Archive of ‘affiliate marketing’ category
Continuing on the people and companies I met up with at the recently concluded Affiliate Summit West 2010 in Las Vegas, it was great to have met up with many people, some of whom I’ve known and talked regularly with for 2 years or more over skype and AIM.
Note: If you missed the first part, you can find it here: Affiliate Summit West 2010 in Pics and Words Part 1.
The Ryan Eagle vs Maxbounty drama
As Nickycakes mentions in his post summarizing some of the “drama” at ASW, I stepped into the meet market and heard that Maxbounty has a poster featuring a shady character that looked like Ryan Eagle (owner of the Eagle Web Assets CPA network). I wasn’t aware that the Eagleman was angry or shaking about the picture. I did follow him to the booth to have his picture taken.
The Birdman with the Maxbounty Ad
As we were taking the picture and Ryan was laughing about it, it was funny to see one of Maxbounty’s owners JP Sauve who was (more…)
Affiliate Summit West 2010 in Vegas was a great event and well worth the 20+ hours it took to travel each way from my home in Singapore. It was great connecting with old friends and make new ones.
Rather than one megapost, I’ll do some Hiro Nakamura style timeshifting and jump between people and places and space it out over a few posts.
Enjoy the ride.
Note: If your place of work has a conservative attitude when it comes to pictures, you might like to read this post later.
Affiliate Summit has a reputation for great parties (in comparison to SEO and blogging and general marketing shows from what I hear).
This year did not disappoint.
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Day 0 (Saturday):
I got into McCurran Airport just before noon and headed to the Rio, the Affiliate Summit conference venue and where I’d be staying during the trip. I’m not sure if the economy has anything to do with it, but I was able to get into my room immediately, rather than have to wait till 4pm like in previous years.
I headed over to (more…)
As mentioned in my last post, I had a great time in Vegas, meeting up with old friends and making new ones.
I know sure if it’s a perceptual thing, but I seem to have met more media buying affiliates and international affiliates (especially from Israel) this time round.
The biggest shift for me in 2010 is putting more resources into my own projects and affiliate marketing, vs placing blogging/social media as a higher priority, so the roundup post is still to come.
What’s helping my productivity is capping the time I spend on twitter/reading blogs/forums at 10-15 minutes apiece.
In the meantime, Shawn and Missy have compiled the coverage from ASW at:
It looks like both posts might be duplicates, so clicking on either link will get you to the posts.
One thing I noticed is that with the absence of Outspoken Media’s Lisa Barone, there was also a corresponding lack of live blogging of the sessions, which would be useful for those who didn’t make the event, or even those of us who were there, but didn’t manage to attend some of the sessions (4 parallel tracks in each time slot).
In the meantime, it’s back to the grind…
Affiliate Summit founders Shawn Collins and Missy Ward put up another smashing show in Vegas this time round and a summary/wrap-up post will be coming up in the next couple of days, but first I want to go through some tips to make the trip pay off big time for you.
For the moment, forget writing a long blog post and instead focus on what’s important – leveraging from the contacts you made in Las Vegas.
#1 Business growth plans – what’s your plan?: Aside from being a nice business tax write-off, what were your outcomes from Affiliate Summit? Go through the people you met, the cards you collected, the conversations you had. Work through the new networks/new traffic sources/joint projects that were discussed because 90% of the people out there are just blowing smoke out of their butt and will never take action. The ones that day will be laughing all the way to the bank.
So you need to shortlist who you’re going to follow up with. I like to keep my list to 5-7 possible projects and eventually cut it down to 2-3. If you listened to Charles “Dr Ngo” speak at the Meetup202/Bloosky party, you’d realize that focus/prioritization are key to building up a business.
#2 Screen intent/drive the conversation: Within a couple of interactions over instant messenger/email, you should have some idea how serious someone is about working with you. If it’s a backburner/throwaway project for them, you should move on. I’ve seen partners who’ve only put in 1-2 hours into a joint project, which eventually jettisons the project after 3-6 months. Save yourself the trouble, and identify a “losing campaign” early on and focus on the winners. Also, you need to have a clear idea of what you’re putting in to a project, what you want to get out of it. If you have no idea who’s driving the project, then you’re going to be the one who’s being driven.
#3 Give it your best shot: The most interesting projects/collaborations are those that have long term potential, especially if you invest in the business relationship (which might turn into a personal relationship). No one likes to have their time wasted and if you’re giving as good as you’re taking, it significantly increases the success rate of the project.
#4 Time decay: The longer you wait, the less likely you’re going to do anything and have a bunch of contacts you might’ve/could’ve done something with. Essentially you’re bottlenecking your own business if this happens. Ideally, within 24 hours is the sweet spot and shows that you’re serious about the business. You wouldn’t wait a week to convert a lead which probably has gone cold, so why do the same to potential partner.
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Yes, I eat my own dogfood. I wrote this after following up with the guys and companies I’m interested in working with.
Photos and wrapups will come later.
How about you?
Edit: One important step that I didn’t mention above and which is probably the most important is #5 Check their cred: It’s easy to jump into bed with anyone (whether in business or otherwise), but you should do your own “background checks” to see if they’re as good as they claim to be. The last thing you want to do is tether yourself to someone who’s learning the ropes on your dime…
Ok, it’s not 12 hours till Affiliate Summit West starts, but it’ll be 12 hours till I get on the plane.
Unless I get waylaid along the way, I should make it to most of the sessions/events I’ve recommended in my earlier post.
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Yet more tips for Vegas:
- Bring chapstick and use it: I’m no Edward Cullen, so bleeding lips don’t turn me on (most of the time anyway…) and Vegas being in the middle of the desert has pretty dry air.
- It gets cold at night: So a jacket helps.
- Static electricity: Prepare to get zapped, so don’t walk around carrying banks of RAM or hard disks in your hands. Alternatively, stand in elevator lobbies and watch people get zapped.
There are some of the parties I’m planning to attend:
- Ads4Dough party at the Spearmint Rhino
- Nickycakes/Neverblue/PlentyOfFish and something called ppcbz at the Palms
- Copeac party at Tryst and XS later
- Meetup202/Prosper202 meetup
- Ian Fernando’s Ianteract party
- ShareASale
You can see a list of parties at Nickycakes’ party round up.
Before you post in the comments that some of the parties clash, yes, I know. I’ll have to figure it out or follow whoever I’m with at the time.
I may have posted this already, but if you’re a merchant or network, your most productive meetings will be at lunch, rather than at dinner from what I’ve seen at previous shows.
I’ll likely not post anymore till I get net access, so if you want to reach me, you can email my private gmail account if you have it, else use the contact form. I may not have a cell while I’m in Vegas and my Twitter account will be updated sporatically.
If you still haven’t got your Affiliate Summit West 2010 tickets yet, you might be shit-out-of-luck. A friend says a gold pass (list: $549) has closed at about $975 on eBay, and a silver (list: $149) is at $475. If you find that the event is a must-attend, then get a ticket early next time. And if you don’t use it, list it on eBay.
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I’m moderating a session on “Effective Social Media Techniques” (Sun noon – 1pm) with panelists:
- Brett Tabke (founder of the Webmaster World forum and the Pub Con conference)
- Rebecca Kelley, social media director, 10e20
- Keith Plocek, social media manager, Mail.com
I’ve had a look at Brett’s presentation and it’ll give you techniques to more effectively brand and market yourself over Twitter. Keith gives an insight into the content publishing machine inside Mail.com and Rebecca will be giving tips on how not to be a social media douchebag.
The other activities I recommend going for include:
- Meet market (Sunday, noon-6pm): This is like a swap meet for affiliates. Lots of good networking with fellow affiliates and the smaller merchants/networks.
- Tradeshow (Mon-Tues): This is the main exhibition hall and the big networks will be here. Be sure to arrange a meeting with the network owner/affiliate manager ahead of time.
- Video marketing session with Ros Gardner and Jeremy Palmer (Sun 3-4pm): Video still hasn’t taken off in a big way yet in the affiliate space, so if you get in early, you’ll avoid having to buy the video marketing courses if they’re the big trend in 2011/2012…
- Product datafeeds (Mon 1130-1230pm): Helmed by Scott Jangro, this should be a great session
- Facebook Advertising (Mon 2-3pm): This should be an interesting session since Plenty of Fish’s Markus Frind will be on the panel. Perhaps he’ll talk about his PoF self-serve ad system either during the presentation or during the Q&A?
- SEO site clinic (Mon 330-430pm): with Graywolf, Sugarrae, Greg Boser and Michael Streko
- Women of SEO site clinic (Tues 1130am – 1230am): Kate Morris, CShel, lyndseo and Kristy Bolsinger
The conference track looks like it’s got a number of SEO, social media and blogging sessions and fewer PPC, PPV, media buy sessions.
The best learning/networking has taken place at the parties and meetups outside of the conference/tradeshow.
You can check out the list of parties which have been posted by Missy Ward.
Note: You should wear dress shoes and pants to get into more posh places like the Palms. More than a few affiliates have been turned away for wearing sports shoes, jeans to these places. A collared shirt might help too.
If you haven’t RSVPed to the parties, you might want to do so soon. A couple of them have 200-300 strong waiting lists, so unless you have a beeline to the network owner/organizer, you might not be able to get in.
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Meeting tip:
For the most productive meetings, lunches work better than dinner for me. Most affiliates will be in work mode at lunch, while they’ll be in party mode after 5pm.
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Will you be attending Affiliate Summit? Post in the comments if you will be and I’ll keep an eye out for you.
