This year 2012, Affiliate Summit West proved to have grown immensely. Looking at my FeedFront magazine, 2012 conference attendee is at 5087! Amazing growth and lots of new things. When I saw Shawn Collins, I congratulated him on the show growth and also gave him my feedback. With growth there is always changes and the Summit went through them.

As I have done in the past I will write my observations, no particular order:

1. First timer session was HUGE. I didn’t think that there were many first timers, but then again a 1k growth for the Summit is amazing.
2. Meet Market is always packed. Not sure if it is because its the first day, but every Meet Market is so friggin packed.
3. Caesar palace was a great place but the conference area it self was awkward. It was held on 3 floors and it seemed everyone got lost finding places.
4. Comparing Affiliate Summit in 2008 to now, there is a change in the industry. Affiliate Summit is being seen as the place to go to to learn performance marketing and online marketing in general. I am seeing more agencies than traditional affiliates that I knew back in 2008.
5. Our content monetizing panel with John Chow, Steve Hall, Murray Newland (mod) turned out to be impressive. Full House!
6. Q&A was different this year, users would send questions to a text twitter system and questions would appear on the monitor. I think this takes out the interaction from speaker to user. But it does stop certain people from trying to just use Affiliate Summit as just an advertorial and asking dumb questions.
7. Clickbooth party was pretty good – I was a Guest UFC judge
8. I got interviewed by the Hot Dog man – told me ketchup on hot dogs is a fail.
9. Blue man in full spandex running around was weird.
10. Some sessions was very simple. I even heard from some people the advance and intermediate wasn’t that entertaining.
11. lots of women are in love with Ad Hustler. Jealous.
12. Met up with some great past marketers such as Shoemoney, Nicky Cakes, Jonathan Volk, Heavy T, Max T, and multiple networks and advertisers I work with.
13. Mobile Meetup was very productive, thanks Kevin De Vincenzi for the invite! Learned a couple new things.
14. Lots of meetings about some new things I am doing. I hate it when meetings get shifted. Messes up my full day of scheduled appointments.
15. Live “New” as a way of life, if not you will die in the industry you are in – Jon Spoelstra
16. NJ affiliates took over
17. I miss the Eric Thomas and Shoemoney keynote – needed to get out of Vegas. I know their keynotes were probably amazing.
18. Club XS was crazy fun, lost my voice that night.
19. Mr Green and Stack that Money are some crazy people! Great finally chillin with them.
20. Hangover party was hella packed
21. Darren did an amazing job at the Affiliate Ball. One of the go to parties to be at while at Affiliate Summit.

I also want to thanks XRev Media for sponsoring the IANteract Dinner, now called the DotCom Dinner. It turned out to be a great event and great networking with people I want to network with. Connecting and learning is one of the best things to do. I really hate talking business in the club and especially when they insist on talking about it too. It never made sense to me to do business in a LOUD environment.

Also another note is I want to thank Missy and Shawn for an amazing show. It is definitely growing and the change is pretty noticeable. I hope it doesn’t become a traditional conference show. Some of the shows I have been to are just not worth going to. The show for me is a place where I can hangout and catch up with others in the industry. I even caught up with networks that I want to work with on a certain project which will do well I think and will definitely change how our industry performs.

With Affiliate Summit just ending. I am going to start working on my new direction on where I want to be in 10 years. As Affiliate Summit grows so does other affiliates, like I said there are some affiliates that are now networks, advertisers, and lead brokers. 2012 we come!

… and as always it is always great catching up with friends from past shows, networks, ThinkTanks, and just strengthening the relationship. I met a lot of great people in this industry and I enjoy always seeing them at any show or where ever we are.

Some pictures:

More pictures…

Related posts:

1. Speaking at Affiliate Summit West 2012
2. Affiliate Summit West 2011 for the Wynn!
3. Affiliate Summit West is Next Week: Get Ready!

Affiliate Summit East: Boston

It feels as if Affiliate Summit East was just a short couple weeks ago, now it is time for Affiliate Summit West to happen in just a couple months. I really do not need to explain why you need to go to Affiliate Summit, it is just the conference to be at. I have been to a lot of these marketing conferences and Shawn and Missy do such a great job with the show.

Here is a quick video of why you should attend…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Also, I also want to announce – I will be speaking in Vegas this time and I want to thank Shawn and Missy for giving me this opportunity again. I will be on a panel with John Chow, Steve ‘the photographer’ Hall, and Murray Newlands. Our topic is “The Future of Content Monetization and Publishing“. A very off topic but something to really think about when it comes to monetizing content.

When I look at this blog, I have seen how it grew and the type of content I publish. I can definitely share some great insights on how to create good content and monetize the content specifically for your audience. Even recently,y I explained how I have taken a popular blog post and started to monetize it with CPA offers.

This will be a great discussion among a top blogger, John Chow and another content media whiz, Steve Hall. I am excited as always to share my own knowledge and speak about this industry that I love.

Our panel will be on Sunday and will start at 11am. See you there. If you have not yet decided to go to Affiliate Summit you should. I went to my first one back in 2008 and I have been to every Summit there after. It is just beneficial to network and meet everyone face to face. If you need more information about Affiliate Summit, just do a search on this blog… or you can just check out what happened last year at the Wynn.

Related posts:

1. Affiliate Summit West 2011 for the Wynn!
2. Speaking/Mentoring at Affiliate Summit East 2008
3. Affiliate Summit East Recap for 2011

Sunday at Affiliate Summit I spoke on a panel about something that is pretty controversial in our industry. The panel was about 2 different styles within the affiliate industry. The title of the panel “Industry Clash: Balancing CPS & CPA Marketing“, a really good panel for discussion. The panel included, Jason Rubacky, Logan Thompson, Greg Hoffman as the moderator, and me. The panel discussion was a very good way to let other affiliates understand both parties and both sides.

This topic was brought up to Greg’s attention by doing some sort of search on the powerful Google and an old posts and video popped up. The blog post title was “CPS affiliates why can’t we be friends“, it also got a lot of feedback via the comments.  From this post, Greg decided to bring me and other affiliates to balance and to bring more light to each side.

I do a lot of PPC marketing or paid traffic, while the CPS side of the industry a majority of these affiliates deal with SEO and organic rankings. Though both sides deal with both traffic sources, we on the CPA side tend to be more watchful of traffic sources. We want to know where we can advertise and how we can get prime spot on specific sites.

This thought of testing traffic sources puts us on the cutting edge of the industry because we always want new traffic sources. For example, I am always testing traffic and you can read a good amount of them on this blog. I tested LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook, Findology, AdMob, etc. I am always wanting to know how each of these traffic sources differ from one another and what similarities they have.

During our panel, there was a heated battle between me and Jason Rubacky. I brought up some points about how CPA affiliates are the ones who can turn a garage business into a corporation literally overnight. There are specific health pharmaceuticals that are now established because of CPA marketers and have yet to merge to the CPS side due to the fact they know they can not get the type of monetization a CPA marketer can bring.

Logan even stated he has done CPS marketing with paid traffic via Facebook, making it profitable. I personally was not able to make it profitable, case study here. It may have been my methodology or it just wasn’t doing or performing well at all. Either way it won’t discourage me from trying again.

One interesting topic I brought up is about how both sides look at traffic. An SEO CPS affiliate is all about getting traffic, as do CPA marketers. The difference is how we monetize that traffic. A SEO CPS user will get 1000 users to their website and convert only 10%, while a CPA paid traffic gen affiliate can get 100 users and convert at 10%. There is a difference on how we look at traffic and how we monetize that traffic.

The reason is the CPL space always think in terms of their traffic as money going out vs money coming in. For example if 1000 users ended up on a landing page and only 300 converted over, we ask ourselves why didn’t the other 700 convert over. From there we start testing vigorously and trying to find out why that traffic didn’t convert.

There are some good points to CPS and it is a reason why I am trying to learn that side of the industry. For example virtual real estate. Greg pointed out there is an affiliate who is literally on vacation everyday because of his affiliate sites that have been growing for over 10 years. Amazing, but that took time. Since we as CPA affiliates are more on the trend of traffic sources, we can make money now.

I personally am impatient, this is why I have given the SEO side of my business to someone who is good at SEO. I want to have virtual real estates and this is how I think I should grow my business especially after understanding what I have learned from the CPA/CPL side of this industry. Understanding the demographics and reactions from all the traffic sources I have tested puts me in a great spot to understand human nature when building up a virtual real estate on the interwebs.

In the end, affiliate marketing is marketing. How we monetize the traffic is really up to the marketer.

BTW here is the slide to our panel:

Related posts:

1. Affiliate Summit and My Busy Schedule!
2. Affiliate Summit East Recap for 2011
3. CPS Affiliates, Why Can’t We Be Friends?

Today I got back from Affiliate Summit, I took the day to walk around LeadsCon while I waited to head back to NJ. Two totally different environment. Affiliate Summit is definitely the better conference. Anyways, this year I didn’t go crazy as I do every Affiliate Summit. This was proven to me when I went to my room before Ad Hustler did.

This post will break apart all three days I was at Affiliate Summit from Sunday to Tuesday.

So let’s start with Sunday… I drove in with my good friend into the city and I checked in with the help of my black body guard. Other than that note, here is the Sunday breakdown I noticed:

• I rushed to get into Ad Hustler’s panel on How to Pitch your Business at Affiliate Summit
• Ad Hustler definitely knows how to turn a what I thought a boring topic into a very entertaining one.
• Matt Wiseman is a tall damn mothertrucker
• Seems to be more affiliates that have merged into something bigger
• A lot of affiliates didn’t know there was a CPA/CPL side to this industry
• There is such thing as multiple brokering affiliate offers.
• No signs of skimpy sexy women were hired to show off an affiliate network, they now get it.
• Finally some networks understand mobile marketing
• You can find merchant processors offshore walking the affiliate summit show floor
• I spoke on a panel, topic: Industry Clash: Balancing CPS & CPA Marketing
• No vegetables were thrown during the presentation
• A lot of props was actually given to our panel, it was still being talked about through out the days of affiliate summit
• Meet market was hella packed and very tight
• ShareaSale had 2 really good saxophone and violin musicians at their party.
• I want to thank NDemand for sponsoring an amazing IANteract Affiliate Dinner!

I woke up Monday and my thoughts were…

• Seems only the bigger affiliate networks have booths and were also at the meet market
• Ryan Eagle had the brightest suit on at Affiliate Summit, props.
• Street Meat during lunch time is heaven, worth the wait.
• Face to face meetings are great, opportunities happen much faster
• A change is coming to both the CPA industry and the Clickbank industry
• I went to a CPS session about launching an affiliate program, views from an OPM perspective
• Great meeting up with Eleah from Adsimilis at their meetup
• Didn’t drink that much at the clubs or at dinners
• Went to chill at Heavy T’s Affiliate Dinner
• Met some old co workers at Affiliate Summit
• Hardcore SEO affiliates didn’t know there was a CPL part to the industry
• Had a real dinner at LeadCola Super Affiliate Dinner with shots of Patron. thanks Amar!
• Clickbooth party had a grandma lady pouring drink
• Missed Dougie Fresh at the Affiliate Ball by 20 minutes

Went to bed early, then I woke up on Tuesday…

• Last day at the show, had more meetings than the last 2 days.
• a group of old people was rocking “I make six figures” jerseys – knowing they do not know what a web browser is
• Met up with my boy Wes Mahler, always great to see him and new innovative things he does
• Show floor started to empty out, there was actually room to move around the show floor.
• Talked to a friend about new traffic sources… something innovative is coming
• Kris Trujillo lost weight, congrats
• Met some new traffic sources and offers to upgrade my business ideas
• Went to the Yankee game with all the Affiliate Summit speakers
• I still have free drink passes

I just want to thank Shawn and Missy who always do a bang out job at Affiliate Summit. Despite the economy, people want to learn to advance their business and Affiliate Summit is always growing. I remember when I went to my first Affiliate Summit, it was nothing near to what it is today. This is the only trade show conference where others want to wrap their show around, hoping to siphon off some users to their show.

This is the only show that consistently grows every show I been too. Again, Shawn and Missy great job always!

>> view pictures on Flickr or Facebook

Related posts:

1. Affiliate Summit East 2010 ReCap
2. NDemand Affiliates Sponsors IANteract Dinner East 2011
3. Find me at Affiliate Summit East: NY

But I want to let you know that I am speaking at Affiliate Summit. The panel I am on is a very controversial issue and I have brought it up a couple times on this blog. The topic is called “Industry Clash: Balancing CPS & CPA Marketing” with Greg Hoffman as the moderator, Logan Thompson, and Jason Rubacky. Tihs alone is a very interesting topic and does happen in our industry. If you are attending affiliate summit (which you should), you will notice a separation just by walking around the conference.

The CPS side tend to hang with each other and their age group, while the CPA side does the same. There are also some issues on who does and profit more than one another. This is why I think this panel will be an epic discussion because of our major differences, in the end we are all marketers.

One of my major goals is to get Split Piston, my multivariate test engine and Offer Snitch, my affiliate link monitoring platform. I am going to be pushing these platforms pretty hard as I think it is beneficial to the industry and I personally use it myself and have been using it for over 2 years. I am now just releasing it to the public as I know it can make a big difference in their campaigns.

Another big thing that is happening is my IANteract Affiliate Dinner sponsored by NDemand Affiliates. This private dinner is a great way for me to interact and leverage with like minded users and of course network at a more intimate level.

Affiliate Parties

I will be attending Clickbooth’s Affiliate Awakening Party which is located at the Arena in NYC obviously. They have a pretty sick video for it as well…

Click here to view the embedded video.

After that I think I am going to head to the BDR party which is hosted by Ads4Dough and DirectResponse.net – 2 of the best guys in the industry that know what they are doing and have helped me a lot with my own personal business.

The details for the BDR Engage event is:

• Event Venue: Greenhouse
• Event Address: 150 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013
• Event Start Date: 08-22-2011 Mon 09:00 PM(EST)
• Contact: Ted Dhanik
• Number: 212-807-7000

Related posts:

1. Find me at Affiliate Summit East: NY
2. Affiliate Summit East 2010 ReCap
3. Affiliate Summit Networking (Party) Events

I started IANteract dinner to be a place where everyone can network. Sometimes loud music doesn’t really establish a strong relationship with affiliates and members of the industry. The dinner is taken place during the first night of Affiliate Summit and before all the parties. Food in stomach before alcohol is always a good idea.

This time my IANteract dinner is being sponsored by NDemand Affiliates. This network has grown rapidly over the years and I am glad to be Mike friend during those years. This network has been growing and they have been growing strong. Even getting great branding since they are also hosting the Puerto Rico Meetup!

This dinner will be no different from the past dinners – I chose a place to eat, we network, talk business, have a drink, and enjoy the great company. From my first IANteract Dinner to my most recent, each dinner is meant to create a strong and reassure existing relationships I have with friends in the industry.

Everyone makes money online differently and my goal is to learn how. I am always in a learning mode and that is my goal with this dinner, to learn and network. This year, the IANteract dinner will probably be near the Hilton for easy commute for affiliates and of course a great restaurant.

Here are the past IANteract dinners…

• Crazy Movable Walls in Vegas – West 2011
• Capital Grille in New York – East 2010
• A Massive Dinner for the Masses – West 2010
• Popping Bottles of Dom all Night – East 2009
• Reserved the Whole Restaurant – West 2009
• My First Baller IANteract Dinner – East 2008

I want to thank NDemand Affiliates for Sponsoring this years IANteract Dinner.

Related posts:

1. Kitara Media Sponsors IANteract Dinner East 2010
2. Elite Clicks Media Sponsors IANteract Dinner
3. IANteract Dinner 2011 Sponsored by Executive Fortunes

Before Jeremy even spoke, he had Rob Hustle rap an intro with some Las Vegas girls! It was a really good performance and lyric wise as well. If you have not seen the introduction video here it is below. If you do not know who Rob Hustle is then you are just a lost person in this space we call affiliate marketing. Check him out below and the girls behind him.

Click here to view the embedded video.

After the intro, Shoemoney goes into further detail about his tool. I can say it is pretty impressive, knowing I got something minimal and custom for my own links. The one aspect I really like are some of the great features such as referrer and Genetic Algorithim Shoemoney has implemented. I think this is something that is truly amazing.

The referrer control is always something amazing and in the past Jeremy always talks about. I have heard him speak about it in the past and referrer traffic as each source caters to a specific audience. So it is important to cater to that audience to leverage from. The genetic algorithim is something really unique and I think it will definitely help increase the user experience and make affiliates more money.

I believe it looks at conversions and then adjust rotation values to promote the right offer to the right demographics or audience. I am still uncertain how specifically it works but it sounded real amazing. According to the Jeremy it is a 17% increase when it came to his own campaigns.

Another aspect is the advisory board that was mentioned. Some well known affiliates in the space are part of his advisory board and will help LinkControl get to where it needs to be. For example, Missy Ward is part of the advisory board, Jonathan Volk, and Ad Huslter – you know he will speak his mind. There are other great name on the board, but these 3 I think will have the bigger influence especially in the industry we ar in.

If you miss the Shoemoney session introducing his new tool, check out his video below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related posts:

1. EntreCard Introduces EntreSpam
2. Affiliate Summit West 2011 for the Wynn!
3. A Visit to the Market Leverage Office

Ofcourse the people behind the Summit is Shawn Collins and Missy Ward, I want to thank them for having an amazing event as always and it is constantly growing! I remember when the Summit hit 2500 and I think this year is was around 4500, what growth!

There are just a lot of business you can get out of attending conferences like these, especially ones like Affiliate Summit.

This past Affiliate Summit is no different from any other one out there, it is all about networking and getting face t face contact with users behind Twitter, Bloggers, Affiliate Managers, etc. I alone benefited from it as always as new partnerships start and new projects are on their way. Affiliate Summit is the place to start new ventures and even get to know your fellow blog readers. It is an event you just want to be at.

Now, I have written about Affiliate Summit in the past, this blog post will be about some things I noticed while at Affiliate Summit.

• Ad Hustler and Amanda had a great session on Local Lead Gen
• Facebook Open graph seminar was very basic, discussed the intricate ways of the Share and Like Button. How intricate can it be really?
• Mobile sessions wasn’t that good, I have been advertising on Mobile 2 years ago.
• More Mobile Networks are springing up but for some reason do not have mobile friendly and iPhone/Adroid ready LPs
• The Wynn is an amazing Hotel.
• After the Affiliate Parties is clubbin at XS or Marquee! Picking up girls is the easiests.
• Parasol Up Bar is the place to be to shoot the shit with affiliates and networks
• Make sure to check and adjust your Calendar to PST from EST – I missed several meetings because of this change
• DK is a friggin Funny guy!
• Affiliates at Rap concerts do not mix
• Affiliates can’t dance or are scared to.
• Some affiliates get shy around girls or cringe when a girls touches them.
• Drunk Affiliates are Super funny
• Some clubs require you to spend at least 5k on bottles.
• The Blogger lounge was a nice place to just relax and have small quick meetings
• Tired of walking? Rent a hoover round
• There are just way too many Affiliate Parties this Summit
• If you are a CPA/CPL affiliate you are not invited to the Clickbank Parties or gatherings
• Fashion Show Mall has a lot of creative bums – Bum Marketing?
• Daily Conversions hooked up a Limo Ride
• Cashvertising Keynote was friggin amazing. I am buying the book for sure.
• Lots of new insights and projects are always setup at Affiliate Summit
• A lot of iPad giveaways at the Exhibit Hall
• IANteract Dinner was Amazing – thanks to Executive Fortunes!

I am sure there were a bunch more things I noticed but that is what I can recall for now. Affiliate Summit is the conference to be at especially if you want to grow in some way. A lot of past affiliates learned to be advertisers or even grow bigger because of the show and how users network. Till next time, I will see everyone at Affiliate Summit East!

BTW, here are some pictures…

Related posts:

1. Affiliate Summit West is Next Week: Get Ready!
2. Affiliate Summit West Twenty Ten: Day Three
3. Affiliate Summit West 2008: Ask the Experts

The game is Texas Holdem and it is $100 to buy in. This is going to be a game to remember and I will be visiting the tables, right after my IANteract Dinner. I was given the name “Jersey Card Shark” and DK well is just DK. So if you are a high roller, baller, pimp stacks, etc – then sign up for the poker tourney that is happening the first night of Affiliate Summit West!

Watch the video below:

BTW, I really don’t gamble. Keywords is the game I play!

Related posts:

1. Getting Fanatic about Football Gear!
2. Leaving for Affiliate Summit East: Boston
3. Pornstars, Let’s Do Some Video Blogging!

This dinner will be no different, the dinner will be held relatively close to the Wynn and is private invite only. Again the reason I do this and the reason I do it in the first place is to interact with top people in the industry and build that relationship. It is always better to talk business over food among trusted people and top marketers in the industry.

This time Executive Fortunes is sponsoring this dinner at Affiliate Summit West 2011. This is a fairly new network and I had the chance to talk and meetup with Tyler at Ad-Tech this November. We had a talk about the network a bit and just had fun at Ad-Tech.

Currently Executive Fortunes is having a contest and is raffling a prize to the top affiliates. The prizes include…

1. Apple Macbook Air
2. (2) Apple Ipads

To be entered in their raffle the affiliate must generate $3000+ from December 1st to December 23rd! The raffle winners will be drawn live on Christmas Eve night! So this is a great way to get an iPad on Christmas! Take part in the contest and easily rake up 3k in a month, pretty simple.

… back to the dinner.

Everyone that has came to the dinner knows how beneficial it is and I always try to invite new people to the dinner, especially with people I want to meet and network with. If they will be beneficial to my circle of network, my sponsor, and me then why not invite that person. The purpose is to create a tight relationship with affiliates and marketers to leverage each others knowledge and even brainstorm an idea, without the noob commotion.

This is the reason for this dinner because after the IANteract dinner, the parties starts and usually its harder to network when the bass of “Teach me How to Dougie” is in the background. So I am going to find a nice restaurant, its always an amazing restaurant too, and start inviting people.

I wan to thank Executive Fortunes for sponsoring this 2011 IANteract Dinner at Affiliate Summit West.

Related posts:

1. Executive Fortunes Affiliate Network
2. IANteract Dinner Sponsored by Paradigm Visions, Inc
3. Kitara Media Sponsors IANteract Dinner East 2010