The Affiliate Summit West Checklist

Affiliate Summit is approaching fast – it’s almost here. I have more than enough to do to get prepared over the next week, and I’m sure you do too. Here’s a quick checklist of things you make sure you bring with you/are prepared for.

#1 – Business Cards

Pretty much a no-brainer here. I went to ASE last July when I was a noob and didn’t bring business cards. I had to go to some ghetto place in Miami and get them printed within two hours. If you don’t hand them out like a whore, 250 should do. I got 250 for ad:tech and I probably only handed out 50 or so, but I pick and choose I guess.

#2 – Cash

It’s Vegas baby. You’re either going to need money for two things : casino or strippers. For most of you, you’ll probably need cash for both so bring a lot of it.

#3 – Cologne

Please don’t smell bad, please…

#4 – Game Face

Naw I’m kidding. You’re probably going to network and try and make connections, and the best way to do that is just relax and have fun. That’s pretty much what I’m going for, just to hang out with all the people I talk to online but never really see. I’m also going for the very informative lessons!

#5 – Laptop

Who shows up to a nerdy internet convention without a laptop? Last year I brought mine to take notes on, I won’t be doing that this year but I’ll still have it in the hotel room. You don’t want to miss one of your campaigns tanking, you need to be there to hit the pause button.

#6 – Nice Shoes

I still get made fun of to this day for going out to a club at ad:tech wearing my Nike sneakers. I had shoes with me, just didn’t feel like wearing them lol. Make sure if you don’t have a decent pair of black shoes, pick them up.

#7 – Pen

Seems small but it’s always important to carry a pen with you. If you’re talking to somebody and they want more information about you, you should have a pen ready to write whatever they want on a business card. My business cards only have my email address on them because that’s pretty much all I want people having, but for a few people I meet I’ll jot down my full name and phone number.

#8 – Game Face

This time I’m serious about it. A lot of you are probably going to check out all the booths and visit the bajillion affiliate networks out there. Put on your game face and ask them what they can offer you that is unique. They’re probably going to say something like “Oh, so what verticals are you in?” You’ll say something like “I do a lot in the financial industry.” Nine times out of ten they’ll say back “Oh, we have some great offers in that area and really think we can find something perfect for you!” Ok that’s great, I’m not going to make any big decisions without more information. Ask what specific top performing offers they have, if they have an exclusives, what the conversion rates look like on those offers, what they can do as far as payment terms. Unless you want to be annoyed, don’t give your card out to every network you visit, or else one week later you’re going to be getting a phone call every 20 minutes asking if you’ll run offers on some random affiliate network that you can’t even remember the name of.

Alright that’s pretty much all I can think of now, will post more things if I can remember any. Have a good weekend, I’ll be talking to you Sunday probably when I’m going to make a pretty big post about something really new and cool in the industry. Stick around.