Keynote Speakers

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

2–3:30 p.m. Opening Session

Marketing in the Age of the Internet

John Ploumitsakos, Lead Manager, Local, Classified, and Education Advertising, Google, Online Sales & Operations

Adults are spending more time online than with any other media, and an increasing majority of adults are relying on the Internet to explore continuing education and career opportunities. This landscape provides an opportunity for your institution to reach an unprecedented audience of potential students. John will discuss major trends in education marketing and the ways that you can use Google to develop successful online strategies to meet core demographics. In addition, John will provide examples of how marketers can use Google to test and evaluate new strategies online and offline, and optimize their campaigns across platforms.

John Ploumitsakos oversees the online sales channel and operations of Google’s AdWords advertising program for Education, Local and Classified businesses in North America. He guides industry strategy and manages several account teams focused on helping advertisers in the education industry develop and grow successful cross-platform marketing campaigns.

Before joining Google, John was a practicing attorney. He litigated civil and criminal cases on behalf of corporations and individuals in state and federal courts.

John earned a BS from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

9:30–10:30 a.m. General Session

Innovation All Stars - Research Driven Best Practices for Increasing Lead Volume and Quality

Stefan Tornquist, Research Director, MarketingSherpa

In this fast-paced session, MarketingSherpa's research director Stefan Tornquist will guide attendees through an array of marketing tactics that can be easily implemented to improve the performance of online marketing programs. Although the emphasis will be on the 'traditional' tactics of e-mail and search, there will be discussion of emerging tactics and the connection between online and offline marketing elements.

Stefan is an experienced, highly-rated and in-demand speaker. He oversees MarketingSherpa's research initiatives, and is responsible for conducting primary research, as well as selecting partner research data for MarketingSherpa's annual Benchmark Guides for E-mail, Search, Ecommerce and Business Technology Marketing.

For more information: contact Natalia Kats, UCEA Director of Conferences, at nkats@upcea.edu or 202.659.3130.