The year’s biggest performance marketing-exclusive event PI LIVE has today unveiled its full roster of speakers ahead of its debut from October 24-25 at London’s Old Billingsgate.

The launch of the agenda, which is now available to view in full here, forms the latest update on what’s set to be a three-day festival of performance marketing in 2017.

The brand new International Performance Marketing Awards ceremony arrives on October 23 on the eve of the show and marks the first official networking event, while PI LIVE ticket holders will gain additional access to the Influencer Marketing Show, a co-located event dedicated to a rapidly-growing channel and its increasing move towards ROI-driven techniques.

This October’s show is made possible by headline sponsors Rakuten Marketing, Webgains and TradeTracker, among a number of others, with speakers representing advertisers, publishers, tech companies, agencies and networks from across the industry.

From the front line

The agenda has been curated with the values of the wider event; to bring the industry together from around the world to teach, inspire and collaborate with one another with the ultimate goal of pushing performance marketing’s development and wider adoption, leaving attendees with true value in the form of actionable learning.

Save two strategically-focused keynotes, the agenda is made of presenters who have worked directly on the industry coal face with true experience to share, whether that’s the CEO of a world-leading affiliate network, the founder of a micro-influencer platform, a head of strategy for an advertiser, or account managers from the publishing sector, you’ll only hear from real performance marketing professionals.

These seasoned industry orators will provide insight into artificial intelligence (AI), affiliate, programmatic, optimisation & retention, social & paid media, data and, of course influencer marketing, all live from the show’s Mezzanine, Dome stage and 600-capacity Keynote Theatre.

A snapshot

No fewer than four keynote sessions feature on the agenda, with a standout presentation on day one led by Jonathan MacDonald, founder of Thought Expansion Network, and one of the few people that companies including Google, Apple, P&G, Unilever, Nestlé, Microsoft and IKEA trust to challenge their thinking and provide new perspectives and avenues of thought.

Among other headliners for the show, the wave-making CEO of performance marketing network Webgains, Richard Dennys, will ask if it’s time for performance marketing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning revolution, and what can be achieved by integrating this type of tech.

Still considered a buzzword by some, as publishers and advertisers bank ever greater masses of data the concepts of AI and machine learning begin to sound less like jargon and more like practicalities for intelligent upselling, and these are topics you’ll hear on the lips of several speakers at PI LIVE.

To an extent, you could argue that all digital marketing is “data-driven”, but this concept has cosmic potential when you understand the quantities of information on advertisers, publishers and consumers stored by some of the companies in this industry. For many, however, the sheer scale of this data and the task of acting on it is enough to keep them firmly grounded.

“Understanding and accepting why your data’s imperfect is far better than not using it at all,” says Tom Manning, head of strategy at award-winning performance marketing agency Forward3D; in a session tackling data science, tracking and relevant marketing techniques, Manning takes an eye-opening and practical perspective on “imperfect data”.

Meanwhile, Awin’s global strategy director, Kevin Edwards, will crack open the network’s own data vaults to explore the cutting-edge insights key to directing today’s advertiser budgets, with takeaway advice on how to use it to your advantage.

Explosions of creativity

Performance marketing often faces self-criticism for lacking pace in innovation, but look in the right places and you’ll see explosions of creativity. A number of forward-thinking sessions at PI LIVE explore this idea, aimed at stimulating new and positive ways of thinking, with disruption being the end goal.

Mozoo’s marketing & innovation director, Max Pepe, will explore how media agencies and premium publishers are pioneering in mobile advertising, while in a similar vein Michael Jaconi, the creator of Button, alongside Hotels.com’s vice president of global retail and business development, Paulo Cunha, will dissect the still rich opportunity of the mobile-first consumer, providing impetus for brands to take advantage of areas such as app marketing.

Not one for small doses of creativity, however, is the Influencer Marketing Show’s first keynote and entrepreneur behind the unstoppably successful platform Social Chain, Steven Bartlett.

A former Ted speaker, the charismatic 24-year-old is sure to energise an early crowd at the start of day one as he talks about the “power of personal branding” in a track armed to identify the intersection of influencer marketing and performance.

That plane will also see the global chief campaign officer of Branded Entertainment Network, Ricky Ray Butler, deliver five golden rules for delivering influencer campaign ROI, while the Australian founder of influencer marketplace TRIBE and former TV presenter, James Lund, will tackle the power of micro-influencers and why “bigger isn’t always better”.

Plenty more sessions are available for you to pour over from across the two days, including practical advice on why your Facebook ads might not be getting the results you expect, experts locking horns over how to measure content marketing success, the global consumer trends that could kick start your next venture and how to get programmatic “back on track”.

Don’t miss the three-day festival of performance marketing and be an active participant in driving the industry forward. Register for your ticket today.