Top 10 takeaways from the 3Q/Google Summit

By Hillary Read, VP of Marketing

On Friday at the Google PartnerPlex in Mountain View, 3Q and Google experts teamed up for a day of "Art, Science, & Innovation" to explore the frontiers of digital marketing and what's truly pushing growth for forward-driving brands. A roomful of more than 120 people talked subjects including machine learning, CRO, advanced analytics, data visualization, artificial intelligence, and more.

We covered a ton of ground, but 10 takeaways stood out:

1. Science requires art to come to life: real data is meaningless unless it's presented clearly.
   
2. It's no longer the year of mobile; it's the year of artificial intelligence.
3. Voice search technology has become tremendously sophisticated - which is necessary since 20% of Google searches are voice-activated.
4. SEMs must now consider search in a much bigger context: time, location, device, the user's relationship with the brand, and more.
5. Connected devices (Google Home, Amazon Echo, etc.) are ushering in an era of assistance and predictive behavior that's in the beginning stages.
6. Machine learning is showing us what to do - and what not to do.
7. Machine learning is disrupting and advancing industries like health, agriculture, transportation, and more - but it's still in its infancy and can only be trusted to work well in the right hands.
8. Data synergy is difficult to attain, but its benefits - micro-targeting, audience insights, customer journey mapping, audience and persona-level channel attribution - are mighty.
9. Performance creative must be informed by data, but the creative human touch is as necessary as ever for great advertising.

   AI made this image of a cat; we need humans to bring Creative to life.

10. The fastest-growing companies run tons of optimization tests with a quick, repeatable process.
    
    Thanks to Google for hosting an incredible event! Until next year...