The OPTIZMO team is back from the first leg in our 2022 World Tour, with trips to Las Vegas for MailCon and San Diego for Lead Generation World. We’re still in the process of following up with everyone we met during the shows, but we also wanted to write about some of the highlights from two great events. 

MailCon

Our trip kicked off in Las Vegas for MailCon from January 12-13. First off, we wanted to thank the team at MailCon (particularly Kristen Haines and Sara Malo) for putting on another great event. We’ve been supporters and sponsors of MailCon for years, so it’s exciting to watch the event grow and evolve. We were excited to be the official Email Compliance Sponsor for the event again in 2022, along with exhibiting and presenting.

One highlight for us was presenting with our partners at LashBack for the 4th year in a row, on email best practices and compliance and how they can drive performance. The email opt-out data highlighted in our presentation will also be used to create our 2021 Email Opt-Out Infographic, which will be released in February, 2022. Thanks to everyone who attended the presentation! 

While some potential attendees were unable to attend, due to the recent COVID surge, we ended up taking advantage of a slightly less hectic event to have more in-depth conversations with various clients, partners, and prospects. We’re excited to follow up on a number of those conversations to drive the business forward in 2022. 

A few other, non-business highlights. 

• Ja Rule put on a great show during the Marketer’s Ball. It was great to see him perform in a smaller venue than a typical Affiliate Ball, leading to a more intimate experience for everyone in attendance.
• We found a fantastic new steak house in Las Vegas! I hesitate to share the name, but since it is off-strip, I think it’s pretty safe. Echo & Rig Butcher and Steakhouse delivered a memorable dinner for our crew. Thanks to our friend Wade Tonkin from Fanatics for setting up the reservations and introducing us to this great restaurant!
• The team made a trek down to Fremont Street for more off-strip experiences which led to drinks at a fantastic dive bar and enjoying a pretty amazing street performer, who I have to guess performs for Cirque du Soleil or some other fantastic Las Vegas show during the day. 

AFFY Awards

For us, the big highlight of MailCon was the AFFY Awards, where OPTIZMO was honored with an AFFY for Compliance Innovation, making us one of the first companies to receive an AFFY. Our co-founder and CEO, Khris Thayer, accepted the award for the entire team. Just to make the event even more of a highlight, our head of marketing, Tom Wozniak, was also honored with an AFFY for his long career in the digital and affiliate marketing industries. Congrats to all the AFFY Award Winners from the event, including Wade Tonkin. 

Lead Generation World

After three busy days in Las Vegas, the crew flew off to San Diego on Friday, January 14 in advance of Lead Generation World. We thoroughly enjoyed having a couple of down days at the conference hotel (The Town & Country Resort) before the show kicked off on Sunday afternoon, January 16. 

We kicked off the recording of our 2022 video series – ComplianceCast – by interviewing a number of great industry pros during LGW. Stay tuned for those videos to start coming out in the weeks ahead. Thanks to everyone who joined us for the videos!  We’ll be recording more during upcoming 2022 events like Affiliate Grand Slam, Affiliate Summit East, and Traffic & Conversion.

We met a lot of great clients and partners at our exhibit booth and throughout the conference. Our head of marketing, Tom Wozniak, also delivered a conference session on what’s ahead for email marketing in a more privacy-centric world.  

A few other, non-business highlights. 

• The OPTIZMO crew enjoys a good meal and we’re always excited to find a new restaurant to add to our ‘must return’ list. Like in Las Vegas, we found another gem in San Diego, called Animae. Highly recommended. 
• The billiards room at the Tipsy Crow in the Gaslamp Quarter was also the venue for some of the worst but most entertaining pool anyone could ever play. We will definitely be back.  
• The Town & Country was a fantastic venue for the event and we’re excited that LGW will be back at the same hotel in 2023!

Let’s just say the team had a fantastic, but exhausting, 8-day trip. We’re excited to be home, but also ready to head to our next event!