MAC’18 Kiev Affiliate Conference – How Was It from the People Who Been There

All the second half of September all the workers conversations and chats were ending on a tune of “we will talk out all of the details in Kiev, you will come to Kiev?”.

The feeling was that everybody will be coming to Kiev. Yes, the conferences under the brand of MAC already gotten a reputation, set a standard, but Kiev was a new point in geography of the traditional arbitration routes. From one point of view, expanding the geography is a nice thing and an intriguing one but from the other point of view people talk of so much smack in Kiev, some groups of people say that they won’t let you into the country.

In the end, in the editorial office we decided that we need to see what will come out of it with our own eyes. We supplied a team and traveled to seek out the first big of affiliate conference in Kiev.

We had a chance to talk to many people, and in this material we have a minimal presence. Let direct participant speak out, their words are more true-to-life than any expert assessment. We intentionally didn’t select opinions for publication and didn’t separate them on positive and negative. This conference review is accumulation and composition of its participants’ opinions.

What does the organizer think?

Anatoly Winter. Organizer conference MAC in Kiev

In one try we succeeded in making an actual big international conference in Kiev.

After 3 succeeding MAC in Moscow when we decided to start conferences in Kiev, our biggest concern was that we wouldn’t find the right amount of participant, stands and companies compering to Moscow, and we wouldn’t be able to maintain a set level.

Also, we feared that the political difference will spook away Russians or participants from other countries. We decided that 1000 plus people and 20–30 stands, should be a good result. In fact, much more people than we expected came, the conference was visited by more than 1500 people, more than 200 companies, about 60 stands were put up, and all of them were sold out in advance, the meeting was financially successful.

The most important fact is that, Kiev is ready for this level of events.

Minor failures in the organization of a big event always happen, but there were no major failures as far as I see. One of the problems was relative lack of space on preparty and afterparty. We just didn’t expect so many people, many were added in last 10 days. It was imposable to changing the platform, but we will be ready the next time.

In general, I’m satisfied.

What does the speaker think?

Sergey Gamolya. Product Manager from a partner program of Edugram

The whole conference was organized on a high level. They helped me as a speaker, in the organizing of a speech, gave me a chance to try my speech on a stage, I was given a separate zone, where I had a chance to rehearse my speech. My co-workers worked on the stage, and the number of webmasters was truly big, that is also plus of the organization.

From the minuses of the conference, I didn’t like the music of the afterparty. Sort of boring, almost nobody was dancing, but that’s more of a taste thing.

What do affiliates think?

Denis – Affiliate

I liked the speakers on cases presentation, it was a good networking.

I think that primarily conference is useful for arbitrageurs and affiliate networks.

By the way, they could have ordered free buffet for lunch, and overall to speed up food distribution. I’m going to attend it next year.

Vitaliy Balatskiy – Affiliate

That was my first conference ever. There were lots of new things, as meeting new people, traffic sources, trackers, partners, and yes, new friends and direct advertisers. I didn’t like only some presentations. It was half and half. I mean, some speakers were real professionals, but thay didn’t show their knowledge and only engaged in empty talk, and some knew nothing. They were asked about professional things, but because they were out of subject they were silent or said that is was a secret. Why they even were invited?

Max Manuylov – Affiliate

For me conference is first of all a chance to meet friends or co-workers and partners.

I’m in this business for quite a while, and finding some new things is getting hard. This time I found a few of new sources, talked out questions with my co-workers.

I liked that MAC opened a new geography. It sure was interesting to meet Kiev for the first time. I did experience some problems with border crossing, I was checked by customs for three hours. Eventually, I met guys whom I communicated with only on-line, visited local club for affiliates.

Overall, it was crowded, and some people didn’t have a place to sit in the afterparty. To drink a cup of coffee during conference you had to stand in a huge line to a single bar. At the previous fall MAC it was much easier, drinks and coffeemaker stood on the bar tables. For people from regions, that don’t have affiliate companies, this kind of conferences is the best way to find some friend or partners or get into the trends of the market. I plan to come back next year.

Vlad – Affiliate

This is so great that nobody economized on conference. I liked the location. I met some friends, asked some trending questions regarding traffic and Facebook. I think that this kind of event is helpful for all those who are connected to Affiliate Marketing. I will be coming next year.

On the afterparty there were some drunk people which could ruin the mood for the participants.

Imagine a person coming behind, and grabbing my shoulder like we were longtime friends and saying “Hey Man….Man…ah…ah…. oh… Have you seen Sam?”

Alex Black – Affiliate

It’s fantastic that everybody got to Kiev! I meet many old friends, even before the conference I planned some meetings with partners. In the end I got to meet some people in person that I talked with only on Skype.

Organization was up to the mark. Heard that they were only ready for 1000 people but came much more. I think, that Kiev entrench itself as fall place for the conference. Preparty was overcrowded and busy. But afterparty was not too bad. Heard that the diamonds (participants with the most expensive tickets – ed. note) didn’t like everything, club was overcrowded for them, but that’s not what I came for, I didn’t buy the diamond ticket, and that’s why I didn’t have any extra expectations.

I think that this kind of event are great for people who work hard, but not for the ones who work for fun. Real human communication and networking are the way to grow.

What does the business think?

Catherine Kyrsenko, Brand & PR at СPAMATICA Affiliate Network

We think MAC is the best thing that happened in Kiev in the world of affiliate business. Very bright place, pretty, and a cozy place to be, many participants and speakers, and the most important is that the atmosphere is very friendly. The café zone sadly was a small one with not enough space for so many people, the lines were big.

From new trends it was difficult not to notice increased amount of gambling stands. There were a lot of partners working with pushes and dating. Lots of people are interested in betting and casino. The growth in these niches are obvious. Presentations were especially important for arbitrageurs, there were good cases. Conferences like this give many people a chance to do new deal with someone, to meet some old friend, and just to have a good time all together. I attend MAC from the first conference. I will come back again, as this is a great conference of a very European level. I extremely liked that the guys planned this event to be in Kiev. I will happily be a part of this the next year.

Julia, Head of Marketing Department at Adscompass Traffic Source

Considering the fact that MAC is an international conference, it would be great for organizers to try to bring new companies and webmasters from different parts of the world, at least from Europe. Altogether, the conference, including preparty and afterparty, all deserve a good grade for the fantastic work they have done. A great place they have picked, and the event level was of a European one. Out of trends of this conference and the whole year, I can note push subscriptions. They were interesting for majority of our partner companies, as well as webmasters and arbitrageurs. Obviously, that long standing for years traffic monetization models CPA, CPI, CPC etc. with all classical traffic monetization types are still actual and developing on at full speed, but exactly push subscriptions became some kind of mainstream of this conference. I want to bring an example that at the last two MAC conferences one of the trends was monetization of cryptocurrency, but on this conference, there were very little companies representing only this segment. Yes, cryptocurrency is still actual, but the boom which bitcoins brought last year is downtrend. At large, we noticed lots of details, and found new ideas and goals which would help us to develop in this sphere. I think, all who attended conference are satisfied, as they got not only a huge experience, but also met lots of interesting people. This is our fourth MAC on a row, and next year we are going to attend both spring, and fall conference Moscow Affiliate Conference

Lucian, Business Development Manager at BitterStrawberry Affiliate Network

Most of the meetups, speeches and panels about the future of affiliate marketing were just a dream. We met the greatest popular local and international affiliates and we attended some of their speeches. We listened to Vyacheslav Mezentcev and Sergiy Podtereba talking about the latest CPA. We had tremendously important insights listening to Ilya Tkachenko’s speech about the affiliate trends this year and the need to constantly change the game, investing in new areas & exploring new goldmines and we definitely enjoyed Rafael’s Gabitov secret case study about Facebook. So, we had a lot to learn by attending these panel discussions and we were really fond of the in-depth conversations we had with the speakers.

I noticed that there are a lot of people interested in the gambling/casino vertical but also in Nutra, that is one of the year’s dopiest trends. It’s a market with a lot of potential and generous margins and this is one of the reasons we developed our own line of products, as well.

The conference was a success and brilliantly organized from all aspects. Good location, well arranged booths that set the stage for long-lasting partnerships. From panel discussions by international, reputed influencers and marketers to multilingual broadcasts with interpretation services, the event was to make sure that knowledge and experience were in the air for everyone in attendance.

MAC was a perfect opportunity for all affiliates (new or experienced) that work with the European market, to greatly benefit from the connections they developed during the event.

We’re ready to come again and discover new ways in which we can bring life to our projects after listening to webmaster’s best cases and schemes and leaders’ success stories.

The ClickDealer team

ClickDealer Affiliate Network

The conference was organized impeccably as always! Being a Diamond sponsor and exhibiting at MAC gave us great networking opportunities, access to insightful speeches and panel discussions along with pre- & after parties that are the blast!

The affiliate market has never stopped! It is like a living being which has to survive and this way has to improve. Many opportunities are appearing, a lot of companies are entering the market, and profitable cases keep getting revealed.

A lot of networks would like to grow and enter the foreign market, so it would be great to bring the conference to this international level. Most promo before the conference was in Russian. Being a global marketing agency, we are interested in all geos and cross-country networking.

Advidi team

Advidi Affiliate Network

The show itself was organized really well – I liked the use of headphones during the workshops for English translating. Most importantly, it was great to see how active the affiliate industry is in RU/UA.

In general, we saw a lot of RTB representation. The traffic market is moving toward programmatic, which is interesting to see.

We’re also seeing more and more RU/UA affiliates who contact us directly instead of running our exclusive offers re-brokered via another network. In the past you saw these guys running them with other companies, but now they’re seeing the pro sides of working with us directly. That’s why a meetup like MAC is very interesting for Advidi, just to meet all those affiliates in person.

Next time, it would be good to have some more lunch facilities at the show or around the event. There were some really interesting workshops you could attend, I just didn’t know about them until too late.

I’m sure Advidi will be represented in Moscow in 2019 as well. This was a great event.

Alex Kubicki, Affiliate Manager at Direct Affiliate Affiliate Network

The conference was a good value for money in terms of sponsorships, lot’s of mini-events and competitions so the crowd was kept excited.

Would be nice to have a better suited app that would distinguish whether people are Affiliates or Networks, so people can have more relevant interactions and meetings. Most lectures were in Russian, maybe more english next year?

Best for medium to large sized Affiliates/Marketers, so they can discover more offers and work out direct deals

Alexander Omelianovych, Director of Marketing at AdPlexity

Sometimes I forgot that I was in Kiev. In terms of organization everything was on a very high level. I was glad to see number of arbitrageurs who are in a high demand on any conference. From one point of view this kind of conferences is a great chance for foreign companies to walk into the Russian segment and build relationships with some local players, especially with the ones that don’t attend events abroad. From the other point of view, I see that local arbitrageurs start to understand the point of conferences, and apart from getting drunk on a nearby bar they used time profitably on conference.

I saw more people who add white offers and verticals. Especially, e-commerce is growing. Three sources/advertising formats are most popular now, namely Facebook, native, push. Although, blackhat is also in request. How would we work without gambling, adult dating and sweepstakes?

On this note the visitors’ opinions end. In our turn, editorial team hope that these opinions will help readers to create a true picture and find useful information.

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