Affiliate Summit West 2013 Recap
Affiliate Summit West 2013 was by far the best Affiliate Summit to date. A fabulous crowd of affiliate marketing enthusiasts and newbies gathered together to network, learn, grow and create new opportunities for each other like no other event I’ve ever been to. All 5200+ attendees were buzzing with excitement, and I was no exception.
This was my first year attending with three of my team members: Carolyn Kmet, our VP of Performance Marketing, Greg White and Frank Ravanelli, two of our fantastic account managers. We sponsored a room for AIM to represent our clients, our team and meet with anyone who wanted to spend time with us, which turned out to be a fabulous experience for us. We look forward to sponsoring a room again next year.
I also had the opportunity to speak at this show for the first time (thanks again to Shawn and Missy) with my friend Kush A from VMInnovations. We spoke about Affiliate Strategies for a Post Penguin World, which highlighted the importance of building communities, owning your audience to extend the lifetime value of your users, embracing social media, having authentic content, staying relevant and diversifying marketing efforts (such as introducing video) – as well as diversifying your anchor text and back linking campaigns to thrive in a post penguin world. We had a great turnout (about 100 people in the room) and I thank everyone who came to listen to us speak and learn with us.
Other highlights for me personally included:
- Attending the Miss America Finally with Liz Fogg, Shannon Weidemann, and Deb Carney on Sunday night
- Enjoying the ShareaSale Masquerade Ball with great people I haven’t seen in a year
- Meeting great friends of mine for the first time in person – especially Pat Grady, Jennifer Ward and Kevin Wetherby
- Watching my friends and people I admire win awards for their hard work and contribution to this industry
- Spend a hilarious fun filled night out with my team at the CSI Experience, a delicious dinner and bonding till 3:30am
- Meeting with some fabulous prospective clients and affiliates
- The incredible excitement, interest and contributor response rate with Affiligate.org
- Hanging with the entire ShareASale team for some belgium beers before my flight home
- Catching up with old friends and respected colleagues every day
- Getting tackle hugged by Jennifer Ward and Tim Ash in the Meet Market on Sunday
- Representing All Inclusive Marketing in a way that made me so proud. In the words of Carolyn Kmet “We exhibited knowledge and class, kindness and cohesiveness. These are qualities that were very apparent to our clients, our affiliates and our competitors. I cannot express how proud I am to be working alongside you to grow this company.”
To Shawn and Missy, thanks for giving us something that allows us all to enjoy our industry so much. We look forward to many more Affiliate Summits to come.