Interactive Improvements

The networking at Affiliate Summit is simply amazing. Here’s an overview of opportunities this past summit:

Friday Night: OPA! and Indigo
Unofficial party at Taverna Opa at South Beach for ABW-ers (members of aBestWeb.com community). The party was organized by South Beach Annie who runs a South Beach Guide website.

This was quite a fun place. Dancing on the tables is very popular (and encouraged). Ouzo shots shared with the wait staff is not uncommon either! The restaurant has a great mix of people dancing to a great DJ-ed beat and enjoying wonderful food. The fun is quite contagious. I can’t wait to return!

There was also an unofficial party at the Indo Bar at the hotel. With Brian Littleton at the piano playing anything you could think of, the party continued hours after the Indigo was supposed to close (Thanks Indigo!)

Saturday Night: Cameo Dance Club, South Beach
Though noisy (hey! it’s a dance club!), I still met some great people like Brian of Deluxe Banners. I met Graham too as he was trying to work the crowd. I kinda felt for him… obviously a newbie and trying to WORK really hard. He eventually put away his portable power point presentation about his cybersquating elimination service and got into the swing of the party. If you have fun, your other goals of attendance will fall into place naturally.

Sunday Night: The Sagamore, South Beach
It was “A night under the stars.” Poolside conversation and ocean breezes in the Sagamore’s video garden were wonderful. This was a real treat because the music was at a level that you could sustain excellent conversations. I met some really great folks including the fun loving mother-daughter team of HelpingMomsConnect.com.

The party was hosted by my two favorite organizations in this industry… ShareASale and aBestWeb. Brian Littleton (president and founder of ShareASale) and Haiko de Poel Jr (creator of aBestWeb) are two people with a LOT of influence who are shaping this industry for the better good. I can’t say enough good things about them.

Dinner was a must after the party. A bunch of us ate at Jerry’s Deli - a (very much like) NY/NJ diner. The food was a treat. If you’re from the Northeast and looking for a taste of home, you gotta go ta Jerry’s!

Monday Night: Mansion, South Beach
This was a “pass” for me and a lot of folks I had talked to. We’re just so used to sitting behind our computers all day (and night) most of us are just not used to partying every night. Our bodies were revolting by Monday afternoon saying “HEY What’s all this movement!!” One of the party’s sponsors was Moniker.com, a domain management/registrar company I have a lot of respect for.

Tuesday Evening: Poolside at the Intercontinental
Last minute connections and introductions. It was amazing as I gazed around, how many people I didn’t have a chance to meet! Maybe we’ll meet in Vegas!

Tuesday Evening: Dinner at Luna Café
One last round of meeting wonderful people. At the recommendation of South Beach Annie, about twenty of us went to a truly wonderful Italian restaurant. Everyone raved about the food and perfect wait staff. The best part of the meal was meeting four more new folks whom I’m sure I’ll work with in the coming months.

Networking Opportunities: Everywhere!
But it’s not all about the parties. Breakfast, lunch, breaks, loitering around the exhibit hall are all good times to say hello and meet a new colleague. Business cards are traded freely in this supportive environment. That was one of the things that stuck me at my first Summit… just how much a part of the culture it is of the show to trade cards. It’s not unusual to trade 150 to 300 business cards over 3 days (really!).

The synergies that happen at Affiliate Summit can be surprising. By random chance, there where four people sitting at two of the couches in the lobby (a very popular place to mingle). After introductions went around, it was discovered that there was a Graphic artist, a programmer, a super affiliate and an OPM (outsourced affiliate manager, like myself). Then someone said “hmmmm….” and the wheels started turning on how to capitalize on these connections. It’ll be interesting to see what develops between these four over the next few months!

You never know what’ll develop with the people you meet at the Affiliate Summit.

WOW! I just finished up another Affiliate Summit. These Summits just keep getting better and better. If you’ve never been to a Summit, there are essentially three components: learning (sessions and sharing with others), networking, and of course the parties. Ok, maybe two components… you could put the parties under the subset of networking.

I really really enjoy the networking* side of the conference. It’s my favorite part. (*networking is not the best word for what is really happening here. It’s really making new friends.) For months, most of us are locked away isolated in our offices with only forum postings, IM and email to keep our sanity. We sorely miss that human connection. Affiliate Summit provides that human connection - in spades! I love meeting new folks, putting faces and stories with the names I’ve met over the Internet and reinforcing old relationships. Overwhelmingly this is a very supportive and family-like group of people. OH!.. another really cool aspect of Affiliate Summit… you don’t have to EXPLAIN what you do. We all “get it” here. It’s a common bond. How many times have you said “I do affiliate marketing” to a friend and you get a blank look in return.

I’m bringing back a lot of great tips and techniques for me to become a better OPM (outsourced affiliate manager) and a whole lot more to share with my affiliates to help improve their conversions. There’s a LOT to learn at the summit. Quite often I hear folks saying “my brain is full”.

I can’t say enough good things about the Summit. This is my second and I wish I had started coming years ago!

Affiliate networks bring together merchants and affiliates by providing a system to track clicks, leads and sales, report performance and pay commissions. The “Big Three” networks are: Commission Junction, LinkShare and ShareASale*. Promoting merchants that run their programs via these networks has some nice benefits.

Promoting networked merchants makes it easy for you.
When you sign up and join an affiliate program an account is created for you. That account is where you log in to get links and banners with your special tracking code, contact the merchant with questions and requests, and most importantly, where your reporting is… your clicks, sales and how much money you’re making! Your affiliate account is your connection with the merchant you’re promoting.

Now imagine promoting a dozen or more merchants on your website. If they were not in an affiliate network, that’d be twelve places you’d have to log in to check all that stuff! WOW… what a time killer! This is one of the biggest reasons affiliates like networks. With one account you have access to and can manage the promotion of thousands of merchants. The second biggest reason affiliates like networks is all about getting paid.

You get paid by the network (not the merchant).
Although time saving convenience is important, the two strongest reasons affiliate marketers like networks is:

• 1) You are reasonably sure you’ll get paid!
  Unfortunately, there are some merchants who, for some reason, don’t pay their affiliates. Promoting merchants that run through (one of the big three) networks gives you a lot of protection in this area because it’s actually the NETWORK that is promising to pay you, not the merchant.

• 2) ONE BIG check to cash, rather than lots of small ones.
  Since it’s the network that’s paying you and not the individual merchants, all your earnings are aggregated into one big check. Easier management. Less work.

Easy. Free. And there’s no obligation.
Setting up an account is fast, easy and best of all - free. There’s no obligation to promote any merchant. With a couple of clicks you can choose whom to promote or not. Being an affiliate is really a powerful position to be in. You could be making (more) money with your website in just a few minutes with affiliate marketing.

So why not?

*I have found that ShareASale is by far is the most trusted and respected of all the networks. Affiliates tell me that they feel SAS’s management is reputable and reporting the most reliable.