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!

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I believe I mentioned before, I’m participating once again in the Affiliate Summit Mentor program.  I sent these same tips and tricks to the person I’m mentoring, and since people are starting to filter into town today for the show, I’ve decided to share these last minute tips with everyone!

Now, some are just general conference/trade show things that a first timer might not really be aware of.  Some are probably common sense, but hey, they’re there for good measure.  So take my advice here, don’t take my advice, it’s up to you.  But some of this might help!

If all goes well and my flight is on time I should be in the air soon, so I hope to see you in Las Vegas!  If you want to meet up with me at any point, send me a Direct Message on Twitter – I’ll have the SMS updates turned on so it’ll be as good as texting me

General Conference Tips

• Business Cards – Bring plenty!  I can’t stress this enough.  It’s the best way for people to remember to contact you when they get back to “the real world” of work after the conference.  Also, if you’re the type of person that likes to enter booth drawings for prizes, most want you to drop off a business card to enter.
• Added Personalization of Business Cards – For an important contact that you definitely want to get back to you, write something distinctive on the back of the card when you give it to them.  It could be your cell phone number or some other bit of contact information that’s not already on the card, or just a note about who you are, like “Met at lunch on Tuesday”.  That will give the person a reminder when they get back that they actually wanted to later connect with you.
• Comfort – wear comfortable clothes and shoes that won’t slow you down or make sitting around in sessions unbearable.  As well, it’ll help to fully assess the conference bag and its contents to know if they’re suitably comfortable for you.  For example, despite being provided a notepad in the bag, I don’t usually use it.  I prefer to use a Composition Book to take notes – not only because the cover is thick and it’s easier to write in when there’s no surface to write on, but also I keep my notes when I get back, so it’s easier to keep them in the same notebook than loose all over.  Be aware of these kinds of personal preferences.
• Literature – don’t be afraid to grab literature from booths & meet market tables.  What I do is take it up to my room and unload at the end of each day.  Then I can fully read more into stuff and decide what I’ll be taking back with me.  I also find that taking stuff back with me does help me remember who I wanted to do more research into working with, more than a business card necessarily.
• Leave Luggage Space – it’s Vegas, and there will be booth people wanting to give you knick-knacks and t-shirts and you may just want to bring home souvenirs, so remember to leave space in your bags for any literature, paperwork, goodies, souvenirs, etc. that you may be bringing home with you.  Buying another bag for that stuff to bring home isn’t fun (trust me, I’ve been there).

Affiliate Summit Specific Tips

• Conference Bag – you’ll be provided with a bag when you register.  Mostly it’ll have literature inserts that businesses have paid to have included.  I recommend going through the literature immediately and removing anything you know you have absolutely no interest in.  Added papers will just bog you down when you’re walking around.  The bag usually also contains a pad of paper someone has sponsored and a pen, amongst other random goodies.
• Registration – Register earlier, that way you have time before anything important starts to get rid of the excess in your bag & get comfortable to embark on more important stuff.  If you go to the conference area just to register before any intentions of going to the Meet Market or sessions, that will give you time to examine the bag itself, pen, notebook, goodies, etc. to see if you’ll need to grab your own supplies to be comfortable and effectively meet your conference goals.
• Meet Market – GO!  I admit, my first Affiliate Summit I didn’t go because the description made it sound like it was a row of merchants sitting around waiting for affiliates to approach them in a creepy way.  But it’s a huge networking opportunity.  There’s drinks, wandering, and yes, you can have some good conversations with industry colleagues.   There are often companies that just get a Meet Market table (they’re less expensive) and won’t have a booth during the exhibit hall, so take the opportunity to talk with anyone you’re interested in doing business with – that may be your only opportunity.
• Water – I don’t know if hotels and conference centers do this for everyone or if the organizers have to request it, but there’s almost always pitchers of cold water and glasses in all the session rooms or just outside.  Carrying around a bottle never hurts either if that’s more your style.
• Timeliness – being on time to sessions will greatly help your comfort level and learning.  I usually try to get there at least a couple minutes early.  That gives me time to find a good seat, get a drink of water, and get settled before the panel actually starts.  That way I’m not interrupting anything by trying to get comfortable or by walking in late.
• Meals – if you have a full conference pass, they provide a continental breakfast & light lunch (usually sandwiches, soup, burgers, that kind of thing).  It’s nothing gourmet but it’s a good chance to talk to some people casually, approach speakers you want to follow up with, things like that.  And you’ve already paid for it with your conference registration, so you might as well take advantage of it, that’s my theory.
• Business Meetings – you may have already scheduled some.  Don’t schedule too many though – you want ample time to explore the exhibit hall and attend panels and sessions.  Also – I made this mistake at the last Summit held at the Rio – make arrangements to meet your appointments near to the conference area.  The conference center of the Rio is at the back of the hotel, so if you’ve made arrangements to meet in the lobby or closer to the casino area, it might be incredibly out of your way to go all the way out there to meet the person.  Besides, you’ll have a more professional meeting anywhere in the back near the conference center than you would out by the casino floor anyway.
• Agenda – take a few minutes now to check out the agenda for the show online.   It’ll save you time now to decide on some of the sessions/events you definitely want to attend than to have to make those decisions on the fly.  However, being flexible isn’t a bad thing – sometimes you hear things from other attendees that you can’t know by reading the description on paper.
• Session/Event Recommendations – these are a couple of sessions that are geared more towards affiliates than merchants. You might want to check out:
  • The Black Ink Session, Sunday 1:30p – 2:30p Classroom C (Miranda 5-6). Jeremy Palmer is a great guy and successful affiliate and really takes a basic “this is how you do it” approach.
  • Ethical Issues in Affiliate Marketing, Sunday 3-4pm Classroom D (Miranda 7-8). There was a session just like this with almost the same lineup of panelists in Boston, and it didn’t turn out that great, to put it politely.  I’m really hoping that they took the feedback given then and will put out a more productive and well run panel this time.
  • Mentor Program Meet Up, Sunday 6:30-7:30pm Brasilia 1-3. You’re probably already planning on attending this, but it’ll be a great mixer and balance amongst new attendees and old hat attendees, so the networking will be great.
  • Opening Remarks & Keynote, Monday 9:45am-10:45am, General Session Room Brasilia 1-7. For one, the keynote will set the tone and you’ll be sorry if you miss it. For two, Gary Vaynerchuk is the keynote and he’s a fantastic speaker!
  • Advanced Optimization for Landing Pages, Monday 2-3pm Classroom C. I’ve heard Olivier Chaine & Lisa Crossley Hunter speak before and they definitely know what they’re talking about, so with just them the session should be good. I’ve never heard Trevor Claiborne speak and I’ve spoken to Beth Kirsch before but never seen her on a panel so I can’t vouch for them.

Las Vegas Tips

• If you’re staying at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, take a cab from the airport.  The shuttles, while less expensive, take at least an hour to get from the airport to the Rio since it’s off the strip, so usually it’s the last stop before they return to the airport.   If you’ve been traveling all day, you’ll thank yourself for saving the hassle.
• Chapstick is your friend!  If you’re not used to a relatively dry climate like Las Vegas, be sure to carry around some good chapstick or lip balm.  Even if you don’t leave the hotel at all to expose yourself to the elements, the recycled air & smoke in the casino area can be a lot to take with repeteitive exposure.
• There’s a café down the hall on the way to the conference area of the Rio called the Sao Paulo Café – avoid it!   Terrible service, mediocre food.
• There’s also a Starbucks next to that cafe, so if you need your morning latte fix, it’ll be there, but the lines may be long so plan ahead.
• The conference center is in the very back of the hotel, so from the guest elevators and gaming area, it’s a 15 minute walk if you’re taking your time, 5-10 if you’re booking it.  Remember that when planning out your arrival times and any other events during the day.
• The Carnival World Buffet is really good; I highly recommend trying it at least once while you’re there.  Don’t let the $27 price tag scare you – it’s worth it.
• The All-American Bar & Grill is a good option for a decent burger or fries at any hour.

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