Posts Tagged ‘wickedfire’
If you missed it, check out: Affiliate Summit West 2009 in Pics and Words (Part 1).
Here’s more goodness from the Affiliate Summit:
ShareASale’s Director of Client Services Carolyn Tang AKA Catango is one of the most pleasant and knowledgeable individuals in the industry and it was a pleasure to talk to her at the SaS booth, even though there were lots of people there.
As a tradeshow visitor, I’ve got more than my fair share of t-shirts, notepads, pens, paper weights and stationery to last 2.5 lifetimes. I liked how SaS did a little out of the box thinking to provide a photobooth where affiliates took some crazy pics (I’ll post mine later), and thoughtfully gave out baby T-shirts and bears. For affiliates with families or significant others, they’ll likely be seeing the SaS logo on a teddy bear or baby T for some time to come. (a good thing).
Check out the Friday Podcast interview on Affiliate Program Strategies with Carolyn Tang.
It was cool hanging out with top affiliates Colin “Google” McDougall and Ros Gardner over dinner at the Nobu Japanese restaurant at the Hard Rock for the private launch of Jim Lillig’s Offeratti network.
Considering that Colin doesn’t take raw food, it’s a testament to the great food at Nobu that Colin was enjoying the sashimi with the rest of us during the meal. It was also interesting to hear Colin tell his stories about his towed trailer that he rolls out for holidays. And if you’re looking for inspiration as you’re working towards your ideal affiliate lifestyle, Ros has bought a lot of nice toys/trinkets to enjoy the fruits of her labor.
It was great to meet affiliate network Market Leverage‘s marketing manager Dina Riccobono after talking to her over IM and being interviewed for MLTV late last year.
Market Leverage has a proactive outreach and affiliate recruitment program and it’s refreshing to see a network take the intiative in getting to know affiliates. They hosted a dinner at Switch at the Encore hotel, with Market Leverage CEO Mike Jenkins in attendance. It was a great opportunity to talk to affiliate managers Mike Kelly and Jen Fluker to get insight into how affiliate managers operate.
At the dinner, Mike announced the launch of Market Leverage’s greenlinks program, which provides links to video-based affiliate training from the ML website interface.
Here’s an earlier Friday Podcast with Market Leverage CEO Mike Jenkins
Jen Goode, better known as JGoode, headed the Affiliate Summit mentors program and did a great job (I believe there were more than 100 mentees in the program). I also had a picture taken with the penguin and nearly kidnapped him. Ah well, maybe next time.
In the meantime, check out the Friday Podcast with Jen talking about Print-On-Demand product strategies
With Jon Fisher AKA AOJon , founder of the WickedFire affiliate marketing forum. I started making these “gang signs” because a number of the “affiliate gangstas” started making them.
Before the panel discussion on Affiliate Strategies for Traffic Generation and Sales Conversion on the first day of the summit with Miles Baker, Geordie Carswell, Nickycakes.
The session went well with positive (more…)
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.
Two elements are critical to the success of any social marketing campaign.
The first element is one that just about everyone is good at – The size of your network.
I say everyone is good at this element because all it takes to massively increase the number of friends in your MyBlogLog, BumpZee, YouTube, Facebook or other community is hitting the ‘add friend’ button and doing it over, and over, and over, and over again.
But here’s where it gets interesting, the fine line between social marketing and spamming is drawn when the relationship and more importantly permission and consensus are factored in.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve datamined someone’s email, cell phone from the net, your attempt to game the social network for personal gain falls flat on its face if you don’t have the relationship to back it up.
You might be wondering if this is merely ‘theoretical’ or ‘hypothetical’ or how well it works in real life…
Look at what happened to me last year…
I’ve been active on the WickedFire affiliate marketing forum for some time, giving advice on my pet area of blogging. So having been invited to be a ‘Blogging Guide’, I spend more time on the forum and create an instructional thread on “Blogging For Bucks”
And one day I read a thread on the forum about this new Super Affiliate’s blog, Super Affiliate Mindset.
And after talking with PPC Super Affiliate Amit Mehta for some time, we decide to jointly work on a product, which eventually becomes the Super Affiliate Accelerator. (the site is being upgraded at the moment).
The project is intended to create a series of custom training to provide business strategies and PPC tactics to new and experienced affiliate marketers.
Part of the program involves inviting other established Internet Marketers in on some of the mastermind sessions we’re organizing.
So I ask my friend Wil Reynolds, founder of top SEO agency Seer Interactive, to join in on one of our upcoming calls.
And as part of my research, I watch some of Wil’s videos from Shawn Collins and Missy Ward’s Affiliate Summit Seminar.
If you’re new to Search Engine Optimization, undoubtedly, Wil’s suggestions to check out 3 key blogs to keep you up to date on SEO developments will be intriguing.
What are the 3 blogs?
Listening to Wil’s recommendations, I opened my copy of SEOBook I’d purchased early last year.
I’d glanced through it a number of times and picked up great SEO tips and subsequently listed it on my recommendations page.
Now, with the weight of Wil’s endorsement, I re-read it (all 350 pages in a 2 hour sitting).
If you have not read it yet, you will not know that it goes beyond SEO, to encompass Aaron’s copywriting strategies and even PPC management. More importantly, Aaron includes elements of his Internet Marketing journey from spamming links to creating quality white hat links.
If you haven’t yet, why not spend the opening days of this year, checking out Aaron Wall’s SEOBook.
Shawn Collins’ and Missy Ward’s Affiliate Summit East has wrapped up in Miami and it has provided some buzz, even from where I’m at halfway around the world.
If you didn’t make it down, Shawn has posted a listing of WebProNews’ video coverage of the event.
Jim Kukral seems to have been holed up in the Blogging Room the entire event and has posted quite a bit of content. Pity I wasn’t down there, else I’d have visited him once or twice (For real this time, Jim…)
He did post this marvel of a pic though:
Missy Ward and Internet Girl Geek Stephanie [Let me emphasize that’s it’s SIMULATED]
Shawn has also blogged about ASE:
5Star Affiliate Linda Buquet has linked to the Affiliate Summit East blog posts. [Incidentally I won 5Star’s “Blog Buzz” prize a week back. Thanks Linda!].
Shoemoney has posted his reflections on Affiliate Summit East and has a number of interesting photos in his photo gallery.
Super Affiliate Zac Johnson, who spoke at ASE, has posted (more…)
In about a week’s time, the folks over at WebmasterRadio, affiliate network Copeac and the WickedFire affiliate marketing forum affiliate marketing forum, look set to hold the AffiliateBash, a party held in sizzling Miami that is set to blister off the charts.
Another major sponsor is affiliate network RocketProfit.
And the party will be held at the Mansion on Miami Beach.
So you can expect to see the folks like WebmasterRadio, WickedFire leader Aojon and the WickedFire crew, together with DigitalMoses Confidential, PepperJam, Options Media, Moniker and FriendFinder.
PepperJam is doing a promotion for their VIP list, check out the post here.
If you’re there, do be sure to say hi to Copeac president Mike Krongel and lead affiliate manager Danielle Iovino. I’ve learned more than my fair share of guerilla affiliate marketing tactics from Mike over the last few months and he’s always ready to share his experiences. Danielle’s one of the best affiliate managers I’ve met among the different CPA networks out there.
Be sure to pick the brains of PepperJam head honcho Kris Jones and Affiliate marketing director Robyn Martin.
Aojon has informed me over IM that he plans to do a number of unspeakable things at the party and it wouldn’t be prudent to reproduce them here.
Much as I’d like to, I won’t be making the trip down to Miami, although I’ve already told my wife that nothing is going to keep me from Affiliate Summit West at the Rio in Vegas in February next year.
If you’re headed to Affiliate Summit, and you miss the Affiliate Bash, you could be kicking yourself for some time to come.
If you haven’t already figured it out yet, the bulk of the power networking and exchange of affiliate marketing and CPA campaign information takes places at these events (especially after a few drinks).
Speaking of which, the other big party coming up is the Rich Jerk’s Playboy (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…)
