EVENT ABOUT IT: Event Marketing, Strategy & Business Growth

68% of US Google searches now end without a single click, which means event SEO as you learned it is quietly breaking. If your discovery plan still depends on getting somebody onto your website, that is a problem nobody has budgeted for.Laura Davidson ran a search agency for a decade and she is blunt about what is happening: the touchpoints have collapsed. Someone asks an AI, gets one answer, believes they have done thorough research, and registers. Her argument is that this is not new marketing at all. It is a return to something much older, and the event brands that already invested in being known are the ones it rewards.In this one:What zero-click search actually means for event marketing, and the two metrics her team watches now that attribution is breakingWhy a B2B buyer is only in market roughly 5% of the year, and what to do during the other 95%The one question that decides whether your event gets funded, and why a well-known bad event beats an unknown good oneWhat connected TV and ChatGPT ads really cost, and whether an event marketing budget can actually reach themThe ambassador program setup that cut cost per acquisition by 49% on a single creator video, and the contract clause that makes it workIf you are heading into budget season with a number you are not sure you can defend, start here.Mentioned in this episodeZero-click search study, SparkToro via Similarweb clickstream data: Search Engine Land coverageAbout the guestLaura Davidson spent 14 years running paid search and paid media for global trade shows before selling her agency to Freeman, which means she is watching the collapse of click-based measurement from inside the discipline it disrupts. She now leads digital at mdg. She has also produced her own events, which is why her advice sounds like someone who has been on both sides of the invoice.Connect with Laura Davidson and Tag Digital:LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lauratagdigitalmdg, a Freeman company: mdg.agencyInstagram: @tagdigitalglobalAbout Your HostMegan Martin is the founder of M Squared Dynamics, a consulting, facilitation, and content strategy firm helping event leaders, marketers, and sales teams turn live experiences into measurable business growth. She’s the host and executive producer of Event About It, co-founder of Opportunity Hunters, and a two-time PCMA Visionary Award nominee (2022 winner). With nearly 20 years in the industry, Megan operates at the intersection of event strategy, marketing alignment, and behavioral intent signals, turning events from line items into pipeline drivers.Connect with Megan and M Squared Dynamics:Podcast: EventAboutItPodcast.comNewsletter (Step and Repeat): msquareddynamics.com/stepandrepeatsignupConsulting and strategy: msquareddynamics.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmartincmp/Instagram: @m2dynamics and @eventaboutitTikTok: @eventaboutitKeep the Conversation GoingThe best conversations start after the show ends, and the best ones keep going in your inbox. Subscribe to Event About It wherever you get your podcasts and sign up for the Step and Repeat newsletter at msquareddynamics.com/stepandrepeatsignup.Until next time, stay curious.

Gating your agenda is one of the most common moves in B2B event strategy. According to today’s guest, it is also click bait.Laura Davidson has run more than 2,000 event campaigns a year across more than 40 countries, which means she has watched this exact decision play out at a scale almost nobody in this industry has access to. Her argument is that your agenda is the single most discoverable asset your event owns, and locking it behind a form costs you far more than the email addresses it collects. Especially now that buyers are asking an AI before they ask Google. Then we made her rule on seven more event marketing tactics most teams run on autopilot.In this one:Why gating your event agenda works against you in AI search, and what to publish insteadThe one paid channel she says event marketers should stop buying entirely, and where that budget belongsHow many brand touches it actually takes before somebody registers for a B2B event, and why your campaign plan assumes a smaller numberWhy the "last chance to register" email should go out four separate times, and the one thing that has to change in each sendThe reason every trade show ad looks identical, and what the events pulling ahead are doing insteadIf you are building next year’s campaign plan right now, this is the 18 minutes that will change two line items in it.About the guestLaura Davidson has spent 14 years running paid media for some of the largest trade shows and conferences in the world, at a volume that means she has watched the same mistakes repeat across more than 40 countries. She built Tag Digital out of Glasgow with her husband, sold it to Freeman, and now leads digital at mdg. She is unusually willing to tell you which of your tactics are wasting money.Connect with Laura Davidson and Tag Digital:LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lauratagdigitalmdg, a Freeman company: mdg.agencyInstagram: @tagdigitalglobalAbout Your HostMegan Martin is the founder of M Squared Dynamics, a consulting, facilitation, and content strategy firm helping event leaders, marketers, and sales teams turn live experiences into measurable business growth. She’s the host and executive producer of Event About It, co-founder of Opportunity Hunters, and a two-time PCMA Visionary Award nominee (2022 winner). With nearly 20 years in the industry, Megan operates at the intersection of event strategy, marketing alignment, and behavioral intent signals, turning events from line items into pipeline drivers.Connect with Megan and M Squared Dynamics:Podcast: EventAboutItPodcast.comNewsletter (Step and Repeat): msquareddynamics.com/stepandrepeatsignupConsulting and strategy: msquareddynamics.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmartincmp/Instagram: @m2dynamics and @eventaboutitTikTok: @eventaboutitKeep the Conversation GoingSubscribe to Event About It so the Aftershow lands in your feed the second it drops. In it, Laura breaks down what replaces the click now that 68% of searches end without one, and what actually decides whether your event gets funded.Send this episode to the demand gen lead who still thinks the agenda is a lead magnet.

The honest answer is no. And the person telling you that actually built it.Huong Nguyen spent 13 years running a multi-million dollar events agency before she started building Aletheia, an AI platform for event operations. She tried the vibe coding route first. She knows exactly where it breaks, what it costs when it does, and what the real gap is between a one-time AI workflow and a scalable event tech product. Her advice: do it for fun. Just do not do it for your actual program.That's one of six conversations in this Aftershow. We also got into how she built a seven-figure client roster for 10 years without a LinkedIn presence, a $500K contract she landed at 24 by working for free first, and what she now understands about event tech vendors that she didn't before she became one.In this one:Why vibe coding gets you a prototype and leaves you with a maintenance problem — and what it actually takes to scale event technology across different program types and budgetsHow 10 years of building an agency without a personal brand generated more client retention and referrals than most visible founders ever seeWhat a non-technical founder with no coding background actually does when she decides to build event tech — and what breaks firstThe one question every event planner should ask in a vendor demo that almost nobody thinks to ask until they're already locked into a contractIf you are currently evaluating event tech, thinking about building your own, or wondering whether being less visible is costing you business — this is the one.The best conversations start after the show ends, and the best ones keep going in your inbox. Subscribe to Event About It wherever you get your podcasts and sign up for the Step and Repeat newsletter at msquareddynamics.com/stepandrepeatsignup.Until next time, stay curious.About Huong NguyenHuong Nguyen is the 2x CEO and founder of Shiloh Events and Aletheia, an AI-powered intelligence platform for event operations. She co-founded Zoomtopia and spent 13 years producing enterprise tech events for Zoom, Microsoft, Samsung, LG, Uber, and Google without ever building a personal brand. In 2023 she surfaced, started climbing, and started building. She is still doing all three.Connect with Huong:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mshuongnguyen/Aletheia: https://aletheia.events/Shiloh Events: https://shiloh-events.com/About Your HostMegan Martin is the founder of M Squared Dynamics, a consulting, facilitation, and content strategy firm helping event leaders, marketers, and sales teams turn live experiences into measurable business growth. She's the host and executive producer of Event About It, co-founder of Opportunity Hunters, and a two-time PCMA Visionary Award nominee (2022 winner). With nearly 20 years in the industry, Megan operates at the intersection of event strategy, marketing alignment, and behavioral intent signals, turning events from line items into pipeline drivers.Connect with Megan and M Squared Dynamics:Podcast: EventAboutItPodcast.comNewsletter (Step and Repeat): https://msquareddynamics.com/stepandrepeatsignupConsulting and strategy: https://msquareddynamics.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmartincmp/Instagram: @m2dynamics and @eventaboutitTikTok: @eventaboutitThe best conversations start after the show ends, and the best ones keep going in your inbox. Subscribe to Event About It wherever you get your podcasts and sign up for the Step and Repeat newsletter at msquareddynamics.com/stepandrepeatsignup.Until next time, stay curious.

Most event teams are filed under marketing and measured on attendance. That's not a strategy problem. That's a reporting structure problem — and it's costing you pipeline.Huong Nguyen has produced enterprise tech events for 13 years: NASA to ServiceNow to co-founding Zoomtopia. She knows what events look like when they're treated as a logistics function, and she knows what they look like when they're wired into demand gen. The difference is not effort. It's where the team sits and what they're held accountable for.Plus: the vent nobody in the industry talks about out loud — what happens to your F&B and room block when your client has surprise layoffs and the hotel won't budge. And yes, she's the one who moved an entire conference to a parking lot overnight after the pipes burst mid-keynote.In this one:Why demand gen — not marketing — is the right home for your event team, and the one game answer that makes the case in under 10 secondsHow to negotiate hotel contracts that protect you when your client's headcount gets cut without warning (the clause most planners skip until the F&B bill lands)The event insurance line item most planners overlook until it's too late — and the AV equipment bill that proves itWhy designing for emotion first and logistics second isn't a soft strategy. It's the pipeline strategy B2B event teams are still missing.If your event team is still reporting into a marketing org that measures success in badge scans, this is the conversation to send up the chain. Subscribe so the Aftershow lands in your feed the second it drops — that's where Huong gets into what it actually cost to build Aletheia and what every planner thinking about vibe coding their own event tech needs to hear first.Send this to the event leader who's still trying to prove ROI in a marketing meeting instead of a demand gen one.About Huong NguyenHuong Nguyen is the 2x CEO and founder of Shiloh Events — 13 years producing large-scale enterprise tech events for Zoom, Microsoft, Samsung, LG, Uber, and Google — and Aletheia, an AI-powered intelligence platform for event operations. She co-founded Zoomtopia, produced events for NASA, and grew Shiloh from zero to multi-million dollar revenue in three years. She named her company Shiloh, Hebrew for peace. She is now building the technology to deliver it.Connect with Huong:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mshuongnguyen/Aletheia: https://aletheia.events/Shiloh Events: https://shiloh-events.com/About Your HostMegan Martin is the founder of M Squared Dynamics, a consulting, facilitation, and content strategy firm helping event leaders, marketers, and sales teams turn live experiences into measurable business growth. She's the host and executive producer of Event About It, co-founder of Opportunity Hunters, and a two-time PCMA Visionary Award nominee (2022 winner). With nearly 20 years in the industry, Megan operates at the intersection of event strategy, marketing alignment, and behavioral intent signals, turning events from line items into pipeline drivers.Connect with Megan and M Squared Dynamics:Podcast: EventAboutItPodcast.comNewsletter (Step and Repeat): https://msquareddynamics.com/stepandrepeatsignupConsulting and strategy: https://msquareddynamics.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmartincmp/Instagram: @m2dynamics and @eventaboutitTikTok: @eventaboutitSubscribe to Event About It so the Aftershow lands in your feed the second it drops. Next week Huong and Megan get into what it actually costs to build event tech from scratch — and why vibe coding isn't the shortcut planners think it is.Send this to the event leader who's still trying to prove ROI in a marketing meeting instead of a demand gen one.

Six hundred registrations is not an answer. The first thing a CRO wants to know is which logos are in the room, and most event leaders cannot answer that without asking for time to go look.This is not a recap of the main episode. This is the meeting that rewrote our guest's entire career, told in full. Sara Ann Straw walked in with a binder, a highlighter, and a registration count. She walked out with an $80 million pipeline target attached to her event and no idea how to hit it. What she did in the weeks after that meeting is the actual lesson, and it is more repeatable than it sounds.In this one:Bring the four data points executives consistently ask for: who is in the room by account tier, what percentage have open opportunities, which accounts are up for renewal in the next six months, and how many attendees are repeats from last yearFind out why one event leader lost a director role after three flawless product launches, and what the person who got the job did insteadGet the Strategy, Alignment, Scale framework, including why scale means consistency rather than running more eventsSee the real math on pulling a fragmented event org under one roof, including the $130,000 a year one team stopped spending on an agencySit in on an honest conversation about pricing anxiety, discounting people you like, and what nearly 20 years of experience is actually worth per hourThere is also a Bravo break, a Bethenny Frankel story that got someone's father genuinely concerned, and a real debate about whether Montana deserves a Housewives franchise.If your next executive review is on the calendar and you are still building the deck around attendance, listen to the first ten minutes before you touch another slide.About the guest: Sara Ann Straw has spent nearly two decades building and rebuilding global event organizations at high-growth tech companies, usually by pulling field, partner, webinar, and corporate events under one roof. She learned to speak executive the hard way, in a meeting where she could not answer why her own company was investing in its own event. Her book, The Experienced Executive, is the version of that lesson she wishes someone had handed her at the start.Find Sara:Website: saraannstraw.comBook: The Experienced Executive — https://a.co/d/07Rit5wGPodcast: Solo Travel Woman, on SpotifyLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saras23/About Your Host: Megan Martin is the founder of M Squared Dynamics, a consulting, facilitation, and content strategy firm helping event leaders, marketers, and sales teams turn live experiences into measurable business growth. She's the host and executive producer of Event About It, and a two-time PCMA Visionary Award nominee (2022 winner). With nearly 20 years in the industry, Megan operates at the intersection of event strategy, marketing alignment, and behavioral intent signals, turning events from line items into pipeline drivers.Connect with Megan and M Squared Dynamics:Podcast: EventAboutItPodcast.comNewsletter (Step and Repeat): msquareddynamics.com/stepandrepeatsignupConsulting and strategy: msquareddynamics.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmartincmp/Instagram: @m2dynamics and @eventaboutitTikTok: @eventaboutitKeep the Conversation Going: The best conversations start after the show ends, and the best ones keep going in your inbox. Subscribe to Event About It wherever you get your podcasts and sign up for the Step and Repeat newsletter at msquareddynamics.com/stepandrepeatsignup.Until next time, stay curious.