Posts Tagged Agenda
So What’s On The Agenda for A4UExpo? Day 2
Posted by Jason Dale in Affiliate Marketing on September 15, 2009
The biggest problem with A4UExpo Day 2 is not that it follows Day 1, but that Day 1 and Day 2 sandwich the Breakout Party, which this year will be at Inc Club in The O2. Hangovers, lack of sleep and seminars are not a good combo, so a top tip for the early talks on Day 2 is arm yourself with a bottle of water, Aspirins and sit near the exit!
Thankfully Day 2 starts a little bit later than Day 1 and for affiliates “Killer Link Building Strategies” sounds the best of the “should I stay in bed with my hangover and watch Jeremy Kyle or go to a talk instead” time slot sessions. Link building is something we’ve never gotten into so learning “how to build high-value link targets and how to acquire them” may be useful as could be the Link Swap Shop proposed by Joe!
The next set of sessions is a mixed bag. If I was a paid search affiliate then Sri Sharma’s talk on “Strategies To Earn More From Your Affiliate Paid Search Campaign” would definitely be worth a look. “A View From Across Silicon Valley” with the co-founder of Commission Junction, Per Pettersen and a panel session on “Barriers to Conversion” make up the rest of the talks. A cup of coffee and a leisurely look round the Expo Exhibition may just win in the what to do at this time stakes though.
Deciding what to attend after lunch is going to be a tough decision.
The Extreme SEO Moderated Debate was a good one last year and should be a fun and informative session again this year. However, the panel are up against “Start-up And Launch Strategy” with Seatwave and some music sites called Spotify and Sharemyplaylists – never heard much about either of them – explaining how they did what they did.
“Beat Your Merchants At Their Own Game” is the other talk in this group which judging by the blurb will be full of merchants making sure their affiliates aren’t getting the edge on them via Adwords – one for the PPC people!
Apart from roads, hospitals, sanitation, voucher code management and Matt Bailey what has The IAB done for us? would be a much better title for a talk than “Regulation, Promotion and Education – What Can The IAB Affiliate Council Do For You?”. However, do make sure you catch Matt explaining what The IAB is all about and how you can also get involved in the 13.30 to 14.15 slot.
If you like the sound of Matt’s voice then good news as he’s on again at 14.30 with “Adding Value Within The Purchase Chain” but sadly he’s up against the “Affiliate Apocalypse Panel”, which sounds the better option. This should be a fascinating session as it will cover issues like transparency and the last click rules. Helen Southgate, Duncan Popham and Seth Richardson are the doom-mongers panel.
One of the most popular talks at previous Expos has been “Meet the Super Affiliates” and you can expect a packed room again this year when the 4pm talks kick off. Expect to hear something about a music sharing site once or twice as DJ Mix Tape himself, Kieron, is on hand as the panel moderator. This year he’s joined by Tina Judic, Sri Sharma and Philip Wilkinson (who I vaguely remember emailing a few times back in the early days of Loquax?).
Day 2 ends with a choice of two sessions, one about domain names and the other about writing killer proposals and selling yourself to merchants. Usually by 5pm though a power nap awaits as there’s the Ice Party to come and close what hopefully will be another successful A4U Event.
I wonder if Matt Le Tissier will be there this year?
So What’s On The Agenda for A4UExpo? Day 1
Posted by Jason Dale in Affiliate Marketing on September 14, 2009
The agenda for this year’s A4UExpo is all but complete and now that it’s only about a month away now is a good time to start having a look through what’s on offer and decide which sessions you’d like to attend. The more organised you are the better – especially if you’re planning meetings with affiliates or merchants – as you don’t want to be missing your “must see” seminar.
As ever Matt and the Existem team have put together an intriguing mix of talks aimed at merchants and affiliates.
The first highlight is the lack of keynote speaker at the start of the event. Praise be to the affiliate marketing gods! I can’t even remember who did it last year, but it really didn’t electrify the audience. The only downside is there’s no “welcome intro” by Matt, but I’m sure he’ll say a few words at some point during proceedings.
So this year it’s straight into the nitty gritty with talks about Red Letter Days (sounds a great idea, but I’m afraid I’m out), affiliate marketing and media (sounds merchanty) and SEO strategies with Dave Naylor (recommended as Dave is an interesting speaker).
Following Dave is one of the stand out talk titles of the whole two days is “Are Networks Dying?”! It’s a panel session and includes a network, an agency, a publisher and an advertiser. It promises to be an intriguing session and hopefully discussion. From our experience, network earnings have been getting worse whilst independents improve.
One network has gone from best earner to worst performer in less than 12 months. It does make you wonder if it’s just us or a reflection of other affiliates across the board, so this session will be of interest.
Sessions for affiliates and with affiliates on the panel are always busy, and “The Affiliate Doctors Live!” involving Duncan Jennings, Kieron Donoghue and Chris Garrett shouldn’t be an exception. They will be offering “frank advice on issues within affiliate marketing, start-up strategy, conversion, blogging and SEO”. Sounds good, but have to say I’d like to see other affiliates involved (Lee, Kirsty, Joe, Matt, A Struggling or Successful Newbie?) as well as the usual suspects.
The next “sounds good” session involves Kevin Edwards and Michelle Boxall (Affiliate Window) – “The Truth Will Out: Disproving Common Misconceptions In Affiliate Marketing”. Although the blurb says that this session is aimed “at affiliate managers and merchants” I’d have thought that affiliates would also be interested in knowing the truth about the the myths and legends of voucher code sites, cashbacks and brand bidders.
For newbies Nadeem’s “12 Biggest Affiliate Marketing Mistakes” could be worth checking out in the 4pm slot, but for those who have probably made them already then “Advanced Site Architecture And Product Feed SEO” with Judith Lewis looks a good alternative option. Judith got rave reviews via Twitter about her Thinkvisibility session so hopefully this will be more of the same (plus even more hopefully free chocolate).
The final session of the day will probably be “You want to Tweet What!?”! This could be the weirdest session of the whole expo as by this time most of the delegates would have been on Twitter at least once to say they’re at A4UExpo. If Thinkvisibility was anything to go by, no one was listening to the talks as they were too busy Twittering to each other 
Still, it sounds a fun session and so hopefully we’ll all learn how to tweet better in time for Day 2 (coming later).
If there’s a good session on Day 1 I’ve not mentioned why not leave a comment and say why it’s worth attending?
