Affilliate Summit West 2010 Review

Another Affiliate Summit is now history. This was my 3rd one in Vegas and I can honestly say they keep getting better every year. My compliments to Shawn Collins and Missy Ward for putting on such a well run show.

Its incredible how popular these events are getting.  The hallways, sessions and exhibit halls were just packed all the time with affiliates, merchants, agencies etc.  I got to the meet market late on Sunday but it was still overflowing with people were trying to secure their party invitations for later and grab some early freebies.

I ended up going to 2 sessions while I was there.  The first was the Facebook Tactics which is always popular.  There was a lot of interest in the mass upload tool that Facebook reserves for high volume users ($30k per month spend).  They plan on releasing it to everyone eventually, but for now its reserved for high volume users.  Many of the questions from the audience were about what can get approved and what doesn’t.  There were not any big tips dropped that I remember.  I think the main takeaway was that Facebook ads is still growing rapidly and there are dedicated reps that can help you.   If you are a legitimate affiliate and want to work with Facebook, they want to work with you.  If you are going to push the envelope too hard and endlessly submit rejected ads, they have no problem banning you for life.

The second session I went to was CPA opportunities in Europe.  This was a very low key session but I found it interesting.  Not so much in actual content delivered but some ideas that it gave me to for my European campaigns.  I will be doing a full post on Europe offers in a week or so.    In a nutshell there are 2.5 times as many people than the US, traffic is cheaper, sometimes converts better, and Internet penetration is increasing exponentially.   The main lesson from the session was basically there are so many opportunities in this emerging market, everyone really should check it out.

I really wanted to also hit the Pay Per Call session but I ended up getting to Vegas too late Sunday so I missed it.

I walked through the expo area and talked to a few new companies I had never seen before.  The booths actually seemed a little toned down from previous years, nothing really over the top.  I didn’t pick up any schwag this year, which was a first for me.  The only thing that really looked cool that I wanted was some company that was giving away skateboard decks.  I never found the booth where they came from though (if that’s your company, please feel free to mail me one!)

The real networking was done at all the great parties and off site events.   This is the chance to meet all your online friends and people you have read about in a relaxed setting.  There were so many excellent parties and dinners this year as always.   I had a great time talking to everyone and hearing about what people are doing.   I’m just amazed at the quality of people that were there.  You may think you know someone from their online persona but when you meet them in real life its usually much different than you would expect.

If you are on the fence about going to a conference, you should definitely make plans to attend.  I don’t go to a huge number of conferences, but I will keep coming back to the Affiliate Summit event every year.  Hope to see you at the next one.