Affiliate Marketing blog by James Little

It’s 9.30pm and the aim is to get to bed as soon as I’ve finished this blog post as I am absolutely shattered – I think ‘Expo Lag’ is worse than jetlag and I’m only 20 minutes away in a cab from the conference centre!

So – first things first, a few messages of thanks..

Thanks to Claire, Matt, Chris, Pete and everyone else from Existem for what was, in my mind, the best conference that I’ve ever attended – it’s a glorious thing that our industry has this event and the news of the European version to be hosted in April is very exciting indeed (though even with so much work getting done at these events, the trips away are going to get me divorced!).

Thanks secondly to everyone who turned up to the two panels that I was part of –I was just filling in for our sick MD on the first one (State of the Affiliate Nation) and hope that I did a good job of it, especially with such a huge turnout.   As for my second panel on voucher codes, Duncan made a comment earlier to say that he’d never seen it so busy that people were sitting on the floor and it’s just a shame we ran out of time so quickly and could not take any more questions.

Lastly a big thank you to everyone that sponsored the event, especially the evening parties, giving us all a chance to network – I’ve pretty much lost my voice now but it was absolutely worth it!

So onto the Roundup..

• I don’t want to discourage any other merchants from being innovative, but I think Sunshine.co.uk may already have a just cause to think that they will have another couple of A4UAwards in the bag next year!
   
• I wrote a whole post about the sessions I wanted to attend but only managed to two sessions outside of the ones I was participating in; I guess it’s always going to be the case, especially when I was described by a colleague as a “power-networker who doesn’t stop talking”.   Hopefully I’ll make a few more next year!
• I may have moaned about the lack of preparation time I had to think about the panel where I was filling in for Tom, but I secretly cherished being on another panel, especially one of that calibre;  not sure how it will come out on camera though!
• It was amazing to meet so many people that I’ve not had the chance to before, especially the likes of Doug and Kirsty whose blogs I read every day! 
• Affiliate Marketing is definitely changing – there were some big “traditional” publishers in attendance that last year may have dismissed Affiliate Marketing as a way of increasing revenue but are now actively engaging it.
• If blogging from an iPhone in the pub can get me linked to from e-consultancy and Search Engine Land then I have to do it more often!
• The cruise was good but needed more music earlier to get people in the mood, rather than sitting at the tables all night – a big thanks to DFDS and I’m looking forward to the free cruise already!
• The last night was the best of them all – I have one word to say to Tom Quinn from iPoints though – well, two words mate, Team Extreme!
• I said I’d blog it and I will – the only downer was the Sky VIP bar – I’m really against segregation and I was a little frustrated about it, even if I did manage to blag a way in!
• Can whoever has the photo of my kissing Aldo please burn it so that it doesn’t tarnish his street cred! 

That’s it for now – A successful year that I really enjoyed that was even better than my expectations, now I just need a new liver and a bit of sleep to get ready for the next one.  I’ll add links in to people’s names later etc later when I can function correctly!

At the A4U Expo (more on that when recovered tommorow!) and just heard reports that google will be allowing paid search on gambling terms in the UK from this Friday.

Massive news that I am sure will be confirmed very soon! Heard it here first..

Do you know the thing I hate the most about the A4UExpo – the fact that there are too many good sessions!  How am I meant to choose which ones to attend and which ones to skip?  Not only that, but I obviously have a few meetings and some general stand duty to attend to!

With that being said, here’s a few of my picks for this year’s fantastic A4UExpo, which is just a few days away.

Day 0 

Opening Party:  This is where it all starts; last year I only made it there about 10pm after a late night on the office but as we’re sponsoring it this year and I have a meeting before, I’ll be in the hotel bar from about 5pm.

Day 1

9am – Opening Remarks by Matt Wood

9.15am – Keynote by Michael from NMA

11am – Wordpress SEO by Joost (some other excellent sessions on at the same time though!)

12.30pm – 10 Ways to Get the most out of your Search Affiliates by Duncan

(I can’t do 2pm – but So you Don’t do Travel would be my choice here with Chris and Alan from Sunshine)

3pm – Extreme SEO all the way!

4.30pm – God knows here! Affiliate State of the Nation will be excellent, but I really want to see what Kevin Edwards comes out with in “Understanding Incentivised Traffic” after Quidco dumped them for, err, not understanding it?

The buy.at cruise that night should be good fun too – must find out how much a cab home will cost me!

Day 2

11am – Effective Voucher Code implementation (with yours truely)

12.30pm – Again a difficult choice – either the one with Rob Kerry or the one with Graham and Zak

3pm – either Affiliate Doctors Live or Do Incentive Sites add incremental valie

4.30pm – Mobile, Video, API’s and Social Media session

Finished off by the Ice Party in the evening.

I’m sure like last year I won’t make everything that I would like to but well done to Matt and the team for another fantastic line up.