The era of the isolated CMO is over. The data that drives growth now sits with retailers, platforms, and partners – and only those who master collaboration will stay competitive. This keynote will show collaboration is the new operating system and why the future if every CMO depends on it.

In this fireside chat, we’ll cut through the hyperbole surrounding AI and its impact on performance marketing to show why Search Engine Optimisation remains vital, human oversight is key, and your brand is more important than ever in 2026.

A candid conversation on resilience, reinvention and the performance marketing strategies that make true comeback possible.

This keynote will explore how traditional positioning - a concept that has remained static for over 40 years - can no longer keep pace with today’s fast-evolving market and technological landscape. It will advocate for a new definition of positioning, one that operates like software: structured, adaptable, and continuously iterating.

Drawing on the 5D Framework (Differentiated, Distinctive, Discoverable, Directional, Dynamic), the session will show how positioning must be engineered to evolve in real time, just like code. It will argue that in the intelligence era, positioning isn't just a static asset; it's the dynamic, living system that drives sustained competitive GTM and performance advantage, enabling businesses to stay ahead in a world increasingly shaped by both human and machine decision-makers.

Audio isn’t just “awareness” anymore – podcasts and streaming radio can drive real sales. This masterclass shows you where audio makes sense, how to pick shows and formats, what to say to make people act and how much to spend without wasting frequency. We will crack measurement in simple ways to spot lift and show you how best to roll those results into your plan.

A fireside with tails.com exploring how influencers are moving beyond brand awareness to become a core part of performance marketing. With better data, attribution and creator-commerce models, influencer campaigns now drive measurable outcomes—from conversions to long-term ROI. We’ll discuss why influencers deserve a permanent place in the mix and how brands can harness them for both creativity and accountability.

Affiliate has outgrown its bargain-bin reputation. It’s no longer just about cashback and discount codes – it can be a serious acquisition weapon when used strategically. In this unfiltered fireside chat, a senior brand leader shares how they tore up the old affiliate playbook and rebuilt it around partnerships that drive incremental new customers, real LTV, and profitable growth.

Takeaway: A practical blueprint for elevating affiliate from a nice-to-have side line to a high performing growth channel.

The old agency retainers are on life support. With brands demanding accountability and performance-based models gaining traction, it's time to ask: what comes next? In this interactive town hall, we’ll split the room – brands on one side, agencies on the other – and give each camp 30 minutes to design their perfect fee model. Then, both sides present back to the room, before senior leaders weigh in on what’s bold, what’s realistic, and what the future really looks like.

Expect tension, debate and maybe even some unexpected common ground – plus practical ideas you can take straight into your next contract negotiation

The fight for audience attention has never been fiercer. In the entertainment and TV space, performance marketing is evolving fast, with CTV and BVOD giving brands measurable reach, fan engagement, and real conversion. This session explores how performance-first thinking is rewriting the playbook for entertainment marketers - and why winning the attention wars will decide who thrives in the streaming era.

Can a meme move product? Can a joke drive ROI? Three brands say yes – and they’re here to prove it. In this fast paced, laugh-out-loud session, we’ll replay their funniest campaigns, hear the disasters they’d rather forget, and reveal the moments when humour hit the jackpot. You’ll vote for the winning punchline and leave knowing how to make comedy your highest-converting channel.

On paper the silos are gone – Brand, Performance and Commerce share one growth goal. In practice the hang-ups persist: clashing KPIs, ring-fenced budgets, duplicate briefs, and scattered data. The result is wasted spend and frequency, cannibalised sales, slow testing, and leaky journeys that cap growth.

Not a sit-and-listen panel. Two senior leaders kick off with a 5-minute provocation, then the room takes over. Bring one friction point. We’ll live-map a real org/journey, rotate audience hot seats to propose fixes, pressure-test them via a live poll and lock the best strategies.

In this fireside chat, HSBC’s Group Head of Marketing Effectiveness explores what truly drives long-term growth, how to make smarter decisions in an attention-fragmented world, and the role effectiveness plays in balancing performance, brand and commercial impact. 

Clicks don’t pay the bills. Too many brands still chase vanity metrics that look good on a slide but fail to prove real business impact. In this no-nonsense fireside chat, a senior marketer from a leading brand reveals how they cut the noise, redefined success and built a measurement culture that the c-suite actually cares about.

Take a seat, grab a bite, and sharpen your edge. In these fast=paced 10–15-minute sessions, our sponsors cut through the noise to share fresh insights, practical strategies, and real-world case studies that will help you think differently about performance marketing. No sales pitches – just concentrated learning you can take back to your team.

Bring your plate. Bring your problem. One topic, one hour, one facilitator – intense peer problem-solving with clear, do-it-now next steps.

Roundtable 1

Machine-Speed Creative, Human Edge

How do you scale asset volume without bland sameness – what briefing rules, templates and tests keep distinctiveness while lifting results?

Roundtable 2

Marketers x Finance: The forecast truce

What payback, margin, and scenario rules would let you reallocate budgets weekly – without a board fight – and still hit the number?

Roundtable 3

Consent as a competitive edge

How do you grow with fewer identifiers – what value exchange earns emails/first-party data, and which privacy-safe tactics replace retargeting without killing results?

Roundtable 4

Who got the sale? The omnichannel credit war

When retail media, search and social all touch the journey, how do you prove incrementality, set fair credit rules, and stop internal cannibalisation?

A fast, focused look at how Tefal rebuilt its marketing organisation for D2C growth - uniting media, CRM and commercial teams, grounding decisions in real run-rate performance, and creating a performance engine built for scale. A sharp, practical blueprint for modern D2C success.

What happens when the future shows up faster than you’re ready for? Come play it out.

Format:

Hands-on, small group “war-game”. Each table gets a 5–10-year future shock scenario, builds a survival/growth plan, then battle-tests it against the room’s challenges and counter-moves.

Scenarios:

Search Blackout: AI assistants answer 70% of queries; paid search collapses.

Retail Media Empire: 70% of digital ad spend flows into retail walled gardens.

Carbon Clampdown: Law bans high-footprint programmatic; carbon audits on every impression.

AI Challenger Flood: Thousands of AI-generated DTC brands launch with automated optimisation.

Attention Crisis: Human ad attention drops below 2 seconds; formats/targeting implode.

Proposition: Brands should own the strategy, data and experimentation, agencies provide surge capacity and niche skills

Two teams stress-test the motion using a real scenario, arguing cost, speed, risk, and talent trade-offs.

Each year, Performance Marketing World shines a spotlight on the industry’s brightest young talent with its 30under30 list. At Performance Marketing Unlocked, we bring that talent to the stage. This year’s 30under30 panel explores what it means to be an intrapreneur – driving innovation, fresh thinking and bold ideas from within established organisations. Expect candid stories, practical advice and inspiration from rising stars who are shaping the future of performance marketing from the inside out.

In this no-fluff session, we crack open how black-box systems make decisions and show you what in-house teams can do to protect incrementality, brand-safety and margin. We’ll cut through black-box promises, unpack what you can still steer, what to lock and what to test.

This panel dives into the evolving relationship between brand and performance, and why creative is the missing link. Hear from marketers who are breaking down silos, building brand-first strategies that deliver measurable impact, and producing performance-ready creative at scale. , We’ll unpack what it takes to humanise brands, drive real results, and make creativity a true growth engine.

Is paid social still a performance engine, or has it hit a ceiling? Two marketing leaders battle it out: one who believes the golden age is over, another who shows how smart creative, diversified formats and data innovation are still delivering growth.

CFOs don’t buy impressions; they buy forecastable cashflow. In this no-filter fireside, a CFO lifts the lid on what finance really needs from marketing in 2026. We’ll translate marketing metrics into the language of the p&l - then pressure-test them with blunt, boardroom questions: what breaks if we cut 20%? Where does the next £1m go - and why?