LTR 2017: Illustrating Best-in-Class Engagement

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words—but what about a drawing?

A graphic recording of the LTR product keynote

At this year’s LTR conference, held in late April in New York City, we had hundreds of attendees listening to 45 speakers across 18 sessions. During the event, speakers and attendees explored a wide variety of topics related to technology and marketing—including the marketing tech stack, personalization, artificial intelligence, and much more.

To better capture these insights for the visual learners in the audience (kidding!), ImageThink created live graphic recordings of nine key LTR sessions, highlighting the major takeaways, guidance, and memorable moments that made LTR shine. Let’s take a look:

During LTR’s product keynote, Appboy Cofounder and CEO Bill Magnuson walked attendees through three major updates to Appboy’s lifecycle engagement platform: Appboy Currents, a new high-volume data export tool; new artificial intelligence capabilities within the Appboy Canvas customer lifecycle management tool; and Appboy’s new Location Marketing Suite, featuring geofencing and location data from Foursquare and PlaceIQ. The keynote also featured presentations from iHeartMedia’s Beth Murphy on cross-channel, cross-platform messaging, Lyft’s Milan Thakor on Appboy Canvas, and Ibotta’s Rich Donahue on message testing and real-time data flows.

Want to dig deeper?

• Read more about Appboy Currents, Canvas with Intelligence, and the Location Marketing Suite
• Learn about Appboy Canvas and what it makes possible
• Explore cross-platform messaging with in-browser messaging
• Get started with multivariate message testing

During the morning’s Appboy partner panel, we heard mParticle’s Michael Katz and Segment’s Raphael Parker discuss the major role that the seamless, real-time movement of customer information has in supporting the marketing tech stack. By making it possible for brands to leverage data, testing, analytics, and other tools to better reach and monetize their audience, the free flow of data between different marketing technologies—and other related systems—is key to creating a best-in-class marketing strategy.

Want to dig deeper?

• Get up to speed on customer data and how to make sure you’re collecting the right information
• Take a look at the Appboy Marketing Partnership Stack and see some of the technologies that can easily communicate with Appboy

Appboy’s Marissa Aydlett sat down with ABC News’ Ryan Cardone to dig deep into the 2016 election and how ABC News used mobile messaging to keep people informed. By leveraging a mixture of general interest push and targeted notifications to users who had requested additional levels of details on election night, ABC News was able to ensure that major news was available to all their users, without overwhelming people with stories they weren’t interested in.

In this session, Tamika Mallory, a national co-chair of this year’s Women’s March on Washington, talked with Vanity Fair’s Mike Hogan about her experiences helping to organize the march and other related protest actions. During their discussion, Mallory touched on the technologies used to activate supporters before, during, and after the march, and highlighted the importance of thinking through your core values and sticking to them—both for activists, and for brands.

Appboy’s Myles Kleeger took an in-depth look at today’s modern marketing tech stack, exploring what a stack is, what layers brands should consider when creating their personal stack, and how to design a stack that’s effective and scalable over the long haul. During the session, attendees heard from Everything But the House, Lyft, and OkCupid about the marketing technologies that they use and the strategic philosophies that informed how they assembled their own unique, best-in-class engagement stacks.

Want to dig deeper?

• Find out what a marketing tech stack is, anyway
• Learn the nine keys to building a killer stack

Building off his earlier stack-focused session, Kleeger sat down with iHeartRadio’s Beth Murphy, Ibotta’s Rich Donahue, and Dots’ Chris Deaner to explore how each brand takes advantage of their marketing technology stack to support transformational customer experiences and build stronger relationships with their audiences. Murphy walked attendees through iHeartRadio’s use of Appboy and other marketing tools to better understand each user as an individual and reach them with relevant outreach, while Donahue discussed Ibotta’s mix of in-house and third-party optimization tools and how they’re used in concert to improve long-term results. Deaner examined Dots’ use of in-app messaging and other outreach to bolster the brand’s total revenue and cross-promote the brands’ various apps.

Want to dig deeper?

• Find out how Ibotta used optimization to increase their new user activation rate by 107%
• See how Dots took advantage of in-app messages to boost total revenue by 33%

Appboy’s Andy Trevino sat down with DoSomething.org’s Michaela Bethune and Wallapop’s Nicolás Herrero to explore how lifecycle engagement tools can help brands build long-term relationships with their audiences. Bethune walked attendees through her brand’s use of personalized messaging to engage their audience more effectively, while Herrero discussed Wallapop’s focus on driving early engagement and nudging customers to take steps that bolster retention for the long term.

Want to dig deeper?

• Learn more about message personalization
• Get the scoop on effective audience segmentation

To help attendees better understand the difference between sci-fi and the real potential artificial intelligence has to transform the future of marketing, Appboy’s Kevin Wang took a quick and dirty look at AI—what it is, how it works, what’s currently possible, and a lot more.

Closing out the day, Proday.co’s Sarah Kunst used her keynote address to counsel brands on how to use technology to build long-term relationships with millennials. She also provided key insights into the life experiences and viewpoints of her generation, and made a business case for brands to prioritize diversity in their hiring.

Anything Else?

To get the full benefit of this year’s LTR for yourself, check out the free LTR Digital Pass. This video includes all the major sessions from the main event stage, and it’s available to stream right now.