Breakout Topics

Breakout Topic	Moderator	Description
COVID Metrics, the good, the bad, and using them effectively	Gary Angel, Digital Mortar	As digital analytics professionals, we spend a LOT of time thinking about metrics. What makes them good. How they get misused. Covid has made metrics front and center for LOTS of people – including politicians and journalists. And most of them haven’t done a very good job using or thinking them through. We’ll talk through the common Covid metrics and concepts used (death rates, case rates, testing rates, positivity rates, transmission rates, vaccine efficiency, vaccination rates, herd immunity, etc.) from the perspective of what’s good and bad about them, how they get misused, and – if we were building a dashboard to give to the public or a decision-maker – how it would look. This is a chance to bring your professional expertise to bear on a different sort of problem, but one we’ve all had to think about far too much!
Care and Feeding of Digital Analysts	Jim Sterne, Rising Media, Inc.	Managing people is tricky. Managing digital analysts is trickier. If you’re responsible for managing a team of digital analysts (or want to), come to discuss the tricks and traps of interviewing, onboarding, and retaining top talent. The department you save may be your own. What is the Impact of the Pandemic on Employee Turnover? What’s Really Driving Them Away? What Keeps an Analyst Engaged? Do You Know Their Personal Goals? What Simple Tricks Can Make Your Team Cohesive? How Do You Shift from Managing Them to Managing for Them?
Mid-career management lessons	Amber Zaharchuk, Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution	Some digital analytics leaders are finding themselves stuck in middle management, lacking a clear path towards career progression. In this session, we will discuss strategies for elevating your career and reaching your full potential.
Business Requirements: Essential or Fake News?	Hailey Meekins, Search Discovery	Some say collecting business requirements, the detailed business questions your organization hopes to be able to answer through the digital analytics implementation, is essential prior to implementation work. Others prefer the "tag all" approach in anticipation of any question. So which is better? In this session, we will debate the case for both approaches. Come to learn if one comes out on top!
Climate Change and Digital Analytics	David McBride, Course5 Intelligence	In the future, all companies will be in the climate change business. As stewards of this incredible planet, we owe it to future generations to do everything we can today to create a livable future. Attend this session to participate in a discussion about how we can use our expertise in data, analytics, and digital marketing to contribute to climate solutions? Screen reader support enabled.
Tech Stack Shopping Guide	Bob Page, Tealium Rusty Rahmer, GSK	In this huddle, Bob Page will facilitate a group discussion with Rusty Rahmer, Head of CX Solutions at GSK, on best practices for navigating the ever-expanding world of MarTech software. We’ll discuss best practices for evaluating vendors/solutions, pricing/contract negotiation, staying on top of new tech, how to avoid getting hoodwinked into buying something you don’t need, and much more to sharpen your MarTech shopping game!
Finding streams to using data for good	Puja Ghosh, JPMorgan Chase & Co.	In this session, we are looking at finding ways to use your data/skills for good. How do you find your purpose and get involved? Let’s share ideas and find satisfaction in our work.
Internal CDP and Adobe Analytics	Chris Cook, Microsoft	Many companies struggle with how much analytics infrastructure they should build in-house versus buying off-the-shelf standard industry tools. This is becoming even harder as privacy concerns and regulations make collection and sharing of first-party data to multiple third parties a challenge in itself. Should you build entirely in-house? Go all-in with one tool provider? Moderator Chris Cook will share how Microsoft has developed internal tools and data that integrate with external tools. Attendees will join in a conversation about different architectures and the benefits and challenges of each. Come share and learn how CDP strategies will need to evolve as third-party cookies fade into memory and mobile identifiers become more sparse.
Attribution: There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and Attribution	Andrew Bakonyi	When asked, "How did your Marketing perform?" you are sure to receive multiple different answers depending on who you ask. Partner Platform data is going to tell you one thing while Site Analytics data will tell you another. Multi-Touch Attribution will provide yet another different view. And then there’s MMM which is literally from a different world (tops-down incrementality). Finally, you could break the tie with a Randomized Controlled Test but how can you execute it in the messy world of digital media? So how do you sort through all of the lies and confidently answer your CMO & VP or Marketing? Join us for an exploration about how to navigate the world of Attribution
Shaping Analytics Delivery: Structure, expectation, and storytelling	Michael Helbling	The work of getting your analytics insights across to stakeholders starts well before the results are delivered. Whether the story lands or not depends on how you shape expectations (the front end) and on how you shape the story (the back end). This discussion will focus on both front and back-end methods to ensure the hard work of analytics resonates with stakeholders.