What I got out of Affiliate Summit West

Well as you can tell i had a lot of fun in Vegas, but it was a lot more than just drinking. I’ll start out by critiquing the sessions that i attended and then tell you were the true value is at these conferences!

Marketing Your Affiliate Site – Outside of the Box (Scott Hazard)

This sounded like a session that would offer a lot of creative ideas but I was very dissapointed. The first thing that Scott said was that by outside of the box he means outside of your house.

He spent most of the time talking about a coupon site that he has been promoting by going to local merchants and offering them a coupon on his site for a little sticker in the window to promote it. At first it seemed very interesting, but when someone asked how much traffic this has produce the answer was only 100-200 uniques per day. Considering one link on the internet can get you waaaaay more traffic this idea is complete BS for how much work and time he put into it.

Although it sucked, I did get a couple of good things out of this session. The first one, although it doesnt apply to any of my sites, is to sponsor local events that pertain to your niche. So say you have a golf equipment site, if you sponsor a charity golf tournament and get your site on there shirt, it will get a lot of exposure to to some very targeted customers. The other thing I thought seemed interesting is that someone in the audienced talked about finding a way to incentivize a bookmark. An example would be that your customer gets some extra content on the site for bookmarking your site. I have no idea if you can program a way to check bookmarks but if so it might be worth testing.

Anatomy of a Viral Video — Maximium ROI

Although I didn’t go into this expecting to get much and I was right, it was still pretty interesting. The guys from taxbrain.com(you have a huge viral video, no link love you !) Went through the whole process of creating thier viral video that ended up on a whole bunch of news stations and all over the web.

I think the best part of this session was when they talked about how they released the video in the off season for taxes so now that prime time is coming they are making ads that joke about or relate to the original video.

The next seesion I went to was Ask The Experts with Jon, Shoe, and Andrew:

It was pretty funny and not all the questions were good but hearing them all talk was still a really good experience, there a big thread about here at WickedFire.
heres a pic i got of them

The other 2 sessions that i went too were the worst. The first was ‘Bloggers – the new super affiliates’ which just talked about how many people blog now and how they would want to make money but hate tradition ads, so pointless. The other session was ‘optomizing you landing pages’ which pretty much only talked about what a merchant can do to improve landing pages, and talked about quality score for about 5 minutes.

Everyone says this, but its true
The best part of the conference was the NETWORKING. Thats the only thing that made it totaly worth while. Just talking to people from wickedfire about what they do expanded my ideas by double or triple. It’s also very motivating meeting some of the big earners and realizing that they are just regular people who make lots of money on the internet.

The best part of the conference for me was tuesday at lunch sitting with ILC, Seo_Mike, Andrew Wee, Jdog, and DruSam. Heres a pic and a couple others from the conference

The last one is a pic of me and Mike Krongel who I have to give a big shout out to because he is the reason I was able to make it to Affiliate Summit West in the first place. Go Join COPEAC, they rock, will help you out with anything you need, and are great with payout increases!

Anyways, all in all ASW was an awsome time. I met a bunch of great people, learned a bunch, and now i just can’t wait for ASE. Time to go put some of this knowledge to work and go make money!!!!

Las Vegas was crazy!

Wow, i barley made it out of Vegas alive but im back and now its time to give you the scoop.

So I arrived in vegas sunday after noon and headed straight for the xy7 party cause I’m a huge Colts fan and the game was already on(It was already 21-3 patriots too, not a good start). Started having some beers an got approached by Mike Krongels cousin Rick and one of his buddies. Deffinatley some really Cool guys! John aka I Like Cock joined in on the conversation too and after a few beers and learning a little a about ILC’s Rx affiliate stuff the game was over and the Colts acualy ended up winning.

After that we all decided we were gunna go get dolled up and head over to the Palms to go hit the playboy club(or try anyways). So we get to Palms and go straight for the club but we just weren’t lookin baller enough i guess cause they wouldn’t let us in!!( it was acually cause we were all wearing sneakers). After that we went and had some drinks with a bunch of other wickedfire members at the bar on the gambeling floor there. I don’t remember everyone that was there so i wont even bother trying to make a list.

Then with a couple shots of jeger and a couple beers in us we(not everyone but the initial peeps I cruized with) decided to try and go to ghost bar but they too would not let us in with sneakers. This led us to checking out Hart and Huntington tatoo from the show Inked. Well long story short…

I acually have to give a huge thanks to ILC for buying the tatoo, you the MAN! Anyways the tatoo is heavens gates and what it is is a momorial to my Dad who passed this september. Its supposed to represent him watching over my back from heaven and making sure i have the key to get in and be with him when the time comes.

With a sore shoulder and a couple beers to get my mind off of it we decided to ditch the palms and go party. Got in a cab and got fuckin schemed into going to the strip club(which isnt that bad of a thing). Heres the deal though, he said he would pay our way into the strip club if we wanted to go and handed us a 100 dollar bill (3 people $30 a piece). So we decide to go and the dude hollars over the other cab since there was 6 of us total and we head over. Payed the 90$ and cruized in, but when the other three of us got in they said they didnt have to pay!!! We found out later its all a scam and the cab driver gets that money back + some at the end of the night and ends up with a big tip! Bastards!

The strip club was awsome though. Saw some tities, sucked on a little asain strippers neck, and watched ILC molest all the girls on the stage haha(he even got away with slapping some girls ass pretty hard)! Well we left and somehow we only had 5 people instead of 6??

We tried to keep partying after that but nothing was going on so we all just sat at subway till about 5am and finnally decided to call it a night.

On Monday the partying started right after the conference was coming to a close for a day, woop woop, private Copeac/WickedFire party at the caramel lounge in the Balagio. To tell you the truth I cant tell you much about this night because after too many shots of patron and a few redbull and vodkas i was blacked out. Supposedly Rick was really fucked up too and we had to take him back to the hotel after getting escorted out of the Balagio. I might not remember but…pics dont lie so heres a couple from the night.

Haha that was the best pick of Chris Lingle I could get. He broke my camera when I tried to take a pic of his face!!

So somehow i ended up back at my room luckly and i puked all night and all the next day(not fun at all!!!)

Well there you have it. That was the partying side of vegas, wild fucking place!!! Anyways dont worry now I’m writing a post about what I got out of ASW so more to come. Comment you bitches!!

Kaveman got a blog!?

Thats right bitches! “Say hello to my little friend”.

So why start blogging?

Well I recently won an essay contest on WickedFire and will be heading to Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas on sunday(coutesy of Copeac) to start this year off right. Another part of my prize is private tutoring from some of the best in the industry. We decided to make this a kind of social expeirement to see if a newb with lots of ambition can be taught to the top and I have set a goal of becoming a super affiliate in 2 years or less with what i learn from them and wickedfire and a lot of hard work.

Heres a copy of my winning essay

Future Millionaire

Becoming a successful internet marketer has been a dream of mine for almost two years and has just recently become the main goal in my life. My first experience making money online was right out of high school and I thought I hit the jackpot when I set up a couple of online college affiliate PPC campaigns; unfortunately it only lasted about a week but it gave me a constant urge to make money online. After a couple years in college as a business major I made my way back into internet marketing when a friend of mine brought me into an image hosting project almost a year ago. After a few months it was sold for a nice profit but this time the end of the project wasn’t going to mean the end of my presence online. With all the ambition you can imagine I tried to start a myspace resource site but it didn’t make much and I didn’t have much time to expand due to school and work. At about the end of this past summer I decided once and for all that Internet Marketing was going to be my future. Since then I have dedicated myself to learning everything I can about making money online, so much so that I’ve quite my job and dropped out of school mid-semester to put all of my focus into this (luckily I still live at home and have an understanding mother).

The main reason that I’ve been driven so much towards internet marketing is that it just seems to fit me so well. I have huge goals and am very performance driven, which has made normal jobs way too constraining. I still can’t get over how limitless the possibilities are with internet marketing and I think about that every day. The eagerness to make this work is greater than anything I’ve ever felt; It’s almost like I am physically drawn towards being a success at this and the feeling I get when something starts to work is unbelievable. I’m also a person who tends to just swarm myself with information and smart people to talk to about it with, which I think, will help me so much in becoming a success at this. The last couple of months I have just been a sponge for information and ever since I found WickedFire there has been so much more motivation to test things, although my finances have held me back a little. The community of WickedFire is so awesome in this aspect and I think the more I can get involved with things like this the more ideas and less limits will come to me. There is no longer any doubt in my mind that there is nothing else that would satisfy me more than being a successful internet marketer. Once I reach my goal of being a large presence online my life will be at a peak high.

With the growth that I strive for in Internet Marketing it should only be a couple years before I will supporting myself lavishly along with helping out mom while letting people realize their own internet dreams. The monetary side of internet marketing is extremely attractive and I love how the harder I work the more I will be compensated for it. I plan on putting this to the test within the next months and years and have a feeling that when I am where I want to be, money will no longer be a strain or problem in life, but a tremendous luxury. One of the big things I want to do with internet marketing is hopefully within 5 years buy my mom and sister a house for Christmas so they can get out of the scummy apartment we live in now (cheesy I know, but it’s true).After I accomplish these monetary goals and have become somewhat known online it will be so fulfilling to start giving back to this community that is helping me out so much right now.

There are so many ways that people have helped and are helping me that I can’t wait to be big enough to start giving back. I figure it will start by giving ideas with some tested techniques that I’ve had success with in a blog and on forums like WickedFire, or maybe just WickedFire haha. Although when it comes to making money it is pretty much anything goes with me, I have strong morals when it comes to relationships and will always give back as much or more than what I get out of this amazing online community we are part of. As someone who has just started in this I ask a lot of questions from the so called gurus, which I know bugs them and I have started figuring stuff out on my own, but I know that’s how newbs get into this business and can’t wait to get those type of questions when I’m big because if it helps one person get out of a day job and start to learn things on their own then it will be worth it. I don’t know what it will be like to be a famous name in internet marketing but I can’t wait to see what other ways I can come up with to help grow our industry.

I really think that I deserve to win this awesome contest because I will squeeze every little drop out of what I will learn at affiliate summit west and from all of you. I am someone who wants to work hard and will use this opportunity to blow up my online business in 2007 to every extent I can. I am willing to put in 15-20 hour days to get projects done and I know with your help I can start doing this. It has already become quite evident how addicted I am to growing projects and how right this profession is for me. I have more drive than anyone you’ll meet to get this going and I think winning this is all I need to grow to a large income and have enough knowledge to start giving back to Copeac, WickedFire, and the online community as a whole.

Thank you for this opportunity and hopefully I’ll be seeing you in January.

So anyways, hello world. I’ll be posting soon about ASW and hopefully I can add to the community with this beast of a blog. (throw me a comment!!!!)