A tale of two events - Adobe Summit EMEA / Salesforce World Tour London

Over the past fortnight we here at Conversica UK (plus some of our American chums) have basically set up camp at everyone's favourite aircraft hanger-cum-conference venue, the ExCeL, for two of the calendar's largest events (at least, for those of us in Sales/MarTech). As Marketo's Technology Partner of the Year for 2019, and a Salesforce 5* AppExchange Partner, these are our two biggest ecosystems, and where lots of our partners, customers, and prospects can be found.

Given the size of the ecosystems the two technology giants oversee, both events are huge, with estimates given of 8,000 and 12,000 attendees at Adobe and Salesforce respectively. Both also boast a vast and highly engaged partner community, and have tools and platforms that cover a large part of the business function. As a first-timer at both events though, I found the experience of each quite different.

First up was Adobe. Like many attendees, I was brand new to Adobe's universe, having been sucked in following their takeover of Marketo last year. Before attending, I was a little unsure of the rationale behind the acquisition, and how Marketo fit into the broader Adobe offering. To be quite honest, having sat through a day of keynote sessions at Adobe's free-to-attend Partner Day, I'm not much closer to understanding. My view was that Marketo had been swallowed up, almost entirely subsumed by the Goliath that is Adobe. From staff moving wholesale to @adobe.com email addresses, to the disappearance of the Marketing Nation event banner, visibility of Marketo (no small outfit in its own right) was fairly low going in to the event.

Marketo itself was mentioned a handful of times during the main keynote. Almost without exception it was courtesy of the pun (clearly the joke de jour at Adobe Towers) referencing that along with the additional acquisition of Magento in 2018, "if your tech company ends in M, and ends in O, we're gonna buy you". As to how Marketo itself was going to play a role in Adobe's future strategy, little was given away, and certainly Adobe don't seem to be making the most of the size and quality of Marketo's partner and customer network, swallowing up rather than building upon it.

The event itself was rather expensive to attend, and extraordinarily expensive to exhibit at, and many of our friends in the Marketo partner community were priced out. Those who did attend have fed back anecdotally that lead volume was low; the event simply being too broad, and Marketo being such a small part of it.

Salesforce World Tour was an entirely different beast. Free-to-attend, and (more) reasonably-priced (than Adobe) to exhibit at, partners were centre-stage, and accessible. I'm a huge fan of Salesforce's branding, which was ubiquitous, and meant that this was my first trip to the ExCeL at which I didn't experience that familiar depressing feeling of hanging out in a gigantic, soulless, and empty space. Whether or not you like the cutesy characters and the outdoors trails theme, you must admit it's a strong and coherent look.

The expo hall was buzzing, as were the other areas taken over by the event. All the attendees I spoke to were getting great value out of the day, which was packed with content. Some of it a little sales-pitchey at times (every marketing session seemed to turn into a Pardot plug for instance), but nonetheless, coherent and clear.

We walked away with a lot of learning, stacks of new contacts, and a clear image of what the next year holds for Salesforce.

So two events that on the face of it could have been very similar in terms of experience, but were poles apart, for us at least. We'll be back at one next year for sure. As for the other? Fingers crossed for the return of a stand-alone Marketing Nation conference.

Interested in hearing the thoughts of anyone who went to either of these events. Did you get decent ROI? Will you be back next year?