What a program lead can get done in four days
AGS Rome 2026 Welcome Kit for in-house teams
Not "networking." Five jobs, each of which produces a line on the one slide you'll send the week after, and each of which is impossible from your desk.
1. Recruit affiliates in person
The people who choose which offers to run are on the floor: media-buyer affiliates, the buying teams inside agencies, and the networks' own affiliate managers who route offers to their base. You've tried reaching them by email. So has everyone. Cold outreach to real publishers and buyers is dead, and it died because every inbox is full of pitches that read like yours.
In a hall, the pitch is thirty seconds and the answer is immediate. The media house that's ignored six months of email cannot ignore you standing in front of their stand. That's not aggression. It's the job, done where it can be done.
What to bring: the offer's economics in one line (payout, EPC or CR from your best partner, cookie window, geos), the creative you can hand over, and a signup link that works on a phone. The affiliate who becomes top ten started as a conversation someone bothered to have.
2. Sit across from the network's decision-maker
Not the rep. The account director who controls the placement you've been trying to get for a year, or the person who can actually change your terms. Networks send senior people to events because that's where their advertisers are. A Match App request that names the placement and the number gets you the right person or a clean no, and a clean no is worth more than a year of "send the deck."
Prepare the gap: which terms you'd renegotiate (payout tiers, exclusivity, reversal windows, payment terms), what you'd give for it (volume, creative, a Q1 budget), and the date you need an answer by.
3. Map the gaps in the roster
Take the confirmed list and your current partner roster side by side. Mark three kinds of gap:
| Gap | The question | Who on the list closes it |
|---|---|---|
| Traffic type you don't have a partner for | Native? Push? In-app? CTV? Pay-per-call? | Traffic sources, and the networks that run them |
| Geo the CMO wants next year | Which networks and buyers operate there? | Networks by region; ask at the stand |
| Network you've never renegotiated | Because you've never met them | Their senior people, by request |
Half your "active partners" haven't sent anything in months. They sit there making the program look bigger than it is. Three gaps closed with partners who actually send is a roster that looks different in the spring budget round, and a mix that answers "would they have bought anyway" with a column of orders that didn't exist before.
4. Get a platform contact
TikTok, Meta and Google have staff on the floor, and TikTok has two people on stage. Bring the question your rep rotation can't answer: the measurement change that broke your attribution, the policy call that paused a partner's creative, the beta you've heard about and never been offered. A named contact is worth more to your reporting than another dashboard, and it's a line in the outcomes table.
5. Compare notes with peers who don't compete with you
Other brand-side program leads are in the hall, at the sessions with brand-side speakers, and at the reception. Everyone in this job has answered the incrementality question badly at least once. Ask how they answer it now. Twenty minutes on that is worth a quarter of reading, and it's the kind of thing you can only get from someone who isn't trying to sell you attribution software.
How the Match App works once you hold a pass
Access follows pass approval. Once you hold a pass, you search for a company or person, send a request with a proposed slot, and they accept or decline. Accepted requests are meetings with a time and a place at the venue. Standard passes get the Limited level; Premium gets Basic; Platinum gets Privileged. Higher tiers get more of the app; Limited covers three named counterparties.
The request that gets accepted: "We run [offer] at [payout] on [platform]; we'd like to discuss [placement or term]; here's the volume we'd commit." The request that gets declined: "Let's connect." Send yours the day the app opens. The account directors you want are the account directors every program lead wants.
Which rooms exist
- The floor, Hall 2. All four days. Every pass.
- Conferences and workshops. Every pass. Brand-side speakers confirmed: Marisha Lakhiani (Mindvalley), Nick Shackelford (Brez), Dayu Yang (EcommOps), plus TikTok's George Phu and Niv Shaked.
- The welcome reception. Every pass.
- Half-day activity. Premium and Platinum.
- Networking drinks. Premium and Platinum.
- The AGS Awards, the VIP lounge and the VIP meet and greet. Platinum.
- Hosted dinners. In the paid tiers.
The lounge is a place to hold meetings without hunting for a table. Don't put it in the memo as a room where the right people are guaranteed to be; put the right people in the memo by name and request them.
What goes on the one slide afterwards
Meetings held. Partners in negotiation. Terms changed. Next steps with dates. Four lines. Commit to sending it within a week. It's the sentence in the memo that makes the trip accountable, and accountable is the only thing finance is actually asking for. It's also the slide nobody needs you to narrate, which is the best kind.
We update this kit from time to time as confirmations, prices and event details change. This page is current as of 12 September 2026.