Affiliate Summit Recap
Well I finally made it back home from Affiliate Summit, had a good time and glad I was finally able to meet some of you guys. Lots more asked to meet-up but I just ran out of time. Hopefully next time.
I spent very little time at the conference and attended exactly zero sessions so I dont have much to comment on there - I basically spent 5 minutes walking around the show floor and then went back to meetings.
If you went to this (or any) conference with the idea of what were the best parties to attend or who are the coolest people to hang out with, I would suggest that your focus is a little off. Yet almost every one of my blog readers I met with or talked to was intent on trying to see what parties I would be attending etc.
Interestingly in the 15-20 other meetings I had that were about real business this did not come up a single time!
Not suggesting you should not attend parties etc, but I had 2 or 3 conversations about how great this or that party was or how they wished they could get invited to X party followed up with how much someone was struggling in the business.
I try not to be critical, but it is hard to have a lot of sympathy for someone who comes to these conferences and their primary concern is getting party invites. Several of the struggling “party” people had zero business meetings other than a few forum-type meet-ups.
Conferences like Ad-tech and Affiliate Summit can and should be fun, but the primary purpose of them is to meet as many people as you can who can help to make you more money. Sometimes that will happen at a party, more often that is a scheduled meeting.
Just my $.02 but that was one of the insights of my experience at the conference, those I met who were banking were far less concerned with partying than those I met that were struggling.
January 15th, 2009 at 9:32 am
ASW was most excellent.
I went to the conference with a list of who I needed to meet.
The parties were a necessary evil in order to get around the people I went to get around. I made some great contacts that will be priceless to my business in the coming months.
I was disappointed, though, that we didn’t make a connection this trip, but will look forward to next time.
Eric
January 15th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Hope you enjoyed yourself in the off-moments from meetings.
Re: the business meetings - I do client services meetings daily, but am curious to know what goes on in those types of meetings at AS. Could you give us a purely hypothetical example of one of these meetings you might set up at Affiliate Summit, what type of person you’re meeting, what you’re shooting for, etc.? Were these all with:
- merchants you’re cutting deals with (e.g if there is something else besides negotiating a pay bump or something else you mentioned in the ’scaling an offer post’)?
- Partnerships w/ other affliates (I was warned those usually don’t turn out that well)?
- Something else?
Any example would be cool even if you are extremely vague.
Too bad we didn’t cross paths this year for that bev but there is always next. Was my first ASW and I’ll definitely be back. Made some good connections including simply meeting some affiliate mangers face-to-face and squaring away some support and questions about strength of a few contracting markets.
Also made some decisions about types of offers I’ve been dabbling in but are a waste of my time since it’s company and customers I really didn’t want to keep anyway. And of course 1st time in Vegas was quiet pleasant. I’m not a gambling-kind-of-guy (casinos, not business) so I really underestimated how much fun I was going to have. Weather was awesome, too.
January 18th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
I find way more value in the parties than meet/greet on the floor.
The connections I made and conversations I had while at the parties will be more valuable than any networking I do in the next 12 months.
I can understand if you have pre scheduled meetings, but I’d have to argue that walking the floor be more valuable for affiliates.