Another Marketo Nation Summit 2018 has come to pass, and what a spectacular event it was!  Themed “The Fearless Marketer”, this year’s conference oozed with innovation from Marketo, partners, exhibitors and attendees.

The theme, “The Fearless Marketer”, was a perfect choice as it truly captures the essence of Marketo’s competitive advantage in the marketplace.  The marketing powerhouse is currently focused on these four key areas, which were echoed throughout the Summit:  The Engagement Platform; Sales and Marketing Alignment; AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Analytics.

Here are the cliff notes:

The Engagement Platform is Marketo’s core platform. The company promises a robust set of new features available to the standard user. First, there is Marketo Sky, which is the next user interface, but moreover, it is the full experience. Marketo Sky promises to work faster, create shorter workflows and deliver single-click functionality and other features to help individuals learn and enable new users to adapt faster. Marketo is also adding a native connection to SAP CRM, to the “core” functionality.  Goodbye third-party vendors.

Sales and Marketing Alignment aka Marketo Sales Engage is relatively new, and the functionality has many sales teams excited including our VP of Sales. Marketo Sales Engage enables sales and marketing teams to drive more pipeline faster. Leaders gain key insights about when and how prospects engage so they can consistently tune engagement strategies and optimize team performance.

AI – Marketo boasts that their new AI and machine learning will improve predictive content. Adaptive campaigns will move from channel to channel, based on performance.  I have to admit, this new planned release has me very curious.

Analytics – One of the biggest announcements during the Summit was Marketo’s acquisition of Bizible. This should help bring performance management tools into Marketo. With this marketers will now be able to have greater visibility into full-funnel marketing, and a 360-degree view of campaign performance from top-of-funnel engagement to revenue impact.

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Besides these news announcements, the speaker line-up was off the chain. Jamie Foxx was entertaining and Lindsay Vaughn inspiring and Marketo tried to showcase their community with their “Fearless 50”. I was highly impressed with the Revvie winners this year, which included our client Advent who deservedly won Sales & Marketing Team of the Year.

This was my sixth Summit and the parties and networking get better every year. It was inspiring to sit with other digital marketers and hear how they are using Marketo and other partners to boost their competitive advantage. This year’s Summit raised the bar high and I’m already counting down to 2019!

Also Read: Marketo Announces First-Ever Marketing Nation Summit Demo Jam Winners