI for marketing is heading for the trough of disillusionment according to Gartner's latest hype cycle. Despite the hype, we're aware of AI's transformative potential. We'll take a look at specific use cases where AI is having measurable impact today, with real-world examples and concrete recommendations to get you on the path to value without a five-year roadmap.
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Rick LaFond, Sr Principal Analyst, Gartner
As organizations adapt to a virtual sales process, marketing leaders are searching for ways to enable direct and indirect sales reps to conduct compelling customer interactions in a digital format. Sales enablement platforms can allow marketers and other stakeholders to equip sellers with content, insights and tools to close more deals during an increasingly virtual sales process. In this session, you will learn:
● The capabilities offered by sales enablement platform vendors that can help marketers support a virtual sales process
● The key steps required to evaluate and select the right platform to meet your sales enablement needs
The role of the CMO has never been more exhilarating or challenging. Rebounding from disruption, responding to significant changes in consumer behavior, and staying ahead of pandemic forces are complex and all-consuming. Take a deeper dive into addressing these challenges and achieve your goals.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Ewan McIntyre, VP Analyst, Gartner
Marketing must forge a path to recovery and renewal amidst change and upheaval. Learn from leading brands, and how they survived and thrived in the face of uncertainty and adversity. You'll learn:
- Lessons From the Great Recession — how Leaders Broke Away From the Pack
- How to act confidently amid uncertainty
- How to use cost optimization as a core part of your post-COVID recovery plan
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Tina Nunno, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
Being able to say "no" diplomatically is essential for marketing leaders to ensure that they can make space to say "yes" to the most important things. With ever-increasing demands for resources from every corner of the enterprise, saying "no" constructively is more difficult than ever. We'll explore:
● The complex dynamics behind the healthy "no"
● How you can master the difficult skill of saying “no”
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Lindsey Roeschke, Director Analyst, Gartner
In this session, you will learn:
— Exclusive research on consumer in views of Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and what consumers think about brands' response.
— The benefits and risks of taking a stand on social issues, and how to know when silence is not an option.
— The importance of diversity and inclusion for marketers.
— Positioning your brand to be ready to address social issues and crisis in the future.
Tuesday, December 01, 2020 / 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM EST
Lauren Price, VP, Team Manager, Gartner
Gartner benchmarked the digital performance of more than 2,000 brands in 2019, but only 94 earned the title of Genius. These brands range from independent and emerging brands to corporate monoliths with decades of earned brand equity. While no two Geniuses have the same digital strategy, this year’s investments played into a handful of key themes. You will learn:
- Best-in-class implementation of digital strategies
- Leading tactics including personalization, streamlined paths to purchase, and strong e-tailer merchandising
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Brent Adamson, Distinguished VP, Advisory, Gartner
The environments in which customers purchase from suppliers are accelerating in complexity. More information, more choice and more people involved in the purchase have compounded what is already complex for the individuals who are on the front lines of buying. The result is an erosion of buyer confidence in their own decision making. You will learn:
- The importance of customer confidence when navigating complex purchases
- How suppliers can deliver confidence through online and offline (i.e., rep-led) customer interactions
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Augie Ray, VP Analyst, Gartner
Julia Murray, Director, Global Marketing Communications, BASF | Chemetall
As CMOs are held more responsible for growth and retention, they turn to customer experience (CX) to optimize the end-to-end journey and deliver business results. To succeed, CX requires skills, goals, measures and processes that are different from more-traditional marketing endeavors. You will learn :
- How CMOs can launch a CX program that gains influence throughout the organization
- How a CX vision gives CMOs the opportunity to engage peers in meaningful discussions
- How to balance your short-term financial metrics with customer-centric leading measures of future success
Wednesday, December 02, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
Christopher Ross, VP Analyst, Gartner
Building the right team is essential for success, but talent planning often falls down the list of strategic priorities. Fast-moving, in-demand marketing capabilities have created a significant talent challenge. You need a roadmap that captures talent requirements and maps how you lead, develop and manage your teams to meet your objectives today, and achieve your future vision. You'll learn:
- The state of marketing talent competition in 2020
- How to build talent vision and roadmap
- How to implement and optimize your roadmap
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM EST
Alex De Fursac Gash, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Improving customer loyalty and driving repeat purchases are the top marketing objectives for B2C CMOs in 2020, This isn't surprising given a changing competitive landscape with an explosion of new market entrants, and given consumers' increasing willingness — and enthusiasm — to try new products and services. To make progress against these objectives, many marketing leaders are focusing on creating "sticky," valuable customer experiences that increase brand love and engage customers to buy more from their brands. You will learn:
- Best practices for creating engaging consumer experiences
- Strategies for building enduring customer relationships that drive revenue growth
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 12:15 PM - 12:45 PM EST
Michael McCune, Sr Director, Advisory, Gartner
Milos Vranesevic, SVP & Chief Marketing Officer, Sun Life Financial
Kristyan Mjolsnes, VP Marketing, Compute North
Emily Bavaro, VP Marketing Operations & Ecommerce Marketing, Newell Corporation
The spend and sprawl of martech has come to a head in the pandemic. The challenges have been well documented, but how are marketing leaders leaning in to help their organizations improve utilization, drive ROI, and realize the promise of martech? A panel of marketing leaders will share their approaches to improving the value of their martech investments.
Thursday, December 03, 2020 / 01:45 PM - 02:15 PM EST
IT, cited as a major detractor of marketing in 2017, is now reported as one of marketing’s major supporters. Take advantage of this relationship now before the pendulum swings back. CMOs need to continue to reach across the C-suite in order to accomplish their goals. You'll learn:
· What are the barriers to effective IT/marketing relationships?
· Why is IT essential to the success of marketing?
· How can you effectively communicate the needs of marketing to IT?