Affiliate Summit East 2011 Recap

I am guessing you will probably read a bunch of different Affiliate Summit recaps over the next few days so I guess you can just add this on to the pile.

I am pretty sure this is my 9th Affiliate Summit (maybe 8th but I am pretty sure it was #9) and as always it was a highlight of my year. I won’t get into too many of the specific sessions in this post. I have notes on a few of them and I will be putting those in seperate posts over the next few days but here I will just give you a rundown of the show from my perspective. As usual I brought my camera but it never left my suitcase so you won’t see any fancy pictures here. If you want pictures you can check out some of the galleries on Facebook and Flickr. For now you just have to read my stuff.

I got into New York on Friday at around 4:30 and had a very uneventful trip from the airport to the hotel which is a good thing. I had a car service reserved and after I got my bags I called and they were there in 5 minutes. There were no traffic problems so I got to the hotel before 6 PM. Once I got there I headed down to the Old Castle where I knew I would find people and had a pretty nasty burger. I know Vinny O’hare had about 4 or 5 of these burgers during the weekend but I though it was pretty nasty. Back to my room for a quick nap.

About 10:00 or so I headed back to the Old Castle, met up with a bunch of other friends, and hung out for a couple hours.

Saturday morning I woke up, went to take a shower, and found a tub filled with a bunch of backed up sewage. Not sure where that came from. But we called the front desk and the plumber was there in 5 minutes. I didn’t have time to wait for him to finish so I got a quick sink shower and then it was time for the standard pre-Summit 36 holes of golf. I liked the first course we played but the second wasn’t quite as good. I had some good shots including a chip-in to square up a match on the 18th hole of the first round. I had plenty of bad shots as well but at least I didn’t hit a condo. I did end up owing some street meat as a result of me sucking though.

After golf I got back to the hotel and rushed out to dinner at Nobu. I am only recently a sushi guy but this was the best sushi I have ever had. The plates of food just kept coming and coming and I think we ended up closing down the restaurant after about 3 hours and a few rounds of Liar’s Poker. Awesome time with some great people. Then it was back to the Old Castle for a bit.

Finally the official Affiliate Summit starts!!! I made it down to the Industry Clash: Balancing CPS and CPA Marketing session and then met up with a merchant to give them some help with their affiliate program. For some reason I do really like being able to help merchants out with stuff like this.

I took a quick walk through the Meet Market and then went to spend some time helping out at the Affiliate Summit Charity Table where we were selling All About the Cookies and some of Missy Ward’s Signorina wine. I really wanted to sell a bottle of wine while I was there but nobody was buying that. We did however sell about 25 cookbooks in the hour. So that was $500 that will be going towards breast cancer research.

For dinner I went to Ray’s Pizza with Eric Nagel, Mike Buchele, and Logan Thompson. The company and discussion was top notch but the pizza was very sub-par.

After this I took a little break, relaxed in my room, took a walk down to Times Square, and then came back to get ready for the Shareasale Barn Dance. This was yet another great party put on by the Shareasale crew. They had three rooms reserved. One was a quieter room with a couple bars, the next room had food, a photo booth, and another bar, and then the ballroom had a dance floor and a mechanical bull. The dance floor turned into a dodgeball court for a bit as well with Angry Birds flying everywhere. Had a great time.

Finally, after two nights in Vegas it was time for some Street Meat. Wade Tonkin, Shawn Collins and I, still in our cowboy hats from the SAS party, went across the street for some of the best food ever. I really wish I had a place like that near me.

Day two of Affiliate Summit began with the BEST keynote I have ever heard at Affiliate Summit or any other conference for that matter. Wil Reynolds did a great job and gave some of the most useful information I have ever heard in any session. Usually keynotes are more general, motivational, or big picture stuff but Wil did all that and also shared some awesome, specific techniques for building some awesome links to sites.

I popped my head into a session or two and then met with three more merchants to give them my thoughts on their affiliate programs, how they could improve them, and what a potential affiliate would be looking for. Then I walked around the exhibit hall trying to avoid eye contact with 95% of the people manning the booths.

Wade Tonkin and the Nunez’s were having a meetup of sports affiliates but I really wanted a good burger so I walked down to Shake Shack for one of the best burgers I have ever eaten. Then it was on to the Playwright Bar for a good time of networking with other affiliates working in different sports verticals.

Affiliate Karaoke was up next and I was a bit skeptical if it would go over well or not but it was a blast. There was a better turnout than the other karaoke events I have been at and there were some people that went all out. I even did a rendition of New York, New York by Sinatra. Then it was down to the hotel bar to hang out for a bit. And I would once again like to thank Todd Farmer for the fan.

Day three started with a good keynote by Bryan Eisenberg talking about testing and improving conversion. Good stuff. Then it was time for my session with Scott Jangro and Stephanie Lichtenstein where we talked about Social Media in Niche Markets. I think it went well but we had more information than we had time for. If any of you were there and have any other questions please contact one of us.

Now I am in the mood for some good pizza so I head down to Lombardi’s with Logan Thompson and eat way too much and top it off with some awesome rice pudding from Rice to Riches. Apparently there was an earthquake while we were eating but I didn’t feel anything.

On the way back I got a tweet that I had won something from Buy.at. Turns out I was the grand prize winner and won a Samsung Galaxy tablet. Pretty cool stuff.

Now it is off to the Yankee game. Shawn and Missy rented out a suite and there were probably 40 people or so there. The Yankees made a rally late but came up a bit short against the Yankees. Very fun time and a great experience.

The evening ended with Brian Littleton at the piano and some more street meat. Awesome way to cap off an awesome conference.

So why do I keep going to Affiliate Summits? Isn’t 9 enough?

As I was flying home I realized why I keep coming back. It isn’t necessarily for the keynotes (although I would have paid just to hear Wil Reynolds speak again), sessions, or exhibit hall. It isn’t because of the parties, the hangouts, the dinners, or anything like that even though they are all awesome.

I keep coming back for two primary reasons:

1. It is awesome hanging around people that are smarter than I am. Maybe it is a 40 minute talk, maybe it is talking over pizza, maybe it is just a couple minutes of chatting during the baseball game, or a discussion at the bar. Either way it is the conversations with people that keep me coming back. I can specifically think of about 5 or 6 conversations that will have a direct impact on my business. If you want to be smarter hang around smart people.

2. These people are my friends. I could rattle off a big long list of names but you know who you are. Over the years I have developed some awesome friendships with many people in the affiliate industry and I have an awesome time whenever I can see them and hang out with them. Many of them seem more like family than friends or even business acquaintences. Without these people I wouldn’t keep coming back.

If you are on the fence about going to Affiliate Summit West 2012 in Vegas jump off that fence and sign up today. You won’t regret it.

Thank you to Shawn and Missy for another great show and thank you to all my friends and all the people I talked to. You are all awesome.

Here are a few other recaps of Affiliate Summit East 2011

Affiliate Summit Day 1 Recap
Affiliate Summit Day 2 Recap
Affiliate Summit Day 3 Recap
Affiliate Summit East Recap by Eric Nagel
Affiliate Summit East Recap by MicroMediaMarketing
Affiliate Summit East 2011 Recap by Adam Riemer