Affiliate Summit East Day 1

Today, I went to a session, worked at the Affiliate Marketers Give Back booth and walked around the meet market networking with lots of people.

Meet market was so crowded and I saw lots of interaction with attendees and exhibitors.  Some affiliates did arrive today and I got to meet some people I usually interact on Twitter, such as Jamie Birch(@JamieEBirch), but never face to face.

The session I went was titled “Dynamic shopping – Content, Conversions, Analytics.”  Panel speakers were Mike Allen (Shopping-Bargains.com), Anthony Bajoras (m o v e  software), Sal Conca (NETexponent) and Jessie Jones (Popshops.com).  This session was moderated by Kristopher B. Jones from Pepperjam Network.

For people who could not make it to this session, here is my recap.

Mike Allen was the 1st speaker and talked about his vision, implementation and result.

Vision

• Think of your site as your best equity opportunity. If you create an awesome site, someone may want to buy that from you someday.
• Make sure to master your domain. Be creative and original
• Build your own brand and scratch your niche. If you create something your mom can brag about, you are doing something right.
• Nurture long time relationship with your customers.  Building relationship like marriage with customer is important.

Implementation

• Use various tools and find what works for you
• Deliver something unique.
• Innovate, try new things. But, don’t forget the bread & butter. You have to make some kind of money and if what you are doing is working, leave it alone.
• Don’t assume you will succeed immediately. Expect to fail.

Result

• Always measure and seek to improve your site. Do invest in analytic tools
• Use the tool you purchased, don’t just buy it  (remember no pain no gain).
• It is a continual process. Keep working on it even after seeing good results. You can always do better.
• Encourage yourself to think big.
• Every now and then, stop what you are doing and just have fun.

Then, Anthony Bajoras from Affiliatereporting.com talked about the importance of analyzing your website.

Why analyze?

• Knowledge is power.  By analyzing and knowing what works, you can make improvements.  You need to understand how you are getting your revenue and make necessary changes, especially if you run PPC campaigns.

Track, look and act

• Review your site often ( at least 3 min a day)
• Find and use the right tool for the job you are doing. Work harder and smarter.
• Knowing is half the bottle, doing is the other half. Inaction can be very costly if you are spending money on things you should not be.

The 3rd speaker, Sal Conca, provided what affiliate networks should be doing to help affiliates.

Affiliate publishers

• Affiliate publishers are like a box of chocolate.  There are so many different types of sites.  As a result, each affiliate has to be treated differently in order to help him/her meet his/her long/short term goals. In order to do so, Account Managers must provide constant communication and education.

Analysis

• Reporting require analysis.  One of the keys to long term success is quality of orders/leads.  By analysis, find out which links/datafeed/landing page is working and modify as necessary.

The final speaker was Jessie Jones from Popshops. She provided 6 steps to create dynamic shopping site.  They are plan – build – launch – measure – plan – improve.  In order to successfully run mash up site as a content site, she pointed out a few points.

• Keep it simple with the right mash up of products.   It is hard to sell products if you are running a pure content site with lots of words and a few links.  By utilizing product datafeed, your mash up site can become quality content site.
• Be innovative.  Smart marketers often utilize existent products and innovate to meet different kind of needs.

Overall, this session mainly talked about the importance of analysis, be passionate about what you do and make sure to rinse & repeat.  Just like any other business, I think it is important to create a solid business plan before launching any websites.  Like Mike said, it is o.k. to have expectations to fail, but that does not mean you should just buy random domain, get some ads and see where it will take you.  Be innovative, analyze and keep trying things sound like the plan to become one step closer to success.

Today is not over yet and I will be networking by attending a few parties tonight.  I am taking lots of pictures throughout the summit and will be uploading them all on Flickr after the Summit with tag #ase09.  If you do use Flickr, find me and request me to be added as your contact (my username is ayakobing).