Professional conferences deliver a wide range of benefits, including actionable educational opportunities, advance knowledge and skills from leading experts, inspiration to break through roadblocks and peer-to-peer connections for support.
Digital marketing conferences provide the additional benefits of helping professionals stay current with the ever-evolving field discipline. Attendees gain actionable insight and inspiration on a wide variety of fronts — including developing trends, industry best practices and the latest tools available to streamline digital marketing operations.
This year offers a wide range of digital marketing conferences for professionals. Attending one or more of these events opens doors to insight on what’s working and not working in digital marketing right now, what new products and tactics are just now entering the field, and what developing trends will shape the future of digital marketing in the year to come.
Here are 10 of the most compelling digital marketing conferences based on the breadth of topics they cover, their applicability to various industries, their longevity and their reputations. Take a look and see which events resonate with your digital marketing needs.
Date: March 1-3
Location: San Diego
Recommended for: Content amplifiers, social media managers and directors, community managers, vloggers, and bloggers
About: Social Media Marketing World is considered the “it” conference for social media marketing managers. Five thousand marketers join the conference each year to learn business-building strategies in 120-plus social media marketing and creator training sessions in these categories: corporate social, content marketing, social strategy, measurement and analytics, video marketing, live video, and social tactics for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and LinkedIn.
Date: March 29-April 2
Location: Las Vegas
Recommended for: Marketers, customer engagement representatives, and advertising executives
About: This conference includes over 400 sessions and a dozen content tracks on everything from marketing automation to innovation transformations to digital experiences. It stresses platform-agnostic insights into marketing, advertising, information technology and client services.
When: April 5-7
Where: Hanford, CT
Recommended for: Marketing, sales and leadership teams in a variety of industries
About: This event is focused on helping marketing, sales and leadership teams get aligned on digital marketing and sales so they can ignite true business transformation. The event features a hands-on opening workshop designed to give teams a proven strategy to optimize digital sales and marketing success. The second and third days continue the learning experience with inspiring keynotes and industry-specific breakout summits, such as retail, home improvement, manufacturing and small business.
When: May 9-10 (East) and June 12-13 (West)
Where: New York City and Los Angeles
Recommended for: Marketing professionals, website designers and consultants
About: Called the world’s largest digital marketing conference series, the event highlights the latest developments in digital tools to achieve a variety of goals, from improving lead generation to building stronger customer loyalty. Masterclasses are available to help professionals gain first-hand experience in improving online results, from the effective use of marketing automation to attracting clients through podcasts. In addition to the two conferences, DigiMarCon offers over 20 other conferences annually around the world.
When: June 1-3
Where: San Diego
Recommend for: CMOs and marketing executives
About: Gartner brings together marketers for its annual event, which is designed to advance strategic thinking and bring marketing visions to life with a mix of insights and research-backed sessions. Topics include technology, market and consumer insights, marketing strategy, customer experience, demand generation, digital commerce, marketing data and analytics, branding, and search strategy. Gartner highlights its own marketing research findings throughout the event.
When: July 6-8
Where: Seattle
Recommended for: SEO specialists, content marketers, marketing consultants and agency employees
About: Unlike other conferences, this three-day event has only one track laser-focused on SEO, analytics, content marketing, social media and customer experience. The event is hosted by Moz, considered an authority on all things SEO and content. Sessions are delivered by both in-house Moz experts and marketing industry leaders.
When: August 18-21
Where: Boston
Recommended for: Product managers, creative marketers, start-up founders and HubSpot users
About: INBOUND 2020 is four days of learning and inspiration about digital marketing. With over 26,000 attendees, it is the place to be to make valuable industry connections. In hundreds of sessions presented by speakers from a variety of disciplines, INBOUND grapples with the tough problems that professionals deal with and aims to share leading-edge solutions. Sessions range from inspiring and entertaining keynotes to innovative talks from marketing gurus to informative breakout niche-topic sessions.
When: September 3-6
Where: Cleveland
Recommended for: Marketing, content marketing, public relations professionals and agency leaders
About: Content Marketing World delivers 125 sessions and workshops presented by leading brand marketers and experts, with a balance between industry-specific courses and sessions with general tips. This event is designed to help businesses gain all the knowledge they need to develop and implement an effective content marketing plan, including strategy, integration, measurement and new ideas. Educational tracks cover every aspect of content marketing, so attendees can customize their experiences, such as demand generation, sales enablement, content strategy and social media. With attendance reaching 3,700, there is plenty of opportunity to network with marketing peers from around the world.
When: October 3-6
Where: Huntington Beach, California
Recommend for: Directors of marketing, digital operations, e-commerce and customer experience
About: The DX Summit provides customer experience and digital marketing leaders who are tackling the voice of the customer (VoC), machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) challenges with insight on big data, analytics, optimization and digital experience. Attendees learn cutting-edge CX strategies to lead their organizations into the future. Five conference tracks include transformation and leadership, VoC and customer-driven design, digital operations and platforms, AI and machine learning, and customer data and analytics.
When: November 3-6
Where: San Francisco
Recommend for: B2B marketers, content marketers and content marketing vendors
About: Every year, MarketingProfs works with leading B2B marketers to develop a program that covers everything B2B marketers need to know to boost their marketing results — from the latest tactics to strategies that stand the test of time. The emphasis is on helping B2B marketers gain insight and education just for them. The first day is a workshop for all-access pass holders, and the other three days are the regular conference with a wide range of session topics.
With 2020 just beginning, there’s plenty of time to learn more about digital marketing this year. The good news is there is a wide range of interesting marketing conferences to consider attending. Every event offers the chance to gain new, actionable insights from digital marketing leaders and mingle with like-minded marketing peers who struggle with similar challenges. Consider putting one or more of these top digital marketing conferences on your calendar in 2020.
