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is affiliate summit worth it

May 8, 2013 By adamriemer 2 Comments

Why I’m Going to Affiliate Summit and Why You Should Too!

Buy Passes for Affiliate Summit
Buy Passes for Affiliate Summit

I remember being at one of my first Affiliate Summits and walking into a dueling piano bar to sit with a ton of strangers.  Immediately a person, who I still know and still goes to the show, picked me out of the crowd after recognizing me from a forum and introduced me to everyone.  Back then the show was probably 1,000 people or less and almost every person I met at that show I am still friends with today.  (Except for Rexanne and Scott who we unfortunately lost within the last couple of years.)  Not only did I make friends that I will always be close with, but this show, more than anything else, helped grow and shape my career.  Shawn and Missy who own it not only developed a show that teaches you the good and bad of the industry; but also created an atmosphere where people can network, have fun and more importantly you can get a positive and measurable ROI from attending.  Here is why I am going to Affiliate Summit and why you should go too.

Reasons to attend Affiliate Summit

Adware – if you’ve been confused about any of my posts on adware, any of the forums you’ve read about it on, or just want to know how it can potentially steal from you, your company or how you can use it; they have both sides of the fence there.  You’ll hear from the companies that build it, Affiliates that use it and Managers or OPMs like myself that test it, remove it and educate about the dangers.  Adware is a tricky thing and something that you will only get all sides of it from at this show.  You know my opinions and that I have never seen it add a ton if any value from an Affiliate to a Merchant, but you’ll hear the other side as well and what their pitch is.

Networking – There is no other show with networking like Affiliate Summit.  People go to talk!  Years ago I remember Lisa Riolo from Impact Radius (I originally talked to her when she was at BeFree or CJ) blowing into a whistle and screaming out time to switch.  She was running a business card bingo game.  That is where I met two merchants that at the time I worked with and drove sales too.  I also ended up finding an Affiliate for the program I was managing in house.  It was an awesome idea that ended up working out really well.  Another time we all went out in South Beach and ended up taking over a club and were treated like we were the skinny models and superstars that are normally in there.  Normally many of us wouldn’t be allowed in, but when they saw the giant group and the amount of money they could make, we ended up with table service and an amazing experience.  You will never get that superstar feeling in a place like that unless you have the right people which are also the people that go to Affiliate Summit.

Education – Although I have differences in opinions than other speakers, everyone gets to share their opinion.  The sessions are voted on by the attendees and only the highest quality, or most popular, can make it through.  You’ll find sessions on how to steal, sessions on how to prevent theft, live SEO site reviews from some of the smartest SEOs in the world, how to blog and use social media to generate a profit, as well as learn how to protect your company from Nexus Tax Laws, FTC Disclosures and ensure CANSPAM compliance.  I don’t think there is a topic in online marketing that isn’t covered at this show and everyone will learn something by going to the right sessions.

Relationships – It is one thing to communicate by email or skype.  It is another thing to shake someone’s hand then give them a hug after a couple days of bonding at a show.  By attending Affiliate Summit I have not only become close friends and developed solid business relationships with some of the largest websites in the world, but by meeting in person and showing we are both human I have been able to get extra exposure, drive incremental value and have traffic sources I can rely on when I need them.

ROI – I have never left an Affiliate Summit where I didn’t meet a giant partner, sign a new client or find a complimentary business to cross promote with and grow my clients, my company or when I was in house, the company I worked for.  The relationship isn’t always built at the show, but sometimes a few months after I’ll get a random phone call or email from someone and every show has resulted in a positive ROI for me.  That is very rare to say about any trade show but this is one where I have always come out with more money than I spent to attend.

Affiliate Summit is one of the best shows to attend and one I highly recommend.  If you haven’t bought your tickets yet, you may be missing the early bird special.  If you plan on buying tickets to Affiliate Summit, I would love if you would use my Affiliate links by clicking on the banner at the top of this post.  Thank you again for reading and I hope to see you there.  If you are going, make sure you leave a comment if you’d like to meet or see if there is a way to work together.

Filed Under: Other Tagged With: Affiliate Summit, is affiliate summit worth it, why should you go to affiliate summit

January 16, 2013 By adamriemer Leave a Comment

Affiliate Summit 2013 Reviewed – Surprisingly better than before

Performance Marketing Summit by Affiliate Summit
Performance Marketing Summit by Affiliate Summit

If you follow this blog you’ll know that one of the shows I always recommend going to is Affiliate Summit.  That show and a couple of forums are what helped me launch my company and Missy and Shawn have helped me grow and learn to run my business for years.  Over the years the show has grown and changed pretty dramatically and this year was the same.

I’ve always met at least one great person for my business at Summit.  It is either a new client, a great partner or someone I can outsource things to like design work or copywriting.  This time it was a new influx of content sites that were ready to try adding Affiliate Links to their sites, and were opened to guest posting and allowing a backlink.

I hadn’t seen the growth of content sites in attendance at this high of a level for a few years at Affiliate Summit (as far as the growth in volume of content sites) and it was awesome to see.  Many of these sites are established and already have a following which makes them even better.  The show has always had a variety of partners from Parasites and Adware who steal from you, to value adding partners who drive new customers or send back old customers who may have forgotten about you.

Affiliate Summit has definitely done an awesome job with reaching new value adding partners. The only negative thing was in the expo hall where there were a much larger number of adware companies exhibiting and turning legit partners into parasites.  The adware that was at the show will give these once legit partners the ability to steal from merchants and other Affiliates making them go from value adding to part value adding and potentially turn them into more theft than value.

Unfortunately theft and bad practices are part of this industry and as long as the networks allow it, promote it and encourage their partners to steal from the merchants on their networks; or as long as attendees at industry shows (not just Affiliate Summit), attendees don’t say we don’t want this in our industry or at our shows, it will continue to be at all of the industry shows and continue to damage the Affiliate industry.  If you are opposed to seeing adware and theft and want to help build a value adding industry and keep all of your commissions, you should write to the different show owners and say you don’t want it there anymore.

Because people stopped complaining, adware has been allowed back in and it is in full force.  Because commissions are stolen or poached, sites that would have made a decent income off of Affiliate Marketing are chased away and say that it doesn’t work.  This hurts all of us and ruins our industry’s name.  Affiliate Summit does not promote or endorse negative behaviors and I have yet to see an Affiliate show that doesn’t allow it at all anymore, so please don’t think this is about their show.  I am just venting about the growth of it across the networks, etc…  Affiliate Summit is actually probably the cleanest of the shows out there and probably the only one that would eventually ban many types of adware from attending again.

They are very opened to feedback and when people complained about adult and relationship cheating companies exhibiting and promoting cheating on your husband or wife on the expo hall floor, they were banned (at least that is what I heard).  If people complain about adware and bad practices being pushed in the expo hall, they will hopefully be banned again as well.  It takes people letting the show know what they want and don’t want though to make any changes.  One last highlight of the show was the Share a Sale masquerade party.

Tons of people showed up in costumes, everyone was dancing and it seemed like everyone had a great time.  Share a Sale always throws an amazing party and this years was probably their best yet.  I thought it would be almost impossible to top them recreating Studio 54 at the NYC Hilton with a complete light up dance floor, but they definitely did it this year by having hundreds of people in Victorian masks, costumes and more.  The party was amazing and they definitely outdid themselves.  It’ll be hard to beat it again for the next summit, so I’m excited to see what they do.  They always have awesome themes so if you didn’t go, you should definitely check it out at the next Affiliate Summit.

Affiliate Summit is an awesome show and if you haven’t gone, I highly recommend you go.  They have a new show called Performance Marketing Summit which you can find by clicking on the banner at the top of this post and the next Affiliate Summit will be in Philadelphia this summer.  I highly recommend going and will definitely be excited to see you there if you go.  It is probably early enough to get the early bird pricing, so now is the perfect time to get your ticket.  If you wait to long they get a lot more expensive.

Filed Under: Affiliate Marketing Tagged With: Affiliate Summit, affiliate summit reviews, is affiliate summit worth it

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