Then I noticed John Hasson at a table and I was kind of in shocked, prior to this event I have been hanging out with an expert and exchanging ideas. I was really proud to have met up with John. Me and John hanged out and went to several parties and discussed several topic, I can tell you John knows his stuff. At the Ask the Experts seminar – his table was one of the more packed ones. I assume this is because it dealt with more PPC and affiliate marketing.

John is the middle person with his hair bleached. A lot of users were bombarding him with questions and he either said he knew the answer or he didn’t. I also can tell you John likes to talk. He provided some great insight on PPC marketing and how not to rely on Google. Google for some reason has received that brand, PPC = Google. Not necessarily since there are so many others out there. I personally have tested out Adsonar, ClickRiver, and many others – this just shows you there are many ways to pay per click and not just use Google Adwords. John did a great job in explaining this, since he does use multitude of other searches besides Google Adwords.

At the table you can tell there was a lot of new people and even experts at the table. Any information is great information you can say. John really explained the questions thoroughly and even gave example of his past experience. Even though John did digress a little off topic on the personal side he did attack all the questions and even ask if he fully answered the question. Great Guy!

At some time during his FAQs I wanted to know his feedback on Amazon Clickriver then he turned the tables to me – I was like umm ‘I am cool’. No, but I did explain that I benefited with Clickriver more so than Adwords in December since the conversion is far greater on Amazon. Amazon users or targeted traffic are more prone to purchase something than someone on Google searching. There were users there really wanting to know how PPC works and how to better use it, John was a busy guy and I bet he needed a bottle of water.

While I was at John’s table for quite a while Joe Tech and Roger found useful information at other tables. I really did not want to pay attention to others since they are more of service orientated stuff. I wanted to know more about ppc and affiliate marketing. Here are what Joe and Roger found useful.

Joe Tech went to another table and found:

While Ian and Roger picked other tables, I opted to soak in some concepts from David Weinrot, Vice President, Content Marketing & Operations, Shopzilla at the Measuring Yield table. He stressed the importance of comparing your revenue per 1,000 impressions for any given network or offer rather than comparing how much you’re bringing in per month or day total (as I’ve been doing). For merchants, he described how to maximize your program’s conversion rate by paring down on products or offers that aren’t converting well, among other things.

Roger thought Like an Sob and found:

What TrialPay does is acts as an intermediary between download.com and other companies. So if a user signs up with Blockbuster.com for instance, Trialpay gets the affiliate commission for it, takes its cut and passes the rest on to download.com – pretty sweet huh?

Related posts:

1. Pictures from Affiliate Summit West 2008
2. Affiliate Summit West 2008: Day 2
3. East Meets Affiliate Summit West

Well below are some freebie gear that I have received from services and sponsors:

Zac Johnson – MoneyReign.com

The Official Affiliate Summit 2008 T-Shirt

Twipster a geocentric mobile publishing platform

RocketProfit – Affiliate Network – I might be joining them soon

Tracking202 – the best affiliate tracking system

Adviant – Affiliate Network – this shirt is a little small I think

Related posts:

1. Pictures from Affiliate Summit West 2008
2. Affiliate Summit West 2008: Day 2
3. East Meets Affiliate Summit West

Tomorrow I will have a video made of the all the pictures and videos that I have taken. There were some great aspects to affiliate summit west this year and I really enjoyed it. I have tons of business cards from so many new people that I have met and got a chance to talk to, can you find your business card below? This maybe be a little but to me I think it is a great resource.

There are so many pictures that I have taken about close to 250+ but in the flickr album I only uploaded about 160. So I have other pictures that are not in the album because of other reasons and some came out just crap. Also, speaking of pictures – I had to buy a new camera because my dumbass forgot my Nikon camera at home. Well once I arrived and checked in my room, I decided to go ahead and buy one. I bought a Samsung L830 – which is ok, I wanted a something that was cheap and that recorded video. Well at least I got the pictures that I wanted. I was so piss I didn’t want to not have pictures you know. Well let’s take a look at some pictures:

	Got to meet up with Paul from Uber Affiliate during the AffSpy dinner yesterday night. I didn’t get much to talk to him since it was really the first time I met him and I didn’t not see him through out the convention too much. Also, I know a lot of affiliates/merchants/ etc were leaving that night and Paul was leaving the next day I believed, so I did not want to bother him too much.
	I also met up with Wes Mahler, ‘President and CEO’ of Tracking 202. I spent much of my time with him and his team, hanging out and partying. Great times – he also introduced me to a new service that he is releasing but have decided to partner up with a competitor during the Affiliate Summit Convention.
	I met up with Joel Comm after speaking with Kristopher Jones of the PepperJam Network. At first I did not recognized Joel at all because his beard/goatee is gone! Well he shaved it off maybe to disguise himself from others that may attack him because of his status. Joel is a great guy and great person to talk to.
	Chad from CDF Networks is really smart person, I bump into him at the Blog War Room and we exchanged cards. I believe later that night I met up with him again at the Affiliate Bash party.
	Jason, is my affiliate manager from NeverBlueAds. He was kind of in a situation and I hope it is all taken care of. We talked for a bit and I apologize that I was not going strong on my marketing and he said he would have to take me off the network soon. ‘joking’ Great guy and its cool that he is an energetic guy.
	John Chow, is a tall guy – I really did not expect him to be that tall. After watching some of his videos, I still did not think he would be that tall. Another great guy to talk to and fun to be with, he jokes a lot and conversate. John loves to have fun!
	Winning the Web, Gyutae, I kind of apologize because when I seen him I called him “G”, apologies. I rarely seen him and I seen him at the keynote and once after something else…. hmmm…. finally got a chance to meet him, since he is a Jersey Dude too!
	Joe Tech! I kind of called him out in the open on the first day of Affiliate Summit because his goatee, I wonder if that is his brand I mean it is on his blog, his business cards, and on him! Great guy to talk to especially about programming since I am a newbie at that.
	I bump into Ms. Danielle at the Affiliate Bash Party. Very chill laid back person that makes money! She is really fun to hang out with and she really knows her stuff. She left the party early and played cards in her room, I guess that is more fun than going to a party with no one on the dance floor.
	Look at my “water pistols” I know I can take Israel from Fat Man Unleashed any day. Israel gave me some good pointers on some exercise moves and what to eat to better help increase muscle gains, I am trying to put more weight on.
	Shawn Collins, another Jersey boy! Shawn is really fun to be with, he is like a kid in an older much sophisticated body. He grabbed me on the third day of Affiliate Summit to run around on his Segway he brought. The segway was fun to ride on took me a while to get use to it and I didn’t go too fast on it.
	Roger from Think like an SOB is fun and knows what he wants. I met up with him at the ShareaSale party, along with Israel, and many others. We met up once more on the third day and attended more seminars.
	Mark from 45n5 was walking towards the meet market while I was heading back to my room. Great guy! I kind of felt bad since he was holding down the Blog War room and didn’t have a great opportunity to see any of the seminars. But he did tell me he did a lot of great networking with people and people that I didn’t even see or hear of.
	Thor Schrock, the original winner of The Next Internet Millionaire, ehhhmm. he did great in the show and now he has taken all the teachings from the reality show and applying it. He has attended Affiliate Summit to get more networks to participate or sponsor his new internet reality show called “Top Affiliate Challenge,” which I will be submitting my video soon.
	Amit Mehta from Super Affiliate Mindset is also a great guy and really very informative. I did not get to talk to him too long but I went to his Super Affiliate Workshop/Seminar with Zac Johnson, Kristopher Jones, and John Chow. He really knows his stuff – especially with some great free tools that he has mentioned.
	Jim Kukral a great guy and funny guy. He was the first internet marketer I interviewed on my blog. I was following him on twitter and the things he says is just funny. He has a great personality. Zac Johnson is in this picture along with a couple other pictures, he is a Jersey Boy too!
	Tracking202 team – good group of people. They are missing the 15 year old child too, I think he got lost in the crowd, let me stop. Wes has a great team on his side which will make sure his product and services will be number one in the market!
	Derrick and Dylan from Web Pro Leads are cool people to hand out with. I met up with them at the Affiliate Dinner and we met up a couple times going to parties and just having drinks elsewhere. We exchanged cards and concepts – great people to talk to and party with as well.
	Zac Johnson and Andrew Wee. I met up with Andrew at the Affiliate Dinner as well as multiple places throughout parties and seminars. Andrew is a very smart guy and has a great podcast on his blog. Andrew is a very networking type of guy, everywhere he is I see him with like someone new or someone he wants to meet.

To view more picture visit my Affiliate Summit West 2008 Album or find more on flickr. I will be posting up a video tomorrow of all the videos I have taken and stuff.

Related posts:

1. Affiliate Summit West 2008: Day 2
2. East Meets Affiliate Summit West
3. Trying to Network Before Affiliate Summit West 08

This morning I went to breakfast with Jason and went to this morning keynote with Jason Calacanis. This is a little controversial because I can agree to an extent with Jason but disagree with him on another extend. One thing that he says and still stick out in my head is “Affiliates are Spammers.” ReveNews was blogging this in real time and did a great job with a cool time line on the blog, see block quote below:

photo credit: tris

10:07am Calacanis is remarking about the first iterations of web spam in the mid 90’s. Looks like we’re going down the “affiliate spam is a problem and Mahalo will solve it path.”

If this is true what is marketing? Marketing alone is spam is it – billboards, bus ads, banner ads, etc. Also if we should be building long term sites rather than short term sites I agree but someone has to start short term to push them to long term. For example, I think a person needs to see a return do push for long term or want to do more long term projects and businesses. If a blogger, affiliate marketer, business person does not see a return on a small short term what will push that person to push for a long term?

I do agree though there are a lot of micro sites or mini sites that act as spam, blog scrapers and arbitrage sites are the worst. Technorati and blog searches pull blogs and a lot are crappy bull shit blogs, just for affiliate marketing. But does this really make affiliates spammers? We are marketing to the people that look for content and content is given, but if its duplicated content it is considered spam – it is a quick fix but it is short term to reach a goal, earn commission.

Besides this controversial issues there at the keynote, I went to the exhibitions. There were a lot of great booths. I met with my affiliate manager Jason from NeverBlueAds and I handed out a t-shirt to an Azoogle Member to give to my affiliate manager Erin. Hope she will enjoy it. It was very busy and very tiring, again I was tired I had to drink 3 red bull drinks just to stay up and keep my energy up.

The booths was very informative – but there are so many affiliate networks springing up and yet not a lot can tell me what makes them different. “Higher payouts” “Better Merchants” ” Longer Cookies” – this is almost the same among all the networks.

But one stuck out XY7.com did a really good concept:

photo credit: tris

Sex sells and this lady with a blue headed top stuck out and caught my eye. I met with XY7 yesterday and talk to a great person – that also told me quite a few spots on Vegas to go too. But this really got their booth popular I bet. There were several booths that were handing out many apparel and prizes, for example I won a pimp cup. (pictures soon to come)

I also met with CPAEmpire.com I was interviewed to see if I would be profitable with their network. This was very interesting because non of the other affiliate managers really interviewed me so thorough, they would just ask basic questions. Randy was the one that asked me questions and I did not mind because he gave a lot of good ideas and concepts. This is a first from an affiliate managers that really interviewed me for more than 3 minutes. Very interesting.

Another interesting concept was the blog war room which Mark was holding it down. The only other thing I did not like was the war room was like a closet. Literally.

photo credit: tris

Mark looks very busy blogging and covering the affiliate summit, giving all the information to other bloggers and giving them a room for bloggers to blog about the summit. I saw multiple users sitting down on the floor blogging or doing whatever.

Conclusion:

I hope to get my energy back and get ready for tonight’s party, the Affiliate Bash. Last night was very entertaining, I met Shawn Collins who also is a “Jersey Boy” – this I did not know. Me and him conversated for a while, it was great to actually meet him and thank him for the picture! Look forward to the coming days! One more day!

photo credit: Affiliate Summit

Sidenote: I will upload my photos once I get back to the East

Related posts:

1. East Meets Affiliate Summit West
2. Trying to Network Before Affiliate Summit West 08
3. Affiliate Summit Here I Come!

I flew in Saturday morning, eastern time and landed mid day western time. My flight was very long, 5 hours. Once the flight was done I checked into my hotel and finally got settled. The only thing that I forgot to bring with me was my camera. Once I rested up in my room I decided to go out and buy another camera, a Samsung L830.

When I arrived in Vegas I had the pleasure of meeting super affiliate Zac Johnson and his girl friend. We chit chatted for a while and had the opportunity to ride with him towards the Rio Hotel. That Saturday night I headed down to Affiliate Dinner hosted by ABestWeb. They had a roast for Brian Littleton of ShareaSale. The dinner was very entertaining though the microwavable food could have been better.

At the Affiliate Dinner – Zac Johnson, Me, Andrew Wee

photo credit: MoneyReign

Here is a picture from from Affiliate Dinner and Brian’s Roast:

photo credit: Affiliate Summit

After the Affiliate Dinner I met up with Derreck and Dylan from WebProLeads.com and grab drinks before the night was over. It was very entertaining, I met Kris Jones of PepperJam Network, Andrew Wee, and many others that night.

Sunday was great and tiring day. It was the meet market and everyone was color coded base on Networks, Merchants, Affiliate, etc. Once labeled you are being attacked by a lot of questions.

It was amazing how some people recognized me and my blog or recognized my blog and not me. I was surprise myself to know a lot of people enjoyed my blog. I did not think of going there and being some what of a ‘celebrity’. I was more into meeting the bigger guys, networks, and merchants.

At the Meet Market all the people I met exchanged business cards and talked about what I did and how I do affiliate marketing. By the way, on the topic of business cards everyone was really enjoying my business cards because it has all my stats right on my card. If someone wanted to look me up, they do not have to it is right on my card and many were impressed with my stats to my surprise as well.

The Meet Market was really tiring I ended up drinking 5 bottles of water just to keep my throat moist and so I can keep talking and networking with so many others. During the meet market I met up with Joe Tech, Jim Kukral, Amit Mehta, Mark from 45n5, the Tracking202 Team, and Thor Schrock. I tagged along with Joe for some what of the meet market, I was running back and forth from my room and back to the meet market, I have so much freebies.

At the Meet Market, there were a lot more networks that I did not know exists and a lot of great software for users to use for affiliate marketing. So many innovations and so many merchants literally attacked you and gave a lot of freebies. I as well was handing out my t shirts to multiple people that I met.

photo credit: Affiliate Summit

After the Meet Market I met up with John Hasson and we discussed for a while and later that night we went to the Max Bounty Wine Cellar party, we only stayed for a little bit before heading down towards the ShareaSale Party. I first went to the WickedFire/Copeac Party with the guys from WebProLeads.com. I only had one drink and played a game of pool before going up to the ShareaSale party.

The ShareaSale party was really enjoying because it was very calm and relaxed environment. I finally got to meet Israel from Fat Man Unleashed, John Chow, Roger of Think like an SOB, and Shaw Collins.

First Days of Affiliate Summit Experience:

It is amazing the knowledge so many others have and the willingness of sharing that information. It is easy to talk to people since there is a commonality among our peers. While others were a bit hesitant to talk to others, I simply walked up to some or yelled out their websites to grab their attention. Exchanging ideas and cards was just the foundation of a good start with that specific person or network. I look forward to the days coming ahead.

Related posts:

1. Trying to Network Before Affiliate Summit West 08
2. Affiliate Summit West is Next Week: Get Ready!
3. Affiliate Summit Here I Come!