SES v/s Internet Retailer

[webpundit]

Like another poster who had to choose between SES & PubCon, my choices are the Internet Retailer Conference (IRC) (www.internetretailer.com/ir2006) and the SES conference.

I know the IRC isn't gearted towards pure search marketing, but my job duties aren't limited to pure SEM/SEO either, hence the dilemma. The company I work for is majorly invested in selling and marketing over the web, so search is not all we focus on (albeit it's a major part.)

Has anybody been to both and have an opinion on which one was more productive/advantageous to them? Hearsay will help too! I've been to SES before and found it incredibly informative about the search marketing side of things. I've never been to IRC before and it seems like it would be more high-level and look at other aspects of selling online too. Any opinions on IRC?

[Marcia]

Not even hearsay, just a quick opinion based on a quick look at the IRC agenda, speakers, etc. and nothing more, so take it with a grain of salt.

IRC appears to have a lot of focus on specific industries with online presences - probably including information on prospects and forecasting trends would be my "uneducated" guess.

SEM/SEO conferences, judging just by the sites describing them alone, don't appear to focus on industries and sectors like that one does, but appear to focus rather on how to make web sites work - which covers a lot more than SEM and SEO.

Just MVHO, kind of an overall personal philosophy that may or may not be relevant:

Nothing happens until there's traffic.
Traffic is worthless without conversions.

Hopefully someone will come along who knows what they're talking about concerning the question being asked, but that's how I personally view the priorities. :)