Affiliate Summit West 2012, Las Vegas.
Vegas Baby
I’m going to come out and say that we were probably in Vegas too long this time. Affiliate Summit moved right into CES bringing us to a total of 7 days, and I’m pretty sure I slept a total of 27 hours over the whole period. Was it worth it? Absolutely. There is no better place for a conference. Shows in New York are great and certainly have a different type of attendee, but in Vegas it is like we’ve stepped into an contained universe where people in the same industry are sort of forced to have fun with each other and build community. Sure gambling, shows, and other entertainment can be a distraction, but there is something different about the distractions you get in New York or San Francisco.
Over 5,000 Affiliate Summit Attendees
For those of you that have been attending Affiliate Summit for the last 5-8 years, hasn’t it been fun to watch it grow? What started out in 2005 as one of the smaller tradeshows is now one of the most important shows to attend in the online advertising space, and it is beginning to rival Ad:tech on quality. If you’re interested in a blast from the past, I found some photos from Affiliate Summit 2005. See any of the same people?
I have to say that Shawn and Missy are doing an excellent job of creating great marketing content, spreading the name and value of the conference. If you haven’t checked out the Affiliate Summit Promo Video they made from ASE11, you’ve got to. I think I teared up a little…
Meet Market
The Meet Market was packed as usual and continues to be one of the most important events at Affiliate Summit. This year I talked to many people that were confused by the fact there was a Meet Market the day before the expo. They seemed to think it took away form Expo attendance as well as missed many key people that weren’t able to attend until the following day. Generally I disagree with these assumptions. For some reason the environment and timing of the Meet Market makes it very special. In many ways it is one of the main differentiating elements that makes Affiliate Summit stand out from other conferences. Here are some of the newer Meet Market Exhibitors. It was cool to see new mobile focused companies and some broader exhibitors like Microsoft and Team Sales Agent.
Javier and his team were also new exhibitors this year with BuckSense. Sounds like it went really well for them.
They had to add an entirely new row of tables at this Meet Market. I know because we were one of the procrastinating companies that were lucky to get a table. Swag was also at an all time high for Meet Markets as you can see in the pics.
AdDrive – Branded 5 Hour Energy – At that point I was already in dire need. MediaTrust – Sunglasses – In high demand for Seattle residents like us. Macy’s and LinkShare – Clippy Clip Things – Didn’t actually take one but they look nice. Underground Elephant – Branded Trucker Hat – You can’t ever have too many trucker hats… Plimus – Compact Binoculars – Yes, those are binoculars. Survival style. Hilarious. Diablo Media – T-Shirts – Awesome t-shirts that they weren’t actually giving away. I WANT ONE!
Something unique to this Meet Market that I thought was extremely helpful was the setup of meeting tables on one side of the Hall. We found ourselves meeting with potential clients and current clients over at the meeting tables to do business. It was great to be able to easily sit down with people and have a quick meeting.
The Biggest Expo Yet
I’d like to call out some of my favorite exhibitors at Affiliate Summit. As you can see, the quality keeps moving up.
Sterkly Affiliate Network – Oooo, it glows…
Aol Advertising – Okay, I love stuff that glows…
Cupid plc – Scottsman in kilts?? Angels and Devils! Cupid gets my vote for best dressed.
CPAWay – Tim gets the award for best rebrand at a conference. I love the new colors and he is so smart to split off his incent network to both let people know they do incent and also keep it separate from his other advertisers.
ShareASale – What do you do when you’ve done everything? Buy a town :) This was a great concept for getting attendees to talk to the right people.
HasOffers – Booth/Meeting Area – We enjoyed sitting down with customers in our booth, giving them a chance to really spend time giving us feedback.
Favorite Speakers and Panels
Early Bird White Boarding Sessions Eric Nagel – Okay you got me. I didn’t actually get in time to make these 8am sessions, but I heard they were a highlight for many people. I know Eric is extremely knowledgeable, and he was throwing down knowledge on a round house of usability, SEO, conversions and revenue streams for sites that were submitted by the audience.
Monetizing Daily Deals HasOffers on a Panel with Groupon?! Yes please :) I was very honored to be on a panel discussing the monetization of Daily Deals with Caroline Tang (@catango), Director of Affiliate Marketing at Groupon and Rafael Zelik of Affiliaxe, a super affiliate who is really active in Daily Deals. We had a great turn out and covered the basics of running traffic with daily deal oriented offers. Caroline did an excellent job fielding specific questions for Groupon from affiliates and publishers but also really participated in discussions about the future of daily deals.
Advance Affiliate Management Geno Prussakov – Geno has become a mouthpiece for our industry, and this was one of the most thought out and organized presentations I’ve ever seen at an Affiliate Summit. Really excellent content. If you missed it, you can check out his slides on the AMNavigator Blog.
Advanced Retargeting Tactics Joanna Lord (SEOmoz) – I heard from many people that this was one of the best presentations at Affiliate Summit, and retargeting is certainly a hot topic. It was definitely one of the more blogged about session, even getting a dedicated post on John Chow’s blog.
Shoemoney’s Keynote Jeremy Schoemakeris always great to watch and listen to. He is so dynamic and really knows his stuff.
