Let me be straight with you: not every conference is worth your time, your travel budget, or the week away from your desk.
I've been to more affiliate marketing conferences than I can count at this point. And I'll tell you the same thing I tell every affiliate manager who asks me which ones to attend: the conference itself is just the venue. The real ROI is in who you talk to, what you take home, and whether you actually showed up with a plan.
In 2026, I hit seven conferences. Here's my honest breakdown of every single one.
What Makes a Perfect Affiliate Marketing Conference
Before I get into the rankings, here's the framework I use to judge these events. When I walk away from a conference, I ask myself five questions:
1. Quality of attendees, not quantity
The biggest conference isn't always the best one. If the floor is full of vendors pitching the same SaaS tools and people who just discovered affiliate marketing last month, the size means nothing. I want to be in rooms with practitioners: people actually running programs, managing affiliates, and making decisions.
2. Networking infrastructure
Does the event make it easy to find your people, schedule meetings, and have real conversations? A centralized venue where you bump into the same ten people three times a day is worth more than a massive convention center where you spend half your time on escalators.
3. Actionable content, not keynote theater
I'm tired of sessions that are basically 45-minute commercials. Give me data, give me case studies, give me something I can bring back to my team on Monday morning. If a speaker can't tell me one thing I can actually implement, that's a wasted hour.
4. Social programming that supports business
The best deals I've made at conferences didn't happen in meeting rooms. They happened at a bar, on a pickleball court, or over a late dinner. Events that design their social calendar with business in mind, not just entertainment, understand what their attendees are actually there for.
5. Honest signal-to-noise ratio
Some events are built for big announcements and industry news. Others are better for deep relationship building. Neither is wrong. But you need to know which one you're walking into so your expectations make sense.
With that framework in mind, here's my honest take on the first four conferences I attended in 2026.
Best Affiliate Marketing Conferences
1. iPX
Event type: Open to brands, creators, publishers, agencies, and tech partners
Size: 1,000+ attendees
Access: Registration required
The Experience
IPX in Austin was honestly one of the better conferences I've been to in a while. The venue, the layout, the organization. Impact put some serious work into this.
This year I went representing Alfie and I booked 30 meetings in the app alone. The table setup with guardians keeping things moving was really smart. But what surprised me most wasn't the logistics. It was the creator community.
Impact invited a ton of influencers to this event, and something I didn't expect happened. I watched them band together, sharing tactics, lifting each other up. Creators who walked in not knowing each other were still talking daily by the end of the week. I talked to one UGC creator, Lauren, who told me flat out she had no idea what impact.com was before she registered. She left as a Fanatics affiliate and a Fabletics affiliate. Her words:
“I will never work the same after that conference. It was life-changing.”
That's more than iPX could have ever imagined delivering.
The sessions were second to none. The AI keynote hit everyone the same way. Every single person who walked out of that room said the same thing: I'm severely underutilizing AI. No matter how much you're doing, there's more. And the product roadmap reveal from CPO Max Ciccotosto was worth showing up for. The impressive part? A lot of what they talked about was already live. I went and checked. Impressed on that end.
And yes, Austin delivered. Local food trucks, great spread, and the scooters around the city are a genuinely good time. Just stay on the roads.
What Worked
The table guardian system made booked meetings actually run on time, which sounds like a low bar, but anyone who's been to a conference where you're hunting for your meeting contact across a 10,000 square foot floor knows it's not. The badge design was smart too: big name, big QR code, easy to scan and connect on the spot.
The atmosphere at the pre-conference Carpenter Hall happy hour set the tone early. If you skipped day zero, you missed something.
What Could Be Better
Speed dating. That's the biggest miss and everybody had the same experience. I showed up half an hour early. The line was wrapped around the corner. They were already out of tickets. You could register through the app, come prepared, and still not get in. The concept would have been awesome. The execution couldn't have been more poorly done.
The best speed dating I've ever been to was at PI Live in Florida. They put 50 brands at a table, publishers rotate on three-minute meetings. move, move. That's exactly how it should work. Impact, please take notes.
The patio meetings were also a weak point. Multiple patios, no signage, no specific location in the app. I was walking around trying to find Ashley while my meeting window was ticking. More tables inside, please. And don't block meeting slots during keynotes. I get why you do it, but some of my best conversations happened when people skipped the main stage.
One more thing: do not set a meeting at 8am on day two.
Who Should Attend
If you're in affiliate, creator, influencer, or partnership marketing and you're running or growing a program on impact.com, this is a must-attend. Even if you're on a different platform, the thought leadership and creator energy at iPX is worth the ticket price.
📺 Watch my full iPX 2026 recap →
2. Affilate Summit West
Event type: Open registration
Size: Several thousand attendees
Access: Tickets available to the public; Caesars Forum, Las Vegas
The Experience
Affiliate Summit West is the Super Bowl of affiliate marketing conferences. Nothing else comes close in scale. Walk the expo floor at Caesars Forum and you'll run into every type of affiliate: coupon sites, content publishers, influencers, SaaS platforms, networks, agencies, brand managers. The entire ecosystem is in one building for three days.
That's both the strength and the challenge of ASW.
The hugometer keeps going up every year. People I'm meeting for the first time are giving me hugs because they feel like they already know me from the podcast. Strangers walking by, doing a double take, then coming up to say they love the content. That never gets old.
My happy hour pulled 350 signups and over 200 people showed up. Two years ago it was 20 people. I don't say that to brag. I say it because that's what consistently showing up for this industry gets you.
What Worked
The scale. If you need to take the pulse of the industry, you go to ASW. Full stop. New platform? You'll see it there first. Industry trend picking up steam? You'll hear it in fifteen conversations before noon.
The app improved this year. They finally fixed the calendar double-up issue where downloading the app would create duplicate events. Now it's an API straight to your calendar. Small thing. Massive quality of life upgrade.
The AI and LLM conversation was everywhere. Every hallway, every meeting, every happy hour. Everybody's worried it's going to break affiliate marketing. My take: we always evolve. We find a hurdle and we move. The smarter take I heard was from Lobin at Nucleus Links: ChatGPT is already sending leads. He asked me what I was scared of in the industry. I said LLMs. We went deep on it. Those five minutes were worth the whole trip. And on the flip side, Trisha Meyer told me she's been getting affiliate sales generated through ChatGPT citations. It's already happening both ways.
What Could Be Better
The sessions. I submitted four speaking topics on affiliate recruitment and conversion rate optimization. I got crickets. Not even a rejection email. And when I got there, everything was a panel. No deep expert sessions. No practitioner telling you what they're actually doing right now and why it works. One of my colleagues who knows the affiliate conference world well told me she hasn't attended a single session at ASW in probably six years. She gets the transcripts. I'm getting to that point myself.
Pay to play should not be the path to the stage. Period. That was the most embarrassing part of the conference for me.
The meat market was also a miss this year. I walked the entire floor and didn't find one booth that was relevant to what I do in affiliate. Lots of payment solutions and adjacent products. Nothing that had me stopping to dig deeper.
App navigation: why does it take 19 clicks to find your own meeting schedule? My schedule should be a tab at the top. Not buried under profile settings. And meeting in the foyer is a nightmare when the foyer is 10,000 square feet with zero floor markings and you're trying to spot someone based on a tiny profile photo. I spent multiple meetings just walking in circles looking for people I'd never met.
Tip that works: message your meeting contact what you're wearing before the show. If you're in a bright red suit, you're easy to find. Use it.
Who Should Attend
Anyone in affiliate and performance marketing, especially if you're new to the industry and trying to build your network fast, or if you're a publisher looking to identify new brand partners. For affiliate managers, it's a great recruiting ground. And if the PMA brunch is happening, go. I'd argue it's worth the price of membership on its own.
📺 Watch my full ASW 2026 recap →
3. Rakuten Optimism
Event type: Invite-only for Rakuten Advertising partners
Size: ~500 attendees
Access: Invitation required; Arizona Biltmore, Phoenix
The Experience
I didn't book this trip until a week out. My whole motivation was getting my ear to the ground on the Rakuten and Impact strategic alliance. I left with more questions than I arrived with. But the conference itself? That's a different story.
Optimism is what happens when a network stops competing on size and starts competing on experience. About 500 to 600 people, a beautiful centralized venue at the Arizona Biltmore. I joined with Amanda Karr, a 21-year veteran in the affiliate space and someone I've been friends with for years. We spent two days in back-to-back conversations that wouldn't have happened anywhere else.
The venue layout deserves real credit. Everything within a short walk: the meeting rooms, the outdoor spaces, the bar. You didn't need a map or a 10-minute hike between commitments. You ran into the same people multiple times throughout the day and relationships built faster because of it.
And the Spire bar was the clutch spot for the whole event. Hang out there long enough and you'll run into every important person at the show. That's not an exaggeration.
Oh, and going back to my days in Marine Corps in Yuma — Phoenix sunsets are still some of the prettiest I've ever seen. That adds something.
What Worked
The 20-minute meeting format was a sweet spot I want to see more events adopt. Long enough to establish a real connection, short enough to respect everyone's time. I had more quality conversations per day at Optimism than at almost any other conference this year. Amanda said it felt easier for publishers to meet with brands here than at other conferences. That's a big deal.
Monday was a powerhouse day. A lot of people fly in late and miss it entirely. Don't be one of those people. I started meetings at 8am and didn't stop until 6. The people who showed up Sunday night ready to go Monday morning got a different conference than the people who arrived Tuesday.
The social programming was legitimately great. The 1920s throwback party after the Golden Links awards was one of the best conference evening events I've been to. The atmosphere was right, the music was at a volume where you could still talk, and the MC Adam Mamawala was funny. He called himself “Bad Bunny on Temu.” I was rolling.
Shout out to Amanda Karr for winning the Lifetime Achievement Award that night. She didn't even know she was nominated. She thought she was just going up for a themed photo. That made the moment even better.
The pickleball tournament was a standout too. Networking on a court hits different. You see personality, competitiveness, humor. It breaks the ice in about 30 seconds. Greg O'Brien, the CEO, is a genuinely good player. Really impressed.
And the food and hospitality: maybe the best conference I've ever gone to on that front. Nonstop, all good. Snacks throughout the day, drinks flowing at every event, catering that actually delivered. Every meal was delicious.
What Could Be Better
The content around the Rakuten-Impact strategic alliance was a disappointment. I sat through sessions that were very wordy with no real message. A lot of talking in circles. The keynote was the “Honey Badger” speech, which was fine, and then at the very end Amit addressed the impact news with essentially one sentence. Everyone walked out shaking their head. Not because they were surprised, but because that's genuinely all they got after coming specifically to hear something.
There was a brands-only fireside chat with the CEOs that excluded agencies. That's a slap in the face when agencies do a significant amount of the work keeping these platforms running. And what they said in that room was: everything's going to be seamless, nothing's going to change, it's a two-year transition. Meanwhile, I have friends in agencies who are already being told billing changes are happening in June. I'm not saying they're lying. I'm saying they might not even know themselves yet.
If you're running an awards dinner, give people chairs. Standing in formal wear trying to eat off a plate while also trying to have a professional conversation is not the vibe.
And a genuine public service announcement: check your shoes before you put them on in Phoenix. A fellow attendee ended up in the ER after a scorpion incident. The desert is not playing around.
Who Should Attend
If you're an active Rakuten Advertising partner and you have the invitation, you go. Full stop. The networking quality is elite, the intimacy makes it one of the most productive two days you can spend at a conference all year, and the hospitality is unmatched. Just go in with realistic expectations on the content side.
📺 Watch my Rakuten Optimism 2026 recap →
4. PI Live London
Event type: Open registration
Size: Multi-venue; industry-wide
Access: Ticket required; multi-venue campus, central London
The Experience
I arrived a day early to get acclimated, caught the pre-conference pub crawl event that Darion coordinated at the Burlock, and went into day one with 15 meetings already on the calendar. That's the right way to do PI Live London.
Going international for a conference changes everything. The energy here is different from anything you'll experience at a U.S. event. Not better or worse. Just different in a way that matters.
The multi-venue setup in the heart of London creates a festival atmosphere that no U.S. conference has figured out yet. You move between buildings, run into people in unexpected places, and the whole thing feels less like a corporate event and more like an industry gathering. Matt Wood and the team put on a hell of a show. Every single booth I talked to was buzzing. Huge value in the foot traffic coming through.
The international crowd is one of the best things about PI Live. The UK dominates attendance, Germany comes in second, and there were about 50 of us from the US. We're the minority here, and that's exactly the point.
What Worked
The conversations. The European affiliate market operates differently from the U.S.: different publisher types, different compliance landscape, different platform preferences. Spending three days in deep conversations with European brand managers, publishers, and agencies gives you a perspective you simply can't get at stateside events.
The big theme at every booth and session I touched was the intersection of influencer marketing and affiliate marketing. That's where the industry is heading. These two channels should and need to work together, and PI Live London is one of the few places where you hear that conversation happening at scale across both sides.
What I love about PI Live is what one attendee said to me: “Favorite thing is getting to meet everyone in the industry. I talk to people over video call all the time, message them on LinkedIn. Getting to meet people in real life and have a coffee is the best.” That's it. That's the whole event.
If you're an affiliate manager looking to expand into European markets, PI Live London is your best shot at doing it efficiently. You can set up more relevant meetings in three days here than in six months of cold outreach.
What Could Be Better
The travel logistics are real. Budget the travel day properly. Flying overnight and showing up to full conference days immediately is a fast way to miss what you paid for. Arrive a day early if you can. I did, and it made a huge difference.
Also: the lime scooters in London are a terrible idea. I tried to park one and it told me I couldn't park where I was standing, surrounded by other lime scooters. I dumped it and never touched one again. Stick to walking or get an Uber.
Who Should Attend
Any affiliate manager with European growth on the roadmap. If you're already working with European publishers or brands, this is where those relationships deepen. If you haven't expanded internationally yet, this is the conference that makes you realize you should. And honestly, even if international expansion isn't on your radar yet, the quality of the conversations here will make you rethink that.
Can't say enough good things about PI Live London. They did it again.
📺 Watch my PI Live London recap →
5. Thinktank Americas
Event type: Invite-only for active Awin partners
Size: 250 – 500
Access: Invitation required; Morgan MFG & City Hall, Chicago
It's been years since I've been to Thinktank, but my last experience there in 2023 was pretty amazing. They had small booths worth going to check out, and all the people there were super friendly and inviting. It's great networking in an intimate environment.
The Experience
Thinktank is Awin's flagship regional event, and the 2026 edition marks a bold new “Americas” focus, pulling partners from across North and South America into Chicago for 2.5 days. The format runs on keynotes, expert panels, hands-on workshops, and deep-dive sessions, wrapped around curated evening events at Morgan MFG and City Hall. It stays deliberately intimate for its size (250–500), which is what makes the room feel more like a working community than a trade-show floor.
What Worked
The scale is the point: small booths and a tighter guest list mean you actually meet the people you came to meet, rather than chasing badges. The content skews practical, with workshops built to send you home with something you can use, and the invite-only structure keeps the quality of the room high. Recent editions drew names like Under Armour, Samsung, Expedia, LG, GE Appliances, LTK, Forbes, and Capital One Shopping, so the partner and brand density is real.
What Could Be Better
Being invite-only for active Awin partners, it's a closed room. If you're not already in the Awin ecosystem, access is limited, and the regional focus means the conversations lean toward Awin's platform and priorities rather than the broader cross-network landscape. The intimate size that makes it great for depth also caps how many new logos you'll encounter.
Who Should Attend
Affiliate and partnership managers, publishers, and tech partners already active on Awin who value depth of relationship over sheer volume. Ideal if your goal is to strengthen existing Awin partnerships and get face time with senior brand-side program owners in a high-signal, low-noise setting.
🔗 Learn more about Thinktank Americas →
6. CJU
Event type: Invite-only for active CJ clients
Size: 1,000+ attendees
Access: Invitation required; Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort
I haven't been a big user of CJ.com's tracking solution for years, but they have a special place in my heart, being that it was my first job in the affiliate space. Even though it is a training ground for most people in the affiliate marketing space, and I can always lean back on the great times I had there, I only got to experience CJU a couple of times.
CJU never lets you down. It is always a good time, and they always do it up right. They are the originators of fancy affiliate experiences, and Santa Barbara's views and weather are second to none.
The Experience
CJU is Commission Junction's flagship annual client conference, hitting its 25th year in 2026. It's an invite-only gathering exclusively for active CJ clients and partners, bringing roughly 1,000 marketers from 335+ companies to the Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort for three days of networking, learning, and partnership-building. The agenda mixes Mainstage keynotes, 20-minute “Connection Lab” trainings, product demos, and structured networking, including The Zone meeting space and a beachside Beach Party. Futurist and author Nancy Giordano is confirmed as guest keynote, and attendees use the CJ Universe app to build profiles and pre-book meetings before arrival.
What Worked
The pre-scheduled meeting infrastructure (CJ Universe + The Zone) means the room is optimized for deal-making, not just sessions, so you arrive with a calendar rather than hoping to bump into the right people. The beachfront setting and future-facing content are consistent draws, and the short Connection Lab format keeps training digestible. Sponsor depth is strong, with AT&T as diamond sponsor alongside PayPal Honey, Cardlytics, UNiDAYS, Fetch, Later, and others.
What Could Be Better
Access is gated to active CJ clients, so it's not a fit if you're evaluating networks rather than already running on CJ. At ~1,000 attendees it's noticeably larger and more corporate than boutique events, which can make it harder to go deep, and it carries a real cost ($1,995 single, $1,795.50 each for groups of 5+) on top of travel to Santa Barbara. Full speaker and session details typically don't land until roughly July, so early planners are booking somewhat on faith.
Who Should Attend
Brands, agencies, and publishers actively using CJ who want serious face time with existing and prospective partners. Best suited to teams that will work the meeting-booking tools ahead of time and want a mix of strategic, future-of-performance content plus high-volume structured networking. Registering early is worth it given limited capacity.
7. Affilifest
Event type: Free for brands and publishers
Size: 500+
Access: Open registration; Dreamland Amusement Park, Margate
Affilifest has officially had two events, and I am jealous of everyone who's attended. This has the potential to be my number one on the list in 2027 when they bring it stateside to Tennessee, but only time will tell.
At the very least, they make this list because I'm a big fan of James Little, Hannah Wharrier, and the rest of the Affilifest team, who are just incredibly happy and outgoing folks who know how to throw a good party.
The Experience
Affilifest is the UK's festival-style event for the affiliate and partnership community, held at Dreamland amusement park in Margate. It deliberately ditches the traditional conference format: networking happens on the Big Wheel, in curated roundtables, at the roller disco, and across a packed meetings programme, all against a seaside-carnival backdrop. It draws 1,300+ attendees, including 500+ brands and retailers, with names like Amazon, ASOS, Boohoo, Charlotte Tilbury, Samsung, Sky, Tesco, and Virgin Atlantic on the guest list. Entry is completely free for brands and publishers, with paid All Access passes (from £499) for everyone else.
Check out the craziness of the venue map!
What Worked
The free-for-brands model keeps the room dense with actual decision-makers and lets teams bring more people and book more meetings without the usual ticket barrier. The format prioritizes real conversations over sales-heavy keynotes (“we said no to PowerPoint”), with roundtables, live debates, and fiery panels on the topics that matter (budgets, partner wins, tracking headaches). Attendee reviews consistently single out the roundtables, the easy open-plan networking, and the venue itself as standouts. Every major network is present (Awin, CJ, Rakuten, impact.com, Partnerize, Tradedoubler), so it's genuinely cross-ecosystem.
What Could Be Better
It's UK-centric, so for a US-based program the ROI has to justify the transatlantic trip. The festival energy is a feature, but if you prefer a structured, agenda-driven conference the theme-park format can feel like a lot of stimulus around the business. Getting to Margate takes some planning (it's a coastal town, not central London), and the free-ticket model means eligibility criteria apply for publishers.
Who Should Attend
Affiliate and partnership managers, publishers, networks, and tech partners who want genuine connections and ROI-focused conversations in an anything-but-corporate setting. Especially strong for anyone building relationships across the UK/European market or wanting exposure to every major network in one place. Since it's free for brands and publishers, it's an easy yes for UK-based teams and a strong option for anyone already planning European travel.
🔗 Learn more about Affilifest →
How to Get the Most Out of Any Conference
Seven events this year. Here's what I've confirmed still holds true regardless of which conference you're at:
Book your meetings before you land. Use LinkedIn, the event app, email, whatever it takes. The people who wait until they're on the floor to figure out who they want to talk to are the same people who tell me conferences “aren't worth it.” They're wrong. They just weren't prepared. Also: connect first, then ask for the meeting. Trying to book a meeting in the same first connection message is a recipe for no-replies.
Don't sleep on day one. At Optimism, Monday was the best day of the whole conference and most people flew in late and missed it. At iPX, Thursday had more meetings than expected. Show up ready from the jump.
Ignore most of the keynotes. Not all of them, but a lot of conference content is designed to fill time, not add value. If the session agenda looks thin, skip it. Spend that hour at the bar doing what you actually came there for. Some of my best meetings and connections happened in hallways during keynotes.
One good contact beats ten business cards. Stop trying to meet everyone. Find four or five people you genuinely want to build a relationship with and invest real time in those conversations. The rest is noise.
Stay for the unofficial hours. The real conversations happen after dinner. The people who fly out at 6pm on the last day consistently leave money on the table.
Bottom Line
Each conference on this list serves a different purpose. What matters is matching the event to your goal.
Building your network from scratch? Go to ASW. Deepening relationships with a specific network's partner ecosystem? Optimism. Expanding internationally? PI Live London. Trying to understand where the partnership economy is heading? iPX.
And if you want a straight answer on which conferences are worth your budget this year, book a call with me. I'll tell you exactly where to spend your time and where to save your money.
Dustin Howes
AFFILIATE MARKETING CONSULTANT
Dustin Howes is an Affiliate Marketing Concierge who equips brands to build high-performing affiliate programs with a personal touch. He is a connector and specializes in network marketing, partner recruitment, program strategy, and simplifying the complexities of affiliate growth. Through his services and resources, Dustin empowers companies to create meaningful, long-term partnerships that drive real results.
