Affiliate Summit West 09 in the books

Another Affiliate Summit is over and as usual it was an excellent show. I was only in Vegas for 3 days and 2 nights so it was all a bit of a blur. There were so many great events, dinners, and parties. But the best part of course was seeing new and old friends.

I decided to try to attend some sessions this year and was able to hit 3 of them.

The first one was the Facebook session. Facebook is really starting to embrace affiliates which is a good thing for everyone in our industry. They know they have made a lot of mistakes and experienced big time growing pains in the last year, but they are committed to bringing on high volume advertisers. Basically, if you keep it clean and don’t run shady offers, they want to work with you. If you aren’t working with an account rep, I suggest calling and getting one. That really facilitates getting your campaigns going.

The next one I went to was Tim Ash’s landing page session. Tim is a great speaker and really motivating. I have always been a huge landing page tester, but he inspired me to take it to the next level. The bottom line of the session: you never know what will increase conversions so test everything and keep testing forever. Even if you think you know what will work, never assume, just test. I even bought Tim’s book after the session. I think landing page optimization might be the most important thing for any campaign.

The last session I sat in on was the super affiliate PPC marketing strategies. This was mostly a Q & A with some interesting questions, but more geared for beginners.

The expo area had a lot of booths with rows of new networks, many I have never heard of before. I stopped by the ones I knew to say hi, but didn’t spend much time in there. I’m proud to say this was the first time I resisted the urge to pick up any schwag. No new junk to clutter up the office!

There are always tons of parties at night to choose from. These are excellent opportunities for networking at the conference, in a more relaxed and casual setting. The best party this year (just like last year) was the CX Digital party at the Palms. These guys really know how to put on a nice event. Nate and Fraser are the best, thanks guys. I had some really good discussions with affiliates doing amazing things. I love talking to under the radar guys who don’t have blogs or big online presences. They just do their thing and are quietly killing it the background. Those are the guys who are really driving the innovation in our industry. I hope to stay in contact with everyone I met.

Some new business relationships were started and old ones solidified. I met with one company over dinner at the Mandalay Bay and I know we are going to do a lot going forward. I never would have hooked up with them had we not met at the show, and now I have a completely new revenue stream to explore. These are the kinds of things that happen at a conference that can really increase the scope of your business.

If you have never been to an internet marketing conference, I highly suggest going to Affiliate Summit West next year. It is definitely worth your time and money. See you there next year!