The New Rich Blog

Well, day 3 of the Affiliate Summit was really calm. Most of the people were tired from the last busy 2 days. A lot of people slept late or just didn’t arrive… Actually, from the morning of the third day it already felt like the Summit is over. I’ve been to two sessions, ate lunch, met some people and went to the apartment to rest a little before the final party - party202 held by the 202 group.

Before I will tell you about the party, I want to try and sum-up Affiliate Summit East 2009:

The Good

• It was a lot of fun - above all the other benefits, it was big fun! I had a great time meeting people, traveling, going to parties, drinking cocktails and eating great food.
• Ideas - during the Summit I always carried a small notebook in my pocket. While I was meeting people, listening to sessions and thinking, every now and then a new idea has popped into my head. So I just wrote it down. Now I have a notebook full of great ideas!
• Cooperations - Being an affiliate doesn’t have to be a one man show. I think that maybe the best projects are created by groups of talented people. In the Summit, I have started some cooperations with great people and talked about potential cooperations for the feature.
• Seeds - I really feel that when you go to a convention like this, you planet seeds. You get to know a lot of people, you give most of them your business card. You hear a lot of new information. You get motivation. The real benefits of convention like that, doesn’t have to be instant. It can take a week, a month or a year. But the seeds will grow and the benefits will blossom, of course, as long as you water them enough

The Less Good

Although I always like to look only on the bright side, I want to be objective.

• The sessions - I was a little disappointed with the sessions. For me, most of the sessions were irrelevant, not practical and minimally beneficial. I wanted to hear more about: traffic sources, media buy, email marketing, landing pages, self-management, product types and from the merchant side - how to recruit affiliates. The are so many interesting subjects to talk about and I feel this was somehow missed.
• The exhibition - The exhibition was really big, but most of the booths were controlled by affiliate networks. A lot of networks are similar and have the same offers. You don’t need to be a member of hundreds of networks… I wanted to see some more interesting stuff - services for affiliates, tools and unique merchants.
• The space - I think it was a bit too crowded, there was no specific place to just sit down, relax and network. I was looking for a place to chill out and there wasn’t any good place for that.

For me, the Affiliate Summit was great and valuable. And each time I realize that more and more - the real value comes from the people! There are so many interesting and talented people and I believe you can learn something from each and every person out there.
There is no greater way to finish the Summit than a party… So at the evening, at sunset, we arrived at this amazing penthouse downtown. The view was beautiful and calming. We have been there for a short time but because there was a problem with the bar, the party had moved to the bar across the street.

View from the penthouse

From left to right: Ori Manor, Ilya Glezer, Myself

I had a burger and couple of drinks, hanged out with a couple of friends and talked about interesting ideas and cooperations…

Now I am sitting at Starbucks, writing the post and working a bit. Life is good.

Have a great day
The New Rich

Yesterday night we have been to the Shareasale party. The party was really nice, on the roof of hotel in NY, free bar, appetizers… People were there mostly to network and meet other people but in a party atmosphere.
I hanged out, met people and just enjoyed the fact that i’m at that great party on the top of NY

The Shareasale Party

The second day of the Affiliate Summit started out with a real American breakfast - bacon, sausage, eggs and bagles (where are the vegetables?).

Then I head out to my first session for that day: “7 Deadly sins of landing page design”. Most of it wasn’t new to me, but it did strengthen stuff, very important stuff… You can read about those sins in this blog post.

Then we had lunch - really good and tasty lunch!

After the lunch I went to the main exhibition hall. Very big and a lot of interesting companies. I had one problem with the exhibition - there were just too many affiliate networks from the same type. Why do I need a hundred of networks that has the same offers?!

The Exhibition Hall (part of it)

Although it is not very valuable, who doesn’t like to get free stuff? So today I got:

• A hat for Hydra Network
• Squeeze ball from Smiley Media
• Another star shaped t-shirt from Shareasale (different color)
• Pen from RevenueWire
• Laptop sticker-stand from Disk Doctors
• Missile from Copeac

After that, I headed to the second session - “Social Media Marketing for Affiliates”. This was the most interesting session so far! I have learned a lot about the power of social networks and how I can use it do drive traffic to my offers and to my own product.

Then I went to the third session - “Advertising on Facebook”. It was a session with some experts, including Alex Schultz, a manager from Facebook itself. They actually talked a lot bla bla bla, but when people started asking questions, this is where the real tips started to be heard.

After the session I was pretty tired, and just hanged out with some friends at the coffee room.

At the end of the day, we went to the Clickbank exclusive cocktail party. And this was the place where I enjoyed the most all that day. It was a very small and intimate party, maybe around 30-40 people, with free drinks and appetizers. They also had a special cocktail - The Clickbank Moneymaker It was goooood.
I met some of the people in Clickbank. Very nice people, communicative and helpful.
Clickbank is actually improved a lot lately, and they are improving constantly. Some of the next improvements I have heard about at the party:

• A one way communication for vendors to write to their affiliates.
• TID also for vendors.
• Physical products - yes, Clickbank will actually start to support physical products!

From left to right: Chris Fox, Ilya Glezer, Myself, Ori Manor (top), Asaf (bottom), Ashley Adamson - account manager from Clickbank, Arial Soudak, Ran Aroussi, Igal Pines

I had a lot of fun at the Clickbank party. Then we headed out to the next party… Which held out in a club. So we (myself, Ilya Glezer and Ariel Soudak) went there, but just the line to get in was so crowded and noisy, and we were already tired. So we went home.

The club that we didn't got in to...

Wow, It is 2:38 AM now and I am still awake. Oh well, writing in the blog is more important… This was a very busy and fun day. Going to sleep now.

Good Night
The New Rich

1. Met a lot of cool people, I will definitely keep in touch!
2. Did a very loud networking at the un-official party.
3. Eat bagels.
4. Got 2 pens.
5. Discovered the power of Twitter from Ran Aroussi.
6. Had a lot of coffee.
7. Had a great lunch but had some trouble eating it all while standing.
8. Practiced my social skills…
9. Got my name on the big screen! Thank you PJS!
10. Gave away all my business cards.
11. Decided I have to outsource more and more!
12. Realized how important joined ventures are.
13. Made $83 on Clickbank.
14. Discovered new affiliate networks and great new opportunities.
15. Laughed, learned and enjoyed Harlan Kilstein great presentation about copywriting.
16. Felt real good with what I do.
17. Got a lot of offers from girls… Casino offers…
18. Got one t-shirt.
19. Enjoyed talking with people, I realized how much networking is important…
20. Had a beer on the beach with Ilya Glezer & Ori Manor.
21. Booked a Platinum pass to Affiliate Summit East!!! hope to see you there!