Your AGS Rome 2026 Welcome Kit for in-house teams
Affiliate Grand Slam · 2 to 5 November 2026 · Fiera Roma, Rome · for heads of growth, partnership leads and program managers
Finance doesn't fund "networking." It funds a roster, a cost per meeting and a date. This kit arrives with all three filled in, and a memo you can forward without editing more than three lines.
The number is yours when it's bad
You own the target. You don't own half the things that decide whether you hit it. The target went up; the team didn't. Every quarter starts with "we need to grow" and ends with you explaining why growth costs money, and somewhere in the middle a calendar invite from finance arrives with no agenda.
Then there's the question. "Would those customers have bought anyway?" The dashboard that feels less like reporting and more like evidence for the prosecution. If you stop it and revenue drops, you killed growth; if you keep it and can't prove incrementality, you're wasting money. Nice.
And the partners who'd actually move the number? "We're full for Q4 but send the deck." Every publisher inbox is drowning in generated pitches, reply rates say so, and the account director who controls the placement you've wanted for a year has never once answered an email.
The win is small, measurable, and ends the meeting early
You know what the good version looks like, because you've had it once. One partner moved the number enough that you didn't have to explain the rest. The boss said "good find" and moved on, which in your building is a standing ovation. The affiliate you chased for six months launched and went top ten in a fortnight. The quarterly review ended early because you were ahead.
That's what one recruited partner does. Not a strategy deck. One partner. And partners get recruited in person, by people who bothered to be in the hall. "You also meet the humans behind the logos, which makes future outreach and negotiations dramatically easier," one growth lead wrote. Another, on what leadership actually understands: "you can point to meetings booked not just conversations had."
What's in the kit
1. Who's confirmed, by partner type, with what each does. The networks and marketplaces that run consumer offers, the media-buyer affiliates and agencies who choose what to run, traffic sources, TikTok, Meta and Google with staff, payments, the program platforms, and the brand-side people on stage. Line one of the memo.
2. What a program lead can get done in four days. Recruit in person. Sit across from the network's decision-maker. Map the gaps in the roster. Get a platform contact. Compare notes on the incrementality question with people who've answered it better than you have.
3. The Justification Memo, pre-filled, with the shortlist worksheet and outcome plan that feed it. Roster by partner type, cost-per-meeting maths, the tier comparison with prices, dates, a projected-outcomes section in finance's vocabulary, the report-back commitment. You add three names and a target. Forward it.
4. The tier comparison with prices. For line four.
5. Rome, practically, and who's on stage. Trains, shuttles, hotel areas, visas; the eight confirmed speakers and why each might matter to a program lead.
6. Are you an affiliate? For the reader who also promotes offers on their own account.
The order
Kit. Memo goes up. Pass approved and bought. Match App opens. Requests go to the three counterparties; they accept or decline, and accepted requests form your itinerary. Leadership understands meetings booked in a way it has never understood conversations had.
The timing, which is the argument
Rome is 2 to 5 November. That's inside Q4 planning and before the holiday peak: the last chance to add a partner to this year and the first chance to build next year's roster with a memo finance can sign before the spring budget round. Partners agreed in November launch against Q1. That's the sentence that goes in section 5 of the memo, and it's true.
Passes for in-house teams are paid: Standard €375 now, €525 at the door. The price is in the memo so nobody has to ask, and the door price is the cleanest urgency line there is.
Get the memo signed. Then go and have the conversation that ends the next review early.
We update this kit from time to time as confirmations, prices and event details change. This page is current as of 12 September 2026.