Affiliate Summit West: The Best Investment You’ll Make All Year

Posted on December 10th, 2008 in Affiliate Summit

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Wow time does fly.  Affiliate Summit West in Vegas is already 1 month away (Jan 11-13).  Many of nickycakes.com readers have already been to affiliate summits, and probably already have their tickets for the one next month, so this post is somewhat targeted at new people who have never been before, although there will be some useful information for the veterans as well.

The quick scoop:

Affiliate Summit West is being held in Vegas at the Rio Hotel and Casino on Jan 11th - 13th.  The Rio is OFF THE MAIN STRIP in vegas, but there are 2 other big casinos right next door, the Palms and Gold Coast that are both within easy walking distance.  The conference consists of a few different parts.  There is the exhibit hall, which is like a giant room full of booths, mostly affiliate networks and other related businesses.  There are the sessions, where unpaid speakers give talks about various stuff in the industry (nickycakes is doing one of these).  And then there are the parties and dinners at night.

The Exhibit Hall:

This is where most people spend the majority of the daytime at the conference if they aren’t sleeping.  This year, there will be about 150 booths set up, mostly affiliate networks, traffic sources, and companies like that, who are essentially trying to sell to affiliates.  As an affiliate walking around the exhibit hall, you will be asked at pretty much every booth for your business card, and you will be given some sort of sales pitch as to why X network is the best, why they have the highest payouts, most exclusive offers, best affiliate managers, etc.  Many affiliates will head straight for the booths of the networks they already work with and go meet their affiliate managers, and chat for a while, and then go socialize with the other affiliates.  Copeac generally has the best booth, complete with couches and a keg, as well as foam darts to launch at rival affiliate networks’ booths (*cough* azoogle), although, apparently ads4dough is giving them a run for their money this time.  Most of the networks give out some free “schwag” such as t-shirts, pens, etc.  AKMG gives out sweet branded skateboards every time, so make sure you try to get in on that!  As an affiliate, it’s nice to be able to meet your affiliate managers, for sure, but the real value comes from meeting other affiliates.  The pass for just the exhibit hall is $349.

Sessions:

As was posted a few weeks ago, Nickycakes will be speaking at ASW.  His will be the first session on Sunday, the beginning of the conference, at 12 Noon.  Sessions are just presentations by people in the industry on certain affiliate marketing related topics.  The passes that allow access to these sessions are more expensive than the exhibit hall passes.  If you can’t afford it, or are on the fence about wether you should get a full pass or exhibit hall, just get exhibit hall.  Nickycakes does love affiliate summit, and shawn collins is a great guy, but some of the sessions just aren’t worth the money.  For example, there is a session on the second day about facebook ads, with a facebook ads sales guy and Zac Johnson.  Zac Johnson knows jack shit about facebook ads, let alone ppc, and even admitted it at his terribly awkward affiliate summit west panel last year.  To get access to that session you’d have to pay about $1300 in advance or $1800 at the door…not really worth it.  There are some sessions that look ok, but most of the good ones are geared towards merchants and networks.  The ones aimed at affiliates just look like garbage.  C’mon…rosalind gardner talking about ppc strategies?  That’s like asking John Chow how to write useful blog content.  Nickycakes will do his best, however, to make his session on the first day as good as possible.  Luckily, to see that session you only have to get the “Gold” pass, which costs $549 in advance.

Parties and Dinners and stuff:

Here’s where the real fun stuff happens.  There are a ton of affiliate networks that go to these events, and the good ones like to take good care of their affiliates.  This means hosting nice dinners and parties for people.  If you have some affiliate manager that is going to the conference, it shouldn’t be too hard to get them to take you out to eat in vegas.  Just make sure you ask ahead of time so peoples schedules dont get full.  And then there are the parties.  This is the tricky part because you have to decide which ones to go to.  There are often 4-5 different ones at the same time, and the last thing you want is to get stuck at some lame shareasale snoozefest sausage party with john chow riding around on his segway and a bunch of sweaty nerds crowded around ms danielle.  The key here is to find the networks with people who you know like to have a good time and arent corporate douchebags.  Some network parties that you will not want to miss will be Advaliant, Copeac, and CX Digital.  Advaliant promises to have a party to beat their last one in NY which, if you heard about it or were there, was probably the best party in affiliate marketing conference party history.  Copeac and CX’s parties are rumored to be in big ass suites at the top of the Palms, and unconfirmed sources say there my or may not be NSFW entertainment at all of these parties.  They will probably be invite only, so make sure you sign up to those networks so you’ll be able to get in.  After the parties, there are afterparty type deals.  A lot of affiliates have big suites and stuff, and theres always upstanding venues such as spearamint rhino to attend.

Hotels:

Alright, well the first thing to know about the hotel situation is, the Rio, where the conference is being held, has rooms for a decent price.  In fact with this link you can book rooms there for $49 per night, which is an amazing deal.  If there are no more rooms left at the Rio, there are a ton of other hotels you can book at.  The Rio is not on the main strip, however, so the other 2 good choices are Palms and Gold Coast which are right next to the Rio.  Gold Coast is where Cakes stayed last year, and it was great.  Really cheap rooms..like $25-50 a night, and the place a lot less upscale than Palms, but it was a ton of fun.  Lots of hicks, old people, and old people hicks.  They have a bangin $10 buffet and some fun poker tables.  The Palms is off the hook, and if you’re ballin, then get a room there, definately nice.  You could also stay at a hotel on the strip, like Bellagio or Caesars, but keep in mind you’ll probably need to cab it to the Rio, or get a rental car.

Transportation:

First, airfare.  Nickycakes uses kayak.com, but there are a bunch of sites like it to find cheap tickets online.  Vegas airfare is always cheap.  Roundtrip should only run you less than $400…much less depending on where you live.  From LA it’s about $120 round trip, so you west coast people have no excuse.

Ok, so getting from the airport to your hotel is easy: take a cab.  Theres some cheap shuttle bus that goes to the casinos or whatever, but just take a cab, way easier.  You could also rent a car, which might be a good idea if you dont plan on drinking too much at night and want to get around to casinos and stuff on the strip, or go shopping at the outlets in the day.  There are cabs lined up at pretty much all the casinos at all times though, so thats always a good option.

Business Cards:

Every affiliate summit, affiliates run to staples at the last minute and get all stressed about getting business cards printed up.  Unnecessary.  The only thing you end up using business cards for is putting them in the fishbowls at the network booths to try and win prizes.  Everyone will ask you for them, no matter who they are, and the only thing that will ever come out of it will be a sales call from them 2 weeks later.  At adtech, nickycakes just ended up leaving his in the hotel room.  If you want to talk to a network, get their card, they’ll have them.  Don’t waste your money unless you really do want business cards, but its seriously not needed.  And if you DO decide to get business cards, dont use shitty vistaprint ones.  Try to find a local stationery store and get some real ones printed up with nice card stock.  Don’t get tons of colors on some tacky ass glossy cards.  *gag*

Pricing:

Ok, as much as Nickycakes loves Shawn Collins, he has a gripe about the prices.  For an event where its mostly the affiliate networks trying to sell themselves to affiliates, the affiliates are charged quite a lot to attend.  It really should be free for affiliates, or at most $100 for an exhibit hall pass.  Enough to weed out the 3rd world freeloaders from digital point, but not enough to be insulting.  There are 3 different types of passes, Platinum, Gold, and Silver.

Silver - $349 in advance, $449 at the door.  This is the exhibit hall pass.

Gold - $549 in advance, $749 at the door.  This is the exhibit hall pass plus all the sessions on sunday, including Nickycakes’ session, and access to the entire conference sessions on video after the conference, including the sessions from the other days.

Platinum - $1,249 in advance, $1749 at the door.  This includes all the stuff from Gold and Silver, plus the sessions from monday and tuesday, the keynote, the breakfast and lunch meals on monday and tuesday, and like $1k less one dollar bills to make it rain in the vegas strip clubs.  Get this pass if you seriously think listening to zac johnson, who knows nothing about facebook ppc, talking about ppc is worth the extra $1k.

Discounts!

Ok, Shawn was nice enough to at least give Nickycakes some discount codes for the passes.

First, click here to go to the signup page, and then use one of the following codes when signing up:

ASW09SLASH100: $100 off the silver pass (exhibit hall pass).  This wont get you access to Nickycakes’ panel, but is a good deal if you are an affiliate and just want to come hang out with the other affiliates and see the affiliate networks and stuff.

ASW09NICKYCAKES: 10% off any pass type, including the gold or platinum passes, which both give you access to Nicky’s panel on sunday.

So why is this a good investment?

People have been asking this question to Nickycakes and others quite a bit recently.  Why bother going?  Honestly, even if you didn’t even go to the conference itself and just attend the parties, the contacts you make and the information you get just by chatting with other affiliates in the industry is incredible.  Just from some info nickycakes got at ASE this year, he was able to grow some of his campaigns to 5 times the profit they were making before.  Airfare round trip shouldn’t run you more than $400 if you live in the US, so its not really going to break the bank.

If you take one trip all year, this should be it.

Keep it real.