Getting Things Started

Lead Prosper’s first trade show of 2024 saw the team travel to Hollywood, Florida, to attend the fourth edition of Lead Generation World. First premiering in 2020, LGW is one of the Lead Gen industry’s foremost conferences providing an abundance of resources and a space for lead generators, performance marketers and service providers to all converge. From an energetic show floor to the heated poker games, LGW24 was buzzing with excitement.

Garret Krinsky, Chief Operating Officer at Lead Prosper, noted a sizable increase in the attendance number at LGW as compared to last year’s show and how that reflects on the positive growth in the industry.

“Overall, seeing how much LGW has grown from last year is a huge testament to how the Lead Gen industry is going as a whole, and we are excited to see the growth that continues to happen,” — Krinsky said.

As is the case with most conventions, the show floor is a crucial component of marketing your company and making connections. Ross Breiman, CEO of Lead Prosper, mentioned there was an added liveliness on the show floor at this year’s LGW.

“We really enjoyed attending this year’s LGW. There has been a lot of big news in the Lead Gen world, and you could tell a lot of people were excited to meet and talk about the changes coming to the industry,” — Breiman said.

LGW 2024 returned back to Florida for their fourth ever show after being held in California last year. For many, visiting Florida in January was an added bonus - especially for the Lead Prosper team who traded the cold mountains of Western North Carolina for the warm weather of the Sunshine State. The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino was this year’s venue and it turned out to be a fantastic location, even providing a memorable night of poker for many of the Lead Gen’s top poker players.

“Pretty much everyone who played poker wanted another night or two of it, which was awesome. I do not know why this one was so different. It has been a couple years since there has been a poker event at a show,” said Breiman.

According to Breiman, LGW’s poker tournament provided a great space for networking.

“They did a great job of getting everything together for the poker tournament. Every 15 minutes they would kind of shuffle the tables around based on people. Everyone was very talkative and it was very easy to network and just sit down and ask everyone at the table ‘Hey, what do you do?’” said Breiman.

As expected, the FCC’s one-to-one consent ruling was a major topic of discussion at LGW this year. The ruling, announced at the end of last year, was primarily created to protect consumers against unwanted robotexts and robocalls. Additionally, the ruling includes the planned adoption of one-to-one consent - requiring a lead’s consent to be obtained on a “one-to-one” basis, one telemarketer at a time, preventing a single consent from applying to multiple entities. To read more about the ruling, read our article “The FCC's ‘Anti-Robocall’ Ruling: A Deeper Dive and Lead Prosper’s Plan.”

While the challenges generated from this ruling have brought the Lead Gen community together, many questions still remain. Fortunately, there were a multitude of speakers and resources that LGW brought to the stage in Hollywood to discuss the FCC’s decision.

Eric Troutman of Troutman Amin, LLC and TCPA World arguably delivered the most extensive presentation at the conference, helping to shed light on a ruling with many uncertainties that concerns the majority of the lead gen world. Being one of the nation’s leading lawyers in the U.S. telecom legal space, Troutman produced an insightful presentation on many aspects of the one-to-one consent ruling.

“Troutman’s discussion was all about the new one-to-one consent and where he stands. Troutman gave his presentation from a lawyer's perspective and talked about the language that is used and things to be aware of. He also talked about how interest groups really helped fund this push to add one-to-one consent and the drawbacks to it that they saw, especially from a small business perspective,” Krinsky said.

Troutman also discussed the FCC’s decision to reopen comments from the public regarding their ruling and why it is essential for small businesses to directly address their issues with the FCC until February 1. To read more about the importance of commenting on the ruling, check out our article “FCC's One-To-One Consent: How YOU Can Help”.

Another great feature of this year’s LGW was the introduction of the First Lady of LinkUnite award. This award was created to recognize an outstanding and influential woman in the industry. Along with the recognition, the winner of the First Lady of LinkUnite award is given the opportunity to appear on podcasts, webinars, speaking panels and more. The overall goal of the award is to give the winner the chance to receive as much promotional recognition as possible.

Gayla Huber was announced as the 2024 First Lady of LinkUnite. President of IntegriShield since 2015, Gayla Huber has 25+ years of experience in the top levels of the marketing industry.

Lead Prosper Out West

Just six days after a highly successful LGW, members of the Lead Prosper team were back at the next major trade show of the year, this time heading west to Las Vegas, Nevada, for Affiliate Summit West 2024. ASW is considered one of the world’s top conferences for affiliates, advertisers, ecom sellers, networks and tech suppliers. Affiliate marketing is a performance-based online marketing strategy where individuals, or affiliates, earn a commission by promoting and driving sales for products or services offered by other companies.

Lead Prosper’s Account Manager Harrison Johnston was not only able to attend ASW, but had also attended LGW just a week prior.

“I attended both trade shows in the last two weeks. Both of them were a great experience both in getting to join up with my teammates who I do not work in the same office with as well as seeing some clients face to face. Also, just starting the year off on a good foot and getting out there meeting people was a fantastic experience,” — Johnston said.

While attracting a similar crowd to LGW, Johnston noted the differences between the two events and his impressions of his first ASW.

“Lead Gen World is obviously more lead based while Affiliate Summit West is more marketing, affiliates and publishers based. My major takeaway was just how massive the affiliate community is and how important of a show it was. I spoke to one guy that traveled for over 26 hours to be at the show,” Johnston said. “The show was in Caesar's Forum, a brand-new building, and it was absolutely packed. Massive ballroom, just filled to the brim. It was definitely the biggest show I've been to in total.”

Lead Prosper’s Jackie Akey (left) and Harrison Johnston (right) pose by Table #1345 in Las Vegas, Nevada, during Affiliate Summit West

In Vegas, Johnston was accompanied by Lead Prosper’s Chief Technical Officer, Raul Predescu, and Head of Customer Success, Jackie Akey, both of whom work remotely. Trade shows are an important way to make connections and see customers, however, they can also serve as a great opportunity to meet up with co-workers who work in different offices or remotely. Akey’s detailed how great it was to convene with the team for ASW.

“I love working with the team in person. One of the great things about meeting up with the team is that we do not seem to skip a beat- our interaction remote mirrors what they look like in person. That being said, it was nice to spend some quality time with both Raul and Harrison at the booth. Not only were we able to strategize together on potential prospects but also talk about the big changes coming to the Lead Prosper system in the next 2 quarters,” Akey said.

Marketing based AI technologies and the one-to-one consent ruling were major topics of discussion that dominated the show floor of ASW.

“There was a lot of talk around FCC and all the technical solutions that are being developed to get ready for this change. It was really cool to see the creativity, innovation and thought process that went behind some of the new tech releases,” Akey said.

Lead Prosper’s attendance at ASW marked the opportunity to meet up with many customers and talk one-on-one about new features and ask technical questions. Being at ASW and interacting with customers was extremely beneficial for the team, especially for Akey - who serves as the Head of Customer Success for Lead Prosper.

Akey and Johnston converse with an attendee of ASW about Lead Prosper.

“We definitely saw a lot of our customers in person, which was great to put a face to a name. Quite a few of our clients were able to ask Raul, CTO, questions that may not have been asked in our own support. Overall, I think our clients loved having face to face time with our lead in tech dev,” — Akey said.

Where To Next?

Lead Prosper had a great time starting off the new year by attending Lead Generation World and Affiliate Summit West, two trade shows that provided the opportunity to connect with those in the Lead Gen industry and meet with clients face to face. Looking forward, Lead Prosper plans to attend LeadsCon in April, the next major trade show for the industry. According to Johnston, the team is already excited for April.

“We are looking forward to being at LeadsCon in April with an even bigger Lead Prosper team and just building off the momentum from the previous shows,” Johnston said.

To see our schedule of upcoming shows for 2024, use this link to access our events page!