affiliate summit Archives

Affiliate Summit Videos, Are they Worth the Money?

I got a question about the Affiliate Summit Virtual Pass from a fan of this blog. What they asked was, “Is it worth the money to buy an Affiliate Summit Virtual Pass if I can't attend?” Honestly “No” they are a waste of money. I wouldn't spend any money to watch the Affiliate Summit Videos unless you already have a ticket and attended.

Part of the benefit of attending any conference is networking, meeting new people, networking, and more mmm… yeah… networking. What the Affiliate Summit Virtual Pass gives you is just videos of the talks and sessions. Paying money to watch Affiliate Summit Videos is a waste. The value you get from attending a conference is rarely in the sessions but the connections you make with people.

Most veteran internet and affiliate marketers are probably going to tell you the same thing. Video education and learning online is great but it just doesn't make sense to pay for information you already know. Attending the conference, in this case Affiliate Summit, for only 1 day is probably where you are going to get any benefit if you are going to get something out of it at all.

Let me put it to you this way, if you were to buy the Affiliate Summit Virtual Pass I think it is kind of like buying a sail-ship without a sail. Yes, you still bought a boat and can put it in water and enjoy your purchase. However to make it work you need a sail. In addition you need to know how to operate it.

Personally at Affiliate Summit I did not come away with what I expected. If you read my Affiliate Summit Review you will understand that a lot of companies and people that show-up you wouldn't want to work with. Well, at least I don't. That's why even though I won a ticket to Affiliate Summit West I'm not attending.

Like I said before there were a few sessions, which I attended, that I gained value from. I've watched and listened to other Affiliate Summit sessions which just were not really worth the time though. There was some good advice but nothing that really blew my mind.

In terms of the way the backend of the Affiliate Summit Video site there have been issues playing the Affiliate Summit Videos. They freeze a often and sometimes take quite awhile to load. Could be because the website is hosted with GoDaddy, which is know for pretty terrible hosting, or more likely an issue with the video service they are using.

Not sure how many people have the time or patience to watch or listen to ever single one of the Affiliate Summit videos anyway. It's several hours of content and it would take you awhile to sort through the good and the bad. There is actually a lot of similar info on Youtube, which is free. Of course finding the useful videos on Youtube can be a challenge too.

Another thing to keep in mind is that from the time the Affiliate Summit videos go live you 6 months to watch them. You will not be able to access them after 6 months to my understanding. So it is not a pay once and get the content forever type of deal. Kind of sucks but I guess that is Missy Ward and Shawn Collins choice.

That's my opinion about buying a Virtual Pass to watch the Affiliate Summit videos. If you have an opinion, comment, or suggestions about it I'd be happy to hear it.

I won a ticket to Affiliate Summit West, but I won’t be Attending

Some of my regular readers might remember that I won a ticket to Affiliate Summit East this past Summer. Well, guess what? I won a Networking Plus Pass to Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas coming up in January. This marks the second time I've won a free ticket to an Affiliate Summit conference. 🙂 However, I won't be attending Affiliate Summit West since I have other projects I'm working on and honestly… it's not worth and I just don't feel like going.

If you read my Affiliate Summit Review detailing the conference then you will obviously know why I will not be attending again. Probably some of you reading this that have gone to past Affiliate Summit's will understand as well. Why do I mean? There are tons of useless annoying fuckers that attend.

Heres's the the thing, most internet focused conferences I've attended usually these different groups of people attending;

People that are genuinely helpful.
People that don't know anything and shouldn't have shown up.
Companies looking for marketing opportunities or to expand, sell, partner, etc.
Assholes that are trying to get you to buy “whatever” they are selling under any circumstance even if it's shit.

I didn't write about this in my Affiliate Summit Review but there were lots of people in the #4 category. When I say a lot I'm talking about 60%+ of the people who were not from companies. Most of the time there are 2 or 3 of these people at a conference, not a majority. Talking with fraction of the people that showed up to Affiliate Summit that were not trying to sell me useless shit this clearly wasn't a fluke as they felt the same way.

One guy I ran into who supposedly is an expert at driving social media traffic wouldn't give me any real world examples of what he does. He also wouldn't give me any social media advice or tips on the spot. However, he did try to get me to buy his rather costly book and webinar series, which I declined.

I made a real effort to try to meet a wide range of people to engage and learn. What I found was most of them gave me the same song and dance as this social media scam artist. They wanted me to buy their books, pay for consulting, or you know screw me out of my money. I remember one guy that had some BS private forum and was telling me how great his conversions were like 70% percent or some ridiculously high number. I asked, “How do you get such high conversions.” his response, “Pay to join my private forum.” my reply, “Hell no!” and I walked away.

This was a similar conversation I had with people in all sorts of fields. Why would I buy anything from you if you don't want want to share knowledge? For most attendees you already paid the entrance fee, paid for a hotel, and showed the hell up. If I can't take anything away useful from you it is very unlikely I'm going to consider using buying anything from you in the future whether it be a book or consulting. I guess the hard up-sells must work on some people.

Last conference I attended there was a blogger I met that didn't know about Google Webmaster Tools and didn't have it installed on her blog. I just got out my laptop and set it up for her on the spot. I don't mind helping pope when I know they put in effort to come to these events.

Most beginners, people who have only had a website up for a few months, looked somewhat confused by everything at Affiliate Summit honestly. From talking with a lot of people about I doubt they felt they got a lot out of the conference. Also I was kind of surprised at the advice I was giving people there.

Keep this in mind, I could take the free pass to Affiliate Summit West and go have tax-deductible fun in Las Vegas (aka Sin City) for several days. Flights to Las Vegas are ridiculously inexpensive from most major cities since casinos subsidize airline tickets. You can find a reasonably priced hotel if you play your cards right. (Yup, pun intended.) Affiliate Summit parties have open bars which a lot of people will readily use… but it's still not worth going. That's saying a lot.

I'll have other chances to go to Las Vegas since there are plenty of web conferences held there throughout the year. It's not like I'm missing out on anything I can't go experience another time you know.

I did send a request to the Affiliate Summit people asking if they could at least give me the Virtual Pass, which shows the videos of the sessions afterwards, in exchange for the Networking Plus Pass. I figured at least I won the pass and they should give me a Virtual Pass. Besides out of ALL the sessions I only found 2 useful from Affiliate Summit in Philadelphia. (Luckily they were the 2 I went to. I'm good at cherry picking good sessions at conferences.) Here was their reply;

“Unfortunately, the pass is not transferable in any matter, so we cannot replace it with a virtual pass.”

So not only is Affiliate Summit a waste of time but the organizers are inflexible. It's their conference and their rules though. Of course the video player in the backend for the Affiliate Summit Videos was a freeze monkey, so I guess I should be glad they are saving me the hassle of dealing with that and not having to watch and skip a lot of badly recorded sessions.

Even though I am not attending people are probably curios to know how I won both tickets to two different Affiliate Summit conferences. The first ticket was provided courtesy of an eBay contest which was posted on the eBay Partner Network blog. (That's eBay's affiliate program.) All I did was leave a valuable comment about what I thought the best opportunity was in Affiliate Marketing. eBay provided me with a Networking Plus Pass since I was an awesome commenter. This ticket to Affiliate Summit West I won from actually attending Affiliate Summit East. They have people fill out forms after sessions and keynote speakers to let us know what we thought about them. They randomly pick 5 cards each day and one of the feedback forms I filled out was one.

Are you planning on attending Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas? If you haven't ponied up the money to go, did this article change your mind? Let me know in the comments below.

If you are looking at any other conferences remember to checkout my tips for attending a conference inexpensively. There's some good advice I've complied there.

If you've got questions you want to ask me privately about Affiliate Summit feel free to contact me by the way. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about it.

Link Requests are really Annoying

Recently I've been getting a lot of Link Requests from various people and content marketing companies. While I can understand why people do this and why people will ask for a link, sometimes it just gets really annoying and is a waste of my time.

Some people might be wondering “What are Link Requests?” Essentially a Link Request is when someone asks to place a link on your website. Most of the time people offer to guest post or blog in exchange for placing a link in the article. In my opinion this is a perfectly fair practice and Google doesn't have a problem with it. (As long as the article is reasonable and wasn't written by someone who isn't a native English speaker from some far off Asian country.)

However, what I have a problem with is when I get email Link Requests like this;

Dear Adam,

Hello, my name is Jimmy. I'm the webmaster and editor of
Shitty-Affiliate-Laden-Web-Hosting-Site.com. I'm writing to plug our newest article
on our blog: 101 [Shitty] Google+ Pages for Web Hosting News and Tips. I
thought that you and your site's audience might be interested in having a
look. Check it out:

“Link Goes Here”

I would appreciate if you could link to our article if you find it of
interest. And please feel free to e-mail me with any questions or suggestions
for the list.

Thanks,
Jimmy

What did this guy do wrong?

First it's clear he spent too much time writing his horrible article instead of actually reading or looking at my blog or anything I've worked on. He doesn't point out any content that I've written that he likes nor does he give me a compelling reason to link to the shitty article. So he really doesn't know who my audience is. Second, why the fuck would I send visitors to look at a blog post covering 101 Google+ pages about web hosting on an affiliate laden site? Seriously, do you people think I haven't been around the block and consequently that I am a idiot? The site this guy runs offers little value outside of the fact that he makes money on affiliate links. It's not even like this site posts reviews or offers good web hosting advice on the blog. He's probably one of those people at Affiliate Summit I would have met and largely ignored. By the way nobody has the fucking time to look through so many social media pages on a blog post. In addition a lot of those Google+ pages didn't cover web hosting or only did on occasion.

I've changed around a few things but the email is basically intact. I did add the URL though, which I thought was a nice touch. 🙂

My reply to this Link Request was, “Not sure why I would link to the article.” Since the domain name for the website was 4 letters and when I checked the domain history it was clear they had bought it from someone, I casually asked how much they paid for it. Since it's been several days and have not had a reply, I know I am not getting one.

This didn't surprise me actually as “Jimmy” probably didn't send out the email but had a Virtual Assistant (VA) do it. Pretty common for ad laden sites and SEO (search engine optimizers) do farm out these emails. However, if by chance you do get a reply I recommend you reply back. Not only did they make me annoyed sending the email but they've made me pissed even more since they didn't respond. Why would I ever work with them in the future?

Let me make this clear to my readers and anyone who is going to send Link Requests my way. I DO NOT link to sites that are just affiliate link wastelands. If you contact me straight up asking for a link there better be a good fucking reason or you will get an email that will make Satan happy.

Have you ever gotten annoying Link Requests? Do you respond or not respond? Is it good to be nice or make so that these people never want to contact you again?

11 Slick Tips on How to Attend a Blog Conference Inexpensively

Attending a blog conference (or any conference) can be quite expensive. Costs add up quickly which usually includes the ticket or pass, airfare, hotel, and meals while at the conference. Attending a Blog Conference cheaply sounds impossible, right? Well it's not and I'm going to share some with you “11 Slicks Tips on How to Attend a Blog Conference Inexpensively!”

1. Win a Free Ticket!

Ok, this is easier said than done but it is possible to win a Free Ticket or all expenses paid package to attend a blog conference or web conference if you keep your eyes peeled. If you follow a conferences' social media channels well before the event takes place you will see they have contests and giveaways.

Typically the hardest thing to win is an All-Expenses Paid Trip, meaning all trip expenses are covered (ticket, hotel, and airfare). Usually they will have a blog contest, raffle, or some sort of giveaway for these packages. While the odds of you winning might be small, keep in mind that the amount of entrants is going to be relatively small. This isn't like a sweepstakes where anyone will enter just so they can, usually people only interested in what that blog conference topic is will try to grab the All-Expenses Paid package. This grealy increases your chances of winning.

Even if you don't win an all expenses paid trip, usually they still giveaway a few tickets to the conference. Meaning you just get a pass to get in and airfare or travel costs in addition to a hotel is on you. I've actually won passes twice this past Summer to 2 completely different conferences! 🙂 One was to BarkWorld in Atlanta (thanks to The World According to Garth Riley) and the other was for Affiliate Summit in Philadelphia. It might have just been luck but if you read my posts. The one for Affiliate Summit I had to work for. (Of course Affiliate Summit East wasn't a great time for me, so it was good I didn't pay.)

2. Choose Cheap Conferences

This is a no brainer! If you go to a conference where the tickets are $1,000-$2,000 just to get in the door and doesn't include meals during the day, you still have lot of other expenses to think about.

Most blog conferences are not going to be cheap as it's a money maker and the organizers need to cover their costs of putting it on. There are some blog conferences which are not going to break the bank though. BlogPaws, a pet blogging conference, only costs $169 for a ticket for BlogPaws 2014 which is very reasonable pricing.

The lower the ticket price is the more money you have for other expenses. That means you are more likely to attend.

3. Buy a Ticket Early

Usually a blog conference will have a early bird discounts for people that pay well in advance. The savings can vary greatly but I've seen conference jack up prices up to 50%. It's their prerogative and definitely ask if there is early bird and if/when the prices go up. This way you can plan your trip better and save more money.

4. Stay With Friends or Family

If you have any friends or family where a blog conference is taking place, definitely call them and see if you can stay with them. You will save money on hotel expenses while still enjoying the conference. In addition you get to see friends and family that you might not have seen otherwise and probably don't visit with often.

When I went to BarkWorld I stayed with a family member. This not only made for a nice visit but enabled me to save money on a hotel as well as food expenses. I didn't eat every single meal out since I cooked a few of my meals over the weekend. When you add this up over 3-4 days it drastically redcues the cost compared with staying at blog conference host hotel.

5. Couchsurf

Have you heard of Couchsurfing? It's a great service where people offer up rooms for complete strangers that are looking to stay in your city or town. I've Couchsurfed a few times and offered to show people around Baltimore on the site. If you are trying to save money on hotel expenses and don't know anyone, it's a great option.

Couchsurfing experiences can vary widely though and can present certain challenges. One place I stayed the person had a whole room dedicated for Couchsurfers and it was quite nice. Most of the time… you will be sleeping on a couch. 🙂 In addition you will have plan well in advanced of your stay since people don't respond quickly on Couchsurfing. Also be aware some hosts will cancel on you at the last minute. You should have a backup plan if things don't workout.

Also it's best to be build up credentials in the community before you start asking to stay with people. How do you do that? You can attend local Couchsurfing events and meetups in your area to meet other Couchsurfers in your area, and when they get to know you they will vouch for you. I'd highly recommended paying the $25 to get verified on Couchsurfing.org which gives your profile more credibility as well.

6. Share a Hotel

If you can't Couchsurf, or that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, why not share a hotel room? If you can find someone else going to the conference you feel comfortable splitting a hotel room with, that's a huge savings right there. I've seen a lot of people do this which allow them to attend a blog conference inexpensively.

7. Don't stay at the Host Hotel

Sometimes the cost of the host hotel might be more, even with a group discount, than searching around for a hotel really close to where conference is being held. While this does present more hassle and possible headaches it can save you green.

A good alternate option is AirBnB which is liking Couchsurfing, but you pay to stay in people's places. I've never used AirBnB and I am not personally recommending it, but plenty of people use it and seem to like it to my understanding.

8. Share a Rental or Cab Ride

Renting a car gets kinda pricey, so why not split the cost with another blog conference attendee? It's quite common thing to do since you mostly only need the rental car to get to and from the airport to the hotel. You might to out to lunch but usually if you are going to attend a conference you will not be doing much driving.

Additionally you could split a cab ride to and from the airport. I've seen plenty of people do this at various conferences and it's a whole lot easy with social media, hashtags, and online groups that form before the conference actually happens.

9. Find a Conference Close to You

When I attended BlogPaws 2013 I went for my two Singing Dogs, Cody and Sierra. We wouldn't have taken them unless it was in Tysons Corner, Virginia. This was just outside of Washington DC and was only 1 hour drive from Baltimore. This made it so that we didn't need to get a hotel room and made it a lot easier for us to attend.

10. Get a Sponsor

Sometimes you can find a brand to sponsor your blog conference trip expenses either fully or partially. Usually you agree to write-up and thank the sponsor by writing a post about them. Some want a little bit more from you, like wearing a T-shirt or other garment that displays the company's logo. You can be a brand ambassador and agree to hawk their products too.

Just make sure not to whore yourself out too much. Readers of your blog should still respect your but they do need to understand it's helpful to have brands cover trip expenses.

11. Be a Speaker

If you think you have the skills, knowledge, blog authority, and speaking ability why not apply to speak at a blog conference? Most blog conference organizers are always on the lookout for fresh faces and people they feel can contribute something new to their event. Applying to talk takes time and effort but you get more people coming up to you and make better connections. In addition part of your expenses are paid, such as a hotel and pass to the conference. This can vary widely depending on the blog conference and who is organizing the show though. Sometimes they will just comp your pass to the show, while others might include a hotel for 2-3 nights. Unless you are a keynote speaker or a big name they will cover airline tickets or travel costs, but this is not usual. Make sure to ask and know what to expect blog conference organizers to pay for and not pay for.

Final Thoughts on How to Attend a Blog Conference with Little Money

You will not have the time, energy, or money (at least I assume) to attend every blog conference you want to. Most can't get away the time to go to all the events and conferences they want, even if you have the money. I recommend you pick and choose carefully what blog conferences you think will receive the most benefit out of. Use these tips if you are working on a tight budget.

Do you think I missed something in my guide on “How to Attend a Blog Conference Inexpensively?” Have any other slick tips you want to share? Please let people know below!

Catch me on Twitter @AdamYamada… if you can!

Affiliate Summit Review – Total Waste of Time and Money

I just spent the past couple of days attending Affiliate Summit. This was the first time I attended an Affiliate Summit and it was an interesting experience with it's ups and downs to say the least. So I thought I'd write an Affiliate Summit Review letting people know what I thought of the event.

The conference has been quite a lot to absorb the past few days and I learned a lot. Mainly that people that particpate in affiliate marketing and go to affiliate marketing conferences, you know affiliate marketers, are unhelpful, selfish, annoying, and really kind of difficult to deal w.

To make understanding what Affiliate Summit is about and what you get when you go , I've broken it down into easy to understand sections. This will also help better share my review, recap, and thoughts about attending Affiliate Summit in this Affiliate Summit Review. (In case you were wondering this is not a positive review.)

Why attend Affiliate Summit?

The main benefit of attending Affiliate Summit, like most conferences, is networking and meeting new people and companies that can hopefully grow your online business and ventures and take them to the next level.

This is the main reason I spent my money to go Affiliate Summit. I wanted to connect with companies and people that could help me figure out different revenue streams besides what I've used before. The nice thing about Affialte Summit is that this is everyone else goal too, to make more money.

Affiliate Summit has a Meet Market to help facilitate this during the conference. This is where companies setup booths and hawk their programs to potential clients and affiliates. Think of it like “speed dating” but for making business contacts. While the Meet Market was a bit chaotic and I spent many hours talking with different people and companies before I found the right matches.

What is confusing about the Meet Market is that not all the companies that they list in the directory setup and display on the same day. This isn't clear and I was a bit annoyed when I realized this was the case. A few companies I wanted to go talk with on Sunday, when Affiliate Summit East started, were not there so I had to wait until Monday.

There are also talks and sessions during the day you can attend but you must have a VIP or All Access past to go all of them. If you have a Networking Plus Pass, like I did, technically you are only allowed to go to one a day. In addition if you are new to Affiliate Summit there is a Newbie Affiliate Marketing Lab (of course I didn't find that all that useful) and a “Meet the Experts” session which was good.

What Type of People attend Affiliate Summit?

A wide range of people show up, this includes;

Companies looking to get into affiliate marketing and attract affiliates into their programs.
People or companies looking to buy web traffic.
People or companies looking to sell traffic.
Online publishers and bloggers searching for partnerships.
Affiliate marketing program managers trying to attract new affiliates.
SEO (search engine optimization) specialists and SEM (search engine marketers).
Media agencies that handle social media.
and even more.

This year they were 4,500+ attendees at Affiliate Summit East 2013, so you can imagine a lot of different people went. I heard many people speaking foreign languages at Affiliate Summit. I met people from Israel, China, Canada, Spain, and Germany. So people come from all over the country and world to attend.

The majority of the age group that goes, from what I can tell, are in the 21-30 year old crowd. There are older people and executives that attend but the organizers seem to want to cater to a young and hip crowd. This was clear by some of the attractive girls working the front new attendee registration desk.

I met some interesting and helpful people at Affiliate Summit, but FYI there were few and far between. Do you have a bad opinion about affiliate and internet marketers? If you think attending Affiliate Summit will change your mind about them, it won't. It will only make you more jaded.

One guy that came up to me was trying to sell me on his payday loan affiliate network. Eck! Not only was I definitely not interested but I didn't even bother to use the energy to say I wasn't interested. I just walked away and didn't say anything. While this might be rude I don't want to associate myself with anything to do with payday loans.

There were several other companies there that work in that space too. Additionally a lot of the affiliate programs there were for other shady shit. For instance browser spyware downloads but… hey you earn $1.50 a download.

I personally don't' want to be involved with these companies. Clearly a lot of people at Affiliate Summit have absolutely no problem with it. And internet and affiliate marketers wonder why they have a bad reputation? Stop bitching! You let these assfucks into your affiliate marketing conference.

FYI I wasn't the only person there who thought this. Talking with a lot of other attendees they shared my views (and more importantly morals). Even other ad networks I had meetings with seem to be aware of the spammers, scammers, and trolls making the rounds at Affiliate Summit. They made it clear they have legitimate products and want to branch-out to more bloggers and online publishers.

It takes a lifetime to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. Affiliate Marketers reputation for me was ruined in less than 30 seconds while talking with some of these companies and people.

What will I learn at Affiliate Summit?

This really depends on you as a person and what you came to Affiliate Summit for. I wanted to learn about lead generation companies and how I could work with them. In addition I wanted to get a lot of advice about improving web traffic and SEO (search engine optimization).

The talks might fill some of your learning and education needs but some of them probably won't. I am pretty good at picking good talks to attend and luckily the 2 our of the 3 sessions I want to I felt were worth my time. Talking with some other attendees a lot of people said that wasn't the case, since they were more interested in detailed info which the presenter did not provide.

Really the learning comes back to networking. I learned more from having casual conversations with people. I meet a guy from the England who knows a lot about email list building and making money from these huge email lists. He has over 90,000+ subscribers and makes a full-time living doing it. He was telling me a lot about what he does with his list which was waaay more valuable than anything I heard heard at previous talks on email marketing.

His email lists are so profitable he bought a Cessna. In addition he bought and built a kit plane which he flew 15,000 hours around Europe. All working from home. How freakin awesome is that?

Also I hungout with a local SEO expert who used to work with SEER Interactive in Philadelphia. (He was moving back to Salt Lake City.) He taught me a couple things about local SEO that I did not know and we had some nice conversations about our web projects we want to launch, domain names, and topics related to the internet and web marketing.

There was still a lot I thought I would learn at Affiliate Summit though which I didn't get though. Hopefully they will work on improving that.

How is the Venue and Location?

What made the experience even less fun for me was I really don't like Philadelphia. Walking around I don't find it a particularly attractive city. It feels like the city planners forgot to consider whether certain buildings would mesh sitting next to each other. Also a good majority of the streets really smell which is big negative for me. On top of that the only friendly people from Philly I talked with was Ben, from SEER Interactive, and the workers at the hotel. Ben wasn't a native to Philly and of course the hotel staff will be nice, so that doesn't count. Also I hate the Eagles. (Ravens are the only birds I root for. )

Considering how much money they charge and how long the organizers have been doing Affiliate Summits I assumed they would have a lot more things nailed down. They did move Affiliate Summit East from New York City to Philadelphia this year. It seemed like they were not quite aware of how best to setup in the Philadelphia Convention Center most of the signs were not clear. The nice thing was there was a lot of open space for tables which facilitated networking and talking.

I think for next year it would be nice if they moved it out of Philadelphia. I noticed that Baltimore was a possibility and Charlotte were options. I think either city would be much more ideal as I prefer smaller cities but not Philly.

How are the Affiliate Summit Parites?

The parties are well planned, executed, and organized. Since the Affiliate Summit Parties seem to get pretty wild it seems that is why a lot of people attend. They have open bars which are taken advantage of readily. In addition Busta Rhymes and Evander Holyfield were at the party on Monday night. I guess this is important if you want to go to parties with celebrities.

When I was sitting down talking with an ad network that specializes in content locking the company rep told me, “Yeah I've never seen people get so wasted.” He mentioned that he went to the parties but had a lot of meetings, which were later cancelled due to people being hungover.

The thing is partying was not really my concern and why I showed up to Affiliate Summit East 2013. Sure, I had a few beers and fun but I wasn't going to get wasted. My main goal was learning and networking as much as possible. I'll have plenty of opportunities to get drunk if I want to in the future.

Would you Return to Affiliate Summit?

I talked with a lot of people, that I didn't want to, and overall it was NOT a positivie experience for me. What I wanted to get out of Affiliate Summit I didn't and I wouldn't see a reason to go back again unless I was invited to be a speaker. I doubt that will happen because of this honest Affiliate Summit review and recap. I believe too many people are hungover to actually realize it is not a a good conference.

They do charge a pretty good amount for these tickets and a lot of the people that bought VIP and All Access passes felt it was worth it.

Final Thoughts about Affiliate Summit

Bottom line for me is I thought Affiliate Summit was a huge waste of my time and money. I wouldn't use my resources on a Networking Plus Pass, airfare, hotels, and other expenses to attend again.

While you might read a lot of positive opinions about Affiliate Summit, keep in most of those people probably came to go to the parties. So of course they are going to write positive things about it… they were drunk.

When I spend my time and money to attend a conference I expect to learn A LOT I don't already know. From what I can tell a lot of people are regurgitating the same BS info which I don't need to hear. I need to hear the tricks they know, but probably don't want to share, to really take myself to the next level.

If you attended Affiliate Summit East, or another Affiliate Summit before, what do you think about it? Did you enjoy it or dislike it? Would you go again in the future or was once enough? Did you learn anything or find that you were teaching other people?

I’m Heading to Affiliate Summit East

I thought I would let all my readers know that I will be heading to Affiliate Summit East 2013 taking place in Philadelphia from August 18th-20th. I was fortunate enough to win a Network Plus Pass courtesy of eBay. They had a contest on the eBay Partner Network Blog, which is their affiliate network, and I gave the best answer to the question, “What is the biggest opportunity in Affiliating Marketing today?”

Here is my response using the username CarNewsCafe, which is my new auto news site that you should totally check if you haven't.

This might sound strange to some but I think the best opportunity in affiliate marketing is educating people about it. I've met a number of successful bloggers that surprisingly don't know what affiliate links are. Someone I know with a successful photography blog and YouTube channel didn't know that eBay had an affiliate program. I recommended he check it out since his audience buys a lot of gear on eBay.

I thought my answer was the best and pretty well thought out. What do you think? Have another answer to that question you think is better? Leave a comment below and prove me wrong.

The reason I said this is I recently recommended the eBay Partner Network to my uncle who runs a successful photography blog and has a Youtube channel with almost 2 millions views. People that are into Lo-Fi photography buy a lot of stuff on eBay and he didn't even know they had an affiliate program.

The ironic thing to me is that eBay and other affiliate marketing programs ‘preach to the choir' but don't to people, like my uncle, who could really benefit from these affiliate programs. I've met a number of bloggers who are quite successful and have a lot of traffic and large social media following and they don't do affiliate marketing. They mainly do paid ads or sponsorships which always surprises me.

Anyway, I am excited to be going to Affiliate Summit East and learn about affiliate marketing which is something I know how to do but not that well. Hopefully I can pickup some advice and tips at Affiliate Summit East this year from expert affiliate marketers to help grow and take my online businesses and websites to the next level. I will share my thoughts about Affiliate Summit and some of the tips and tricks I learned on this blog, so stay tuned for those posts.

If you will be attending Affiliate Summit please send me an email – cool AT adamyamada.com – or catch me on Twitter @AdamYamada. I'd love to meet and connect with you if you are a blogger, publisher, advertiser network, or just want to talk.

If you have been to Affiliate Summit East in the past please let me know what I should do to maximize my time and get the most out of the conference. With a Networking Plus Pass I can only attend 1 session per day but I still think I should get a lot out of the conference. Partying included! 🙂

[Source – eBay Partner Network Blog]