Closing strong roles in performance marketing has become tougher — that’s a fact. And it’s not because there aren’t enough people. There are plenty. The issue is that truly skilled professionals are still scarce, and they rarely appear in open job searches.
If your team needs more than someone with a polished resume — a high-performing buyer, team lead, or affiliate manager with real experience and good judgment — the standard hiring funnel just doesn’t work. Applications come in, calls happen, but the candidates rarely meet the required level.
That’s why more and more of the industry is turning to offline events. These events make it easier to meet people who aren’t actively job hunting, quickly gauge their capabilities, and avoid wasting weeks running candidates through formal stages that don’t tell you anything.
Why Strong Talent is Still Rare
Information about performance marketing has exploded in recent years. Entering the niche is easier than it was a few years ago — courses, chats, tutorials, shared schemes, spy tools, databases — it’s all out there. But access to information doesn’t make someone an expert.
“Newcomers are everywhere, but many can only follow a ready-made script. As long as the combination works, the algorithm isn’t touched, and the source is stable, everything seems fine. But once conditions change, failure appears. That’s when you see who truly understands the mechanics versus who is just repeating a set of steps,” explains Yanina, co-founder of Partnerkin HR.
This is especially evident when hiring buyers. Someone with proven experience, solid numbers understanding, and the ability to manage large budgets rarely sits idle. Team leads are a separate challenge. A strong buyer isn’t automatically a strong lead — that role demands different skills: people management, risk awareness, and process-building, not just the ability to run campaigns well.
Meanwhile, the market itself isn’t slowing down. The Affiliate Trend Report shows that 62% of advertisers expect affiliate revenue growth this year. Hiring is equally challenging: according to ManpowerGroup, 72% of employers in 2026 report difficulty filling positions. In performance marketing, finding someone with experience isn’t enough — the person must thrive under stress, adapt quickly, and make decisions on the fly.
Niche HR reports like Affjobs/Affpal HR support this. The most in-demand roles include iGaming/Nutra Facebook media buyers from the CIS, affiliate managers, and media-buying team leads. The demand is clear: the market hunts for practical roles that are difficult to fill through mass applications.
Why Standard Hiring Funnels Deliver Fewer Strong Candidates
Top performers rarely browse job boards. They’re already embedded in the market, recognized, approached directly, often headhunted through trusted connections before they even consider a change.
Another reason: most job postings are vague, with minimal specifics on role, pay, process, or scope. For experienced candidates, that’s a red flag.
Yanina explains that strong candidates aren’t turned off by the role itself — they’re deterred by the emptiness inside it. The open market hasn’t declined because people stopped changing jobs; the best candidates have simply moved to a different trajectory — one built on trust, direct contact, and clear context.
This is why offline events like MAC have become so important. Teams don’t attend to submit resumes; they attend to interact, see the market live, and meet people who are otherwise difficult to reach.
Resumes and Calls No Longer Signal True Skill
Many candidates have learned to look convincing on paper. They can confidently list verticals, geos, traffic sources, anti-detect tools, and standard solutions — then fall apart on the first real question about execution. At a conference, you’ll see in 10 minutes whether someone really knows what they’re doing.
Yanina points out this is one of the toughest realities in recruiting. On paper, a candidate may seem impressive — right companies, good experience, familiar phrasing. But in conversation, the depth often isn’t there. And sometimes, a quiet, unpolished candidate reveals more understanding than flashier profiles.
Freshness of expertise matters too. Old screenshots and last year’s ROI mean little. Performance marketing evolves fast. Hiring now requires more than one interview. Recruiters check references, ask for live stats, and discuss failures, decision logic, and behavior under stress.
This is why live interaction is more valuable than ever. At MAC, a candidate’s skill shows through quickly. Their conversation about budgets, mistakes, teams, processes, and campaigns tells more than weeks of formal interviews.
Why MAC is Part of the Hiring Funnel
A typical funnel goes: resume, call, test, another call, hope the person isn’t a dud. At a conference, it’s different. You meet someone live, gauge the conversation level, check context, then decide whether to move forward.
This is crucial for high-level roles. Buyers, team leads, affiliate managers, or operations heads are hard to assess through standard templates. You need to see how they think, organize, communicate, and where they have depth versus rehearsed answers.
Yanina notes that conferences are more effective for recruiting than they appear because you see candidates in a live environment, not just as a profile or presentation. That’s critical for strong roles.
MAC is particularly valuable because it gathers teams, buyers, leads, affiliate managers, services, and people already in high-performing networks — many not actively job hunting. In live conversation, these people may consider a strong opportunity. That’s the real value of attending.
Especially at scale. Organizers estimate that MAC ’26 in Yerevan, May 26–27, will host over 5,000 attendees and more than 200 booths.
Go to MAC for People, Not Booths
The most common mistake is attending without a clear goal: stroll around, collect contacts, figure it out later. For recruiting, that’s nearly useless.
If a team wants meaningful contacts, they need a clear plan in advance: who are we looking for, what level, from which projects, what can we offer, and — most importantly — why should a top performer spend time with us?
“Seek not those actively looking, but those already thriving in strong environments. These are the people rarely in standard funnels. Notice them in conversation, then quickly move to the next step — call, post-conference meeting, detailed role discussion,” adds Yanina.
That’s the line between useful networking and just socializing. A booth contact isn’t hiring — it’s the entry point. Speed and quality of follow-up determine success. Many teams lose top candidates not at first contact, but two days later, when no one has followed up with a concrete offer.
Why This Shift Won’t Reverse
Open job markets in performance marketing aren’t disappearing. Vacancies and application flows remain. But for teams needing true talent — not just resume talkers — that’s no longer enough.
The market is bigger, and top performers rarely appear openly. They are approached via recommendations, trusted networks, and live contact. MAC has become a place where real hiring starts — not automatic, not promised, not easy, but far more honest and effective than a standard funnel.
If a team wants top performers, posting a job isn’t enough. You need to be where strong candidates are, see them, understand them quickly, and follow up in time. In affiliate marketing, this increasingly happens offline. MAC has long secured its role in that process.