Not Going to Affiliate Convention But Will Be In Denver For The Parties!
Ok, so Nickycakes isn’t even going to bother to link to these clowns, but there is something called Affiliate Convention going on June 17-20th (next month) in Denver. It is being advertised as a “free convention” for affiliates which means just the exhibitors and other non-affiliate attendees have to pay. This seems like a good plan, however, the good ideas seem to halt there.
First of all, Denver is an awful place to have a convention. The weather isn’t that great compared to plenty of other destinations, there’s really not a whole lot to do, there aren’t exactly a ton of airlines with hubs in denver, making airfare a pain in the ass, etc. Also, every summer, Media Breakaway (cpaempire) has a conference around the same time, and they were forced to cancel theirs because of this retarded show which will probably be 20x worse. They could have had it an hour and a half away in Vegas probably for cheaper, in a decent venue, with tons of stuff to do, and lots of fun, but seriously, Denver? Come on..
Second off, while the “affiliates are free” thing sounds good on the surface, it’s bound to be a complete disaster. Having to pay $200 for registration to affiliate summit is a GOOD thing for affiliates. Wanna know why? Because then you don’t have a bunch of worthless broke retards from digital point trying to leech info that they’ll turn into their next $7 e-book (can i haz review copy plz). Want data to back up this theory? No problem. Affiliate convention has a page that shows demographic data for the affiliates who have signed up so far… guess what, only 70% of them even speak english:
Add this to the fact that almost every “free” convention fails miserably, and you have a recipe for disaster, already, even if there were nothing further wrong with this convention, which there is.
Third, the people running it really have no clue about the industry.  Not only because of their speak selection, which will be covered in more detail in the next point. The “owners” are webmasterradio and affspot. Webmaster radio is an awful “free” web radio station that is supposed to be webmaster related obviously. Their shows about anything affiliate marketing related are devoid of anything worthwhile. This can also be said about their shows on SEO and the like. Totally worthless. They cram more ads into their stuff than one of those 800 page fashion magazines. They used to try to extort some money out of you if you wanted to like…get past shows and stuff without commercials, but it looks like they gave up on that failboat recently. And affspot…well, not even really mentioning them, but they’re an affiliate marketing forum with about 100 threads or so, if that tells you anything. So needless to say, neither entity really knows anything about the industry, which is another disaster waiting to happen.
Ok, finally, the speakers. Admittedly, there are a couple good speakers on the list. They have 2 of nicky’s friends from mediatrust speaking, but further than that you’ll find nothing but garbage. Here’s a rundown of a few of the clowns that they thought people would want to listen to:
Kris Jones (Pepperjam) – Yeah, lets get the guy who runs one of the most retarded commission junction knockoff networks to speak. Hmm…maybe he’ll talk about hiring a bunch of inexperienced girls straight out of undergrad as affiliate managers because they look cute. After all, that’s what all affiliates look for in an affiliate manager right? Oh, and he’s talking about transparency, which is one of their networks selling points. At first Nickycakes was interested when he found that out, only to discover that all they do is mark each of their offers with an arbitrary meaningless grade for how “transparent” it is, but it really means nothing. They don’t get to look at the merchants backend to see if they’re scrubbing or anything like that. Oh, and also, instead of an affiliate manager at pepperjam managing the relationship between the affiliate and the merchant, the merchant itself in most cases is required to manage speak to the affiliate directly. THATS TRANSPARENCY RIGHT GUYS???!? RIGHT?!?11 What a joke. Nickycakes almost thinks that the merchants are the retarded ones for even giving pepperjam a cut of their margins. Almost…  And this is the idiot they have headlining the conference. Nice pick, morons.
Aunesty Janssen (founder of affspot) – Good job founding affspot forums….or something. Hope you tell everyone how you got all 50 of your forum members to sign up.
Graham Gochneaur ([allegedly]head of Clickbooth marketing) - Talking about “how to get what you want from your affiliate manager”. How about you talk about how to get your affilate manager to [allegedly] tell you to make fake blogs to promote your offers and then [allgedly] send an email out the next week telling everyone how you would NEVER and have NEVER [allegedly] told people to promote products this way. Maybe you can also talk about the positive impact that [allgedly] sending c+d letters and [allegedly] suing affiliates for giving you negative press has done. It will certainly be interesting for people to see if your boot is [allegedly] as empty as it at every other conference.
Michael Jenkins (CEO Marketleverage) – “How to Successfully Promote Your Affiliate Campaign By Video.” Hmm, maybe you should have a talk about something else. Like…how to be completely out of touch with affiliate marketing. Or…how to try to bribe bloggers with bags of crappy electronics into saying nice things about you instead of actually being a good company and letting your own merits generate a buzz for yourself. Or…how to make yourselves look like the biggest joke in the industry at conferences by putting a bunch of $1 bills in a phone booth with a fan blowing them around and thinking that high volume affiliates are going to be not only excited to jump inside and look like a monkey grabbing at dollar bills that they dont need, but will then be inclined to sign up and run traffic to your network. lol.
Gillian Muessig (President SEOMOZ) – Seomoz….nuff said.
Ok, so yeah, for those reasons, Nickycakes is not attending the conference. But he WILL be in Denver, to attend parties and hang out with his affiliate friends who accidentally decided it would be a good idea to go. Media Breakaway should be having a pretty nice shindig, which should be off the hook if the rumors about Scott’s party abilities are true.
Keep it real.
You’re totally right with one exception, the pricing model. How is what they’re doing with registration any different than the CPA network who gives away free affiliate summit passes?
At least with that, there is some barrier to entry…like…being able to get approved to a respectable network.
I’ve been wondering who really is going. I know that I asked some of my affiliate friends and none of them are going. So it will be interesting to see who is really attending.
Also I agree, why Denver?
Yeah I bitched about Pepperjam’s crap transparency a while back and Kris commented by saying, “Honestly, we built the transparency system based on the premise that trusted, proven affiliates should make more money and gain access to better offers than less trusted affiliates.”
Really? Gimme a break – that’s why no one uses Pepperjam for nothing other than thinking they are a recipe site for hot pepper jellies we southerners like to munch on.
I’ll be there
agree with you on the speakers, they are garbage. Anyone who thought having CB and ML highlight the speakers has not been in the space too long. This will probably be the one and only show.
I can’t wait to have lunch with nickycakes again.
Completely agree with “free” being a bad idea. You get what you pay for generally.
The Denver area is wonderful. You are very close to Rocky Mountain National Park, a hiking mecca. In fact Nick himself climbed Flat Top Mountain there(elev. 12343 ft.) when he was 11.
Check out this picture: http://www.summitpost.org/view_object.php?object_id=46524&context_id=152200
Nick knows how to have a great time anywhere.
Nick’s Dad
WTF Leverage did that? 1$ in phone booth? That is way too retarded.
market to != can speak english
network with == can speak english
Agreed, except Denver has some of the most beautiful girls in the country. This fact should not be omitted.
oh god URL fail. I just woke up.
grandson = p0wned by son. SICK.
I went to check this out after reading here and the reg page has this:
“2009 Affiliate Convention Denver. There is no guarantee that an affiliate program will sponsor you. The decision is theirs. If you are definitely coming to the event, we recommend that you REGISTER and pay for your conference pass now. You will receive a full refund if you become a sponsored affiliate.”
I thought it was free. wtf?
Like I’d pay in advance and hope I get sponsored.
Brill was all over SEOctoberfest….
Nicky… atleast you will get an opporunity to climb up that mountain again!
@kingofsp: Agreed, Colorado has the lowest rates of obesity in the county. Hence more hotties.
While you may be right about the conference you are wrong about Denver haha.
We have tons of stuff to do, your right near boulder, not far away from the mountains…. Just no casinos.
Haha!
Keep up the hatin’ Nicky
Hilarious…I couldn’t agree more about PepperJam. It’s been literally years since I applied for their ebay affiliate program and I have still not had my application reviewed….LOL! Mandy Foley FTW!
Wait, so Rand Fishkin isn’t the President of SEOMOZ? What is it, a puppet government.
More like muppet government.
1) It’s the languages they MARKET TO, not the languages they SPEAK (see Shoemoney’s post.)
2) Down in Denver, down in Denver/All I did was die. (Sorry, always what pops into my head whenever I see the word “Denver”.)
Denver in the summer…sounds like a fun place to be lol…
I cant wait to read the official Nickycakes review on this “free” event!
Nickycakes you definitely should link this to the convention site as its the best review I have seen. Right on the money! Many have asked me if I were going and I said I wouldn’t be associated with these DB’s. Plus they lied about the conference when they first started pitching it and why should anyone believe them now.
Btw, there are casinos outside of Denver, Blackhawk and Central City.
some valid points but can’t we all just get along.
@ Nick’s Dad … I was really hoping to see a pic of cakes @ 11 years old.
OMG BRIAN HAWKINS LET’S HUG
You’re wrong. Stop ranting like a little bitch and just give us your keywords.
will go there to watch carmelo and billups in the NBA finals instead
glad someone can say it like it is! nice write up!
hmm… giving away crappy electronics
It might not be the best convention. But I will probably go none the less. Namely take another “business trip”. I just can’t turn down a trip that I can write off. Anything to help lower taxes especially when the trip is mainly to party I mean network.
denver and the surrounding area is full of affiliates why is this not a good pick? i am going and yes looking forward to the parties
LOL, nicky don’t mince your words. Tell us how you really feel about pepperjam.
There is actually a ton of affiliates and networks in Denver including Affiliate.com, GetAds, Diablo Media, Hybryd Ads, Intela, CPA Storm, BlitzLocal, etc.
Also, it is a major hub for United Airlines, the 2nd largest hub they have in the country. And it’s a hub for Frontier, who now has flights all over the country.
‘Nuff said.
FYI, Rand’s the CEO of SEOmoz and Gillian is the President.
Cakes,
You had me rolling with this one,
“Because then you don’t have a bunch of worthless broke retards from digital point trying to leech info that they’ll turn into their next $7 e-book (can i haz review copy plz).” Great synopsis of the convention, one word DENVER?
yo Cakes! we met briefly in vegas after your panel deal. I really didn’t get to network enough and am thinking I might head out if I can get in on some parties and good networking in Denver.
I’ll try hitting you up in IRC but get at me and let me know where you’re going to be!
– `bender
It’s a shame you don’t respect SEOmoz. You don’t know what you’re missing. FYI, Gillian is brilliant.
Affiliate convention denver was an EPIC FAILURE.
If only I had known this BEFORE going to the gayest party on earth at platinum 84 or whatever gay club shoemoney’s party was at last night. At first, I thought several of the strippers were actually men. I was thinking, WTF kind of strip club is this?
We all left and waited outside forever for the shoemoney bus, but it never came, or at least we didn’t wait for it because it was so late, so we all took a cab, the driver recommended Penhouse men’s club off Colorado blvd. We got there kinda late, but had a great time anyway. The women were so much nicer looking. The atmosphere was much more professional as well. We could actually hold a conversation without yelling because of the music at the Mile High (gay) Affiliate Party.
It was so lame at shoemoney’s party, I decided to skip the entire convention and left today. Didn’t even pick up my pass, or see kris jones keynote. Affiliate convention denver was an EPIC FAILURE.
I tried looking for you here in Denver but you’re not around. I’ll be flying to Vegas next <3
I just stumbled on your blog from Dean Hunt’s poll and you have me rolling from this post. I am brand new to this industry but you’ve confirmed several of my suspicions regarding some “networks.” Thanks for your insights.
I went with two others in the industry and had an alright time. Scotts party and the one at Lure were decent. One guy I brought who is new to the industry was pretty amazed at Scotts party, all the strippers & free drinks. Lure was a bit small and we ended up leaving when the open bar was over and found ourselves up the street at the Diamond Cabaret. Some of the AMs from adult companys were there as well as a Copeac AM.
Oh and Dave, the “party bus” was around the corner parked and idling with the driver in it. He said he was waiting for a call to know when to start even though it was past time. We got him to come into the hotel lobby/bar to wait and eventually got in touch with enough people to just head out.
Going into this we didn’t expect anything since it was their inaugural convention. But it was a good time meeting up with various AMs, other affiliates you only talk to online, etc.
The morning after the convention since we were already so far west we just flew out to Vegas for a few days to continue the business trip. If they hold the convention next year, we’re sticking to the same plan and seeing if we can get more affiliates to party out in Vegas afterwards.
It was no Affiliate Summit but a fun distraction from working online.