CyberMarketingCon 2026 in Austin: What It Is, How It Started, Who Attends, and What to Expect

Last December, I flew from Tel Aviv to Vegas for AWS re:Invent, then straight on to Austin for CyberMarketingCon. The contrast was immediate. AWS re:Invent 2025 brought together about 70,000 people. In the re:Invent rooms I was in, roughly 80% appeared to be men, mostly engineers, from what I saw. At CyberMarketingCon, I put attendance at about 780, and the gender balance felt almost reversed. You can read what 70,000 engineers and 780 marketers taught me about GTM in B2B tech for the full comparison.

This November I’m doing it again, in reverse: Austin first, then AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas, November 30 to December 4.

Coming from Tel Aviv, I’m close to Israel’s cybersecurity industry. At IOD, we’ve served Israeli cyber brands ranging from Check Point and Wiz to fast-growing, well-funded scale-ups. These brands sell mostly outside Israel and rely on marketing teams and partners worldwide, many of them in the U.S. Austin is where I get to meet many of those marketers in person. If you’re marketing an Israeli cyber brand, let’s grab a coffee. IOD tracked $5.9 billion in disclosed funding for Israeli cybersecurity companies through October 28, 2026.

Our Israeli Cyber 2026 report tracks 74 cybersecurity companies and 83 funding rounds through October 28. Scale-ups entering the market and enterprises launching products share the same need: technical content that security buyers trust, at scale. That’s the work IOD has done for cyber leaders including Check Point and Venice. For a wider view of the Israeli cyber market, with funding histories for every company we track, see our live directory.

[ Event spotlight ]

What is CyberMarketingCon, and how did it start?

CyberMarketingCon is the annual conference produced by the Cybersecurity Marketing Society for cybersecurity GTM and marketing professionals. Unlike broad security or martech events, everything on the agenda is about how security companies go to market.

It grew out of the Cybersecurity Marketing Society, which Gianna Whitver, its co-founder and CEO, built as an online-only community during the pandemic. She started it as a Slack group of cybermarketing friends, because nothing like it existed for cybermarketers. The Society started with 10 Slack members and reached 1,500 by 2022. Trade Show Executive reported 4,400 members in April 2026. The first in-person event, held in Arlington, Virginia, in 2022, was planned for 80 attendees. Instead, 218 people bought tickets. Whitver left her day job after that.

As Whitver puts it, “Our events often feel like family reunions — like 700 of your friends are basically there.”

Who attends CyberMarketingCon?

Attendees range from social media managers to CMOs, along with founders and executive leaders at cyber companies. The 2025 edition drew about 780 people from companies including Wiz, Cyera, Claroty, Pentera, Cast AI, Torq, and Huntress. Last year was my first time there, and I left with more than 100 new connections, each with a story, a need, or an opportunity. For me, there’s also a personal side to this conference. It’s a chance to meet face to face with clients, partners, and cybersecurity marketers I’ve been in touch with for years.

What to expect at CyberMarketingCon 2026

The conference starts Sunday, November 15, with workshops at 1:00 PM CT. Track topics cover demand gen, product marketing, brand and content, GTM strategy, and community marketing. The CMO panel features Don Jeter (Torq), Deb Wolf (Dataminr), and Jessica Ray (DTEX). Jeanette Stepanchuk covers signals-based GTM. Nathan Burke explores resisting creative complacency. Full details are on the conference agenda page.

The CyberCEO Summit is a co-located summit for founders, CEOs, and investors running alongside the main conference. The Cyber Product Marketing Certificate is a 12-hour program included in the ticket price, covering product positioning, GTM strategy, and competitive differentiation specific to cybersecurity. Some ticket types require approval. For ticket pricing and format details, check the CyberMarketingCon website.

5 practical tips before you go

You may know some of these already, but here’s your checklist:

• Set up your profile in the conference app and request meetings before you arrive. Last year I found the app useful for messaging attendees and booking time directly.
• Pick one question and ask it in every conversation. Last year I asked marketers whether leadership gives marketing enough time, money, and attention. The answers were almost identical, and that pattern became my post-conference article.
• Choose hands-on workshops and roundtables over panels. Last year I found those sessions more useful than panels, with people leaving with working templates.
• Use the Birds-of-a-Feather lunch tables to benchmark. Last year I found these tables running daily. Bring your numbers (content velocity, cost per lead, pipeline from content) and compare them with marketers running similar stacks.
• If you can, arrive Saturday. The workshops begin Sunday, and you’ll have some time to enjoy Austin.

Bonus tip: Bring your most comfortable shoes as well as your fanciest ones 🙂

Is AI widening the gap between marketing and engineering?

Last year, I remember hearing Maril Vernon speak at CyberMarketingCon about the disconnect between marketing and technical practitioners. She explained how easily technical audiences recognize content created without real engineering involvement. It was great validation of something we’ve been seeing at IOD for years.

I still remember a deeply technical article about advanced analytics, written for data engineers, that featured a high-heeled shoe as its main image. The article itself was technically sound, but the marketing was completely disconnected from the audience. Hearing Maril reinforced that this gap between technology and marketing is far from closed.

I hope to hear this year that we’ve learned something and made progress. Although, to be honest, I suspect AI has only made things worse. AI makes polished content easier to produce at scale. Without technical expertise, product knowledge, and an understanding of practitioners, we risk scaling the same disconnect.

I want to understand how technical accuracy affects whether AI answer engines cite cybersecurity content. CyberMarketingCon is where marketers who understand the technology compare how they’re handling that. That’s why I keep going back.

How are cybersecurity marketing teams using AI?

Another important reason I’m going back this year is to learn how cybersecurity marketing teams are using AI in their day-to-day GTM work. I want to see how teams use AI beyond content creation: research, product marketing, competitive analysis, sales enablement, and workflows across roles. Last year, Tom Orbach, then Director of Growth Marketing at Wiz, showed a good example. Ask AI to explain your product as if to a five-year-old. It counters what he called marketers’ curse of knowledge: the more you know, the harder it is to explain simply. Simpler explanations can sharpen positioning. That’s the kind of use I want to hear more about this year.

Three AI sessions are on my list, plus a bonus on humor. Three of these sessions overlap at 10:45 AM CT on Monday, November 16. I’ll pick one live and catch the others later if recordings are available.

• 3 AI tactics that make your whole company think marketing runs on magic (launch 1 on the plane home)Seth Steinman, VP, Marketing at PreVeil · Monday, November 16, 10:45–11:15 AM CTThree practical AI tactics, including building a company-wide brand skill in Claude and improving visibility in AI search.
• Kill the AI Tells: A Practical Editing Method for Better AI-Assisted CopyMJ Kaufmann · Monday, November 16, 10:45–11:00 AM CTA practical approach to finding and editing the patterns that make AI-assisted content sound generic, while keeping technical accuracy and voice.
• Building AI Employees: How Layered GPT Systems Can Scale Your GovCon BusinessJuliana Slye, Founder and CEO of Government Business Results · Monday, November 16, 2:45–3:45 PM CTHow specialized GPTs can work together across marketing, research, proposals, and operations, while keeping institutional knowledge consistent.
• Bonus: Make Them Laugh, Then Make Them BuyMadeline Lawrence, Co-Founder and CGO of Aikido Security · Monday, November 16, 10:45–11:15 AM CTHow humor, parody, and self-deprecation can help cybersecurity brands connect with skeptical B2B buyers without losing credibility.

I want to hear what’s working, what still requires technical experts and human review, and how teams are measuring the impact. If your team is experimenting with AI in GTM, find me after any of these sessions. Tell me one thing AI made easier for your team and one it made worse. I’ll share what we’re seeing across our cyber clients.

Don’t forget to enjoy Austin

Arriving Saturday gives you time to explore before sessions start. Austin is a sweet city: warm weather, Texas bars, good restaurants, and awesome people. Everything below is walkable from the Austin Marriott Downtown.

• Taqueria de Diez. At 206 Trinity St, a couple of blocks from the hotel. A local favorite for tacos: Taqueria de Diez.
• Old 6th Street. A few blocks north: the historic strip of bars and live music Austin is famous for.
• The Powder Room. A speakeasy tucked behind Manny’s at 301 W 5th St.
• Rainey Street. A short walk from the hotel. Last year we had a great time there after hours with the event team, and it’s where many attendees end up after the evening events.
• Lady Bird Lake Hike-and-Bike Trail. A short walk from the hotel. Good for a Sunday-morning run before the 1:00 PM workshops.

This November it’s Austin, then Vegas. If you’ll be at either event, message me on LinkedIn. Let’s talk Israeli cyber, AI in GTM, or technical content that security buyers trust.