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Affiliate Summit West -- Las Vegas,
January 2009 By James Martell Part One Over the many years I've been in affiliate marketing -- not the right phrase, really, but one that partly describes what I do -- I've always enjoyed attending the many industry events that surround this emerging industry. Once such event is Affiliate Summit, founded by Shawn Collins and Missy Ward. Affiliate Summit, which is held twice a year in North America; once in Las Vegas and once on the east coast, has grown from one annual event with 200 attendees in 2004, to three annual with the Las Vegas event hosting 3200 attendees in 2009! And whereas initially most were "merchants"; nowadays there is a nice balance of "merchants" to "affiliates" due to the tremendous success of online marketing, particularly the success of this growing army of affiliates (of which I am a part) who can earn income without a shopping cart or product, by simply being the go-between for online shoppers and merchants.
Flying in from Alberta, Canada was Tammy Morales, publisher of ScrapBookersInnerCircle.com, a growing community website of scrap bookers. Attending our group was also Tracy Epp, Cheri Britton, David Cunningham and Chris Molnar who enjoyed taking in the Exhibit Hall, Speaker Tracks and many parties. The conference kicks off on the following day, Sunday, with what they call the "meet market". This is a high energy affair designed to provide "face time" for affiliates and merchants, many of which get to meet up for the first time following many months or years of dealing with each other by email or by phone. There were 100 booths this time around. It seems to get bigger every time. One of my students, Chris Molnar, used this meeting with his affiliate manager to negotiate an increase in commission due to the high performance of his Halloween costume website. Arlene and I also got to chat with someone we had been dealing with by email and phone, Lydia Browne of Sandals Resorts. Lydia had expressed interest in having us down to the Bahamas to do some training for their affiliates and I gotta tell ya, she won't have to twist our arms to make that happen. Let's hope she schedules it during the dreary winter months.
Judging by these comments it seems like the Internet is a relatively safe haven from the downturns in the economy felt elsewhere. Lucky you if you're already online or are headed that way. After the a day in the exhibit hall we headed for the best seafood buffet on the planet at the Rio then back to the room for some relaxation before the Mondays sessions. In the next edition, in part two, I'll outline what I learned most from the Speakers Tracks of Monday and Tuesday, where we heard interesting stuff from Todd Crawford, co-founder, and formally of Commission Junction, on fraud prevention and Jay Berkowitz, of Ten Golden Rules and others. All the best,
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In mid January, we flew to
Las Vegas and stayed at the
It's interesting to note
that in this time of
economic uncertainty, Lydia
reports that sales are
actually up; that they've
met all their targets for
2008. Shawn also says
that attendance is at
