Affiliate Summit West - Rant...

As normal I started to respond to a post on wickedfire about affiliate summit west and got into a rant so I decided to post it here.

First off as I mentioned in my previous post I really like conferences and of all the conferences I’ve been to I like affilaite summit the best. Shawn Collins puts on a great conference and they seem to be getting better all the time.

However this one was a little overwhelming seems as though it had grown to about triple the size of the one last year. However felt like it didn’t grow proportionately. What I mean and what got sooooooo annoying is there were like 50 affiliate networks there. And every single one would constantly try and pitch you with the same crap.

When are these guys going to get a clue and provide a unique value proposition. This is an industry where the good people are good marketers and sales people. There’s nothing that makes me sadder then being pitched the same pitch over and over again. “I’ve never been an affiliate and made good money at it but I’m going to help you make money”.

For example, I was in the elevator with some guy going to a club and he just wanted to hard close me on being an affiliate for his shitty network I’ve never heard of. And they all say the same shit “we have the best payouts”, “we have lots of unique offers”, oh and don’t forget this one

But honestly the affiliate network space is getting more and more crowded and for those of you networks that are reading this FIND A —> UNIQUE <— VALUE PROPOSITION. Because the pushy salesman tactics isn’t going to get you anywhere in my camp And I don’t speak for all affiliates of course but if you’re looking to pull the bigger affiliates into your network give them things, that are going to make them money. As far as I’m concerned every pitch I heard was the same, they say we have unique offers and the highest payouts… but all I heard if we want your traffic so we can make money off you.

Of course I have my people I’ve worked with for a long time and I don’t plan on changing because I have a comfort level with them and know I’m going to get paid. However if it was me and I was pitching a network I’d come up with things to offer bigger affiliates and make it about them making money and not yourself.

What tools might an affiliate use that you could help supply?

1. emails
2. bid data and keywords
3. subscriptions to bid management systems
4. use of in house coders
5. custom built landing pages
6. access to large networks to use for linking or discounts to paid link systems ( for example if you own a paid link network in addition to an affiliate network then give affiliates discounts )

My point is get creative people. And honestly make it about the affiliates and not about you. I know this is sales 101 but it just irked me walking through hearing the same crap over and over. My guestimation was there was about 1/3 affiliates and 2/3 products, advertisers and networks. Which is great for me but walking through I started to skip the booths that were networks and go to the technology booths because I know the technology is what makes me money.

Well enough ranting, I’ll throw up another post about some of the good stuff that happened when I get the chance but this one got started first. 🙂

P.S. My pitch would be if I owned a network and someone walked up to my booth I’d say

“I have a way to make you more money, are you interested in talking a little?”
“what monthly budget, volume do you do now?”
“If I could supply you with a couple things that would increase that would you be interested in running traffic to my network?” OF COURSE. < Insert Unique Value Proposition Here >