Join Laura and Lisa as they reflect on their whirlwind experience at DigiMarCon Pacific Northwest. In this episode, they delve into the diverse range of topics covered, from cutting-edge AI to the evolving landscape of SEO. Amidst the hustle and bustle of speaker sessions, they found themselves immersed in a sea of valuable insights and meaningful connections.

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From discussions on cybersecurity and brand management to the impact of Gen Z on digital platforms, each session offered a unique perspective on the ever-shifting digital terrain. They explore the highs and lows of speaker presentations, and how they will use these insights when working with clients.

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Tune in as they highlight their favorite moments, share key takeaways, and ponder the future of digital marketing in an era defined by constant change and innovation. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or a curious newcomer, this episode offers a glimpse into the dynamic world of DigiMarCon and the lessons learned along the way.

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Chapters:

• 00:00 - 02:30: Setting the Stage- Laura and Lisa dive into the vibrant atmosphere of DigiMarCon PNW, setting the scene for their insightful journey.
• 02:31 - 06:00: Speaker Spectrum - Exploring the insights of speakers and presentations, they share memorable moments from DigiMarCon's diverse lineup.
• 06:01 - 10:00: Key Takeaways -In the final stretch, Laura and Lisa distill their DigiMarCon experience into actionable insights, offering advice for navigating the digital marketing landscape.

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Links and Resources:

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• Subscribe to our newsletter here
• Lisa Wekellis on LinkedIn
• Laura Szczes on LinkedIn
• Double Z Media Website
• Double Z Media on LinkedIn

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Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Paid Media Playbook? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on iTunes and Spotify and leave us a review!

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P.S. Ready to unlock the full potential of paid ads for your business? Double Z Media is offering a free paid ads strategy session for your company. Limited slots available.

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Click here to claim your free strategy session

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Transcript:

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Laura, we just finished a two day conference, Digimarcon Pacific Northwest, and I wanted to talk to you about it a little bit. There was no time during the conference to actually talk about the conference.

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I know it was one thing to the other you know, speaker after speaker. I had a lot of fun at that conference.  This really was like top level,  really gave you some  morsels. to walk away with and give you things to think about and talked a lot about  what to expect in the future and how to navigate AI,  how to navigate SEO nowadays and what it means. And  I was impressed and I had fun.

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I met a ton of like, really great people. Interesting people.

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Absolutely. I feel like the previous conventions I've been to felt like everyone was trying to sell me something.

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That, that it.

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 There would be a whole talk about oh, you're having this challenge? Buy my software. It'll solve it for you.

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Yeah, exactly. And I'm not saying that these guys didn't have that,  they gave us a ton of value in the sales pitch, if that's what that was, which I'm okay with.

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 So anyway.  Who was your favorite speaker?

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Oh, good question. I actually really loved the cyber security. Talk.  The name of this talk was Turn Digital Reputation Threats into Offense Tactics.

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That's right.

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And I was like, what does that even mean? I don't care about any of this. But, it ended up being a lot more about you know, cyber security and also, like, a brand. management on online spaces there was a lot of conversation around you can't control what people say about you, especially when you can't see what people are saying about

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Yes. Exactly. Like,  Google only shows you 4 percent of, what people are saying about you out there.

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 so much, so much content on the internet is behind paywalls or in direct messages where that's just not, you know, public.

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So, I found that very interesting, but I also think that presentation was the one that hit like the golden balance for me.

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Between  the speaker had good energy, the presentation, like actual slides themselves, were well presented, informative, but also looked good. And,  You know, it was casual, but it taught me a lot, but like still felt polished.

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I, it really hit the balance of all of those things.

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 right. Yeah. And he came with great stats too. Like 74% of Gen Z uses TikTok for search, and that was in the 2024 Adobe survey. With e marketer. So, I mean, he was citing his sources. He was giving us good feedback. Like no wonder 4 percent Google only, you know, can give you the content that impacts your reputation at 4 percent because.

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74% is just  TikTok with Gen Z. Mm-Hmm. 

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I felt like some of the speakers were way up here. very intense and a little bit too much. Some of the speakers were way down here either not entirely comfortable public speaking or just, I don't know, had an off day. I have no idea. I mean, all of the presentations were good, but then the balance between that and some of the PowerPoints were absolutely gorgeous, but half of the slides were mysteriously just palm trees.

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So I'm not sure why they were there.

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I'm okay with that. I'd rather have that than read through a somebody's, somebody read me through a PowerPoint. 

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 But I, but as an example of like, the most form of a PowerPoint over the most information. I would say it were the two, , cause there was one presentation where the PowerPoint was almost entirely text. But, , he was a good speaker, and, What he was talking about was very interesting and very useful to us.

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I think that's the one that you and I took the most notes during. So it was just a fascinating spectrum of all these different  skill sets that people were displaying beyond just digital marketing skill sets.

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Yeah, .   That's what it was. It's like , we do paid media. Right. And you know, it affects us, but , so much of this affects our clients too, and to help have insights into  what they're struggling with, you know, we're all struggling with the same thing.

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 Like  learning about clarity and,  getting really well versed in it. From someone who, you know, was like in charge of clarity at Microsoft that was like a huge,  benefit, why doesn't every client have that on their

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Yeah.

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behavioral analytics?

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It's free. So yeah, that was nice. I mean, there's, there's so many things. Dennis, he was my favorite. It's his energy, his stories, his like no BS way of like talking about things. Like, you know, everyone thinks they have to like shit out content. You know, like every, like so much content all the time and God, customers are sick of it.

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And I need to put out new stuff. No, find your best stuff and, you know,  serve the crap out of it to people. And, , you'll stay just as relevant. Cause that's the, that's your highlights though.  I took away a lot from that. And  he  offered a free class after that, which was, which was cool too.

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And he had stories about influencers and people he works with, which was, you know, famous people. And that was fun too. It's always fun, but he wasn't like braggy, which

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I, I loved hearing not just the speakers though, also the other attendees, you know, there, there were some we had to just talk to everyone else there and just hearing everyone's personal experiences in the space.

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Yeah. 

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was both like really valuable because I, I know my experience, but is that a me problem?

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Is that a genuine issue with the industry? Is it, you know so being able to sort of calibrate in that way was so important. Absolutely. 

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watching having had a long career so far I feel like we had talked about this, but how, Everybody has a specialty now, right? A niche that they are focusing on and, you know, ours is paid media when before it was just like, we want a full service ad agency, but like, nobody can do everything well.

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So people, you know, and everything is so granular and measurable now that we need to have specialists. And And so that was really interesting to talk about how you thought creative was fractured before, like now it is just, you know, and we all know it. We all work in that industry. And it's like, if you have one person working on, your traditional media and another person working on your digital media and another person working on your social media, and then a PR person over here, and just for starters, and nobody is, Is really having regular meetings or some sort of a shared drive or something, then you're  nobody knows what's a way I ran this promotion over here,  you know, well, no one's talking about it over here.

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 The marketing director may have communicated it, but maybe they didn't get all the assets. I mean, it's just so fragmented , you know, it's so much more important to keep track of continuity across your brand.

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And to that point, because there is so much granularity, it was really nice hearing about marketing from , a much broader,  holistic perspective. Because I get  really really into my cost per click, which is important for me. But  it really is just one piece of a bigger story, 

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and I feel like I'm in a better position now to sort of  address that for

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Yeah. Yeah. . And, come from a place of,  you know, being able to apply what we know to that, to those problems. I loved, and another thing I loved was AI as far as cause of course AI was in every single talk in one way, shape or form, but I liked the one person who was talking about AI fatigue and how at the end of the day, it is the relationships that matter. 

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And, you know, there's only the relationships  that was the what not to do kind of thing.  Like when a bot responds to customer service badly, which we all know

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I went through that, even just today actually, I was doing an instant message customer support for one of our ad platforms. And apparently I needed to, like, answer with a very specific one word answer with no, like, punctuation or anything for it to read what I was saying correctly. So it was just me typing in, like, no, no, no, no, over and over again, trying to get, you know, the robot to understand what I was telling it. And that's an example of, you know, bad

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chat 

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support. 

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do? Yeah.

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But just, I think people are also because everyone has had a bad experience, even if there is a neutral one, they approach it from a place of like what, what, what's this going to be like now? We've all had these experiences as consumers, and so I really appreciated the speakers who were like,  your consumers have also had those experiences. remember them. Remember that they are people.

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mm hmm, yeah, it has to be relatable, it has to be because they're human, so you have to relate to them.

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