Four killer conversion rate optimization musts for 2016

Bad AI isn't a tech problem, it's a human problem.

When you add AI-powered customer service technology to your customer experience (CX) mix, you expect real results, and for good reason: A recent study found that companies that embrace AI to improve customer experience have higher customer satisfaction scores and generate more revenue than their underperforming competition.

But what happens when your expectations aren't met? Is the technology to blame? Your significant investment in AI technology doesn’t guarantee a positive return. To be successful, your organization has to be ready, and everyone from the C-suite to the contact center has to be on board.

Join this VB Live webinar to learn about the five biggest mistakes companies make when they bring cutting-edge customer service technology to their workflows, and how to leap over these pitfalls and into real results.

Register now for free!

You'll learn about:

* What AI actually is (hint: it’s not automation)
* The importance of buy-in from executives and agents
* How to approach AI implementation and measure success
* The impact of AI across the customer journey

Speakers:

* Akhil Talwar, Senior Product Lead, Bold360 by LogMeIn
* Michael Butler, Head of Customer Success, Ople

More speakers coming soon!

Social networks today are undergoing a massive paradigm shift when it comes to content moderation. From tragic shootings broadcast live on Facebook, to YouTube removing comments on children's videos due to child predator concerns, social platforms are under fire from users, governments, and law enforcement to adopt better technology and strengthen their content moderation practices.

It’s not all bad news. Business leaders have also realized that accurate, efficient moderation, coupled with positive reinforcement, can increase user retention and encourage growth.

But who is responsible for enforcing these policies and practices? How did hate speech, abuse, and extremism become the "cost of being online"? And how can like-minded businesses band together to raise the bar and make their social platforms engaging, safe for all users, and ultimately, more profitable?

Join Two Hat CEO and founder Chris Priebe and veteran analyst and market influencer Brian Solis for an insightful talk about the changing landscape of online conversations and the role of content moderation. Social abuse and objectionable materials need no longer be the price of admission.

Register today for this free event!

You’ll learn:

* How to start a dialogue in your organization around protecting your audience without imposing on free speech
* The business benefits of joining the growing movement to "raise the bar"
* Practical tips and content moderation strategies from industry veterans
* Why Two Hat’s blend of AI+HI (artificial intelligence + human interaction) is the first step towards solving today’s content moderation challenges

Speakers:

* Brian Solis, Principal Digital Analyst at Altimeter, author of "Lifescale"
* Chris Priebe, CEO & founder of Two Hat Security
* Stewart Rogers, VentureBeat

Every founder starts with a big idea, but only 1 out of 10 see their idea succeed. So what’s the difference between the fintech startups that get off the ground and those that don’t make it out of the gate? What are the secrets of the startups that disrupt entire industries? This is your chance to find out how founders and VCs look at creating successful startups first-hand.

Our panel of industry experts will cover a range of topics, from getting started building your team, to the importance of finding an impactful mentor, and more. They’ll also answer questions from future startup founders in a Q&A. It’s everything you need to travel the path from big idea to successful startup.

Register for the webinar to discover:

• What successful fintech startups have in common
• The differences between being a solopreneur vs. being a co-founder
• Tips for finding and growing your dream team
• How to go from killer idea to disruptive startup


Speakers:

• Evan Schuman, Moderator, VB
• Jeff Cain, Senior Director, Envestnet | Yodlee Incubator, Envestnet | Yodlee
• Pierre Wolff, SVP Business Development, InCountry
• Ken Kruszka, CEO, SnapCheck
• Kathleen Utecht, Managing Partner, Core Innovation Capital

AI is moving beyond just the cloud. With powerful AI algorithms enabled on devices from smartphones to consumer machines, automobiles, robots, and more, we're unlocking a world of intelligent, connected devices that can perceive, reason, and take intuitive actions based on awareness of the situation.

On-device AI offers immediate response, enhanced reliability, increased privacy, and efficient use of network bandwidth, and supports everything from superhuman computer vision and natural language processing, to wireless connectivity, power management, photography, and more.

The applications that on-device AI is enabling are capturing consumer attention. And it's igniting real demand for better voice assistants, more powerful camera features, smarter cars, and more.

The opportunities for always-on, intelligent devices that do all or most of their thinking on the device are enormous. To learn more about this innovative emerging technology that's already at the fingertips of developers, OEMs, and ISVs, don't miss this VB Live event.

Registration is free!


You'll learn:

* How AI-powered smartphone apps are igniting the consumer imagination – and why
* How on-device AI is changing the future of connected devices
* How developers, OEMs, and ISVs can take advantage of on-device AI processing
* The technology you need to drive the best performance of on-device AI


Speakers:

*Gary Brotman, Sr. Director Product Management, Qualcomm Technologies
*Anshel Sag, Moor Insights & Strategy

Customers choose to work with you not just based on what you deliver, but how you deliver it. Traditionally the big guys have had the advantage in resources and personnel. But with the digitization of customer communications, sales processes, and customer service, small and medium-size companies can now do more than catch up -- they can compete.

Affordable, accessible business technology is at your fingertips, and it can help you manage prospect and customer relationships in a way that feels personalized, accelerate business workflows and processes, and not just meet but exceed customer expectations while you boost your sales growth.

To learn more about how technology is transforming the way SMBs do business, and how to launch the strategy that ensures your company maintains competitive advantage, don’t miss this VB Live event!


Register here for free.


Webinar attendees will learn:

* How to deliver success across the entire customer lifecycle from lead to retention
* How to configure, price, and quote complex deals, fast and efficiently
* How to accelerate business by closing deals with instant sign-offs on agreements
* How customer-focused organizations win business with personalized experiences


Speakers:

* Katie Foote, Vice President, Demand Generation for Small Business, Salesforce
* Dave Simon, Vice President, Small Business Sales, DocuSign

Sponsored by DocuSign

The competition is coming. By 2020, eighty percent of SaaS players will move to a subscription-based model, which means your success strategies have to evolve — and that includes the all-important fundamental: how your subscriptions are structured.

Your subscription pricing and plan structure have a profound impact on subscriber acquisition and retention, and once you nail the formula, you'll see revenue increase. Do you choose an annual or monthly plan? Offer a trial or discounts?

This is where a test plan is critical. Combined with benchmark data, you can test and iterate your way to the right pricing and plan structure. And when important decisions are backed by comprehensive benchmark data, you’re far more likely to see an increase in adoption and revenue.

Join this VB Live event to discover essential SaaS benchmarks and best practices to maximize revenue, improve acquisition, and spur adoption.

Registration is free!

Attendees will learn:

* Important SaaS benchmarks by industry segment
* How to structure your SaaS subscription plans and pricing to maximize revenue and retention
* How successful SaaS companies use a test, learn, and iterate framework to optimize revenue
* The key metrics — and reports — to monitor for success and maximum LTV
* The results of an in-depth case study on SaaS testing and pricing

Speakers:
*Panelist: Emma Clark, Chief of Staff, Recurly
*Moderator/Analyst: Sean Joyce, Recurring Revenue Technologies, Navint

Cyber threats continually evolve, growing more sophisticated and aggressive, regularly overwhelming and bypassing traditional security solutions. With AI-powered software trained on large datasets of cybersecurity, network, and even physical information, cybersecurity solutions are increasingly able to detect and block abnormal behavior, even without a known signature or pattern.

Adding AI into the mix is a major turning point for cybersecurity. It’s growing clear that artificial intelligence and machine learning is the safest, and perhaps the only, path for cybersecurity professionals to really lock down their data and protect the enterprise. These systems offer the fastest, smartest ways to identify and analyze threats in real time -- and find the quickest way to taking them down.

To learn more about how to improve privacy and security, and how new AI-powered security can protect companies and their customers better, don’t miss this VB Live event!

Registration is free.

Attend this webinar and learn:

* How AI is defeating and preventing cyberattacks
* When AI analytics need to be deployed and for what reason
* How to build AI-powered tools that can assure consumers their data is secure
* Real-world AI applications and what they mean for cybersecurity

Speakers:

* Fernando Maymi, Cybersecurity Researcher & Consultant, Moderator
* Jim Ducharme, VP, Identity Products, RSA.
* Eduardo Delgado, AVP, ORM, Cybersecurity, TD

User experience is swiftly overtaking price as the most important competitive differentiator. That means wowing your customers at every point of interaction and engagement. And lately, new approaches fueled by AI and significant data produced by cross-platform experiences are putting UX under a new kind of microscope and helping to drive positive results. When harnessed correctly, AI really just means ultimate personalization. And this can reward you with loyalty, affinity, and word of mouth.

User experience design (UX) isn’t a guessing game anymore. Artificial intelligence is your superpower, and machine learning your secret weapon. AI helps you personalize the customer journey at every step dynamically, crafting unique, individual experiences that learn along the way, making them more relevant, more engaging, and more delightful.

To learn more about why AI should be the foundation of all your user experience design, and where to start, don’t miss this VB Live event!

Register here for free.

Attend this webinar and learn about:
* How AI supercharges the relevancy, elegance, and engagement of modern design.
* The ways well-known brands are creating intuitive apps with powerful UX supported by AI
* The relationship between effective design and a strong ROI
* Real-world successes and failures in AI-driven design

Speakers:
* Steph Hay, VP, Conversational AI Design & Integrated Experiences, Capital One
* David Parmenter, Director of Engineering & Data, Adobe Document Cloud

By 2020, 90 percent of businesses will have moved to a hybrid cloud infrastructure, seizing both the competitive advantages of digital evolution -- and the economic and strategic benefits of maintaining legacy applications on premises. But once your data moves outside your private architecture, you're facing a new world of potential attacks and security breaches that your current security practices just can't match.

Just for starters, not only will you need to implement effective RBAC to lower risk of unauthorized access and enforce mandatory multi-factor authentication, you'll also have to tap into the power of automation to validate security compliance baselines, detect unauthorized cloud config changes, and power self-healing infrastructure. Additionally, application-centric security is a must, with real-time visibility into application dependencies and performance metrics, plus an automatic micro-segmented security policy enforcement, and more.

To learn more about the advantages of hybrid cloud architectures, where your security needs shoring up, and how to best protect your enterprise and data with automated and application-centric security practices, don't miss this VB Live event!

Register for free now.

You'll learn:
*Why you need a single, fully tested, security-first infrastructure platform
*How to converge storage, computing, and networking
*A full understanding of security best practices
*How to protect against data breaches, unauthorized access, and other threats in a multi-cloud world

Speakers:
Mike Wronski, Principal Marketing Manager, Nutanix
Niel Ashworth, Security Solutions Architect, Nutanix
Demetrius Comes, VP of Engineering, GoDaddy

Sponsored by Nutanix

IT leaders look to technology as a business differentiator and rely on it to foster innovation. Enterprises have discovered that hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) can be the foundation of a modern, cloud-like datacenter. But don’t stop there — going beyond HCI delivers more savings, increases IT agility, and supports multi-cloud goals when you add virtualization as an integral part of your stack.

How do you harness the power of HCI and virtualization? Sure, there are a wide variety of tools on the market, but choosing the wrong HCI platform could limit your options in how you operate your datacenter or could impede cloud goals — including those associated with virtualization.

To learn more about the power of HCI and virtualization, how virtualization can remove complexity and increase efficiency, and how to choose the right HCI tool, don’t miss this VB live event!

Registration is free.

Attend and learn:
* How virtualization platform options on the market compare
* Why to consider changing virtualization solutions
* How to choose the right virtualization solution
* How to save thousands in virtualization licensing costs

Speakers:
* Bhavani Yellapragada, AVP of DevOps, Nasdaq
* Mike Wronski, Principal Marketing Manager, Nutanix
* Stewart Rogers, Analyst-at-Large, VentureBeat
* Dilan Yuksel, Host, VentureBeat

Sponsored by Nutanix

Bots, artificial intelligence, and messaging — cost-effective, easy-to-implement automation technology —- is gaining a major foothold in customer service organizations, and the impact is palpable. Contact centers are on track to shrink by 50 percent in the next three years as routine tasks are taken over by faster, efficiency-saving bots that can triage requests, boost customer satisfaction, and offer an 8.6 percent increase in profit margin per customer.

These technologies are also making it easy to tap into the gig economy, which is producing a growing supply of tech-savvy labor for companies that also saves costs. For workers, it means flexible arrangements with low barriers to entry, plus more satisfying employment, now that the grunt work has been eliminated by automation.

AI and automation is set to level up the workforce, the economy, and your bottom line. For a closer look at the long-term implications of automation, how to invest in the brave new world of work, and more, don’t miss this VB Live event!

Attend this webinar and learn:

* The workforce implications of customer service bots
* How bots and employees can work side-by-side
* What smart companies are doing to lay the groundwork
* Future of work - what does it look like?

Speakers:

* Abinash Tripathy, Co-founder, Helpshift
* Peter Ryan, Principal Analyst, Ryan Strategic Advisory
* Stewart Rogers, Analyst-at-Large, VentureBeat
* Dilan Yuksel Moderator, VentureBeat

Sponsored by Helpshift

While companies have been ditching traditional marketing methods in their race to capture the online-savvy millennials, no one is on their phone 24/7, and delivering brand messages out in the world is still vital to capturing mindshare.

Those first-gen marketing methods, including outdoor, tv, direct mail, and more, are still valuable and essential to building a stronger bottom line, especially when integrated as a vital part of an overarching marketing campaign, firing on all cylinders. That’s easier than ever, because traditional doesn’t mean old-school and analog anymore, and innovations in marketing technology don’t only apply to your online channels. You can apply your martech capabilities not just for tracking, measurement, and attribution, but to keep tabs on omnichannel competitor strategies, design the most effective campaign copy in every arena, create the most impactful rollouts between all your channels and more.

To find out how to integrate offline marketing channels with your online efforts, how marketing technology can bring those traditional methods into the twenty-first century, and more, don’t miss this VB Live event!

Registration is free.

Attend this webinar and learn:
* How to use martech to digitize offline channels
* How to integrate traditional marketing efforts into their newer tech-driven marketing stack
* The importance of combining online and offline marketing
* How to track offline conversions

Speakers:
* Evan Jones, CMO, Fender
* Mark Coffey, SVP of Strategic Partnerships, GasBuddy
* Myllisa Patterson, Senior Director, Event Cloud Marketing, Cvent
* Shannon Ryan, Head of Marketing, CI&T
* Dilan Yuksel, VentureBeat

Sponsored by Cvent

The landscape of voice and chatbot-to-customer interactions is blowing up. Whether it’s a trusted AI assistant like Alexa or Google Home, or an integrated voice or chatbot tool within a brand interface like Kayak’s customer service experience, customers are increasingly willing to engage with brands via voice chat.

AI assistants are getting smarter, and becoming capable of helping consumers sort through the avalanche of choices available in every decision, from buying phone plans to toothbrushes. And your marketing efforts will have to shift priorities in a major way to capture the attention of these newly connected customers as assistants get smarter and customers learn they can rely on their results.

To hear about actual voice chat use cases, the differences between integrated bots and AI assistants, and how to leverage voice and bots for amaze-and-delight experiences right now, don’t miss this VB Live event!

Register here for free.

Attend this webinar and learn:
* How bots and voice are uniquely positioned to help customers make purchasing decisions
* How brands can address the advantages of integrated bots and an AI trusted assistant like Alexa
* The best ways to leverage voice and bots to optimize the customer experience
* What's next for voice and bots

Speakers:

* Bharath Kadaba, Chief Innovation Officer, Intuit
* Ryan Lester, Director, Customer Engagement Technologies, LogMein
* Matthias Keller, Chief Scientist & SVP Technology, Kayak
* Russ Tar, VP EMEA, Artificial Solutions
* Rachael Brownell, Moderator, VentureBeat

Sponsored by Bold360 by LogMeIn

They’re savvy, those consumers – they can smell “targeted advertising” from a mile away, and they’re really not interested in it. But they’ll listen to recommendations from their peers, and they trust the integrity of the influencers they follow to never steer them wrong when it comes to brand buy-in.

In a world where consumers are smarter, live streaming makes TV ads irrelevant, and ad blockers are de rigueur, influencer marketing – when you do it right – means making meaningful connections, building trust, and securing loyalty.

What does “right” mean? Don’t miss this VB Live event where you’ll learn how influencers can improve your brand reputation, how to build authentic relationships with the right influencer for your brand, and the mistakes to avoid at all costs.

Register now for free!

Attend this webinar and learn:
* How influencers and customers drive brand reputation and how they differ.
* The relationship between PR tactics and community voice
* Real-world tactics used by brands to overcome PR nightmares
* How to create an influencer marketing plan that retains authenticity and believability
* How real brands think about influencers + consumers as a strategy to strengthen their bottom line

Speakers:
* Mae Karwowski, Founder and CEO, Obviously
* Amanda Brown, Senior Manager Digital Marketing, TGI Fridays
* Taimoor Dar, Head of Community, Yummly
* Stewart Rogers, Analyst-at-Large, VentureBeat
* Rachael Brownell, Moderator, VentureBeat

Sponsored by Obviously

Money is pouring into esports. There are more players, more games, more viewers, and bigger prize pools — and companies are taking note. Investment is coming from all angles, and everyone is looking for a piece of the pie. But many of the existing monetization models of esports only seek to follow the tried and true formats from traditional sports.

There is a lot for the video game industry to learn from the legacy sports broadcast model; but there’s a catch: The video games industry uses some of the world’s most advanced interactive technology to create some of the world’s most compelling entertainment experiences.

So why would we just do it the same way as before? The answer? We probably won’t. Not for long at least.

In this special session, our panel of experts will unpack the old and the new of esports, and explore where genuine innovation may come from in the future. We’ll discuss how to get the most out of traditional methods, and how some companies are experimenting with new approaches to engaging with audiences and driving revenue.

Register now to join us for free.

Attend this webinar and learn:
* How the current esports model stacks up against traditional sports, and where the money is coming from now
* The new technologies that will change the existing business model
* The difference between formal esports and personalized broadcasting — and what those differences mean for your bottom line

Speakers
* Jonathan Singer, Industry Strategist, Akamai
* Robb Chiarini, Director esports, NCSA at Ubisoft
* Dean Takahashi, Lead Writer, Gamesbeat
* Kent Wakeford, Co-founder and COO, Gen.G

Sponsored by Akamai