Hero Conf

🌟 This week I had a chance to attend the Hero Conf for the second year—right here in San Diego! It was an awesome opportunity to connect with fellow digital marketing professionals and dive deep into the latest industry trends. 💻📈 Thanks for joining Olivia Vomero! #PPCHero #DigitalMarketing

I cried for a solid hour when I returned to my Airbnb after dinner on Tuesday. My heart was so full it felt like it might burst, and I didn't know what to do with the emotions. That feeling stuck for the entirety of Hero Conf in San Diego and will be a core memory! Last year, I stood on that stage with the wrong slide deck (yup, that 100% happened 😅). This year, I walked up there with a semi-planned script and slides submitted on time (no last-minute changes this time!). I even added a bit into my presentation where I pretended I had the wrong slide deck again (sorry for the stress I caused ya'll, haha) to make light of it all. The way this community shows up for each other is something else. Navah Hopkins, I still remember seeing you in the front row last year, silently cheering me on when everything went sideways. Danny Gavin, meeting you was a highlight—what an honor to meet you. Speaking of core memories, attending my first Optmyzr dinner was incredible. Michelle Morgan, you quoting parts of my talk back to me? That hit differently and genuinely helped my confidence—thank you. And sharing a dinner table with Frederick Vallaeys (whose keynote on AI was absolutely amazing) wasn't on my 2024 bingo card, but here we are! None of this would have been possible without Darren Shaw suggesting me for the MN Search Summit. This led me to a conversation with Dana DiTomaso, which ultimately brought me to this stage. One recommendation from one conversation—that's all it takes sometimes. Thank you both for believing in me and always being in this fellow Edmontonian's corner. To everyone who attended my session on "Ad Copy: AI vs Human - When robots start writing your ad copy (& why that's terrifying)," - thank you for laughing at my jokes and being so attentive. A rising tide raises all boats, and this PPC community? You're an entire ocean of support. Thank you for being my rising tide. ❤️ #PPCchat #HeroConf #DigitalMarketing #PaidSearch PS. I have a few asks: 1. If you attended my session and have feedback for me, please share it. I want to keep improving, and your feedback will definitely help me improve! 2. Same ask as yesterday: if you have a photo of me on stage or with me, please send it my way!

Frederick Vallaeys’ Hero Conf keynote was packed with AI insights, but my biggest a-ha moment? Realizing you can use multiple GPTs in a single conversation! 🤯 I had no idea this was possible, and I'd been keeping all my GPTs siloed off from each other, either using one at a time, or maybe copy - pasting ideas to share across. But it turns out, it's pretty simple to get all of them to work for you at once. Just use a simple "@" to call in the GPT you need and bring it into the conversation. Shoutout to everyone who shares tips like these—small ideas can make a huge impact. 

Day 2 at brightonSEO and Hero Conf conference was super insightful. Key takeaways - - Specific use cases on how AI can be leveraged to help marketing agencies - Google Search's upcoming challenges Frederick Vallaeys was the keynote for the paid search side, and he has always provided valuable insights on Google Ads and digital marketing as a whole. His past keynotes (and books) often spoke about automation way before we were talking about AI, so it was insightful to see his vision of AI and how it will disrupt and support digital marketing as we know it. I thought I was using ChatGPT, but after seeing the way he uses it, I feel like I'm actually playing Go Fish when I thought I was playing Chess all along. 🥴 Learned a lot. Had some great chats including with Kathleen McFarlane, Praising Gaw and Britt Klontz. Had some god chats with Richard Ingles and the amazing team from Diginius at their booth. Coming back from a conference I often find hard as I get right back into work-mode and often don't spend time to process and apply some of the insights. For this reason, really glad Austin Becker and I booked a co-working space and spent 2 days just strategizing, analyzing and dissecting each other's business. It's a business retreat - this being our 3rd one and I've grown my business every year I've done this. Being able to share honest business successes and challenges with a peer and learn from each other I think is an invaluable asset. Bye for now San Diego. I'll be back in September to the next conference! #heroconf #brightseo #marketing #digitalmarketing #agencies

Last week, I attended Hero Conf (bringing along Anya Gildner and Luke Hovestadt). Fantastic few days in San Diego: I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many PPC folks in one spot before. I’ve got some strong opinions about where digital marketing is headed, and a lot of these were reinforced as I mulled them over the weekend. Here’s some takeaways: — It’s been a meme for the past decade that “SEO is dead”, but it actually IS changing. I’m being a little facetious, of course, but listening to paid vs organic folks gives entirely different vibes. — Frederick Vallaeys had a great keynote about LLMs and I was psyched that he included an example of how AI can condense and reinterpret information (he trained an LLM on my new book, Unorthodoxy, and then interviewed it). — While I prefer to cozy up with a paperback instead of hanging out with GPT, this is basically a look ahead at how information is going to be consumed & distributed in the future. And this will absolutely change the role of agencies in the future. — The value-add of agencies in the next few years could be termed as “holistic info management”. Agencies who don’t go up-market, who don’t focus on analytics and profit-increasing strategies, who don’t become highly technical, and who don’t take a revenue-adjacent partnership with their clients, are simply Not Going To Make It.

☀️ San Diego brought the sunshine and the insights! Our marketing team had an incredible time attending brightonSEO and Hero Conf, where we soaked in cutting-edge marketing strategies, connected with industry pros, and even cheered on our Growth Marketing Director as she took the stage to share her expertise on AI in PPC. 🎤✨ Until next time, California! #BrightonSEO #HeroConf

Last week, a few members of our marketing team attended Hero Conf San Diego. Created for digital marketers around the world, Hero Conf featured networking opportunities and sessions discussing the latest in paid media marketing. Even in the off-season, we’re always seeking opportunities to learn and grow.

Thank you Hero Conf for allowing to talk about some the changes LinkedIn has introduced in the past 2 years. If you missed my session or if you still have questions, I am here for you!

Hero Conf appreciation post! After letting the dust settle and processing (just kidding - was chasing my kids around Disneyland for 2 days) can’t adequately express how grateful I was to be part of the event. A big THANK YOU to Kelvin Newman, and special shout-out to Lynsey Jones and team for the excellent comms and coordination. The sessions and content were great. But the PEOPLE were top-notch and I was honored to be among them. Awesome people I got to meet in in-person for the first time: Sam Tomlinson Brie E Anderson Alisa Gammon Sarah Stemen, MBA Harrison Jack Hepp Michelle Morgan Joe Martinez Others whose talks I was also incredibly impressed by: Cory Henke Kirk Williams AJ Wilcox Andrea Cruz My session speaking partners that gave excellent talks and were great people to chat with while mentally preparing to try and not blow it: Greg Finn - need to get that shirt :) Brittany Sager And last but VERY MUCH not least the “homies” it’s always an absolute privelage to see and connect with (this list grew a bunch): Akvile DeFazio Duane Brown Danny Gavin Collin Slattery Tim Mayer And special shout to Kirby Challman who wasn’t at the conference but still made an impression :) As Collin and Tim know - what happens at Seneca stays at Seneca. A huge final THANK YOU to all the attendees who came to my talk, and to the folks who hit me up on social or email after - sincerely appreciate the kind words and feedback. Already looking it forward to running it back in 2025!

Picture time! While we continue our recovery from Hero Conf San Diego, please enjoy this gallery of photos from the event. See yourself? Let us know!