• by Masha Geller , June 13, 2003

If the buzz about the Ad:Tech San Francisco Conference and Tradeshow doesn't point to the improving health of the online advertising industry, nothing does.

At press time Friday, Ad:Tech was expecting almost 40 event sponsors, including Forbes.com, MSN, Gator, Advertising.com, Overture and Google, 90 exhibitors (up from 55 in Los Angeles last year) and 142 speakers. That's to say nothing of the number of registered conference attendees, which swelled to more than 2,200 on Friday afternoon, not counting upcoming on-site registrations.

Just to put things in perspective, the West Coast shows in 1999 and 2000 - the height of the dot-com euphoria - attracted 2,189 and 2,681 attendees respectively.

Dawn Jeffrey, Vice President of JD Events, said, "We never want to say it's back to the good old days, but we've seen our attendance double from last year in LA. We're actually at meeting room capacity and had to with the hotel staff in the last several weeks to arrange for more space."

Jeffrey said that the exhibit hall was also sold out early and organizers had to come up with some room in the registration areas for companies to set up exhibit tables.

Jeffrey also mentioned that the Ad:Tech has offered a corporate pass option for companies to send up to ten people to the conference for $5,000 and in years past no one has taken advantage of it. This year, Jeffrey said, five companies took the plunge.

As for conference sessions, this time around, Ad:Tech is letting many more vendors sit on case study panels, but only if their clients participate as well to keep the sales pitches to a minimum and maximize actionable information. The sessions are divided into 7 tracks: advertising, marketing strategy, mobile marketing, search marketing, website, email marketing and promotions.

The show will kick off with a power panel led by Rich LeFurgy, General Partner at WaldenVC, which will discuss how companies should go about creating the "Integrated Marketing Dream Team." Tuesday's keynote will be delivered by Bob DeSena, Director of Relationship Marketing at Masterfoods USA, and Regis McKenna, Author of Total Access will keynote the closing day.

Ad:Tech is also bringing back the sponsored breakfast series, but this time with a common theme - search marketing. Google is planning to host a breakfast seminar on Tuesday, where top advertisers are scheduled to share how targeted search advertising increases leads and generates sales in this interactive discussion format. Looksmart will be hosting Wednesday's breakfast, where a panel moderated by USA Today's Jon Swartz will also discuss the benefits of search marketing by purchasing keywords.

And of course, the parties are back. All three days of the show will include special cocktail receptions, private dinners and other networking opportunities, not the least of which is Ad:Tech & GasPedal's Last Man Standing Private CEO Dinner on Monday night, which boast a reputation of being a "no-hassle, no-speeches, CEO-only kick-back-and-relax schmoozefest." After the last CEO dinner, Ron Kovas, CEO of iTraffic, said, "I left with a "wow" and I'm really looking forward to the next CEO dinner."