Great Speakers. Wrong People. Sound Like Your Last Ecommerce Event?

You've been to the bad one. Everyone has.

Founders describe it in specific terms, and the complaints are worth quoting because they're precise. One asked, before booking, whether an event was "more of a 'pay a lot, get surface-level talks and upsells' kind of event." One, afterwards: it "felt like vendors and buyers were at 2 different conferences." One, on the floor: "If you are a seller, everyone wants to sell you something regardless if it's useful for you or not." And one that explains the other three: "every single booth on the floor was leading with AI" while the retail operators they actually talked to didn't care about AI at all.

Those aren't verdicts on every event. They're what went wrong at particular ones, and they turn neatly into five questions you can put to any event before you spend a euro on it, including this one.

Test 1. Is anyone here relevant to my product?

Not "how many attendees." Which companies, doing what, and could they matter to a brand selling what I sell?

Affiliate Grand Slam runs 2 to 5 November at Fiera Roma. The confirmed list currently includes, with roles: ClickBank and Digistore, marketplaces where brands list offers and affiliates choose them; MaxWeb and TerraLeads, networks that run consumer offers to their own traffic and partners; MGID and Outbrain on native advertising; PlatformPay on payments; TikTok, Meta and Google exhibiting with staff.

"Could this company be relevant to my product?" is the right first question. "Will it bring me customers?" needs a conversation and a set of terms, and no list answers it. If, reading the kit, nobody on it could plausibly be relevant to your category, stop here. You've saved a trip.

Test 2. Can I present my product to relevant potential partners?

The complaint underneath most bad events is that the founder is treated as a lead and everyone else is a salesperson. So ask what the room is built around.

AGS is a performance-marketing event. That's a mixed commercial floor, and it includes people who'll try to sell you things, because every trade show does. It also includes, as its core, the people who choose which products to promote and the companies that connect them to brands. For a brand, that means the conversation available to you is one where you present a product and a set of numbers to someone deciding whether to promote it. That's a different seat from the one you sat in at the last event. Whether the counterparties are ones you'd want that conversation with is for you to judge from the list.

Test 3. Is there a real mechanism for getting a meeting?

"If you set yourself up with meetings or to see prospects in advance of the show then it's worth it." That's the concession every sceptic makes, so make the event prove it has a mechanism rather than a hope.

AGS uses the Match App. Once you hold a pass, you request a conversation with a specific company. They accept or decline. Only accepted requests are meetings. Every pass includes the app; the kit's guide explains what the tiers change. An event that can't tell you, in one paragraph, how you get in front of a specific company has answered this test already.

Test 4. Are there founders, or only people selling to founders?

Check the stage and be careful about the seats. On stage at AGS: Nick Shackelford of Brez, who built a brand; Marisha Lakhiani of Mindvalley; Dayu Yang of EcommOps. A speaker on stage isn't a guarantee of a coffee with them, and it isn't evidence of a room full of brand owners in the seats.

What you can check is the kit's list of confirmed founders and operators, and then apply the honest version of this test: is there at least one person a stage ahead of me worth trying to sit down with? One is enough to pass. Zero is a reason to wait.

Test 5. What does it cost, all in, and what do I get for it?

Brand attendance at AGS is paid. Say that plainly so nobody's surprised. Every pass gets the welcome reception, the floor, all sessions and the Match App. The higher tiers add hosted dinners, a lounge and meet-and-greets. The kit's Best Value for Money Guide sets out what each pass includes, when an upgrade is unnecessary for a first visit, and how to budget the whole trip, flights and hotel included, against what a useful outcome would have to contribute.

That's the test: not "what does the ticket cost" but "is what I'd get for the whole trip worth more to my business than the same money spent on the next test campaign". Sometimes the answer is no. A good event doesn't mind you asking.

Now run Rome through it

Five questions. The AGS Rome 2026 Welcome Kit is built to let you answer them yourself: who's confirmed and what each does for a brand, what you can present and how, how meetings work once you hold a pass, which founders and operators are confirmed, what each option costs and includes.

If Rome fails your five, you've reached a decision, and a decision is worth having. If it passes, you'll know exactly why you're going, and you'll have a spending decision you could defend to a co-founder or a finance person in one sentence.