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!

My day 3 started off with going to the blog room to catch up on stats. I then ended up going to the keynote by Brian Clark. Some good points… one point he made was that the days of ppc are over… hmmm guess he hasn’t really worked with Google straight forward. But I find that comment hard to believe.

His keynote was more about content and how content creates the traffic, etc. He described content can be in any form, music, audio, video, etc. How content is portrayed drives the traffic and the demographics for your offer or site.

I just don’t think PPC will ever die.

I had to leave the keynote early to meet with an advertiser to discuss some aspects of my landing page and see how to be more FTC compliant. It was a really good meeting, got to talk face to face with the advertiser.

Next I had lunch with Pulse 360. I worked or tried to work with them last year but really didn’t like their interface. So I talked with them and we had a really good conversation about the future of Pulse 360 and what is expected in the industry and how I attack my traffic. They also got to me on mobile advertising, since I use to do mobile traffic a couple months back.

So that was a really good lunch and I def want to retest their interface and traffic again.

Then I went and headed back to the show floor and chatted with the new connections i made prior to strengthen the relationship and just chit chat. I also was very interested in this marketing platform called Bevo Media. It is almost look like a mockup of Tracking202 pro but I think it has some really good potential. They got a lot of big plans and I def am interested in what they have to show for.

I was part of their beta back in the day and I really didn’t get it until now. I talked to Ryan about it and questioned a couple things and he has a lot of great plans for it. So I am going to hit him up about it.

After the last tour of the exhibit hall I bummed out in the hotel room and relaxed till dinner time with another client that I work with. We had it at the Voodoo lounge. I had lamb that night and it was damn good, right after that I chilt with Eric from Clickbooth at their blogup.

Def great seeing bloggers and affiliates. Pretty strange that their were more people on the CPS side. There was also some crazy talk about a specific person but I will leave it at that. I had to made sure they knew what he does and he is for real. Other than that the BlogUp was coolin and relaxing. I got to meetup with some bloggers and talked to Eric throughout the night.

Later that night I metup with Qwik Media and we balled out. They were staying at the venetian and I met up with Harry and Victoria. Love meeting up with Victoria she is hella coolin. It was my first time really hanging out with Harry but the night turned out real well except for the last minute.

But other than that we took a limo to the club and it was all game on from there. Here are some pics…

After Club Pure, I decided to grab a stretched Hummer for the rest of the night. It was fun, we had the rest of the night just me Qwik Media, and some other big publishers. The night ended really well, thanks again to Harry at Qwik.

Final Words…

So Affiliate Summit is a show you def need to go if you are in the affiliate marketing space. You need to attend this show. It is the only show I love and always recommend. If you are just starting out you need to go, if you are bigger than a baller you still need to go. It is about creating relationships, strengthening old ones, and connecting.

People will learn from you and you will learn from others. I am always leaving affiliate summit with something new. New partnerships, new ideas, new traffic sources, new friends, etc.

I want to thank Shawn Collins and Missy for having a great show everytime!

BTW… here is a mashup video…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related posts:

1. Affiliate Summit Twenty Ten: Day Two
2. Affiliate Summit Twenty Ten: Day One
3. Affiliate Summit West 2009: Day 3

So I started off to the blog room to write the post you read yesterday. After that, I went off to listen to the keynote by Dr. Robert Cialdini. His keynote was very informative and had a lot of good things to improve your business. The keynote was base off using words and the pschology of using scarcity, emotions, etc.

I really enjoyed the keynote and was also surprised at the stats he provided with his casee studies. It is definitely something I am going to implement and read on. I know words can affect someone’s emotion and decision but changing ONE word or flipping a statement can have a huge effect on conversions, especially in our industry.

So the keynote was definitely something that shouldn’t have been missed. After the keynote I started to head to the exhibit halls and decided to do a quick tour. Something strange about this summit is the exhibit hall seems super small from the prior ASW I have been to.

I did a double walk to make sure I wasn’t missing any but it def seemed smalled than the past Affiliate Summit in the past. I went and stop at a couple of the booths that I wanted to see. I also stopped to talk to some of the networks and said hi to my current affiliate managers.

The floor also seemed compacted… take a look what did you think?

During the day I had an interview with Relevantly Speaking and then I had lunch with a new Affiliate network called CPA Fuel. The lunch was very good since we had it at PF Changs at the Wynn. Good Stuff.

We discussed their network and talked about the industry a bit as well as any questions I had or they had, overall a good lunch.

After lunch I headed back to the mile long walk of the RIO convention and went back to the exhibit hall and visited the Convert2Media booth. It’s always great to talk to Ruck and Steve and their whole team. Smaxor from Ads4Dough was there as well and we all just chilt.

After just visiting the booths and talking to a lot of people I just went back to the room to relax a little and rest my tiring feet.

Then the night started….

…with the Bloosky/Meetup202 event. I met up with Matt and Ryan and just hanged out while everyone started to filter in. It was an amazing event.

The event was very successful as more and more people poured into the event, more and more people networked. While at the event Wes Mahler spoke about the Bloosky acquisition and it affected the current Tracking202 system. Wes and Bloosky mad things much clearer for the affiliates of the industry.

Towards the end they asked me to speak about a quick 5 minute marketing tip. I basically ask the audience what they wanted to hear, polled their results, and just winged the information I gave them. Got a lot of great feedback. Thanks for Tracking202 and Bloosky for allowing me to speak.

After the Bloosky event I headed over to my boy Fraser party, Mundo Media and met up with more affiliates in the industry. I met up with my man Chad from CDFNetworks and we chatted and talked business. The party was a huge success and one of the better parties I think. They had a bowling alley in the suite, now that’s gangsta!

Some interesting stuff happened at Mundo Party, let says some people just can’t handle their drinks. Mundo had a pool table, women dancing, and all my affiliate friends.

After Mundo there were other parties that was happening and I decided to head up to CX Digital party to say whats up to my AM Mike. They had some crazy acrobatic stuff going on. Ladies dancing with snakes, swinging ladies from this suspension bridge thingy… interesting stuff.

After CX I headed to the Clickbooth Party at the Hangover Suite. It was interesting… I mean I held the chicken…

I was hella tired, I met a Jersey stripper at the party and def had a great time talking to Eric, James, David, Kris, and Brittany (which she gave me a hangover patch cause I was drinking way too much.

After Clickbooth I was hella tired and just took a taxi to the RIO with Logan.

… I crashed!

Related posts:

1. Affiliate Summit Twenty Ten: Day One
2. Day 2 at Affiliate Summit Las Vegas 2009
3. Affiliate Summit East NY: Heavy Ballin!

Well anyways the meet market turned out to be a good venue. I talked to several new users on their services and I found one that was really interesting. I met up with a bunch of people and found new people as well. It was a best way to meetup with everyone in the industry. I actually enjoyed meeting a bunch of new people and readers.

As well as close friends in the industry.

After the meet market I headed out to have lunch with Cashtactics, Benny, and Bloosky. We went to a sushi place at the Cesar Palace and it was some good food. Benny on the other hand was super lost on what he wanted to order. I want to thank Naomi from Bloosky for taking us out to lunch yesterday.

While at Ceasar’s Palace I was a tourist and found a ‘person’ that was doing the international Ian Fernando pimp point. I had to do something about it and I just too a picture with him.

After touring with Bloosky and just chillin we headed back to the Rio and I was dead tired and I just went back to the meet market to see what else was going on and just decided to just go back to the Rio. I charged my iPhone for the 3rd time that day I think and just relaxed till the IANteract Dinner.

This IANteract dinner of 2010 was held at Craftsteak in Las Vegas. The food there was amazing. We had some issues in the beginning but it all worked out and want to thank the staff at Craftsteak for resolving the issue in a timely manner.

The food was amazing good and definitely a great mix of flavors. The selection Ryan and I had chosen was amazing from start to finish and again Craftsteak was definitely the place to have a great steak.

The dinner was sponsored by Elite Clicks Media. I want to thank Elite Clicks Media for sponsoring the dinner and it turned out to be an amazing event with great networking and just talking about the industry.

After the dinner went out to the PPC.bz party and yes it was the jumpoff. I met a bunch of twitter followers and readers of the blog. It was great talking to everyone. I hope to re meetup with them later and continue our conversation in a more quite environment.

After the party I was hella tired I just headed back to bed. Today will be more of a fun day and I have a lot planned already.

Until the next post of Affiliate Summit West Twenty Ten edition.

Make sure to follow me on Twitter to get up todate stuff on Affiliate Summit!

Related posts:

1. Affiliate Summit East NY: Day 1
2. IANteractive Day all Night Long at Affiliate Summit
3. Affiliate Summit West 2009: Day 3

There is going to be a lot of parties that will be going down and a lot of stories after Affiliate Summit West. But what party will separate every network from one another? There is going to be a lot of parties that will be happening and it will be hard to go to all of them. Also sometime it becomes apparent that some parties are not as what they are expected to be.

GMB Direct has a contest which he wants ot make sure you are the core of attention. You get to party with Gene, which you really need to party with Gene, VIP Vegas status and win a date with a playboy playmate! The best part its all during Affiliate Summit! Again if you have not partied with GMB Direct then you are definitely missing out.

Two Grand Prizes will be awarded to two winners.

Here are the rules -

The 1st winner will be an affiliate that will produce the most leads on GMB Track from December 15th to January 15th. GMB Direct has many great offers in different verticals – choose as many offers as you want and generate the most network revenue in Total. It doesn’t matter if you use 1 offer or 15 offers. Total revenue is the only thing that matters.

The second winner will be an affiliate that will generate the most leads to our exclusive Job Alerts USA Offer from 12/15 to 01/15. You can check how you are competing with others at any time by visiting the Leaderboard page.

For existing affiliates -

All GMB Direct affiliates are automatically enrolled in the WIN A DATE WITH PLAYMATE contest. Simply continue to drive traffic & generate leads.

So party like a rockstar and get to brag to to your friends you are going on a date with a playboy playmate! AJ Alexander and Valarie Mason are the 2 women which you can grab a date with while at Affiliate Summit! Who are these ladies, read more about them.

In any case, see everyone at Vegas!

Related posts:

1. Direct Agents and Bidz.com Affiliate Challenge
2. Get Direct Access to the Caribbeans
3. Affiliate Networks Not Using Direct Track

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!