Your AGS Rome 2026 Welcome Kit for media buyers
Affiliate Grand Slam · 2 to 5 November 2026 · Fiera Roma, Rome · for in-house buyers
"Move into strategy." Cool. How.
Everyone says it. Nobody says how. This kit is the how, or at least the first concrete piece of it: four days in the one place where the people who decide the economics of what you run are standing around, answering questions.
What you are if the buttons press themselves
You're accountable for the result and you have less control over it every quarter. Every quarter there's another thing you used to do by hand that's now a toggle. The black box got bigger and your explanation somehow has to get better. "Everything is copy paste and I'm essentially a button pusher," one buyer wrote, and if that landed, this kit is for you.
And the fear isn't replacement. It's compression. Not "AI can do your job." It's "AI means you can handle more accounts." One person expected to do what three did. The job description with four extra roles in it.
Here's what survives, and you already know it: "automation replaces execution faster than it replaces judgment." The person who can use the machine and still understand the business wins. The people moving up aren't better at explaining the platform. They're better at explaining the business. Someone with less platform experience got promoted because they were better in the room.
Better in the room is a skill. It's built by being in rooms where the business gets decided, with people who decide it. That's what Rome is.
The win
Not a promotion. Smaller and better than that. Someone asked what you thought before telling you what they wanted done. You got pulled into the conversation before the media plan was decided. You could explain why it happened instead of reporting that it happened. The account scaled and for once nobody acted like it was an accident.
Three conversations in Rome get you that. One with a platform person who answers the question the rep dodges. One with an offer owner who explains why the payout is the payout. One with a buyer running more spend than you who tells you what they'd do with your account. Bring those three back and you're not the ads person in the next review. You're one of the people deciding.
What's in the kit
1. Who's confirmed, by category. TikTok, Meta and Google with people on the floor. The offer owners and networks behind the products you run. Marketplaces, traffic sources, trackers, and the operators on stage, who run brands and budgets rather than sell courses to media buyers.
2. What a media buyer can get done in four days. The five jobs, the three conversations, and how the Match App gets them on the calendar before you land.
3. The case for your manager. Two paragraphs, pre-filled, in a manager's terms. Not a template. Your boss would laugh you out of the office with a template; this is the email you'd actually send.
4. The Best Value for Money Guide. For company money or your own: relevance check, the passes exactly, the whole trip budget, the cover plan for the accounts, both routes, the visit plan and the take-home. Built to allow "Standard is enough" and "not this year".
5. Rome, practically. Trains, shuttles, the four hotel areas, visas, what to pack.
5a. Who's on stage. The eight confirmed speakers and why each might matter to you.
6. Run your own offers on the side? Then you're an affiliate, and there's a complimentary pass to apply for.
The order
Kit. The case goes to your manager, or you decide to self-fund. Pass bought. Match App opens. Your three requests go in; they accept or decline. Accepted requests are meetings.
Passes are paid, with company money or your own: Standard €375 now, €525 at the door. If they trust you to spend their money this month, they can afford to send you to the room where the economics get decided. And if they won't, page 4 is shorter than you think.
Three conversations. Two paragraphs. The names are next.
We update this kit from time to time as confirmations, prices and event details change. This page is current as of 12 September 2026.