Yesterday, I flew back home from a quick 3 day trip to NYC along with ZATO’s very own Director of PPC, Eric Marshall.

Why were we in New York?

Well, technically we were in Brooklyn. As I have learned, Brooklyn is most certainly not “downtown” NYC, and Manhattan is technically “the City”. I find it rather ironic that Brooklyn-ites talk about going “to the city” when they’re standing in the middle of a city 15x larger than Billings… but to each his own. 

Every time I visit New York, I marvel at the sheer number of people in one place.

And the sheer number of concrete blocks in one place.

And the sheer number of pigeons and rats in one place. 

And the sheer cost of extremely small hotel rooms in one place.

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I also find myself Googling unique things in New York. For instance, after this week, you will find in my search history:

“How many people die from falling air conditioners in NYC?” (surprise, it’s zero, How??!  Most of them look like they are purposefully, non-elaborately set death traps)

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“What is in Peruvian Pollo Saltado?” (hint: it’s delicious, and I’d recommend eating here: Molkajete Restaurant Bar)

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…ANYWAY… let’s try this again… so why were we in Brooklyn? 

Well, we received an invite from none other than “Join or Die” famed author, Patrick Gilbert, to his agency’s marketing conference. The Day of Learning and Happiness, or DOLAH for short, was something begun at Adventure Media a few years back to promote internal learning and team building. Last year, AdVenture graciously opened their DOLAH to the rest of the world, and this year I headed to the Big Apple to check it out. 

Wow, what a great micro-conference!

We heard from a number of AdVenture Media team members about things they are experimenting with, or actively trying in Google Ads, as well as a few non-AdVenture peops such as Wordstream founder, Larry Kim, and yours truly (I had the privilege of speaking on a forum about PPC careers and the future of Paid Search people... yes there is one). 

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While the entire AdVenture team did a fantastic job with every session, the four I enjoyed the most were probably: 

• Nechama Tiegman: The Human's Role In Managing AI Tools. One of the things I love about Nechama, is that she clearly understands very complex concepts, but is able to communicate them in a way that the rest of us can still understand. If you remember, we interviewed Nechama in our PPC Ponderings Podcast: Shapley Models & Attributive Common Sense with Nechama Teigman Full Interview - PPC Ponderings Podcast and 🎙Episode 2 - PPC Pondering Podcast - Attribution Concerns & Pitfalls

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• Gabrielle Dailey: AI-Driven Creative Strategy. Patrick hit on AI generated creative as well in his opening keynote, but Gabrielle helped us see that the potential for a true artist to guide ad creative to new heights by utilizing AI is virtually limitless. I was especially impressed with, not simply the deep level that AdVenture thinks about AI generated creative, but at the level with which they are already executing that creative for clients.

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• Tyler Nunez: How To Train Your Own GPT Models For PPC Success. I found myself learning from, and nodding my head a bunch, at Tyler’s great session. I especially loved this quote (and even shared it on LinkedIn!): “If you cannot determine whether chatGPT is lying to you, you don’t know enough about the topic [to] be properly utilizing chatGPT in a professional environment.”

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• Isaac Rudansky: Embracing Idiotic Optimism. I’ve heard Isaac discuss these sentiments before, but I needed to hear this closing keynote. In this more inspirational and philosophical keynote, Isaac demonstrated his mindset for taking calculated risks and solving problems and encouraged his team (and those of us listening in) to go further before by maintaining a positive outlook on their circumstances. As someone who tends naturally towards realism… errrr, pessimism… (and who is trying lately to reverse that) it was a helpful session on which to ponder.

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So all that to say, if you are into digital advertising and live within a train/plane ride of Brooklyn, then next year’s DOLAH should be a no-brainer to attend. I made several notes throughout the day of things to try in our accounts or things to chat with the ZATO team about in detail that we should consider doing with our clients. It would be difficult to find a more beneficial and actionable conference for the price out there!

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Here’s to hoping this DOLAH won’t be my last, and that maybe I’ll see you there next year. And finally, a hearty thank you to the entire AdVenture Team. I could tell you wanted this to go well, and how are you were working (sure, there were various technical hiccups throughout the event as in every event - those things may seem like a big deal to the organizers, but you'd be surprised how much minor glitches don't stick with attendees). I would say it was a success from my perspective, and I do hope you’ll continue to put them on… even if they take a lot of work! Thanks for the investment in helping the PPC community grow and learn. 

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