SMX East: Don’t Miss Catalyst & Dozens of Valuable Search Marketing Sessions!

SMX East registration is officially open and Catalyst could not be more excited for three days of thought leadership, search innovation, and learning from the best-of-the-best. We’re particularly excited this year because Catalyst is a SMX East Premier sponsor.

Visit the Catalyst Booth and Check Out Our Speakers

When: Tuesday, 9/27, 1:30pm–2:45pm
Speaker: Chris Humber, Head of Search, Catalyst
Panel Name: “Retail Search Beyond Google: Get Found More, Sell More.”

When: Wednesday, 9/28, 1:30pm–1:55pm
Speakers: Kerry Curran, Sr. Partner, Managing Director, Marketing Integration, Catalyst; Itir Aloba-Curi, Bing Ads Insights Lead, Microsoft
Session Name: The New 1+1=3: Using Search Marketing to Amplify TV Buys

When: Thursday, 9/29, 11:10am–11:35am
Speaker: Paul Shapiro, Director of Search Innovation, Catalyst
Session Name: Art Meets Insight: Eye-Catching Visualizations for Better Analytics

Catalyst’s Top Picks for SMX East

There are a lot of other speakers that you don’t want to miss either, but all of the sessions are spread across a number of different tracks. You won’t be able to attend all of them, so which should you prioritize?

Here are my top picks — above and beyond the Catalyst sessions of course — based around two critical areas: the future of search and topics that are often misunderstood. There must be something special about the 10:45am time slot because, rather frustratingly, most of these sessions share the slot, so you’ll have to determine which you’ll benefit from the most.

Future of Search

When: Tuesday, 9/27, 10:45am–12pm
Session Name: Getting AMPED: What You Need to Know About Accelerated Mobile Pages & Google
Why You Should Attend: With the recent announcement that eBay launched millions of pages using AMP, and the fact that Google has been encouraging other sites to experiment with the previously publisher-focused open source project, AMP will almost certainly become a larger part of search in the near future. AMP offers lots of benefits, especially for the increasingly critical mobile user. Understanding AMP, what it is, and how it works will be crucial moving forward as more sites adopt it. Unfortunately, due to scheduling, you’ll have to choose between this and the next choice below.

When: Tuesday, 9/27, 10:45am–12pm
Session Name: Beacons & Beyond: Offline Conversions and Online Retargeting
Why You Should Attend: Beacons and offline attribution are incredibly exciting for search professionals. Never before have we been able to directly link our efforts with brick-and-mortar conversions or target consumers while in the store. As the capability to track consumers along their journey to purchase increases, understanding attribution methods will become more and more important.

When: Thursday, 9/29, 10:45am–12pm
Session Name: Optimizing Content for Voice Search & Virtual Assistants
Why You Should Attend: Voice search has improved by leaps and bounds and is now a valid and mostly reliable method for searching for information. As voice search increases rapidly, there are some very important questions to think about regarding search in this new frontier, primarily: how should content be optimized for voice search?

When: Thursday, 9/29, 1:20pm–1:25pm
Session Name: RLSA Will Save the Day!
Why You Should Attend: RLSA may not necessarily be new, but if you’ve ever seen a presentation by WordStream founder Larry Kim before, you know it won’t be dull. Prepare to learn and laugh a lot while blasting through slides at a prodigious rate. Definitely don’t miss this one.

Often Misunderstood

When: Wednesday, 9/28, 11:35am–12pm
Session Name: Internationalizing Your SEO
Why You Should Attend: Have you ever come across results from another country in search results? Unless you are looking for them specifically, they aren’t particularly helpful and can be a fairly poor user experience. This is usually caused by improper use or lack of href lang tags, one of the most misused or misinterpreted parts of SEO. If you are delving into international SEO for the first time or even consider yourself a global search veteran, understanding href lang annotations is critical. Unfortunately, due to scheduling, you’ll have to pick between this and the next choice below.

When: Wednesday, 9/28, 10:45am–12pm
Session Name: Perfect Your SEM Testing: How & Why to Evaluate Everything
Why You Should Attend: Testing in search is challenging. Unlike experiments in a lab, it’s difficult to control variables you aren’t testing. And using data findings from a poorly designed test could lead your campaign astray with disastrous results. Understanding the limitations and inherent biases involved with SEM testing and how to set up a strong test are fundamental to gathering data that can drive success.

Stay tuned to the Catalyst blog and social accounts for more SMX East details as the event gets closer! We’ll be sharing more exciting news and updates throughout the summer!