What’s top of mind for every retail and ecommerce professional? Better strategies to acquire, grow and retain their customers. GrowCommerce is back for its fourth year — a one day, invite only conference curating the best practices, insights, and industry predictions from ecommerce and retail leaders, all surrounding customer acquisition and retention.

If you’re one of the 250+ gathering for this event, come prepared for a range of topics from AI, social media, meeting millennials’ demands, creating mobile moments and so much more. 

With all of this great content to choose from, here’s a quick guide to the must-see sessions, workshops and keynotes for getting the most out of GrowCommerce 2017. View the full agenda here. If you follow this agenda, you’ll have plenty of free time for networking and coffee breaks where we’d love to meet you.

To pre-book a meeting with Marigold Engage by Sailthru and get a free S’well water bottle for taking the time, simply shoot an email to events@sailthru.com. We’ll also be hosting a roundtable discussion on acquisition marketing strategies and best practices that is first-come, first-serve, so please read on below for additional details.

1. BREAKTHROUGH MARKETING STRATEGIES THAT CONVERT, Andrea Wasserman, Consultant at Captain Customer — 10:00am EST

What are the right creative messages and formats (both on and off-line) that break through the clutter, get attention, and convert? Gaining a customer’s attention begins with “respect” for the consumer’s experience and time.

Join Andrea Wasserman as she moderates a panel of fellow veteran digital retail marketers – Sarah Dorsett (VP Ecommerce at Century21), Lewis Gersh (CEO at PebblePost), and Charlie Cole (CDO at Tumi & Samsonite) – on a discussion about the tactics and strategies they use to break through the digital clutter and customer to convert by understanding and respecting the consumer’s needs first.

2. AGENCY 2.0: NEW MODELS FOR WORKING WITH AGENCIES — 10:30am EST

Get your agency relationships wrong and you’ll likely find that a lot of money is wasted and many opportunities are missed. This retailer panel including Jessica Jacobs (Director of Marketing at Wayfair), Prama Bhatt (VP of Ecommerce at Ulta) and Jesse Eisenberg (VP of Client Services at Elite SEM) will discuss how the relationships between digital retailers and their agencies have changed now that we have entered retail’s post-omnichannel era. Specifically, at what agency services are becoming commoditized and what new services are emerging in their place; what to look for when hiring a new agency; how to monitor performance; the importance of validating and integrating data from multiple agencies; and when it may be time to part ways.

3. LOOKING INTO THE CRYSTAL BALL: PREDICTING THE FUTURE OF YOUR MARKETING SPEND – Dana Telsey – CEO and Chief Research Officer at Telsey Advisory Group — 1:40pm EST

Get the insight you need to allocate the marketing dollars you have. Dana Telsey is going to examine the macro trends impacting the Retail/Consumer sector such as changing demographics, the race to the bottom in apparel, which investments retailers are making in enablement technology (like payment processing and markdown optimization), the impact of new opinion leaders in social media, the changes in media mix you need to know about, how fewer physical stores impact digital retail and so much more.

4. GOING BEYOND BOTS! USING AI TO WORK SMARTER — 3:10pm EST

Somewhere between chatbots and the torrent of artificial intelligence hyperbole, there’s a place where AI can actually help you work smarter, serve your customers better and make a difference on your bottom line — Cathy Beaupain (President, Dermstore), Nilofer Vahora (VP Vice President, Licensing & Product Innovation at Rebecca Minkoff) and Graham Cooke (Founder and CEO of Qubit) dive into this topic to help you find it.

5. HOW DO YOU GROW BRICK & MORTAR IN A DIGITAL WORLD? Nick Vu, CEO at Comoto (RevZilla) — 4:40pm EST

The retail world is sending mixed signals on physical stores. It’s been reported that retailers are closing stores at an “epic pace” while online first retailers like Amazon, Warby Parker and Bonobos are having success with their physical presence by re-imagining the in-store experience.

Nick Vu helped Adidas move from generating $400/ square foot in retail to $1200/ square foot as part of one of the biggest comebacks in retail history. In this session, you’ll learn Nick’s approach for how to grow brick and mortar stores in today’s digital first world.

6. ROUNDTABLE SESSIONS: Sailthru’s Romit Mirchandani on acquisition marketing — 5:00pm EST

During the roundtable block, attendees will have the opportunity choose which discussion they’d like to join and thus are first-come, first-serve. In Sailthru’s roundtable with Romit, you’ll engage in an open dialogue with your peers on what programs are working/not working for customer acquisition, define channels and success metrics, and share inspiration from the brands that you most admire.