About the Event

DMEXCO - the Digital Marketing Exposition & Conference - is Europe's largest annual event at the intersection of digital marketing, advertising technology, commerce, and media. The 2026 edition takes place September 23-24 at Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany. Organised by Koelnmesse GmbH with the BVDW (German Digital Industry Association) as ideational and professional partner and brand owner, DMEXCO combines a large-scale trade expo with a two-day conference programme. The event draws an audience from across the European and global digital marketing industry, and is structured around four thematic worlds - World of Agencies, World of Commerce, World of Media, and World of Tech - each anchoring a dedicated expo zone and conference track. A separate Start-up Area caters to emerging companies and emerging technology within the broader expo footprint.

Audience & Attendees

DMEXCO attracts a broad professional audience spanning digital marketing leaders and practitioners, CMOs and CDOs, media agency executives, ad technology professionals, e-commerce leaders, data and analytics specialists, content creators, publishers, and technology vendors. Past conference speakers have included C-level leaders from OTTO, L'Oréal, Lufthansa Group, Deutsche Bank, Primark, Zalando, FC Bayern München, IKEA, Criteo, Ogilvy, dentsu, Axel Springer, Ferrero, Mutti, Tesco, Pinterest, Microsoft Advertising, YouTube, and Snap Inc., alongside analysts from Forrester Research and IAB Europe, and prominent German-language digital creators. The event draws tens of thousands of visitors across the two days, making it one of the highest-attendance marketing events in Europe.

Programme Structure

The conference runs across 17 stages over both days, delivering more than 220 hours of programme content from 1,000+ speakers. Summit formats within the conference include dedicated tracks for senior leaders such as the CMO Summit, alongside broader thematic programming aligned to the four DMEXCO Worlds. Session formats span keynotes, panel discussions, fireside chats, and topical breakout sessions. The expo component runs simultaneously across the Koelnmesse halls, with exhibitors and solution providers organised within the four Worlds. A Call for Speakers process is open for the 2026 edition, and a Summits programme with curated senior-level content is available separately. On-demand video access to sessions from past editions is available through the DMEXCO Community platform.

Main Topics

DMEXCO's thematic agenda is organised around four intersecting domains. World of Agencies covers agency strategy, creativity, brand management, and the transformation of agency business models. World of Commerce addresses e-commerce, retail media, omnichannel strategy, and the AI-driven evolution of digital commerce. World of Media covers publishing, advertising, programmatic media, brand safety, and the changing landscape of digital media channels. World of Tech focuses on marketing technology, data and analytics, AI applications in marketing, ad tech infrastructure, and privacy and data governance. Cross-cutting themes for 2026 reflect the dominant findings of the DMEXCO/marketing-BÖRSE 2026 Marketing Survey, in which five AI-related topics ranked among the top ten most important marketing trends - including synthetic marketing, agentic AI in commerce, and AI's implications for CMO roles and team structures.

Closing Session

The event concludes at the end of Day 2 on September 24. No single designated closing session is published for 2026; the parallel multi-stage format means content runs across all 17 stages through the final afternoon. On-demand access to session recordings is made available post-event through the DMEXCO Community platform.

‍