While I was wandering around the Meet Market at Affiliate Summit I ran into the Sam, Shawn, Nikki and Amy from Optimal Web Works.  We’ve been discussing ideas about how we tackle Facebook Ads for the past year now and decided it was best to talk to Facebook as a group.  Needless to say we grilled Ben from Facebook for close to an hour and got some excellent information from him.  There are many tools in beta right now that will be released to the public, hopefully sooner rather than later.  I mentioned a few of these ideas in my Affiliate Summit West 2010 post.  I must say that Ben was great for letting us question him for so long.

Once we were done, I decided it would be best if I picked up a few coupons for people that are new to Facebook.  I’ve listed the coupons below.  I’m assuming these are for new accounts only.  The coupons expire March 31, 2010.

• W7R4-V6NX-86M8-JWTE
• 7843-RM0F-1NNC-4857
• T6P4-41N7-9Y3N-08NX
• E967-135H-MMWW-N9YN

Arrival, Pawn Stars & Downtown Las Vegas

As soon as I got to the airport in Tulsa I caught a flamer staring me down on the concourse and as I caught him he got up and left the concourse so I thought I was safe.  About 15 minutes passed and I wondered where he went so I looked around and this homo is directly behind me.  So I moved next to some random chick to strike up conversation with.  All was good.  On the flight from Dallas to Las Vegas I thought it was pretty cool that we passed over The Hoover Dam.  However, I was upset that I wasn’t able to visit there with AdHustler because I didn’t make it in time.

Then the guys and gals at Optimal Web Works, Jardini and SHOCK Marketer wanted to hit up the pawn shop that is featured on Pawn Stars on The History Channel.  We missed everybody by just a couple hours as they left for San Diego or just finished their shift.  From there we walked to downtown Las Vegas and hit up the old strip.  I’ve included some pictures below.

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Day 1: Meet Market, Yard House WickedFire Meetup and Neverblue/NickyCakes/PPC.BZ

Started the day out pretty early and had breakfast with SHOCK Marketer at the Sao Paulo Cafe.  Ran into the Tracking202 guys and a number of other people on the way there and Wes Mahler said he needed to get me on an interview so stay tuned for that.  Not sure when it will happen though.  Ended up making it to the Meet Market for about 2 hours with Ilya Lichtenstein.  Chatted it up with Jay Kim and Ilya for a little bit and Ads4Dough is great.  I’ve done very little revenue with them, but they were more than willing to give me the time of day.  I ran into my buddies over at Optimal Web Works and we’ve been tackling Facebook for a minute and discussing our strategies so we hit up the Facebook booth and grilled Ben for a good 45 minutes to an hour asking questions.  I came away with a couple ideas and can’t wait for some of their beta features to become publicly available.

There was a WickedFire meetup at The Yard House that was complete fail.  There were about 50 people on the RSVP list and there was at most 15 of us there.  I met a handful of new guys there and it was great meeting you all.

Then there was the EPIC Neverblue/NickyCakes/PPC.BZ part at one of the suites at The Palms.  YTCracker was the DJ and even did a few freestyle and songs.  I’ll have videos of this on YouTube shortly.  And how could we forget Rob Hustle and Mic Davice?  They killed the mic and I got plenty of videos of this too.  We ever had a couple guys jump in the pool including Josh Ziering and Khoa.

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Day 2: Exhibit Hall, Mailer Meetup, Party at The Hangover Suite & Las Vegas Boulevard

I forget what happened this morning.  I just know I finally made it to the Exhibit Hall for a couple hours and made my rounds.  Of course the first thing I did was run over to the C2M booth grab a beer from the keg and chat it up with Ruck, Mike Kerry, Steve Howe and Ryan Hurry.  Chatted it up with Jay Kim and let him know what I was running and what I kinds of offers I would like to see Ads4Dough get so I can get my revenue up with those guys.  Made a couple stops around the show and got a couple pieces of schwag.  I don’t really care for the Exhibit Hall.  Being labeled as an affiliate puts a target on you and it gets annoying when everybody wants to talk to you so I always turn my badge around.

Then I met up with the Optimal Web Works guys again and went to meet up with the mailers to find out what they’re doing and was given some information if I wanted to get into the mailing area.  They later had a party at The Hangover Suite.  I was hungry when I got there and they just happened to have some great chicken, wings and mini-burritos that I snacked on to hold me over for the night.  There was a couple mailers that were dropping knowledge on all of us there that were interested in becoming a mailer.  Ran into Bofu2u, Russell and BlueHatSEO and kicked it with them.

We later hit up the strip and Bofu2u almost got a pink Narwhal Henna tattoo on his nipple.  I was trying to get him drunk enough to make it happen so we hit the strip looking for a place to do the tattoo.  I thought they found one so I ran off to go piss and the guy I asked outside this club sent me upstairs to a gay club to piss and it was a maze to get outta there.  I came back down and found the group and the guy I asked all dying laughing at me.  Then I was told it was a gay club so I bitched out the guy asking what the fuck was wrong with him so he eventually let us get in his club for free and gave us some free to play beer pong.  Found some skanks that were pretty bootsy.

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Day 3:Exhibit Hall, Downtown Las Vegas (again), Gambling and Tender

Met up with Bofu2u, trigatch and Russell for breakfast at the Sao Paulo Cafe and laughed at the previous nights events.  Ran over to the Exhibit Hall again for a couple hours and immediately hit the C2M booth again for the keg.  Chatted up with those guys for a little bit and some other affiliates that were coming by for the same reason I was there.  Then Bofu2u, Russell, Julian, Nick Mattern and AdHustler for some In N Out Burger.  Made our way to downtown Las Vegas for some gambling and we all lost our asses out there, even at the cheap tables.  Then Nick Mattern, Russell and I decided to eat at Tender at The Luxor with heavyt, sgtryan, circa and a few other affiliates.  The food was excellent but most of the time we were there the damn alarm was going off and it got hella annoying.  By the time we finished eating it was around 10pm and I was tired as shit from the last few days and from drinking since 11am so I called it a night.

Departure

The departure was pretty uneventful.  Ran into my Optimal Web Works buddies in Terminal D and recapped what we were taking away from the conference.  I was tired as hell and happy to get home.

It was great seeing everybody at Affiliate Summit West 2010!  Can’t wait to make it happen again!

Jason Akatiff, better known as Smaxor or maybe even better known as the network owner of Ads 4 Dough has provided some absolute epic advice when it comes to Affiliate Summit.

When I went to my first event at Affiliate Summit East 2009 in New York City I just walked around the tradeshow and glanced at each booth to see what it was about and moved on if it didn’t interest me.  Being kinda overwhelmed by the show since it was my first conference I talked to maybe 20 booths out of them all and there were a TON!  I felt like I cheated myself a lot, but I didn’t really know how to approach a booth that didn’t interest me.

Well, all that has been fixed for me by Jason.  He’s made probably one of the best blog posts I’ve read concerning tips on how to navigate the Affiliate Summit Exhibit Hall.  I’m just going to quote his entire blog post below.  I hope he doesn’t mind since I gave him 100% credit here.

Affiliate Tradeshow Floor Tips

Involved in affiliate marketing? Then you probably know that Affiliate Summit West is just a few days away.

So how can you get the most out of the show?

I’m sure you’ve read all the posts saying that all the real business at tradeshows happens at the parties. I agree a lot of business and information is shared in the settings outside the tradeshow floor. What niches are working well and where is a lot of the juicy stuff you’ll get off the tradeshow floor. Stuff that’s not usually shared publicly anywhere.

BUT….

There is a ton of good business to be done on the Affiliate Summit tradeshow floor as well, but you have to go with a plan. As affiliates what are the things we care about?

1. Traffic Sources
2. Things to promote
3. Creative and site design ( for some )

All of these things are bountiful at the actual show. Some shows are better then others for one or the other. I think Adtech is better for Traffic Sources and Affiliate Summit is better to meet networks and advertisers.

So what’s the plan? When I hit the tradeshow floor I want to meet as many people as I can. Network like a mad man meeting people that I “don’t” know. Seeing people you do know is fine but it’s the people you don’t know which is going to open new avenues, ideas and in turn create opportunities.

Here’s my plan:

Walk onto the floor and start at booth 1 then walk from booth to booth. Talk with every single person you can and find out which of your list items they have to offer you. Mostly I’m looking for traffic when I hit the tradeshow floor. More traffic sources is always what’s the most interesting to me. I know where to find offers at this point. So I walk from booth to booth collecting business cards asking “Do you sell traffic?” or “Who do you know that sells traffic?” If they answer yes I talk to them about how they sell it ie. ppc, cpm, cpv, cpa. How much inventory do they have. What does it take to get started, what offers are doing well with in their platform, what creative compliance stuff they have. Then I take all that and write as much of it as I can on the back of their  business card so when I get home I can remember what they have to offer.

Now if they say they don’t sell traffic they’re going to tell me what they do. When they tell me I try and figure out how I can get to some traffic contact they know. For example if it’s an affiliate network I might ask “what offers are doing well on your network?”, “How are affs promoting them?”, “where are they buying traffic?” Keep in mind they may not answer some of these questions but guess what if you don’t ask they will be guaranatee’d not to answer. Don’t be a panzy ask, dig, pry and get every last bit of info out of everyone you talk to. Don’t be afraid you’re going to hurt someones feeling or overstep your bounds. Now I’m not saying be a jackass but I am saying dig like a archeologist looking for bones., keep diggin.

If you, like me, plan on staying in this business long term your business will grow and you’ll need more and more people in the tradeshow. So give everyone respect and file what they do away somewhere. Because you’re going to get down the road, and this business is like a puzzle. You’re going to have some project going and there’s going to be a few pieces missing. Those cards you collected years ago at some show will fill your puzzle and complete your project.

Have fun and meet as many new people as you can. You already know the people you know come home with new connections and grow your business.

Success,
Smaxor

P.S. See you Spearmint Rhino!

Gotta give a shoutout to all the Affiliate Networks that sent me a gift this holiday season.

Convert2Media sent me a nice little box of goodies.  It included chocolates, crackers, smoked salmon and more.  I wasn’t expecting anything from these guys as I’m not a super affiliate and this a helluva network.  Anytime I’ve got questions I always hit up my AM over there, Mike.  He’s always letting me know of new offers that they’re getting that I might do well with. I’ve included pictures of the assortment below.

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Profit Kings Media also sent me a nice little Dockers wallet.  Yousif is the man. Just re-read my previous posts about them, Free MacBook Air from Profit Kings Media and Another $1,000 from Profit Kings Media.  I can’t say enough about PKM. There are pictures of the wallet below.

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So, again thanks C2M and PKM for the Christmas gifts.  They’re much appreciated!