Meta, Google and TikTok Are Exhibiting in Rome. What Would You Ask Them?

You know the advice by heart because it's automated.

"Apply recommendations to improve your optimisation score." It arrives from a banner, from a rep, or both, and it's the same advice whether your account is flying or on fire. You've learned to ignore most of it. The problem is the moment you can't: the Monday call, when someone asks why the number fell and nothing changed, and the only explanation on the table is a recommendation you didn't believe and can't get anyone to explain.

That's the collision this page is about. The platform issues generic guidance. You carry the responsibility for the result. And the gap between those two things is where every buyer has at least one question they've never had properly answered.

Write the question first

Before anything else, write it down. Not the complaint. The question. It's harder than it sounds, and it's the most useful thing you'll do with this page.

A vague one: "why does PMax do that?" A focused one: "What documentation explains what the optimisation goal is actually solving for in this campaign type, and what signals it weights?" Another: "In my vertical, what does the automation treat as a conversion when the event is fired late, and how should I structure the account so it doesn't learn from the wrong thing?" Another: "What are you seeing across accounts like mine that I can't see from inside one?"

A focused question does two things. It makes a conversation possible, because the person you ask can actually engage with it. And it protects you from the answer you'll get to a vague one, which is the banner again, said out loud.

Who's exhibiting, and what that does and doesn't mean

Affiliate Grand Slam is in Rome from 2 to 5 November at Fiera Roma. TikTok, Meta and Google are exhibiting with staff on the floor. On stage, separately, TikTok's George Phu and Niv Shaked are listed as speakers.

Here's the honest version of what that means. Exhibiting staff are people from the platform you can walk up to, on a stand, and ask a question. They are not necessarily engineers, product owners or account troubleshooters, and this page isn't going to tell you they are. A stand isn't a special escalation channel and nobody there will pull up your account. What it is, is a chance to put a focused question to a human from the company whose automation you're accountable for, and to hear how they frame the answer, which is a different experience from a ticket. Sometimes you get a useful pointer. Sometimes you get the documentation you didn't know existed. Sometimes you get the banner. The opportunity is real; the quality of the answer isn't guaranteed.

The speakers are a separate thing again. A listing on the programme tells you they're present and what they do. It doesn't establish what they'll talk about or that they'll be available to you.

Two other kinds of company matter for this angle, briefly. MGID and Outbrain, on native, are worth a question if you've only ever run social and search. And direct advertisers and offer owners on the floor can tell you how they see platform behaviour from the other side of the offer, which sometimes explains what the automation is doing in your account better than the platform can.

What it changes back at your desk

Not the platform's answer, delivered to your manager. That's not what you'd be bringing back, and the case for your manager in the kit doesn't promise it. What you'd bring back is a better-framed question, whatever pointer you got, and a way of explaining the recommendation on Monday that isn't "the rep said so". Interpreting the platform rather than relaying it. That's a real professional gain and it's honest to describe it that way. A media buyer wrote the frame that fits: "I see conferences like this as professional development rather than just a nice-to-have perk."

The kit, for this question

The AGS Rome 2026 Welcome Kit for Media Buyers identifies the relevant exhibitors: who's coming, grouped by what they do, with the platforms in their own row. It doesn't tell you the exact person who'll answer your question, because that isn't information anyone has; it tells you who's there to ask. It also has the questions section, with examples of focused platform questions like the ones above, so yours is ready before you arrive.

Then the Best Value for Money Guide: the pass options against your plan, and whether the entry pass is enough; the full trip cost; time away from live campaigns in early November and a plan for cover; and both routes, the pre-filled two-paragraph case for your manager with "a direct platform contact" left out and "a focused platform question and what I learn" left in, and the self-funded route with a ceiling. If you go: purchase a pass, and when the Match App is available under it, request the conversations. Exhibitor stands don't need a request; you walk up.

Bring the question

Write it first. Then see who's there to ask, and decide whether the trip is worth it for that and the other conversations you'd have.