How to Get Into Summits and Bundles that Actually Convert

How do you get into summits and bundles that actually grow your email list and move your business forward?

And once you are in, how do you make sure your contribution converts instead of just sitting there collecting crickets?

Not every summit or bundle is worth saying yes to. You can spend hours creating your contribution, promoting the event, and showing up as a great partner, only to walk away wondering why your list barely grew. The difference between an event that converts and one that does not usually comes down to alignment, application, and a few insider details most contributors never think to ask about.

In this episode, five experienced summit and bundle hosts and participants share everything they know about finding the right opportunities, standing out as a contributor, and understanding exactly why some events convert and others do not.

Keep reading to discover how to evaluate any summit or bundle before you apply, what hosts look for when reviewing applications, how to track everything without losing your mind, and who is really responsible when an event does not convert the way you hoped.

This panel was hosted by Nadalie Bardo, collaboration strategist and founder of Hey, Let’s Collab. She has hosted her own summits and bundles with over 50 contributors, been a participant in over 100 events herself, and knows exactly what makes a contributor stand out from both sides of the application.

This post is based on Episode 11 of the Hey, Let’s Collab podcast, a panel conversation with Sharee Collier, Kristen Robinson, Sara Alepin, Lucy Reyes, and Victoria Boyd. Listen to the full episode below, or keep reading.

What Are Summits and Bundles?

Before we get into strategy, a quick orientation for anyone new to these collaboration formats.

A virtual summit is an online event where multiple expert speakers each present a session on a related topic. Attendees register for free or a low-cost ticket to access the content, and contributors get exposure to a new, targeted audience in exchange for their participation and promotion.

A bundle is a curated collection of digital products, courses, templates, or resources that creators contribute to for free. Attendees claim the ones they want by opting in with their email address, which grows the contributor’s list.

Both formats work the same way at a high level: you contribute something, you promote the event, and you gain new subscribers and visibility from the combined reach of all participating creators. The difference is in the format, the structure, and the level of effort required on both sides.

Meet the Panelists

Sharee Collier is the author of The Virtual Summit Planner and founder of TheSummitHost.com, an all-inclusive resource for planning and hosting virtual summits. She helps creators simplify the summit process with proven strategies, templates, and step-by-step support.

Kristen Robinson is the lead generation specialist behind Explode Your Audience. She helps online coaches grow their email lists so they can fill their courses and programs. She is also a military spouse whose husband serves in the United States Marine Corps.

Sara Alepin is the founder of District Bliss, a community for introverted and extroverted business owners who want to build their businesses through easy, high-return collaborations and authentic networking.

Lucy Reyes is a productivity and systems strategist at Cheers to Productivity. She helps busy entrepreneurs organize their tasks, simplify their business, and save hours each week using tools like Trello so they can focus on what actually matters.

Victoria Boyd is a marketing strategist and founder of Strategies at Stack, a newsletter and membership where she helps founders build marketing strategies and systems so they can enjoy their lives without being glued to their computers.

Are you new to summits and bundles? Make sure that you have your collaboration-ready freebie created before you apply. Click here to learn how to make that freebie. 📑✨

Before You Apply: Get Clear on What You Want

Every panelist agreed on this before anything else: before you think about how to get into summits and bundles, you need to know what you want to get out of them.

Victoria Boyd put it directly. The times she has seen the most success as a contributor are the times when she was crystal clear going in about her goals and positioning. Not just wanting visibility. But knowing specifically: what do I want my positioning to be? What angle am I bringing that nobody else is already covering? What do I want to walk away with?

That clarity shapes everything. It determines which events are worth applying to, what product or resource you contribute, and how you show up when the event goes live.

Know Your Audience and Theirs

Sara Alepin added the other side of the equation: it is not just about what you want. It is about what the event’s audience wants.

You can participate in a bundle, but if nobody claims your contribution, you do not see growth. That means you need to ask: who is the host bringing together? What does that audience need? And is what I am offering actually what they are looking for?

Lucy Reyes echoed this with her own experience in the productivity and systems niche. That niche can serve almost anyone. But it matters whether the audience is moms, realtors, business owners, or real estate agents. If she has not lived their experience, it is harder to speak to their specific problem. And if her offer is not tailored to that audience, it simply will not convert.

Her rule: the more focused and niche the event, the better the results. She consistently gets more unsubscribes from broad events than from tightly focused ones.

Sharee Collier brought it back to alignment: say no to opportunities that are out of alignment, and show up as your best self to the ones that are. When you put in something genuinely suited to the audience already gathered, the conversion happens almost naturally.

How to Find Summits and Bundles Worth Joining

There is no shortage of opportunities. Finding them takes 15 to 20 minutes of focused searching. Here is where the panelists look.

Facebook Groups and Online Communities

Lucy recommended starting with Facebook groups specifically dedicated to summits and bundles. Sharee named a few by name: Bundles of Bundles, Collaboration Station by Courtney, and the Collab Directory by Letitia Collins. For summits specifically, Jen Zellers has a database of potential summits and speakers.

There are also growing Skool communities where creators gather around collaboration opportunities.

Your Own Inbox

One of the easiest and most overlooked places: search your own inbox for the words “bundle” or “collab.” Creators you are already subscribed to regularly open their events to their audiences. If you are on the right lists, opportunities come to you.

Networking and Word of Mouth

Sara’s preferred method: show up at networking events and simply mention you are looking for summits or bundles to join. Let your network do the searching for you. If someone in the room is hosting an event or knows someone who is, the connection happens naturally.

Being in One Gets You Into More

Victoria made a point that came up repeatedly: once you are in one event, the floodgates open. Hosts see you are open to collaboration. Other hosts notice you in contributor lists and communities. Kristen told her own clients to expect at least two to three invitations to future events simply from participating in one. At least one of those will come from an experienced host. At least one will come from someone newer.

The first one is always the hardest to get. Every one after that is easier.

Hosts Watch the Leaderboards

Nadalie shared something worth knowing: she actively screenshots leaderboards from events like BC Stack and reaches out directly to every top promoter. Those creators have already demonstrated that their audience clicks and signs up. If you are promoting events well and showing up on leaderboards, hosts are finding you whether you have pitched them or not.

If you are ready to start pitching your way into events instead of waiting to be found, check out this guide on how to pitch your first creator collaboration for a starting point.

How to Evaluate a Summit or Bundle Before Saying Yes

Not every opportunity is worth your time. Before you apply or accept an invitation, do your due diligence.

Understand How the Event Is Structured

Kristen made an important comparison: summits and bundles are like individual franchises. Each one is independently owned and operated with its own rules, formats, and structure.

• Some organize contributors by category.
• Others use first-come, first-served positioning.
• Some summits are live only with no replays.
• Others give attendees 24 or 48 hours per session.

Know the structure before you commit. Nadalie shared her own experience of participating in a purely live summit with no replays and walking away with 14 signups after devoting an entire day to it. She did not know there were no replays until it was already happening.

Ask the questions:

• Is there a replay window?
• Where will my product or session be positioned?
• What are the exact promotional requirements?
• What are the submission deadlines?
• What does the contributor experience look like day to day?

Check Your Positioning

Kristen emphasized that knowing your position within the event matters for understanding your results. If you are on day one of a summit and day one typically sees lower traffic, that context changes how you interpret your numbers. If your product is buried on page three of a bundle, that affects how many clicks you will get.

Ask the host how contributors are organized and where you are likely to land. Nadalie rotates category positioning in her own bundles deliberately so everyone gets time at the top. Not all hosts do this. Know what you are walking into.

Look at the Host’s Track Record

Victoria recommended getting into the host’s world before committing. If they have run events before, look at how they communicate, how they treated past contributors, and what the event itself looked like.

• Are the past contributors people you recognize or respect?
• Is the registration page compelling?
• Does the event have a clear goal and a specific audience?

Sharee and Sara also mentioned that before accepting contributions, they test every product themselves by actually redeeming the offer through the coupon code. They want to see what attendees will actually experience, not just the pretty submission form.

Ready to start collaborating with summits and bundles, but not sure what you need? Get your FREE Collab Ready Checklist here. 📋✨

What Hosts Look for When Reviewing Applications

Understanding what hosts want is one of the fastest ways to get accepted more consistently. The panelists were direct about what gets a yes and what gets an immediate no.

Follow the Instructions Exactly

Victoria named this as the single most reliable signal of whether someone will be a good contributor: can they follow basic instructions?

The square image. The specific file format. The word count for the description. These seem like small things, but hosts consistently find that contributors who cannot follow simple submission guidelines are the same ones who miss promotional deadlines and cause friction throughout the event.

Nadalie said it plainly: she was tempted to follow up with non-compliant contributors but decided against it. If they did not want to submit a square image, that was on them. And in almost every case, the contributors who could not follow instructions were the ones who caused the most problems later.

Following instructions is not the bare minimum. It is the thing that gets you recommended.

Email List Quality Over Size

Kristen now asks every applicant for their open rate and click-through rate rather than just their list size. She wants to know:

• Open rate: at least 30 percent, with 20 to 25 percent being the industry standard minimum
• Click-through rate: at least 2 percent
• Email frequency: do they email regularly or has it been a while?

A list of 500 highly engaged subscribers who open every email and click on links is worth more than a list of 10,000 people who stopped paying attention six months ago. The engagement is what drives actual opt-ins during the event.

Nadalie shared that one of the top performers in her Creator Collab Bundle had one of the smallest lists in the entire group. Small and mighty beats large and disengaged every time.

Alignment Is Everything

Sharee said this most clearly: the number one thing she looks for is alignment. Does this person’s offer genuinely serve the audience she is curating for this event? Does their topic fit naturally into the flow of the bundle? Is their product something attendees will actually want to claim?

When every contributor is genuinely aligned, conversions go up for everyone. One misaligned contributor does not just hurt their own numbers. They affect the overall experience for attendees and reduce engagement across the board.

Vetting and Background Checks

Kristen does a background check on every applicant whose name she does not already recognize. She will ask her network: Do you know this person? What do you know about them?

Sharee goes even further. She and Sara built out a detailed Airtable base for their shared bundle that tracks every application, every contributor, and every product submitted. When reviewing applicants, they actually redeem the offer themselves to see exactly what attendees will experience.

Nadalie flagged something that had happened in her own bundle: two contributors signed up using fake identities and photos, likely sourced through a Facebook group. She is still tracking them down. The lesson: have at minimum a simple way to verify who your applicants actually are. As a contributor, make it easy for hosts to find and verify you. Have a website, an active social presence, and a real email address.

For anyone building their first collaboration foundation, the Collab Ready Checklist walks through exactly what to have in place so you look professional and ready when you apply.✅

How to Be the Contributor Everyone Recommends

Getting accepted once is the goal. Getting invited back and referred to other hosts is where the real momentum happens.

Bundle Hosts Talk to Each Other

Kristen was blunt: bundle hosts talk. When a contributor is a pain, that information spreads. When a contributor is excellent, their name gets passed around.

She described the experience of being asked by another host: do you know anyone good for this event? Her answer changes completely depending on the contributor’s track record. If someone was difficult, she says so. If someone was excellent, she sends a personal email introduction and recommends them enthusiastically.

Doing the bare minimum well turns out to be the highest-leverage thing a contributor can do. Send the square image. Send the solo email. Hit the deadlines. Reply to communications promptly. Those things put you in the referral pile.

Show Up in the Community

Kristen pointed out that many hosts create private communities for their summit speakers or bundle contributors. A Voxer group, a Facebook group, a Slack channel. When you are in those communities, do not be a passive observer.

Introduce yourself. Ask questions. Connect with the other contributors. When someone asks whether anyone knows of an upcoming event, you are the one who answers. Connections made inside these communities often lead directly to future collaboration invitations.

Build Genuine Relationships, Not Just Applications

Sara’s approach is to rely on her network rather than cold applications wherever possible. She goes to networking events and mentions what she is looking for. She lets genuine relationships do the work of getting her into the right rooms.

Lucy added the deeper version of this: make real friends. Talk to people just to get to know them, not to extract a collaboration out of them. When you build genuine community, opportunities come to you without you having to chase them. The outcome arrives on its own when you stop treating every connection as a transaction.

For more on how to build the kind of relationships that lead to long-term collaboration opportunities, check out how Deborah Hurwitz built a 10-year collaboration from a single invitation email. 💌

How to Track Everything Without Losing Your Mind

Once you start applying to multiple summits and bundles at the same time, the details pile up fast. Here is how the panelists stay on top of it all.

Lucy’s Approach: Start Simple

Lucy recommends starting with whatever system you will actually use. If that is a Google Sheets spreadsheet or a Google Doc, start there. If you want something more robust, Trello or Airtable work well.

At a minimum, track:

• The name of the event and who is hosting it
• What you contributed (product name, topic, description)
• The expected decision date so you know when to check your inbox
• Whether you were accepted or not
• The event dates and your promotional requirements
• How many signups you received

Knowing the dates is especially important for managing overlapping promotional commitments. Lucy tries not to overlap events so she can give each one her full promotional effort.

Sara’s Approach: Track What You Submitted and When You Promoted

Sara keeps a detailed record in Airtable of every contribution she has ever made, including which events she has already given each product to. She does not want to give away the same resource in back-to-back events. Spreading them out keeps each offer feeling fresh and incentivizes people to sign up for the current event rather than assuming they already have it.

She also tracks the exact date she promoted each event. If swipe copy arrived two days before the send date on a Saturday and she does not work weekends, she notes that the promotion did not happen on the expected day. That kind of documentation protects her from misunderstandings with hosts about whether she fulfilled her commitments.

Sharee’s Approach: Airtable With Multiple Views

Sharee uses a full Airtable base with multiple views to track each collaboration through its lifecycle:

1. Setup view: event name, contributor details, due dates, coupon code, everything needed before the event goes live
2. Currently promoting view: tracks which promotional emails and social posts have been sent
3. Post-event view: tracks leads received and assigns a one-to-five-star rating with notes on the overall experience

When she goes back to decide whether to participate in an event again, she has the data right there. She shared a story of almost declining to rejoin an event because she vaguely remembered it not converting well, then checking her Airtable and finding she had given it three stars and received several hundred leads. Her brain had misremembered entirely.

Nadalie’s Approach: One Folder, One Board

Nadalie keeps a dedicated folder in her email for all bundle and summit communications. Whenever an update comes in, it goes straight there. No hunting through a general inbox.

She also keeps a single Trello board for all active collaborations with columns for the event name, dates, promotional requirements, and the information page link. After each event ends, she logs how many signups she received so she has a record to reference down the line.

The key principle everyone agreed on: it does not need to be the fanciest system in the world. It just needs to be one you will actually use consistently.

For a deeper dive into the systems that keep collaborations running smoothly across multiple events, check out the panel on making every collaboration run smoothly.

Who Is Really Responsible When an Event Does Not Convert?

This was the most candid part of the episode. Nadalie asked the panel directly: when results are disappointing, is it the host or the contributor?

The answer is both. And knowing which is which matters enormously for your growth.

What the Host Controls

Sharee argued that the host is responsible for the overall experience and the curation of contributors. A bundle that looks beautiful on the outside but has sessions and products that do not serve the attendee’s goal will not convert regardless of how strong the individual contributors are. The host sets the frame, the positioning, the quality standard, and the audience they attract.

Victoria added that in summits specifically, the host has significantly more influence over results than in bundles. She works directly with speakers on session titles, making sure they are specific enough to help attendees prioritize which session to watch when they have limited time. That extra layer of editorial involvement can meaningfully increase a speaker’s opt-ins.

What the Contributor Controls

Nadalie was direct about the contributor side: if the host sent you clicks and you did not get sign-ups, that is on you.

She has the click data. She knows how many people visited each contributor’s landing page. What she cannot see is what happens after the click. That depends entirely on the contributor’s landing page, their offer description, their product image, and whether their opt-in actually converts.

Kristen tracks conversion rates for every contributor across every event she runs. She sends a mid-event report so contributors can see their numbers while there is still time to make changes to their landing page. Then she sends a final report after the event closes.

She consistently gets replies from contributors who assumed the event was the problem, only to discover they were sent 75 clicks and converted six of them. That conversion rate is a landing page problem, not an event problem.

Nadalie makes this point directly to any contributor who reports that bundles have not worked for them: go back and look at what you submitted. Look at your opt-in page. What was your conversion rate? Because if you got the clicks and you did not get the signups, that is the thing to fix before the next event.

The Landing Page Nobody Is Talking About

The landing page is where most contributors leave results on the table. If your product description is confusing, your image is low quality, your headline does not speak to the specific audience in that event, or your opt-in page takes too many steps to complete, you are losing people who were already interested enough to click.

Your landing page is not the host’s responsibility. It is yours. And fixing it between events is one of the highest-leverage things you can do to improve your collaboration results.

Make sure your freebie and landing page are set up to convert before you apply to your next event. The guide on creating a collaboration-ready freebie covers exactly what to have in place.

Your Action Plan: How to Get Into Summits and Bundles That Convert

Here is everything the panel covered distilled into a clear process.

Step One: Get Clear on Your Goals Before You Apply

Know what you want from the event before you say yes to it. New subscribers? Visibility with a specific audience? Testing a new offer? Your goal shapes which events are worth your time and what you contribute.

Step Two: Evaluate Alignment Before Anything Else

Ask: is this event’s audience the audience I want to reach? Is my offer something they will genuinely want? Does the topic and niche of this event match what I do?

If the answer to any of those is no or I am not sure, it is probably not the right event. And if you are accepted and it does not convert, misalignment is likely why.

Step Three: Ask the Questions Most Contributors Do Not Ask

Before committing, find out:

• Is there a replay window for summit sessions?
• How are contributors organized and positioned?
• What are the exact promotional requirements?
• What are all the submission deadlines?
• What does the contributor experience look like?

If a host cannot answer these questions clearly, that tells you something about how organized the event will be.

Step Four: Follow Every Instruction Exactly

Submit the square image. Hit the deadlines. Send the promotional email. Reply to host communications promptly. These are not optional extras. They are the things that get you recommended to other hosts and invited back year after year.

Step Five: Make Your Landing Page Convert

Before your next event, look at your opt-in page with fresh eyes. Is the headline clear? Does the description speak specifically to the audience in this event? Is the opt-in process simple? If you are getting clicks but not sign-ups, this is the place to focus.

The Collab Starter Kit includes a tracker and everything else you need to get your collaboration foundation set up properly from the start. ✨

Step Six: Build a Tracking System You Will Actually Use

Track the event name, your contribution, the deadlines, the promotional requirements, and your results. Use whatever tool fits your brain: Google Sheets, Trello, Airtable, even a notebook. The system only works if you use it consistently.

Step Seven: Show Up as a Great Partner Every Time

Your reputation is the most valuable asset you have in the collaboration world. Bundle hosts talk to each other. Summit hosts recommend contributors to their networks. The creators who follow instructions, hit deadlines, and promote enthusiastically get invited back and referred to new opportunities without having to pitch constantly.

And for the pitch you do need to send to get started, grab the Collab Scripts to get word-for-word outreach templates that help you land your first yes.

Watch the Full Episode

This post covers everything the panel discussed, but hearing five experienced contributors and hosts debate who is really responsible when an event does not convert is a conversation you want to listen to in full.

Listen to the Full Episode 🎧✨

Don’t miss a single episode of Hey, Let’s Collab. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and catch new conversations every week about real collaborations, real results, and real strategies.

Ready to find and land your first summit or bundle opportunity? Grab the Collab Scripts to get the outreach templates that help you pitch with confidence. And if you want to make sure your whole collaboration foundation is in place first, the Collab Starter Kit has everything you need to get started.