Posts Tagged ‘affiliate-summit-west’
This week I had an opportunity to discuss the power of networking at live events with Affiliate Summit co-founder Shawn Collins.
Shawn Collins (left) with new Affiliate Summit intern Jack Collins
Shawn is one of the most experienced and friendliest contacts I have made since getting involved in affiliate marketing and I appreciate the fact that he’s a friend whom I consult over IM and through the email.
It was great to hear how Shawn got started in affiliate marketing in 1997 as an affiliate for Amazon, and how he’s progressed to founding the Affiliate Summit seminar/tradeshow with Missy Ward, manages the Affiliate Tip blog, Authored “Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants”, his annual AffStat report, the weekly Affiliate Thing weekly podcast co-hosted with Revenue magazine editor Lisa Picarille, an Affiliate Manager forum and probably 100 other projects, including one which will be launched soon.
Here’re some of the topics we discussed:
- How to get value out of attending seminars and events (as opposed to staying home and reading blogs and forums)
- Important things you should do BEFORE and AFTER attending an event
- How to catch all the conferences free
- How to gain an unfair networking advantage at ASW
- How to get free consulting from industry veterans and experts at the event
The podcast can be accessed below:
46 mins 36 secs : 22 mb
Affiliate Summit West is from Feb 24-26 at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. Last year the tickets ran out and scalpers were having a field day on eBay.
And Shawn has given a special Affiliate Summit coupon code for my blog readers “ANDREW10” which will give you a 10% discount off your tickets.
Here’s the registration link: Affiliate Summit West.
Get your tickets early to avoid disappointment, and if you’re headed for ASW, I look forward to seeing you there.
Over the weekend, I stayed up till 1:30 am to plan my flights and get my hotel confirmed for Shawn Collins and Missy Ward’s upcoming Affiliate Summit West, at the Rio in Las Vegas from Feb 24-26.
Unlike the past Affiliate Summit where I found myself hiking from Harrah’s (which has great prime rib) to Bally’s every morning, I was determined to get lodging at the Rio where the summit will be held.
Having said that, here’s some summit survival tips:
- Take the bus if you have time and like to see the city. It costs about $6 for a 1-way ticket and stops at most of the major hotels. It does take a little time to get around though because it stops at quite a number of hotels.
- Wear comfortable walking shoes as you’ll be pounding the show floor if you’re diligent about meeting merchants and networks (I only got through about 25% of the booths the last time round because I was talking to and got waylaid by people as I was walking around).
- Carry a backpack if you don’t want to be lugging your schwag all over the place. Especially if there’re booths giving out Plasma TVs, Xbox360s and Nintendo WIIs (I think most of us can go out and buy one, it’s just the ultra competitive streaks in every motivated affiliates that comes out when it comes to competitions…)
With that out of the way, and a 15 hour plane ride (I’m taking a direct Singapore-Los Angeles flight on a brand spanking new Airbus A380 this time) ahead, what’s in store at Affiliate Summit?
The fun begins before the event starts.
Anik Singal and his Affiliate Classroom team have organized Affiliate Classroom Live, a 1-day workshop for affiliate managers on Saturday 23 Feb. What’s more it’s free…Places are very limited though, so check out:
–> Anik Singal’s Affiliate Classroom Live
Chase the workshop with Brook Schaaf’s Affiliate Dinner. Expect to see a guest of honor. Expect to see the guest of honor roasted…What fun!
Is Affiliate Dinner a ponzi scheme? Here’s the answer…
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So day 1 of the summit kicks off with the “Affiliate Meet Market” from noon to 6pm. I missed this the last time because of a delayed flight, but I’m arriving a day early to make sure I am able to take part in the meet-and-greet and associated networking.
Here’s the floorplan for the Affiliate Meet Market. (PDF format)
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Day 2 kicks off with Jason Calacanis’ keynote.
With Jason recently refering to “Affiliate Spam” “polluting” the search engines at the Paris Le Web seminar, you can expect some fireworks during the keynote.
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One note about the presentations that follow. An overwhelming number of presentation proposals were submitted, with the result that about 4 presentations are simultaneously ongoing during each time slot. In many cases, you have great sessions going on at the same time.
I checked with Shawn and he mentioned that the sessions will be recorded and available for viewing later.
I’d suggest prioritizing your favorite sessions and making a beeline for them. In some cases I can see the majority of the crowd gravitating towards ONE session…
Forewarned is forearmed…
I’ve listed some of the sessions I personally am interested in attending:
As I’ve been doing a number of podcast and vlogging (video blogging) lately, I’m keen to check this session out.
I met Buy.com’s Melissa Salas last Feb at ASW, and she present a pretty great show for Buy.com over at Buy.Tv.
(As of last October, on the BuyTV MySpace page it’s mentioned that “BuyTV was just informed that it has been picked up for local programming via Time Warner, Cox, Charter, DirecTV, Echostar, Dish Network and others – Sunday mornings at 11:30am PST”)
And you have a panel of other video marketing/video blogging folks (more…)
It’s about 47 days to Shawn Collins and Missy Ward’s Affiliate Summit West in Vegas, and if you’re headed there, drop a note in the comments and I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for you.
I added a note to my Facebook profile to add a countdown alert (via the Top Countdowns application).
So some of the choices available:
I picked the 2nd from the bottom cos it looked kinda “slot machine-ish”. [You’d have to pay a hefty sum to see the cupcakes on my profile……….]
After I added it, I was thinking about unconventional uses, specifically guerilla tactics for Facebook applications for affiliate marketers…
(more…)
Missy Ward and Shawn Collins’ Affiliate Summit West 2008 from February 24-26, 2008 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, looks like it’s shaping up to be yet another successful conference.
They’ve secured Jim Kukral as the MC.
According to Shawn’s post “Speaker Submissions for ASW 08”:
The submission deadline is October 26, 2007. Read through all of the information on the speaker submission page. submissions failing to follow the instructions and/or adhere to the deadline will not be considered.
…Accepted speakers will be notified no later than November 16, 2007.
Due to the volume of submissions, we will not notify applicants if they have not been accepted. Therefore, if you have not been contacted by November 16, 2007, your proposal was not accepted.
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The speaking proposals are evaluated on the basis of:
How are speaker submissions selected?
The speaker submissions are reviewed by the Affiliate Summit Advisory Board and selected on a number of factors, including speaking experience, industry reputation, and attention to detail (failure to follow instructions on the form will count against you), etc.
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Here’s an interesting idea from a year ago for ASW 07 (held in January this year)
If you are interested in speaking, one thing that would help evaluate your proposal is if you also send a video (just fire up a Web cam to shoot it) and talk about what you’ll be speaking about at the conference. (Potential Affiliate Summit Speakers – Send Us Your Videos)
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Although taking the effort to put together a video – scripting, shooting, editing – will take (more…)
Here’s some breaking news direct from Affiliate Summit co-founder Shawn Collins: “Affiliate Summit West (ASW) will be held in Las Vegas at the Rio Hotel on Feb 24-26, 2008.” I’ve been rousing my super affiliate posse to get them to block time on their schedules to make it to the event. Will you be there?
Having been to ASW in January, I’d have to say that the trade show experience is very different from educational seminars that most information marketers are used to going to. [Read: Affiliate Summit West 2006 Round Up]
Affiliate Summit brings together a huge network of affiliate networks and service providers. Contrary to what some might believe, the world of affiliate marketing and CPA marketing extends beyond just Clickbank and Commission Junction or CJ for short.
Hearing first hand from the affiliate networks and talking to other affiliates, it’s more an information-sharing type of event, rather than one where you have a speaker “teaching” you.
The afterhours parties are pretty awesome too.
The upcoming Affiliate Summit East (ASE) will be held in Miami, July 8-10.
There was some drama regarding WickedFire founder Jon Fisher’s announcement of a ASE exhibitor hall pass giveaway to members of the WickedFire affiliate marketing forum.
Apparently non-members tried to register and cause some consternation.
Well, every event always has some element of drama and I think it spices things up a little.
In case you’re wondering, as much as I’d like to, I’m giving ASE a miss this time as my schedule is full till the year end.
I’ll be making a beeline for (more…)
I had a frightful lesson in outsourcing today: You’ll need to keep tabs on the efforts of the people you’re outsourcing work to, otherwise it could be to the detriment of your business.
You may already know that in addition to this blog, I own a network of content sites.
In particular, Internet Marketing Cookbook has been one of my pet projects.
But in the past couple of months, with the activity surrounding Affiliate Summit West and a couple of new projects I was working on, I didn’t have time to manage all my sites.
So it seemed like a good idea to (more…)
