Dynamic Shopping Session at Affiliate Summit East

Today is Sunday, August 10th 2009 and I am at Affiliate Summit East in New York City.

This year, instead of taking offline notes, I have decided to take all of my notes right here at kirtok.com. This is going to be my first live blogging event. Let’s see how this will go. (I will be adding pictures and videos later on).

It’s 12.08pm, and the first session of Affiliate Summit is starting in a minute.

Mike Allen, President of Shopping-Bargains.com will be presenting, and I believe Kris Jones of Pepperjam will be managing the session.

Dynamic Shopping Session Has Started

After opening remarks by Kris Jones, Mike Allen has taken the stage.

Important points from Mike’s Speech:

Creating a brand and equity as an affiliate marketer
Using ready to use tools or creating and customizing your own tools
Deliver something unique
Continue to innovate and try out new things
Failing is part of this game

Anthony Bajoras of AffiliateReporting.com Takes the Stage

Anthony is the CEO and co-founder of Affiliate Reporting.

Managing multiple affiliate campaigns, networks, traffic channels, etc. He’s talking about the importance of statistics in affiliate business
You have to be able measure and understand what is working and what is not working in affiliate game.
How important it is to analyze the data in depth
Measure Everything (PPC, SEO, Channels, etc.)
Review Often… (3 minutes a day at least, do it more often if you are serious)
Use the right tools that fit with your affiliate business.
Listen what the data tells you. That’s something I always mention to new beginners.
Inaction is costly Cool wording. Take action !!!

12.31 pm: Anthony is done with his presentation, Kris asks a couple of questions to Anthony about his affiliate software.

Sal Conca, Senior Media Manager of Net Exponent takes the stage

Talking about understanding the needs of the affiliates before serving them
Content is king. Social Media, reviews, podcasts, blogs, etc.
Duplicate content problem for product feeds. Content syndication is different than duplicate content.
Affiliate Managers are teachers. Constant communication and education is the key to affiliate manager success.
Quality of Orders from affiliate manager’s perspective. This is the key to a long term successful relationship between publishers and advertisers.
Importance of conversion rates. Testing significant changes for success.

12.40pm Kris is asking a question to Sal for additional tips to advertisers about optimizing product data feeds for search engines.

Sal is explaining the importance of customized feeds, and helping the affiliates for taking the right route.

Jessie Jones, CEO & Founder of PopShops.com takes the stage

She’s worked for Expedia.com and Microsoft before starting PopShops.com
She has started building niche sites and needed to automate the process, and decided to get her own tool built.
She’s started PopShops.com to help her build niche websites, it wasn’t planned as a business (a software/tool to sell)
She’s giving an example. Search Google for “Budget bridesmaids” and see an example of a PopShop store.
Do you have an idea? Launch ASAP. You can build on top of it later on.
Focus on A/B Testing

12.50pmKris takes the stage back from Jessie Jones. I will be adding pictures and videos later on today.

Kris is starting the Q&A Session

Question to Jessie Jones about number of external links on a web page. Jessie mentioned the importance of following Google guidelines.
Question about a PopShops.com API. Jessie says, you can integrate popshops with wordpress via API or use a plugin.
Presenters are talking about both free and paid tools available to affiliates in the market.
Anthony Bajoras talking about how important the passion is in affiliate business
Mike mentions the “low hanging fruit”. Go for it first, then harvest the rest of the tree later on
Sal Conca says 80-20 rules applies to affiliates if not the 90-10 rule. There will be top affiliates and others, just like in any business.

Last question was taken…

I think the session was ok for beginners in affiliate marketing, but unfortunately I didn’t take anything out of the session.

I totally understand that Affiliate Summit and similar conferences usually focus on beginners, but IMO, there should be some advanced and in depth discussions.

It was my first live blogging. I will be live blogging, during the Affiliate Summit East till tuesday evening. I will be adding pictures and videos later tonight.