... today I am going to be talking about the Affiliate Summit that happened August 12-14th. I am going to list everything I noticed at Affiliate Summit and then there will be another post probably tomorrow about the parties and the relationships I have established. There is also somethingI noticed about the show this year than the rest and that is the shift in change from who the attendees are and how sessions are done.
In any business you need to learn to grow and I think being in this industry just under 6 years, there has been a lot of changes. I remember starting out and coming to this show there was a lot more lead gen affiliates than cost per sale affiliates. I remember there were more advertisers than agency recruiters. There are a lot of changes that has been happening since my first Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas. With the shift in the industry, I think Shawn and Missy are also shifting how the show operates base on these changes.
One change I noticed is Affiliate Summit use to have 3 types of sessions base on your level of expertise. For example, there would be 3 sessions at 11:30 and you would chose one base on your own level of experience. This year at ASE, it was removed and it seemed all the sessions are all geared towards beginners. I only went to sessions where I was a noob at (SEO) or went to ones supporting fellow marketers. Everything else was not for me and I missed the structure of having 3 tier sessions. Since the sessions do cross, it did make sense to base it on the level of experience a marketer may have.
Another is the shift of attendees attending and it almost feels as there are more agencies attending the show than actual affiliates, I rarely even see CPS affiliates at the show. But I think this is because of the change of affiliates moving onto more bigger things such as creating their own products/services, turning themselves into a network, becoming lead brokers, etc. This shift definitely I think affected the industry as a whole but for the good as well.
First day, the meet market opened up and there was a lot of the normal, networks and the usual booths that are always there. The unusual part is I saw a bunch of CJ merchants at the show as well. The meet market seemed more spacious and I usually always say its always a tight space.
Affiliate Summit is still a great show for those who have not been to one, it will put you in direct relationship with your affiliate managers and in front of merchants and other like minded users. Now on to the IANteract Dinner, sponsored by NDemand Affiliates.
This is a private dinner that I host which holds some of the affiliate in the industry in which I want to strengthen the relationship with or meet new marketers who are much stronger than me in certain aspects of the industry. This is also sponsored by NDemand, who also hosted last years IANteract Dinner East 2011.
This time a round I had a mix of advertisers and big media buyers at this dinner. I want to thank Uncle Jack restaurant for helping us with the dinner and coordinating everything with me. They did a great job in communicating and coordinating the dinner, plus the food was amazing. Everyone enjoyed themselves among money makers and that is what I love about what I do, talking to people who make more money than me and learning from each other.
I want to also thank Mike and the NDemand Affiliate network for coming through with the sponsorship and allowing marketers network with other well known high volume marketers in the industry. Mike is not just a network but also an amazing personal friend, again thanks Mike and the NDemand team.
After the dinner, we ended up on the party bus and I usually keep that super private. Tomorrow or even later today, I am going to talk about some of the sessions I went to and then the last post will be about the parties.
