I finally recovered from my trip to the ad-tech conference in Chicago last week. At least I think so. This was my first ad-tech conference. The two days I spent in Chicago were filled with learning, professional and social networking. So, here are things I learned, noticed and observed while I attending the conference.

The crowd:

Most ad-tech attendees come from advertising agencies. There were quite few publisher networks and vendors who deal directly with these networks. AND, I can not forget the number of people who work in online lead generation. I am not sure if it is because of Chicago or if all ad-tech conferences are the same, but no one wore a suite to the conference.

The sessions:

I usually attend SES conferences so I have to compare the two conferences. While SES conferences run for 5 days, Ad-tech conferences are more compressed to 2 days. Because of the time limitations and the crowd, the topics are more focused. Sessions that dealt with advertising topics were excellent. These included topics such as behavioral targeting, sparking creativity, and ad networks. 

Sessions that dealt with online marketing and social media were okay at best. At any point in time, there are three different sessions running. This assessment might have a lot to do with the fact that I deal with social media and online marketing in my day to day work so my expectations are too high.

Late, late night!

The social mixer arranged by ad-tech was great. I met ton of people and made some great contacts. If only for the people you meet at the conference, the money spent for the conference is well worth it. On Tuesday, I stayed out with Vijay from screenpc, Manuel Budemaier from easyad, and couple of other people until about 3 am.  Oh, getting up the next day was tough!

Notable:

• Over lunch I sat with Jeff Papenfus from Web sales tool which provides a suite of tools that allow companies manage their online campaigns. I believe we will be hearing about Jeff and his company a lot more in the next few months.

• I also sat with Jolina and Julie from top rank blog. I don’t know about you but top rank is one of the blogs I read every day.

• Finally, I attended the session about conversion optimization which was led by Shane Atchison from Zaaz. The company is the leader in the conversion optimization space so it was very informative to hear what Shane had to say about the online market.

Overall:

The two day conference cost a total of $1500 after all said and done. Compared to all the people and information, it was money well spent.