Notes from the ad:tech Show Floor

Well, the VR team was out in force at ad:tech this week. Standing all day made our dogs bark and I'm not talking about my basset hound!

So observations are as follows:

What a scene! First of all, until this year, ad:tech was always held at a hotel and the biggest booth you could get was a double-wide (10x20). It made VerticalResponse look as big as Google :-) This year ad:tech was at Moscone Center, the huge sprawling trade show center here in SF and had a totally different vibe. I think Ask.com had 4 spaces! Anyway, it was big, music pumping, beer flowing and girls gone wild. Classy, huh? Are we in Vegas?

Ad:tech is all about getting leads, however you can. My eyes were spinning from all of the SEO agencies, bid management companies and ad networks. I wasn't really sure how to tell one from another. How many possible eyeballs can be looking at the web at one time? Oh, and very few if any ad networks to drive business leads, only consumers. The positive note? It seems like all are doing well, so that shows businesses are spending heavily in online advertising. And I think we're going to try a few so we'll see how well they do.

Ad:tech is not really about servicing small business.  Here you can find ad networks, agencies, neural software (that's right!) and they all cost real MONEY. Very little that a small business can afford, there's very little that are self-service and it's all about the big brands.

Rampantly bad trade show booth design - Putting your logo on your booth just isn't enough people. It would be great to actually tell passers-by, in your design, what you do. I can't tell you how many booths I passed by where I said to myself, "What do they do?"  You only get one chance to make a first impression and unless your Coke or Pepsi, you should assume people don't know what you do.

The few companies of interest for small businesses:

Engine Ready - After you spend your dollars on your pay per click, these guys help you optimize your landing pages. Seems like a good deal if you're spending top dollar on Google.

ClickTracks - Great web analytics for small businesses. Very easy to use and affordable.

Local.com and whitepages.com - advertising opportunities for small business, or at least make sure you're listed.

Atlas One Point - This solution is a self-service bid management system. Can get pricey if you have a ton of keywords but we find it's very usable.

My opinion? Too many poker, herbal product, and work from home scams participating in this show I have to tell you. Ad:tech seemed to take anyone that would pay them this year. And between us getting sold to in our own booth, sketchy people with theoretical spam lists trying to talk to us and people looking for free schwag, it was less than pleasing.

I'd like to give a shout out to a few of our customers that came by, DocMurdoch, Due Maternity, salesforce.com, and R&R Images.

Have a different perspective, let me know! Give us a comment!

Comments

[Janine]

Hey Jeff - Please comment on the Chicago show after you go. I'm eager to see if there is a difference!

[jeff papenfus]

i've been to ad:tech 2x's now and am attending for a 3rd (and maybe final) time in chicago in july. i agree with your general sentiment that it has gone downhill (even in the last 2 years). i hope i can still find info to learn and vendors to scope out. it's where i found VR blog ;)

i agree with rachel, the booth staff of many vendors seem un-engaged and not interested in attendees. not the VR booth, of course.

[Rachel Hobbs-Price]

I travelled to ad-tech from New Zealand, mainly for the seminars which were supposed to be advertising free. I found some of the seminars very light on information. The presenters all managing to get in a few annoying plugs for their respective companies. Ad-tech was marketed at Marketing Management but was lacking in new information for people at this senior level. I ended up just walking through the exhibition not knowing what each company actually did, were they selling software or hardware or services? Who knows! I had a real interest in email marketing software and services but ended up not talking to a single exhibitor, people seemed more interested in talking to their fellow co-workers than actually trying to sell me any products or services..sad!