I took it light this time around at Affiliate Summit and only went to two events that weren’t hosted by the conference itself. Dominic and I spent the two days before the conference wandering Manhattan seeing some sights, so by the time the conference started we were not that interested in traipsing all over the city again. But we did make sure to go to the couple of smaller parties we were invited to. I’d have been asleep at the networking wheel had I not gone to any of the parties!  So here’s my take on the parties with some thanks and photos I took!

buy.at Party @ Empire Hotel

Big thanks to Ayako from buy.at for extending the invitation!  This party was on the rooftop bar at the Empire Hotel, which despite being 12 floors up was considerably shorter than most the surrounding buildings.  Only one part of the hotel bar was reserved for the party, so it was a relatively intimate affair.  We started by working the area and saying hello to old friends, and ended sitting with Heather Smith of Beautiful British Columbia and Murray Newlands of MurrayNewlands.com.  It was wonderful conversation and Dominic seemed to really feel comfortable with the jargon conversation and other assorted topics.

MarketLeverage & John Chow’s Dot Com Pizza @ Original Famous Ray’s Pizza

This was just what the doctor ordered!  I had a few culinary goals for my trip to New York: bagels, cheesecake, and pizza.  New York pizza is legendary, so I was excited to be invited to share some pizza with Dina and crew.  We got there a bit late but there was still plenty of great pizza!  I had my first real conversation with John Chow and Ted Murphy, both pleasant.  I felt bad because there wasn’t much room to sit with the main group by the time we got there to schmooze and converse, so Dominic and I ended up sitting back in the corner where the surplus pizzas were and didn’t have much chance to talk unless people came back and talked to us.

I thought it was especially funny that Dominic got an IZEA shirt from Heather earlier in the day in the Blogger’s Lounge, and decided to change out of his Blinkstar Media shirt to the Izea shirt before leaving.  We walked right up the stairs at Ray’s to see Ted Murphy, who of course commented on the IZEA shirt!  Good thing I’d taken some time earlier in the day to tell Dominic what IZEA is!  After hearing Ted and Dina and Heather talk about the last IZEAfest and the upcoming one, he really wanted to go!  Too bad we can’t afford to go to Florida and have fun with them!  Big thanks to Dina at MarketLeverage for the invite!

TechKaraoke @ the Hilton

This was unexpectedly fun, though I wish I had been able to get better photos!  Of course, the embarrassment factor of karaoke almost requires the lights to be dimmed, so the photos didn’t turn out.  I hear that I missed Chris Brogan singing a Jay-Z number, but I got down there just in time to see Ted Murphy, Shawn Collins, and Drew Bennett bust out some Milli Vanilli!  Throughout the evening I got to catch up with Connie Berg while listening to the vocal stylings of Todd Farmer, Jim Kukral, Missy Ward, and Brian Littleton amongst others.

I also never realized that you never truly appreciate how LONG some songs are until you hear them butchered at a karaoke event!  All in all though it was a good time and I hope Shawn & Missy bring back the TechKaraoke folks to do it again.  And this time bring the lights up for more embarrassing evidence!

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As you noticed, Dominic already posted his notes on the session, but here’s mine!  Session Description: Discussion on the Advertising Tax by industry leaders that have played a key role in organizing industry advocates and educating legislators on the impact of state tax nexus legislation.  The panel consisted of:

• Brian Littleton, President / CEO, ShareASale.com (Twitter @Brianlittleton) (Moderator)
• Karen Garcia, Partner, GTO Management (Twitter @karengarcia)
• Beth Kirsch, Volunteer, Performance Marketing Alliance (Twitter @bethkirsch)
• Melanie Seery, President, Affiliate Voice (Twitter @mellies)

I thought it was well done.  Unfortunately there weren’t nearly as many people there as should have been.  Hopefully they’ll read this and know that they need to get informed before their business is blindsided with these tax issues.

Bullet Point Review!

• The use tax system really doesn’t work right now, hence why states are looking to tax online retailers.
• All this involves Nexus.
• If you make a commission on a sale, you’re affected.  Period.
• There’s a lot of misinformation out there – we’re trying to inform reporters enough to make them care about what’s really happening.
• There’s a different between an affiliate company and affiliates, which is somewhat difficult to properly explain to legislators.
• This is putting thousands of individuals out of business.
• We need to keep politics out of it – it’s not a Democrat or a Republican thing.
• SSTP (streamline sales tax project) not going to save us.
• It’s GOING to happen – don’t think you’re safe.
• This year it’s been introduced in 9 states – stopped in 7 of 9 (not RI or NC)
• Be sure to work with like minded people to get things done.
• It helps to have an internal advocate who knows the system’s ins & outs (a lobbyist or lobbying organization).
• The viral-ness worked well to defeat the bills.
• The CA bill would have passed had we not shown up, so it makes a BIG difference to stand up and help and make your voice heard.
• When talking to legislators, there are a few things to remember:
  • The term “affiliate” is very confusing, but they understand advertising and small business owner.
  • Don’t say you’re going to move out of state – if you do, you’re no longer their problem, so they don’t care.
  • Keep your analogies simple – don’t get too technical or use jargon they won’t understand (CPA, PPC, SEO, etc).
• There are ways around it in New York
  • First you have to meet the minimum sales threshold, so if you don’t make that you’re not affected.
  • You can rebut the nexus.
• They haven’t yet found a way to rebut the nexus in Rhode Island and it’s too early to tell for North Carolina.
• Merchants can just charge tax to keep affiliates – but it is something they have to start working on NOW in the back end to avoid being blindsided.
• Affiliates need to prepare your business for it and keep lines of communication open.
• Solutions: retain a sales and use tax attorney and understand the law as best you can.
• DO NOT: incorporate your business in another state, use a false address, follow advice of someone who’s unlicensed, follow advice of a lawyer for another party, or try to circumvent the law.  Working within the law is your best option.
• Being shady brings a bad name to the industry – your rep and the industries rep is under scrutiny

There was no time for a Q&A session because of all the awesome information they jam packed into that session.  It was really great and I’m still just sad to see that more people weren’t there.

Please help by spreading the word about what’s being referred to as the Advertising Tax! And for your pleasure, here’s the presentation:

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Guest Post by Dominic Fawver.

Session Description: Discussion on the Advertising Tax by industry leaders that have played a key role in organizing industry advocates and educating legislators on the impact of state tax nexus legislation.  The panel included:

• Brian Littleton, President / CEO, ShareASale.com (Twitter @Brianlittleton) (Moderator)
• Karen Garcia, Partner, GTO Management (Twitter @karengarcia)
• Beth Kirsch, Volunteer, Performance Marketing Alliance (Twitter @bethkirsch)
• Melanie Seery, President, Affiliate Voice (Twitter @mellies)

This session was very informative and gave a lot of information concerning the current problems affiliate marketers are having with some of the new tax laws, or rather the new interpretations, of the tax laws.  One of the most important facts given was that the definition of “Nexus” has been recently changed, or rather updated.  For a business to have Nexus, they must by physically present in the state.  The change in definition holds that affiliates living in a state count as Nexus in that state.  This is important because it requires all of the merchants to charge their customers the state sales tax.  The issue is not that the companies should charge this sales tax, but that it is often cheaper for them to drop their affiliates in whichever states are affected, instead of adding the ability to charge the sales tax on their site.

The chief purpose of this session was to bring people up to speed on the legislation that has been put into affect or has been defeated in several states such as New York, Hawaii, and California.  This is important because it will soon affect any state that charges sales tax, which is most of them.

From the standpoint of someone new to the industry this was a very important session to attend, as it helped to bring me up to speed, so to speak, with some of the major issues which are currently impacting Affiliate Marketing.

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