It was another great year at Digital Summit Philadelphia 2019 where over 1,400 marketers and industry professionals of all levels came together for 2 days of amazing presentations on everything from advanced SEO tactics to effectively targeting Gen Z.
If you had the pleasure of attending this year, you are probably still recovering from the hours and hours of fresh content you absorbed. If you didn’t have a chance to attend, we’ve put together a list of, what we consider, the most insightful takeaways from this year’s event.
Using various attribution models to paint a bigger picture
Attribution modeling isn’t new to Cool Nerds Marketing. As a digital agency, we’re often reporting on several channels and showing how stones thrown into one pond ripple in others. We were reminded at DSP19 how important it is to showcase these effects to clients and thoroughly explain the importance of looking at last-click vs, linear or time decay attribution. The presenter used a ‘night out’ as an example saying; if you have 5 or 6 spirits in one evening, it’s not fair to blame your grogginess in the morning on a particular drink. Very true. Many people will assume it was the last one that put them over the edge, but you can’t disregard all of the other moments that got you there and a brand’s multiple touches with an audience is the same.
15% of Google searches have never been previously searched
As a Google Partner, we are getting updates about the Google Ad platform all day every day but this stat was a bit more aggressive than we expected. At least, that’s what we thought at first but as the event progressed and more conversations were had about voice search, 15% quickly seemed too low. Consider the many ways you can ask even a simple question and it’s almost hard to believe only 15% of searches are new.
Consider your impact on your audience
During one of the presentations given by a media executive, she described how the website she oversees content for has a niche and serves a specific purpose for a very segmented audience. She went on to explain how they’ve been able to successfully adapt to challenges such as direct competition or algo updates. But it was more interesting and in some ways upsetting given the nature of her website, to hear how much influence they have. Something like “Popstar cries at movie star party after rockstar caught on beach with rapper” would be a massive hit on their website. Because they’ve done such a good job creating that type of content, their audience turns to them for everything. Tragic or uplifting, the biggest and most impactful events and news stories in the world are being delivered to a certain audience out there, sandwiched between fashion tips and reality TV relationship drama…
There are creative opportunities all around you
As it was happening, DSP19 was likely one of the largest collections of creative minds, under 1 roof, in the world. It’s a wonderful event and we take away so much each year but on the way out, strolling down one of the long hallways just bast the bathroom was one of the best examples of creativity we’ve ever seen.
A “Fresh” design on the air system ductwork that was intentionally exposed – maybe because they had to, maybe because they wanted to – but either way a pleasure to see which isn’t usually the case with utility structures in public spaces.
We love it because it’s art. We love it because it actually serves a purpose. We love it because it was probably developed from one of those true “ah-ha” moments. We love it because it sits in a lonely corridor of a large building almost against the ceiling as if to be as out of the way as possible rather than showcased as a masterpiece. But it is a masterpiece.
84% of brand advertisers want more control over their programmatic efforts
This was exciting simply because it’s a very hot topic for us right now and we are looking forward to offering safer and more effective onmi-channel programmatic services to our clients in the future.
What we didn’t enjoy
With so many presentations packed into 2 days, it’s often hard to decide which to attend. On day one, we made our way all the way to the front of the main stage and were thrilled to have front-row seats until about 2 minutes into the presentation when we realized we were not where we wanted to be. The topic was SEO which is a service we offer so we decided to stick it out and see what we could learn even though we meant to be sitting through something very different. We also didn’t feel like elbowing through the largest room at the show from the front row. SEO is not easy. Talking about SEO to a crowd of marketers for 60 minutes and packing that hour with cutting edge tips and tricks bust be impossible. Without getting into a lot of detail, the main point of the presentation was “for great SEO, you need to create great content”. We don’t disagree it’s just hard to sit through an hour of that after hearing the same thing for the past 10 years. We would have liked to see real examples of ways unique content was created and the results yielded from that content. Or, a few unknown/forgotten tips on simple technical optimizations all websites should execute. Something, anything, other than high-level jargon included in every SEO 101 article every written.
A few other facts that we found interesting:
- Interaction rates for B2B marketers on Instagram are about 4x greater than Facebook – Do it for the gram!
- 84% of small businesses using mobile marketing methods report an increase in new customers – Mobile? Who knew?
- The most effective time for marketers to post on Facebook is Wednesday at 3pm – Hey, guess what day it is…
- 205 billion emails are sent daily – I think our sales teams sends about half of them 😉
- Users are 5x more likely to leave a site that is not mobile designed – This is still a thing?
- 90% of Instagram users are under 35yo – I’m running out of time
Digital Summit is the place for professionals and industry thought leaders looking to up their digital marketing game. Visit website – digitalsummit.com
Want to learn more? We have extensive notes from the show and will be talking more about what we loved during upcoming episodes of our podcast. If you’d like to join our conversation or share some of your own favorite moments, please contact us.
Hope to see you there next year!
