Web Affiliate Marketing Blog

For a few weeks, I been battling with the little voices in my head, trying desperatly not to think about Affiliate Summit West 2011 in Vegas. With house moves, Christmas fast approaching, holidays in Canada & the Antarctic, and my fulltime job, I wasn’t sure if it was possible to squeeze ASW11 in this time around.

ASW10 was fantastic, the best key speeches I’ve seen at Affiliate Summit or any networking event, by far. All of the sessions I managed to attend were key to the current affiliate arena, useful to affiliates of ALL levels, and were professionaly put together without it turning into a self PR frenzy as can often happen.

Thinking of how valuable I found ASW10 I kinda knew deep down, I’d somehow have to find a way of getting there for ASW11 and started rounding up the UK troops once again.

UK ATTENDEES
Chris Frost
Kieron Donoghue
Matt Wood
Ray Theakston
Duncan Pollard
Chris Clarkson
Chris Brown
Performance Horizon
Jim Banks
Joe Stepniewski
Doug Scott (showing interest)…

For those that are still thinking, there is a UK Roadtrip to Vegas group on facebook that details all of our flights and accomodation details if you want to join us. Vegas is a big place, and last year we met up with a few people who’d never been before, to ensure they weren’t overwhelmed and also to network prior to the summit. The more the merrier right!?!?

Be warned you will party hard, but you shouldn’t let this get in the way (too much) of the Summit itself. Some of the knowledge you can pickup from sessions and general networking is invaluable!

CHECKLIST
Flight – booked
ESTA – paid
Hotel – booked
Buy.At Affiliate Party – confirmed

My body’s got over the jet lag, but I’ve a feeling that my livers recuperation may take a little bit longer following the Affiliate Summit in Vegas last week.

This was the second time I’ve headed over to the Summit and was surprised at how much it had grown and improved when compared to 2007. This year I not only had a lot more fun, but also met up with a lot more people. I continue to find it a little strange that I have to go to Vegas to meet with some UK Affiliate Marketing people (I’m not complaining!).

I finally met Jim Banks, Charlie Calabrese, Jane Copland and the and one and only Steve Pavlovich (even if he did appear very FORWAD at times). Sadly missed this year were Fraser, Shane and Dave & Elaine – a get well present should be on its way ;). In their place, as a welcome addition were Matt Wood, Raymondo and my breakfast partner Chris Clarkson. It was also great to see Steve Brown again (now involved in Poken) and James, Mark and Jamie (cheers for Jet!).

The Summit itself was big. Very big! Sadly, for one reason or another, I didn’t manage to attend all the sessions I’d ear-marked, missing CPA Affiliate Marketing Opportunities in Europe faced by the UK contingent of Matt Wood, James Little and Jim Banks and also missing Drew Bennett’s – Monetizing Blogs for Affiliate Marketing and SEO. One session I did attend and found to be quite informative was Wil Reynolds – How to Fix Failing SEO Efforts. Hopefully, some of the sessions I missed, will have been recorded and should be available to Platinum Pass holders to view at a later date :)

Once the Summit was over, 7 of us headed off for a bit of culture and went to see The Phantom of the Opera in the Venetian. The show was fantastic and is certainly one I’d recommend seeing if you ever get the chance.

Now I need to buckle down and put into place some of the things I heard, discussed and dreamt up whilst over in Vegas. One interesting discovery was an alternative to iCodes/Promotions that is due to hit our shores later this year.

Thanks to everyone for making ASW10 so enjoyable… same again in 2/3 years time?

We’re almost there! It appears there’s more people from the UK attending than originally thought which is great news!

If you’re a Twitter user then there’s two lists that are worth following in the run up to ASW10:
UK Travellers
ASW10 Speakers

Most of us are arriving on either Fri 15th or Sat 16th and it appears that the UK contingents chosen hotel is the Bellagio.

This time round, I’ll be taking very basic business cards, but will also be using Poken, if my device arrives in time! Poken is an online service that allows the exchange of contact details between two keychain devices, using a very short range wireless technology.

Poken allows me to instantly swap my electronic business card with any other Poken device at the Summit, or one of the evening functions. All details are then stored for retreival once I get home making it a bit more convenient than having 100′s of business cards.

The only down side, the devices currently available in the UK aren’t exactly business like! Ah well!

Other suggestions before heading over to Vegas are to have a read of some of the following presentations put together by Shawn:

• Exhibitor Guide
• Build your own ASW10 itinerary
• Read the 1st Timers Guide
• Read Guide To Networking At ASW10

Looking forward to meeting up with a few old faces and a few new ones :)

Fancy a trip to Vegas whilst attending one of the biggest Affiliate Marketing Events of the year?

Well, Affiliate Summit West 2010 is once again taking place in Las Vegas between 17-19 January. The three day conference includes an exhibit hall with affiliate merchants, vendors, and networks, as well as educational sessions covering the latest trends and information from affiliate marketing experts.

Having attend the event in 2007, myself and Kieron decided it was once again time to head over to Vegas to catch up on what’s happening stateside, as well as having a wee bit of fun. After putting the feelers out, we’ve seen a fair amount of interest, and decided to setup groups in both LinkedIn and Facebook.

We all know, going to networking events can sometime be daunting at the best of times, even more so when you’re in Las Vegas. The idea of these groups is to get everyone talking and planning together so we all have a rough idea of where’s best to stay, what events people are thinking of attending and what shows/drinking establishments are most likely to be frequented.

For those who are thinking of attending, Shawn Collins has kindly issued me with a discount code thats good for 10% off any pass type.
Simply quote ASW10COLDSNAIL when you order your Affiliate Summit West 2010 tickets online.

Whenever I’ve developed a new website, or had one developed for me, I’ve either left it to obtain traffic purely through search engines, cross promoted it via newsletter subscribers of my other websites or headed straight down the PPC route.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be launching three new websites that aim to do what they say on the tin, nothing more, nothing less – Buy Cheap Books. This time however, I am stumped as to how best to promote them and would welcome any suggestions people may have.

Had I been going to the A4U Expo this year, I would most certainly have posed this question to the Affiliate Doctors at their session on Day 1. I’ve still submitted it for possible inclusion via Keirons blog hoping that they may find time, or they may not have had many submissions.

Obviously I’ll be looking at swapping a few links and will most probably head down the route of writing a number of short articles which link back to my websites. This not only gives me links, but also gives friends/fellow affiliates a small piece of unique content for their website. Reciprocal “in content links” will, as always, be most welcome.

Due to taking far too many holidays this year, I couldn’t escape from work for the A4UExpo without my boss noticing. I’m sure had I been able to attend, I could have got all the answers to my questions. Hope all those attending enjoy it and look forward to catching up with some of you at next years Affiliate Summit in Vegas!<