Day 2 of Affiliate Summit West 2010
Monday January 18th
Day 2 of Affiliate Summit for me started off a bit rocky. I was far from hung over, but I awoke with the familiar feeling of an impending migraine. I decided that, despite the morning keynote by Dr. Robert Cialdini not being recorded, I’d have to skip it in favor of some more quiet time before the storm to dispel the headache on the horizon. Luckily it worked and I went down just at the end of the keynote to catch up with some folks to get the cliff’s notes version of the keynote and to find my first morning appointment. Luckily, the staff were handing out little cheat sheet cards with the main bullet points from the keynote, which I got and took note of.
I mentioned I had a meeting. I learned a valuable lesson at this conference – don’t just research what the person you’re meeting with does, research what they look like! We’d decided to meet in outside the theater after the keynote, and man was that a bad idea. A sea of unfamiliar faces and I have no idea what this guy looks like! I hang around for about 15 minutes, trying to find someone who looks like they’re also looking for someone, to no avail. I check my watch and decide that I have to move on in order to get to the session I wanted to go to. So now I know that next time I have to meet with someone, I’m either going to meet them somewhere not so busy or snoop on their Facebook profile to see what they look like!
My first session of the day was Product Datafeeds: The Next Level, which by nature was dry, but sill interesting. Scott Jangro did a great job as moderator and I did my best as a student. I figured that I know the basics about datafeeds, but moving on in my career to a company that provides a coupon feed, I better learn more! A full review of that will come later today.
After lunch, I did some time working in the For Me to Coupon booth in the expo hall. I’m glad that I did some homework about the basics of the company before standing in the booth, because we certainly didn’t have a whole lot of downtime to chit chat. People were coming by nonstop asking questions about the service, which is awesome. I was put to the test many times on my knowledge, and thankfully only had to defer to Forrest & Nate a few times for questions I had no clue about. But it was also a great opportunity to learn more nitty gritty stuff about the service when more technical affiliates stopped by with really detailed developer questions. A great introduction to my new job!
I ducked away from the booth for some rejuvenation time in the blogger lounge, then on to the Oprah, Flogs and FTC: Hot Topics 2010 session. It was interesting, but frustrated me that the presenter went through a LOT of good information in his presentation much too fast. I’m incredibly happy though that the presentation has been uploaded to SlideShare, so when I post my recap of that, it’ll have the presentation link!
Before the activity for the evening I had a lovely few drinks with Heather Smith, Julie Vazquez, Lori Herren, & Joe Vaughn from Izea. After playing with the Microsoft Surface table in the iBar, we moved our operation over to the All American Bar & Grill for the 20 cent chicken wings! It’s the Rio’s 20th anniversary, so they had all sorts of deals like that. About 60 wings, a basket of fries, and a few sodas all came in under $30! I learned a TON more about Izea and their products sitting with two insiders and Joe, a sales manager from Izea.
After dinner, it was time for our evening activity, one of my favorite activities hands down anywhere – TRIVIAL PURSUIT! They set up the Wii on a large screen and popped in the game. I was happily chosen 3rd or 4th for Team Missy Ward and we proceeded to kick ass. Of course, another team came from behind in an upset win, but it was a TON of fun playing the game. I know this is a game I’ll have to get for my wii. It was good times, and everyone who played & stuck around until the end was generously given a complimentary Gold Pass for Affiliate Summit East 2010, which we’ll be using to bring Dominic along!
For a normal, sane person, trivia’s end at midnight would have been the end of the evening, but oh no. Now it was time to wander over to McFadden’s Restaurant & Saloon for a party once again thrown by the folks at GTO Management in conjunction with MakeBeer.net. Coopers Brew makes some fine beer and their affiliate program is for the home brew kits that they sell, which are handy for the home brewer. It was a great time with displays of male competition and a punching bag game. A few heads hit it and then headed off to another club, but I was done for the night around 2am so I headed back to the room to get some sleep before my early meeting!
Read MoreDay 1 of Affiliate Summit West 2010
Sunday January 17th
I’d arrived in Las Vegas Saturday afternoon, so I was all ready to get busy Sunday morning. My morning meeting had been rescheduled, so first on my agenda was meeting with a client of PMG. We had a good meeting, discussing Valentine’s Day promotions and going forward & my departure. It went well, though the food was a bit lacking. It was our fault though for getting a late start & needing to run to the Sports Deli instead of sitting down at the All American Bar & Grill as we’d sort of planned. Afterward I went over to the Meet Market, which was OUT. OF. CONTROL!
The Meet Market could not be contained to just one room! There was a smaller room first, which I thought was the whole thing until I didn’t see a few companies that I knew had tables (namely PMG). So I got in & out of there as fast as I could and found the other portion of the Meet Market, which was in a larger area adjacent to where the expo hall would be the next day, and it was not as stuffy, but still a mad house. I wandered to see what was there, but still had to high tail it out of there after talking to some people.
Next up was a session, which you’ll see a recap & notes for soon. After the session I went in search of the bloggers lounge, which was way out in the boonies. Lori Herren was awesome enough to go get Heather Smith and I cool buttons from the Facebook table. I hung out in there for awhile to mooch off the internet capabilities to upload photos I’d taken at the session before. I had every intention to purchase the internet access in my hotel room, but it wasn’t working and I did not have the patience for tech support. So I ended up staying downstairs until Lori had the inspired idea to go get dinner from the local In-N-Out Burger.
We got back and pretty much went straight into the ShareASale Under the Stars Party. It was awesome, as usual, with a terrific spread of pizza, bread & cheese plates, ice cream sundaes, cupcakes, a chocolate fountain, and of course, open bar! They had a plethora of things to do, from Wii Sports games, stand up arcade games, darts, fun gambling (no money involved), the photo booth, a DJ, dance floor, Karaoke, and the most awesome of all – a JUMP HOUSE! I was not adventurous enough to get into that bad boy, though I really, really wanted to! At one point, the spire knocked into the chandelier in the ballroom and knocked some panels off – party foul!
I had a good time with the chocolate fountain in particular & shaking my booty on the dance floor when they were giving away feather boas. I wasn’t even drunk! But who can resist a feather boa? I attempted to stay sitting for most of the party because I knew that the Strike Out Breast Cancer charity event was coming up afterward. I’m already a bad enough bowler, so I needed to conserve energy! Maybe I should have partook in the Wii Bowling to gain some confidence!
On to the bowling – it was fun despite my atrocious score of just 39. It began at midnight and was hosted by GTO Management, BowlingShirt.com, Things From Another World, and Affiliate Marketers Give Back as a fundraiser for the National Breast Cancer Foundation. We got awesome pink and black bowling shirts with the logo of the event on them, and had a great time. There were over 100 people there easily by my estimates, which is quite a feat for an event that started at midnight! It was good times, and I dragged myself back to the Rio and straight into bed to get ready for day 2!
Read MoreBack from Affiliate Summit West 2010
I have returned from another successful trip to an Affiliate Summit, this time the conference was Affiliate Summit West 2010. It was an interesting trip, considering the new direction my career is now taking.
So here’s the scoop – at the end of the month, I’ll no longer be working as an outsourced program manager with Paulson Management Group. They are bringing all work in-house to their Boulder, CO office. – which means that I’d have to move from California to continue to work with them. Instead, I’m going to be transitioning over the next two weeks to work in client support and sales for ForMeToCoupon.com, an automated coupon feed service for affiliates. I’m excited for the transition, into yet another aspect of affiliate marketing.
So at this Affiliate Summit, I did double duty. I both represented Paulson Management Group and the client whose program I still manage, and represented ForMeToCoupon.com in their booth as well during the expo hall hours. It was very interesting, but worked out better than I’d imagined. Amy with Affiliate Summit was awesome enough to print me out a second version of my name tag badge that had the FMTC company name on it so I wouldn’t confuse anyone (more than I might already have confused people). So, enough about my new role, which I am very excited about and have already started working on.
I didn’t go to as many sessions as I normally like to at a conference, what with the meetings I had and the time I put in standing at the FMTC booth. Those recaps will come soon. Until then, some brief recaps of my days at Affiliate Summit West 2010 are soon to come! I don’t want to write the longest post in the history of TrishaLyn.com, so I’ll break them up. You can see them later!
Read MoreSend Trisha Lyn to Blog World Expo 09!
Have you been to Blog World Expo before? I went last year and I can’t tell you how invaluable it was to me as a blogger to go. There were a ton of great sessions geared for those of us who call a blog home. It was a terrific learning experience!
That said, I want to go again! Unfortunately last year I went on the good grace of using prize money from a contest to pay for the $395 for the Weekend Pass level of registration. Comparatively yes, I’m doing better than some considering the state of the economy, however I still don’t quite have the dough to make the $400 registration + $120 for a hotel + $150 for a flight = $670 is outside my price range!
So, that’s where I ask for your help. I’m looking for a sponsor to swing the registration fee and any part of my travel they have it in their wallet to cover. Or, if you’re going to BWE, willing to share a hotel room for Thursday & Friday night, and I deem you a good person, I’ll totally split a hotel room with you!
So, here’s what a sponsor will get for sending me to Blog World Expo 2009!
- My undying love (link & otherwise) & affection
- A glowing blog post about your kindness in sponsoring me
- I’ll wear a t-shirt with your logo both days of the conference (Friday & Saturday)
- I will send you all my notes before posting them on my blog
- A ton of photos of me with high profile bloggers and affiliate industry insiders wearing YOUR logo
- Tell me what else you might want in exchange – I’m flexible!
I hope to find a sponsor before September 14th when the prices go up. Please contact me through my contact page if you or someone you know is interested in sending this poor blogger to the best blogger and new media conference in years.
Read MoreAffiliate Summit East 2009 Resolutions
They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So if I didn’t learn from my experience at this last affiliate summit, I’d be crazy. I’ve had some time to think long and hard about my experience in Las Vegas and I’m resolved to learn from these experiences. I wouldn’t say they’re mistakes, per se, but definitely opportunities for learning. Here’s some things I’ve figured out for myself that might just help you too (see, this isn’t my being selfish!)
- Make sure to secure internet for the trip! I had SO many problems this time around, I’m going to make sure the hotel I’m staying at has either wired or wifi connections, and bring my own Ethernet cable that I know for SURE works just in case. Being without internet for 5 days is killer!
- Don’t get sick! I’m going to finally try out Airborne and hopefully avoid catching germs from people. Maybe I’ll even go semi-germaphobe and carry around some PocketBac to help reduce the chance of germs jumping on board after shaking so many hands. I have some awesome peppermint sceneted stuff from Bath & Body Works in a tiny and manageable 1 fl. oz. size. I can’t afford to come back sick from a conference AGAIN!
- Lighten my load. My big backpack was too big – I didn’t need to cart around that much space. Luckily the Buy.at backpack I won is just right to carry my laptop & the essentials (business cards, beverage, wallet, antibacterial hand gel, that kind of thing).
- Get more information from my mentee! I don’t want to be a sourpuss and not do the mentor program again because I have even MORE stuff to tell a AS newbie, but this time I’ll be sure to find out when they’re coming to the summit, if they’ll be there all three days, and try to find out what they look like so I can spot them in a crowd to say hi!
- Attend “Ask the Experts”! I jokingly said that I’d never attend this unless I was one of the experts, but since I don’t see that happening I need to not be lazy that second day and get up and attend. Somehow sleep always seems to take precedent that second morning…
- EAT! I managed to go all day Sunday having eaten just a few snacks and no real meals until a 2am bowl of cereal (thank you Las Vegas for being a 24/7 town). This was not good. Since the provided Continental Breakfast and Luncheons don’t kick in until Monday & Tuesday, I need to remember that Sunday isn’t just the Meet Market anymore – it’s a full fledged day of sessions, so get up and get energy!
- Get a smaller camera. Or bring the smaller one I gave my husband, because I don’t take nearly enough photos and end up relying on the power of Flickr and Facebook tags to find photos of me at the show. My camera that I take most my pics with is kinda bulky and not really friendly “on the fly”. Next time I’ll have my Flip Mino (thank you MarketLeverage!) and will be sure to get video of some of the general events (not the sessions, that’s a no-no) and random people I encounter. I’ll be video happy!
- Pimp myself out. It’s nice to look professional, yes, but being branded like a cow gets noticed. I had my own business cards of course, but no cards for any other departments, no nifty swag to hand people, no visible affiliation with them other than the name on my badge, not even a postcard with the equivalent of a 30 second elevator pitch. Next time, you’ll know who I rep when you see me coming!
Affsum Session: Advanced Optimization for Landing Pages
Date: Tuesday, January 13th, 2009. Session 8b, 2:00pm.
Session Description: Learn how to optimize your landing pages and increase conversion rates by 50-500% using simple techniques and technologies. Get that competitive edge by increasing margins and return on marketing spend. The panel consisted of:
- Olivier Chaine, CEO & Founder, magnify360 (Moderator)
- Trevor Claiborne, Product Marketing Manager, Google
- Lisa Crossley Hunter, Senior Director of CJ Search, Commission Junction
- Beth Kirsch, VP of Marketing and Business Development, uAmplify
I was expecting some gems in terms of site optimization, and boy was I not let down! I’d heard Lisa and Olivier speak last September at CJU, so I knew I was in for good stuff from them. I mentioned this session as one I planned on attending before leaving and Trevor stopped by to say hi. I had a chance to chat with him briefly in the bloghaus after the session and let him know what a great job they did as well.
Bullet Point Review!
- 98% of your traffic is wasted.
- 2% is the average site conversion rate.
- Copy heavy pages perform better later hours.
- There isn’t one magic answer.
- Ask yourself these questions about your visitors:
- Why are they here TODAY?
- How do they THINK?
- How do they BUY/STICK?
- What kind of dialog is best?
- Google’s website optimizer is a free tool to do this for you.
- A/B testing is your friend.
- So is multivariate.
- Best practices: start now, test often.
- Resource: Google Website Optimizer
- Share search channels.
- Cooperate with other departments with
- Ad copy
- Natural listings
- Trademarks
- Display URL Usage
- After testing, what works for affiliates is often different than what works for search.
- One page tested, search conversions went up 60% but affiliate went up 454%!
- You could be losing tremendous amounts of revenue by not optimizing.
- Don’t start without a plan.
- Don’t just copy what someone else did, it probably won’t work the same for you. TEST!
- Don’t assume an optimized page today is going to be optimized 6 months from now.
Points brought up during the Q&A
Just make sure you’re sending the most qualified traffic to the merchant page; you can’t really optimize their site or spend your time trying to help them that much.- How much data is needed? Generally speaking 100 impressions per change, but really, use a tool – they’ll tell you when enough data has been collected to pick a winning optimization.
- Is there a hierarchy of what to test? Not really, just pick a few things and go small first. Multivariate is complicated so start with something more manageable.
In the end, I really enjoyed hearing more from Lisa and Olivier – their expertise seems to know no bounds! Trevor also nailed it with the information about the Google Website Optimizer – my fellow attendees and I speculated that he was why most people came, to learn about the free Google tool! Unfortunately I wasn’t impressed by Beth – her speaking was really mumbled so I couldn’t quite pick up everything she said, and most her slides related to case studies and not a lot of tactics. Maybe at a smaller venue or had I been closer to the front I might have been able to hear her better. Ultimately these tidbits did well, but the slides will really tell you the background behinds these notes, so here they are!
View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: asw09 affiliate)
Also, Mike Buechele strikes again: Affiliate Summit West 2009 Session Recap – Advanced Optimization for Landing Pages.
