What’s new in Affiliate marketing

Just one man’s opinion of what we saw, did and heard.It’s “only an opinion” ;-)

36 hours to fly there for the Forge Team 2800 attendees 3 days of networking / meetings /

sessions / late nights / later mornings Over 200 exhibitors Over 20 panels / workshops / speeches / pitches. 1 Forge Sponsored Affiliate Bash

We stole Nelson’s passport at JFK. Love the look on his face!

Click for Full hilarious story on our blog

http://flickr.com/photos/affsum/2340694475/

Real Time blog feed as Jason was speaking:

10:15am “Affiliate people doing spam can abuse these systems only so much before they collapse.”

10:15am “We’re tolerant of these people polluting the web. Affiliate companies are enabling the polluters of the well and turning a blind eye.”

10:20am “Truth is, much of this affiliate stuff is bullshit ponzi scheme where people got lucky and made a lot of money not doing much.”

10:22am “The internet has turned into a criminal mindset game.”

10:22am Calacanis busting Shoemoney, Zac Johnson and the guys who post their earning checks.

Sheesh Calacanis - a little down on affiliate marketing or what? No really, don’t hold back, tell us what you really think!

Are you an affiliate marketer? You suck! Calacanis.

I say grow some skin and really think about what this guy is saying

There ARE internet marketers out there who are making a mess of the Internet.

What matters is this is what a not insignificant portion of the world outside of our little industry thinks about us.

Every time you see a PPC advertiser beating out your good ads and driving up your prices with some sneaky tactic, think about this keynote.

Every time your minimum bids get jacked up or your ads get deactivated for “quality issues”, think about this keynote.

Every time you look at a search result page and wonder why the hell that crappy site got ranked above yours, think about this keynote.

James Martell, the Forge boysIn full gear and the MyJewelryBoxcrew

Haiko de Poel, Jr., who runs AbestWeb, took the Affiliate Marketing Advocate Award

Brian Littleton of ShareASale.com. Selected as Legend of the Year

Connie and Jon partying till dawn

Mysterious Missy, Spectacular Shawn surrounding Sam

Only those we caught / took notes / didn't sleep through ;-) Some great , some excellent, some we missed.A blend of advanced and introduction to the industry.

Websites without video will go the way of the dinosaur.

More video content means a wider long-tail. There is a wealth of opportunity for (affiliate)

marketers to use video in innovative ways. ◦ Product Demo’s◦ Testimonials◦ Funny Viral Movies featuring product placements◦ Embedded tracking

Direct Navigation traffic converts twice as much as search traffic

Prices of domains are soaring Brand Name direct domains values like Diamond.com =

$5 Mil +++ Good Direct domain = $10K +++ monthly passive income Hunt expiring domains Simple search terms domains names Use moniker or other auction sites to buy / sell domains.

With almost 50% of Internet users now creating and sharing their own content, this new medium is changing how markets operate and how companies communicate with consumers.

YEA H RIGHT.

The key take-away is:◦ It’s got to work / we believe it MUST work / it makes sense

that it should work / but nobody’s cracked the formula.

◦ There are very few successes translating Social Media into Purchasing behaviour.

How to future proof your SEO efforts◦ Be a white hat webmaster.... Build relevant content...... Don’t

build for spiders / build for consumers.

Affiliate PPC. Brand enhancement or bid escalation?◦ Have T&C’s◦ Brand representation guidelines / trade name usage &

protection / keyword price guidelines.

Forge Affiliate DinnerShareASale Party View from the Palms

Some Old Timers at the Bar

Forge Sponsored the Affiliate Bash at Tao We spent a fortune. Apparently everyone enjoyed it.

We don’t remember much

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