Affiliate Summit LasVegas + Las Vegas
Affiliate Summit LasVegas + Las Vegas
Thursday 18th Jan 5am… after sending Kieron D, Chris F and Fraser E an email the day before telling them to not only set the alarm clock but have a back up plan, yours truly turned off her alarm clock and went back to bed only to awaken an hour later. The voice in my head was name calling and I had to agree with everything it said! So began my journey to Las Vegas. I met Kieron D and together we walked over to the Virgin premium economy check in desk, we were in good time for the flight, Kieron had already checked in online, I had not but I wasn’t worried as I had booked our flights months ago. I had that smug feeling of superiority as I looked at the economy queue, you know that feeling of ner ner ne ner ner, well some of you maybe pleased to hear that the feeling of superiority soon vanished and was replaced with a twinge of disappointment when I was told “as you were the last premium economy passenger to check in, Im afraid we have over booked and we have no more seats, you may have to travel in economy.” Kieron was a super star and asked about my compensation, bless his cotton socks. Kieron, as I found out, is a very good negotiator and has a no nonsense approach, I admire that. I, on the other hand am far too accepting and compliant, anything for a peaceful life, if they had said, Im sorry but we have to reroute you via boro bora on a mule, I probably would have said, ok cool….I don’t think I have ever met any one that has been down graded on their flight from premium economy to economy class because of over booking, nor have I ever heard of any one, that having been downgraded on a flight, to be asked to give up their down graded economy window seat in exchange for a aisle seat that later, (as it would transpire) to have a malfunctioning back of the seat screen. I don’t think I have ever met any one who has been down graded, asked to give up their down graded seat and malfunctioning screen in exchange for a malfunctioning portable DVD player. Even the flight attendant said “Your not having a good day today are you, here have £25.00 worth of duty free.” What a fiasco my flight to Vegas turned out to be. The book I brought with me was boring and the chap adjacent to me had no fewer then 4,330 odd, give or take (I had to have a re count a few times), grey hairs on the right hand side of his head, one scab and what appeared to be some cheese, probably from the cheese and crackers they gave us for lunch. I could imagine, the man slicing in to that rubber cheese with his plastic knife, the knife bending just enough to turn the knife into a projectile device. Silently, catapulting a slither of processed cheese up and into the air, only for it to land on the back of the chaps head. There it stayed and went unnoticed until a very very bored me noticed it. “Excuse me sir you have a piece of cheese on your head”, it did cross my mind to tell the poor chap, but then the doubt started, what if it was not a bit cheese? What if it was a spot on the balding mans head that had burst? Well what ever it was, it landed in Vegas and it was last seen heading for passport control. This is what 10 and a half hours of doing nothing can do to a person. I did get some compensation from Virgin and to be honest, travelling economy is not a problem at all, I just wanted to do the long haul flight with a bit more room and comfort. So not a great start really but it could have been worse, they may have been no seats at all on that flight. I won’t tell you about my coffee maker in my hotel room.
On Thursday evening, I showed Kieron D and Chris F a bit of Vegas, I was sure all the Vegas Hotels connected together on the strip in some way, that you could walk from one hotel and into another, Im still sure you can do that, only that night we never found out, we did a bit of a bar crawl and Im sorry to say the topic was far away from affiliate marketing, instead we found that it would be cool idea for us all to get a tattoo to mark the occasion. Chris suggested a bar code (Tesco’s baked beans) and I thought his idea for me to have the receipt for the drinks we had ordered from the Harley Davidson bar tattooed on my arm a superb idea (at least I think it was for my arm). (Ok picture this, macho Chris and Kieron drinking at a renowned hard core biker bar, what were they drinking? The butch manly…. warm coffee liquors piled high with whipped cream and a red cherry on top, with hard core Abba music in the background too too too funny! At least Chris had the foresight to remove his cherry!)On Friday, Kieron had bought us tickets to see Prince at Prince’s nightclub 3121, Paul W joined us and I have to say, this was one of the best night outs ever. The package was a meal + VIP tickets to see Prince. The Dinner and company was 1st class. I have always liked Prince but never associated him as an ace guitar player, boy was I ever wrong. My god, the guy just blew me away and now I am hooked. We are not sure, but we think we saw Mary J Blige support prince, who ever it was… just brilliant. The venue is small, small enough for Prince to wander about and meet some of his fans, he could not have met a bigger supporter then Keiron, I do believe Mr KD went home a very happy chappy that morning. Thanks Keiron 🙂
The Affiliate Summit
One of the main reasons for attending the summit in the US was to first of all compare UK Affiliate Marketing with US affiliate Marketing, was the US doing anything new or different?. I am relieved to find out that US affiliates have the same issues as the UK Affiliates with regards to ridiculous brand bidding restrictions, some non commission paying merchants, product feeds and so on. Perhaps relieved is not the right word as this would indicate that this is a good thing. It’s not a good thing here or there. Listening to a seminar given by three “super affiliates” I realised nothing was different except one thing, when affiliates complain about having lost a few hundred pounds because of excessive and dubious merchant commission claw backs is bad and you do feel for that affiliate and you think it can’t get much worse, but then you hear that an affiliate gets stung for $120k worth of commissions, makes you wonder why there are still no proper contracts in place safe guarding affiliates, merchants and networks. I’m definitely with Paul Wheatley on this issue.
In true Luthism, I ended up at a wrong seminar room, I was supposed to be in Bronze 1 & 2 but found myself in Bronze 3&4. So there I was expecting a seminar on Next Generation Affiliate Recruitment “Why what you know doesn’t work any more” but became enthralled by Lead Generation, New Kids on the block, moderated by Todd Crawford. The panel consisted of three Finance and Finance related merchants. Nice to know the finance sector is just as saturated as the UK, just as cut throat too :0) Todd Crawford was a blinding moderator and asked questions along the way to keep the flow going. I was tickled to hear that California leads are more sought after then other states. I had a picture in my mind of Finsbury Park leads being more valuable then Kingston Upon Thames leads. If any of us had an ethics at all, we would not be promoting the financial sector at all, least of all loans where they take your house if you cant pay the loan back. Yet the flip side, it’s big money for some affiliates and huge money for some finance companies. Nope I wasn’t convinced that Finance affiliate marketing from an affiliate’s perspective was right for me, too late in the day to make any kind of serious money unless I had a serious amount of money 🙂
Ok Ill finish this up tomorrow… Debunking SEO Myths by Wil Reynolds a seminar to remember, Managing your merchants reputation and Jonathan Kraft singing Frank Sinatra and CJ getting a bit of an affiliate lashing.
Fraser E has already started blogging about the summit.
Here is a link to some of the video footage filmed by multiple people.
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