14 Top 2017 Conferences and Events Mobile Marketers Should Keep an Eye On

Marketing is always evolving. And that means staying up to date—or even better, ahead of the curve—as a marketer can often feel equal parts thrilling and exhausting.

While there’s a wealth of mobile marketing resources out there (including Appboy’s own glossary of marketing terms, free mobile marketing e-courses, guides, case studies, and mobile marketing industry benchmarks), don’t discount the potential benefit of attending in-person and online conferences and webinars. Tapping into the marketing community’s collective knowledge and insights can help keep you from feeling like you’re operating in a dark cave without even a cellphone flashlight—and who know? You might get to meet the influencers you admire and retweet or rivals whose marketing plays you’ve been grading.

You can’t go to them all. But since you have to choose, you might as well choose from the best. So here’s our list of the marketing conferences and events that mobile marketers should keep in mind when planning out their 2017:

14 Top 2017 Conferences and Events Mobile Marketers Should Keep an Eye On

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This Year’s In-Person Highlights

1. Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2017: Past

The new year kicked off with one of the tech industry’s most buzzed-about gatherings, the CES consumer electronics show in Las Vegas. This year’s big highlight? We’ve been waiting for years for connected devices and IoT marketing to take off, and CES 2017 shone the spotlight on pioneers in the space, including frontrunner Amazon and its digital assistant platform Alexa. Here’s what we learned:

• CES 2017: How Digital Assistants Stole the Show (and What It Means for IoT)
• CES 2017: 4 Trends Marketers Should Watch
• CES 2016: Highlights for the Marketing Industry

2. Mobile World Congress 2017: February 27-March 2, 2017, Barcelona

CEOs, CMOs, and CDOs from the world’s leading companies gather together in Spain to hash things out. This year’s agenda touches upon some of our favorite acronyms, including 5G, IoT, AI, and VR. (Follow along with #MWC17 on Twitter.) Here’s what we learned from the 2016 conference:

• 4 Billion Mobile Users Are Coming Online–Is Your Marketing Ready?
• Marketers Take Note: How 5G and the Shrinking Digital Divide Will Affect You

3. SXSW 2017: March 10-19, 2017 Austin, TX

The must-attend event of the year for anyone working in the interactive (digital and mobile), film, and music industries. SSXW has more sessions of interest to mobile marketers than any one person could cram into a single day, including panels and workshops on VR/AR, storytelling, innovation, data, branding, AI, and content. Here’s what stood out in 2016:

• The Best App Marketing at SXSW 2016

4. Mobile Innovation Summit 2017: March 21-22, 2017, NYC

Meet and mingle with leading mobile experts from Instagram, Google, Grubhub, iHeartRadio, and other mobile household names. The two-day gathering is aimed at mobile strategists, app developers, CTOs, CEOs, and product team members to learn about real-time marketing, user experience, customer loyalty, and mobile advertising.

5. LTR 2017: April 26-27, 2017, NYC

This spring, join us at Appboy’s own marquee event, LTR, as we explore this year’s theme “Inside the Stack,” designed to help mobile and multichannel markers master 1:1 marketing communications. This year’s speakers and agenda will be updated as we get closer to event day. In the meantime, review learnings from our conferences in 2015 and 2016:

• LTR 2015: Event Recap
• LTR 2016: 5 Key Takeaways

6. Mobile Apps Unlocked (MAU) 2017: May 3-4, 2017, Las Vegas

Confirmed attendees include representatives from Tinder, Pandora, Yelp, and Lyft, among others, and the lineup of speakers include executives from GSN, Shutterfly, and Seatgeek. Work in acquisition, retention, or design? You’ll be among your peers.

7. Google I/O: May 17-19, 2017, Mountain View, CA

The year’s biggest event for all things Google. Google I/O always come packed with major product announcements, deep dives into Google tech, and often the unveiling of that year’s Android OS version name. (2017: Android Ovaltine? You heard it here first!) Even if you can’t attend, keep an eye on the news for major developments.

• Google I/O 2016: The Line Between Apps and Mobile Sites Is Vanishing
• Google I/O 2016: Opting Out of Android Push Notifications Just Got a Whole Lot Easier

8. Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC): TBD

Stay tuned: The 2017 dates, schedule, and events have yet to be announced. Inaugurated in 1990, the conference usually is hosted in California (where Apple is headquartered). According to Apple, this gathering is THE time and place to learn all about the future of OS X and iOS, while also giving attendees “new opportunities to continue creating the most innovative apps in the world.” Here are our takeaways from last year’s WWDC:

• WWDC 2016 Predictions
• WWDC 2016: 3 Big Updates and What They Mean for Marketers

Year Round Marketing Events, Webinars, and Meetups

9. eMarketer Webinars

Tune into real-time webinars or catch up on recordings of past events on such topics as digital trend forecasting, marketing to millennials, and retaining quality mobile leads at scale, among others. Lots of deep cuts here.

10. Mobile Growth Meetups

The brainchild of Appboy’s partner Branch, Mobile Growth Meetups have 53 locations and 21,000 members who gather all over the globe to share insights about growth hacking, retention marketing best practices, and more.

11. Mobile Marketing Association events

Industry leaders come together all over the world, in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and major U.S. cities. Two marquee events include the Mobile CEO & CMO Summit and the SMARTIES Awards, where the best mobile initiatives get the props they deserve.

12. Mobile Marketing Magazine’s Mobile Marketing Summits

Held on a near-monthly basis in London, many of Mobile Marketing Magazine’s free day-long events focus on mobile marketing through the lens of specific industry verticals, such as retail, finance, and travel.

13. Relate Live

Appboy’s spring webinars will be announced soon. In the meantime, you can watch a half-dozen recorded webinars on demand, making it easy to brush up on onboarding best practices, understanding app metrics, strategies for increasing retention, and more.

14. Venturebeat Webinars

With sessions ranging from app monetization to leveraging AI for customer experience, Venturebeat’s weekly webinars make it simple to deepen your marketing and tech knowledge. Even better? The webinars are free to watch live or on demand.

See you at LTR

Ready to build even better long-term relationships with customers in the mobile age? One-day and two-day general admission and VIP tickets are available for LTR now!