UNPACKED
UNPACKED
UNPACKED
Lifecycle marketers, you've landed in uncharted territory. The aliens of Planet Customer.io have been monitoring you—studying how you crack engagement, scale programs, and make people stay. Now they're hosting Unpacked, a two-day digital conference where channels collide and practitioners share what's actually working. Leave with advanced strategies you can test the moment you're back at mission control.
📅 February 18–19, 2026 | 🖥️ Virtual | 💸 Free
The Mission 🚀
Launch into advanced lifecycle strategy
We've assembled the astronauts navigating the future of lifecycle marketing to explore everything from eye-tracking insights to why direct mail might be your escape pod—sessions that'll launch your thinking into distant galaxies.
Our astronauts are experts
Our speakers are the ones building campaigns, testing wild ideas, and figuring out what moves the needle, and they're here to share what actually works.
Not your first rocket launch
No 101-level content here—expect advanced strategy on AI, automation, multi-channel orchestration, and beyond.
Ideas that stick after landing
Leave with actionable tactics you can test the moment you're back at your desk.
Find your crew
Connect with lifecycle marketers who’ve navigated chaos, defended budget, and proven great customer engagement is worth the investment.
Who to expect 🖖
Speakers
Your alien welcome committee has assembled Earth’s best lifecycle marketers. These speakers have survived channel chaos, internal politics, and risky experiments—and returned with proof of what actually keeps customers from disappearing into the void.
Andrew King
Brent MacKinnon
Carlos Saborio-Romero
Dasha Shakov
Jay Oram
Julie Foley Long
Leah Miranda
Lianna Patch
Mark Robbins
Molly Evola
Naomi West
Neha Mittal
Philip Storey
Riley Stevenson
Rob Gaer
Samar Owais
Sarah Vandersluis
Shakuri Oguhebe
What to expect 🗓️
Schedule
⚠️ All times listed are in Pacific Time (PT) ⚠️
Day 1
Feb 18
08:15 AM
AI Summaries & Wearable Technologies Impact on Email
AI & wearable tech has improved email for recipients but made it a whole lot harder for us marketers. After a lot of research, I want to share tips, tricks and code to help improve AI results - big bonus, making your email accessible will fix a lot!
Jay Oram
Head of Code and Solutions
|
Action Rocket
08:15 AM
AI Summaries & Wearable Technologies Impact on Email
AI & wearable tech has improved email for recipients but made it a whole lot harder for us marketers. After a lot of research, I want to share tips, tricks and code to help improve AI results - big bonus, making your email accessible will fix a lot!
Jay Oram
Head of Code and Solutions
|
Action Rocket
08:45 AM
The five components every email design system needs
Your team wastes hours rebuilding the same email elements while brand consistency slips through the cracks. See how five reusable components—from dynamic CTAs to testimonials—cut production time dramatically without sacrificing design quality.
Carlos Saborio-Romero
Sr. Brand Designer
|
Customer.io
Mark Robbins
Developer Advocate - Email Experience
|
Customer.io
08:45 AM
The five components every email design system needs
Your team wastes hours rebuilding the same email elements while brand consistency slips through the cracks. See how five reusable components—from dynamic CTAs to testimonials—cut production time dramatically without sacrificing design quality.
Carlos Saborio-Romero
Sr. Brand Designer
|
Customer.io
Mark Robbins
Developer Advocate - Email Experience
|
Customer.io
09:15 AM
What It Takes to Make a Non-Digital Native Audience Stick Lifecycle lessons from building habits with low-intent users
At Bold, we use lifecycle to help adults 65+ build an exercise habit, many without an existing routine. This session breaks down the patterns that move members from sign-up to weekly active users, including milestones, streaks, and predictable messaging cadence.
Sarah Vandersluis
Director of Member Engagement
|
Bold
09:15 AM
What It Takes to Make a Non-Digital Native Audience Stick Lifecycle lessons from building habits with low-intent users
At Bold, we use lifecycle to help adults 65+ build an exercise habit, many without an existing routine. This session breaks down the patterns that move members from sign-up to weekly active users, including milestones, streaks, and predictable messaging cadence.
Sarah Vandersluis
Director of Member Engagement
|
Bold
09:45 AM
Inbox on the Rocks
Pull up a barstool, a command chair, or whatever seating your spacecraft allows.
Inbox on the Rocks touches down at Unpacked 2026 with marketers swapping mission logs and breaking down real email campaigns over a drink.
Our panel will review a hand-picked mix of sends, calling out what stays in orbit or what crashes on landing. Expect candid takes, friendly debate, and practical insights you can launch straight into your next send.
BYO beverage encouraged.
Lianna Patch
Head Puncher & Professional Email Shit-talker
|
Punchline Conversion Copywriting
Samar Owais
Email Conversion Strategist & Consultant
|
Emails Done Right
09:45 AM
Inbox on the Rocks
Pull up a barstool, a command chair, or whatever seating your spacecraft allows.
Inbox on the Rocks touches down at Unpacked 2026 with marketers swapping mission logs and breaking down real email campaigns over a drink.
Our panel will review a hand-picked mix of sends, calling out what stays in orbit or what crashes on landing. Expect candid takes, friendly debate, and practical insights you can launch straight into your next send.
BYO beverage encouraged.
Lianna Patch
Head Puncher & Professional Email Shit-talker
|
Punchline Conversion Copywriting
Samar Owais
Email Conversion Strategist & Consultant
|
Emails Done Right
10:30 AM
They Replied. Now What? | AI Inbox Triage for Lifecycle Teams
Thank-yous. Angry replies. Pricing questions. Data deletion requests.
In this live build, we will turn real email replies into structured signals that route to Sales, Support, Lifecycle, or Compliance in minutes. You will see how one AI agent classifies intent, handles ambiguity, and drafts responses so nothing important gets ignored again.
Leah Miranda
Manager, Demand Gen & Lifecycle
|
Zapier
10:30 AM
They Replied. Now What? | AI Inbox Triage for Lifecycle Teams
Thank-yous. Angry replies. Pricing questions. Data deletion requests.
In this live build, we will turn real email replies into structured signals that route to Sales, Support, Lifecycle, or Compliance in minutes. You will see how one AI agent classifies intent, handles ambiguity, and drafts responses so nothing important gets ignored again.
Leah Miranda
Manager, Demand Gen & Lifecycle
|
Zapier
11:00 AM
Email Love Trends: Analyze Competitors, Improve Your Program, Crush Your Goals
What if you could see inside the inboxes of 5,000+ brands across 22 industries and spot the trends before your competitors do?
In this session, I'll pull back the curtain on Email Love, our email intelligence platform that receives and analyzes 30,000 marketing emails every month.
You'll learn how we collect and categorize campaigns, discover the biggest trends shaping email marketing right now, and walk away with a practical framework for analyzing your competitors' strategies and applying those insights to your own program.
Whether you're looking to benchmark your performance, find inspiration for your next campaign, or simply understand what's actually working in email today, this session will give you the competitive edge you need to crush your goals in 2026.
Andrew King
Founder
|
Email Love
11:00 AM
Email Love Trends: Analyze Competitors, Improve Your Program, Crush Your Goals
What if you could see inside the inboxes of 5,000+ brands across 22 industries and spot the trends before your competitors do?
In this session, I'll pull back the curtain on Email Love, our email intelligence platform that receives and analyzes 30,000 marketing emails every month.
You'll learn how we collect and categorize campaigns, discover the biggest trends shaping email marketing right now, and walk away with a practical framework for analyzing your competitors' strategies and applying those insights to your own program.
Whether you're looking to benchmark your performance, find inspiration for your next campaign, or simply understand what's actually working in email today, this session will give you the competitive edge you need to crush your goals in 2026.
Andrew King
Founder
|
Email Love
11:30 AM
From Scrappy to Scaled: Building a Lifecycle Marketing Machine
Lifecycle isn’t email. With two decades of experience, Julie shares how she scaled lifecycle from 2 to 25—earning executive trust, securing funding, and building a high-impact lifecycle and growth team.
Julie Foley Long
Senior Director, Lifecycle Marketing, Operations, and Growth Systems
|
Grammarly
11:30 AM
From Scrappy to Scaled: Building a Lifecycle Marketing Machine
Lifecycle isn’t email. With two decades of experience, Julie shares how she scaled lifecycle from 2 to 25—earning executive trust, securing funding, and building a high-impact lifecycle and growth team.
Julie Foley Long
Senior Director, Lifecycle Marketing, Operations, and Growth Systems
|
Grammarly
Day 2
Feb 19
08:15 AM
The Art of Email Localization
This presentation explores email localization to create culturally relevant experiences for global audiences. It covers the business case for localization, guidance for content creation, and technical implementation methods.
Rob Gaer
Engineering Manager - Website & Email
|
Miro
08:15 AM
The Art of Email Localization
This presentation explores email localization to create culturally relevant experiences for global audiences. It covers the business case for localization, guidance for content creation, and technical implementation methods.
Rob Gaer
Engineering Manager - Website & Email
|
Miro
08:45 AM
The magic of tracking email engagement with eye-tracking tools
In this session, I will show you how brands are stepping into the world of eye tracking and email marketing. You will see first-hand, how eye tracking enables email marketers to understand what people see, and what they don’t see, when they open an email, and how to apply those insights to changes to your email campaigns and email design system.
Philip Storey
Founder
|
Enchant Agency & FlowFixer
08:45 AM
The magic of tracking email engagement with eye-tracking tools
In this session, I will show you how brands are stepping into the world of eye tracking and email marketing. You will see first-hand, how eye tracking enables email marketers to understand what people see, and what they don’t see, when they open an email, and how to apply those insights to changes to your email campaigns and email design system.
Philip Storey
Founder
|
Enchant Agency & FlowFixer
09:15 AM
The prompting playbook: how to actually get useful output from AI
Prompting isn't magic. It's a skill. And like most skills, 20% of the techniques get you 80% of the results. Learn what separates frustrating AI interactions from genuinely useful ones—practical frameworks any marketer can apply to get better results from LLMs, whether you're writing emails or tackling strategic work.
Dasha Shakov
Head of Marketing
|
Proton.ai
09:15 AM
The prompting playbook: how to actually get useful output from AI
Prompting isn't magic. It's a skill. And like most skills, 20% of the techniques get you 80% of the results. Learn what separates frustrating AI interactions from genuinely useful ones—practical frameworks any marketer can apply to get better results from LLMs, whether you're writing emails or tackling strategic work.
Dasha Shakov
Head of Marketing
|
Proton.ai
09:45 AM
Stellar or Space Junk—unpacking emerging trends
Molly and Naomi sift through earthling data to learn about what these so called humans think is popular, up and coming, or falling short on Earth.
Naomi West
Senior Product Marketing Manager
|
Customer.io
Molly Evola
Demand Generation
|
Customer.io
09:45 AM
Stellar or Space Junk—unpacking emerging trends
Molly and Naomi sift through earthling data to learn about what these so called humans think is popular, up and coming, or falling short on Earth.
Naomi West
Senior Product Marketing Manager
|
Customer.io
Molly Evola
Demand Generation
|
Customer.io
10:15 AM
Decisioning Is the New Creative: Rethinking A/B Testing with Agentic AI
See how companies are moving from legacy, one-off A/B tests to always-on, dynamic optimization powered by AI. We’ll set the foundations, then walk through real examples and lessons from the most AI-forward teams today.
Neha Mittal
CEO & Co-founder
|
JustAI
10:15 AM
Decisioning Is the New Creative: Rethinking A/B Testing with Agentic AI
See how companies are moving from legacy, one-off A/B tests to always-on, dynamic optimization powered by AI. We’ll set the foundations, then walk through real examples and lessons from the most AI-forward teams today.
Neha Mittal
CEO & Co-founder
|
JustAI
10:45 AM
When every team wants to email your users
When you're marketing multiple products to overlapping audiences, email becomes a battleground. Learn how WooCommerce uses a scoring system to decide what gets sent — and builds channels like developer blogs, newsletters, and in-app messaging so email is reserved for what matters most.
Brent MacKinnon
Director of Product Marketing & Developer Advocacy
|
WooCommerce (Automattic)
10:45 AM
When every team wants to email your users
When you're marketing multiple products to overlapping audiences, email becomes a battleground. Learn how WooCommerce uses a scoring system to decide what gets sent — and builds channels like developer blogs, newsletters, and in-app messaging so email is reserved for what matters most.
Brent MacKinnon
Director of Product Marketing & Developer Advocacy
|
WooCommerce (Automattic)
11:15 AM
How I built an AI-powered lifecycle knowledge base
Discover how to centralize experiment writeups, creative assets, and campaign results in one searchable Airtable database—complete with automatic calculations and AI tools that let you query your own data for instant insights.
Riley Stevenson
Sr. Lifecycle Marketing Manager
|
Self.
11:15 AM
How I built an AI-powered lifecycle knowledge base
Discover how to centralize experiment writeups, creative assets, and campaign results in one searchable Airtable database—complete with automatic calculations and AI tools that let you query your own data for instant insights.
Riley Stevenson
Sr. Lifecycle Marketing Manager
|
Self.
11:30 AM
Closing Notes
Naomi West
Senior Product Marketing Manager
|
Customer.io
11:30 AM
Closing Notes
Naomi West
Senior Product Marketing Manager
|
Customer.io
EMAIL
LIFECYCLE
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MARKETING
Testimonials ✨
You loved it last year!
You all made sure to let us know how much you loved last year's
Fantastic to be in a community of other email people and hear stories, tips and advice.
Practical, nitty, gritty information
Only useful practical tips and no nonsense.
It's free; real-time feedback; the Email Geeks community in general ❤️
The breadth of topics covered and discussed. and practices were pretty universal, not platform-specific.
I was stuck to the screen. You're the definition of amazing!
I loved the variety of sessions. There were general sessions and tech sessions which helped me a lot.
The presenters were all knowledgeable and personable and shared their own stories.
The open nature of the chat. Also, the positivity. That's a rare thing at conferences today.
The sessions were great and diverse. I love that the speaker lineup was diverse and it wasn't just all the usual people.
The community is just the best. My kind of people, unconditionally helping each other.
Actual hands-on experts, not execs who don't do the work
A lot of real shit! No boring presentations but live coding and things super cool and useful!
Testimonials ✨
You loved it last year!
You all made sure to let us know how much you loved last year's
Fantastic to be in a community of other email people and hear stories, tips and advice.
Practical, nitty, gritty information
Only useful practical tips and no nonsense.
It's free; real-time feedback; the Email Geeks community in general ❤️
The breadth of topics covered and discussed. and practices were pretty universal, not platform-specific.
I was stuck to the screen. You're the definition of amazing!
I loved the variety of sessions. There were general sessions and tech sessions which helped me a lot.
The presenters were all knowledgeable and personable and shared their own stories.
The open nature of the chat. Also, the positivity. That's a rare thing at conferences today.
The sessions were great and diverse. I love that the speaker lineup was diverse and it wasn't just all the usual people.
The community is just the best. My kind of people, unconditionally helping each other.
Actual hands-on experts, not execs who don't do the work
A lot of real shit! No boring presentations but live coding and things super cool and useful!
Testimonials ✨
You loved it last year!
You all made sure to let us know how much you loved last year's
Fantastic to be in a community of other email people and hear stories, tips and advice.
Practical, nitty, gritty information
Only useful practical tips and no nonsense.
It's free; real-time feedback; the Email Geeks community in general ❤️
The breadth of topics covered and discussed. and practices were pretty universal, not platform-specific.
I was stuck to the screen. You're the definition of amazing!
I loved the variety of sessions. There were general sessions and tech sessions which helped me a lot.
The presenters were all knowledgeable and personable and shared their own stories.
The open nature of the chat. Also, the positivity. That's a rare thing at conferences today.
The sessions were great and diverse. I love that the speaker lineup was diverse and it wasn't just all the usual people.
The community is just the best. My kind of people, unconditionally helping each other.
Actual hands-on experts, not execs who don't do the work
A lot of real shit! No boring presentations but live coding and things super cool and useful!
FAQs 🤔
We’re here to help
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When and where is Unpacked?
What can I expect at Unpacked?
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When and where is Unpacked?
What can I expect at Unpacked?
Will the sessions be recorded?
Should I attend Unpacked?
Prepare for liftoff
Connect and learn with more than 3500 of the industry's leading marketers
📅 February 18–19, 2026 | 🖥️ Virtual | 💸 Free
Prepare for liftoff
Connect and learn with more than 3500 of the industry's leading marketers
📅 February 18–19, 2026 | 🖥️ Virtual | 💸 Free
Prepare for liftoff
Connect and learn with more than 3500 of the industry's leading marketers
📅 February 18–19, 2026 | 🖥️ Virtual | 💸 Free