Lammo.net: Affiliate Marketing Blog

Justifying the cost of attending a4uexpo is easy for most experienced affiliates, and certainly for those who attended the 2007 event, as they know that it will pay for itself many, many times over. For those just embarking on their Affiliate Marketing careers however, it’s a hell of a lot of money to risk. By the time you factor in the ticket cost (£350 including vat assuming you miss the earlybird discount), staying at a hotel (say 3 nights at £150 a night) and travel to/from the event, it’s fair to say that it could well cost £1,000 to attend, not including the time out of the office/bedroom that you’re not building your business.

Not surprisingly, quite a few newbies have questioned whether it’s worth the risk. Again, the easy answer is “yes, of course it’s worth it - get your arse there, else you’ll regret it”, but being a bit of a tight git, I remember just how much of a gamble that would have been for me as a newbie back in 2000 - Attending an affiliate conference such as a4uexpo at a cost of £1,000 would have been completely out of the question - That was an entire year’s marketing budget back then, and there’s no way I’d have risked that to attend an affiliate marketing conference!

If you’re serious about becoming a successful affiliate, then you HAVE to attend expo - It is as simple as that. But there’s no reason why you have to spend £1,000 doing so - Here’s how I’m attending a three day affiliate marketing conference in London, including tickets, hotel and travel, for just £210:

Step One: Blag a ticket. Cost £0.00 - Thanks to those nice people at Sunshine.co.uk, I managed to blag a free ticket to the 2008 a4u expo. It was a really simple incentive - all I had to do was pop a content unit up on my site, and Robert’s my Mother’s Brother - The amazing thing about this is that Sunshine put up a prize worth £350, that around a thousand people will be wanting this October, and it attracted just three entries. You can bet there’ll be plenty more opportunities to get a free ticket to a4uexpo from various merchants and networks over the coming months, so make sure you enter them all - If you’re determined enough as Ray Theakston was last year, then you should be able to blag yourself a ticket. Ray did make it to the ball btw..

Step Two: Get a cheap hotel. Cost: £150.00 - The nearest hotel to Excel is the Novotel, which is also where the Pre-expo party will be held on the Monday night (and if it’s anything like last year will also be the venue of choice once everywhere else closes for the night!). However, prices for the Novotel are up around the £160 per night mark, which would mean a three-night stay would set you back £480. Just across the road however is a much cheaper option..

The Custom House Hotel is located less than five minutes walk via a covered walkway from Excel, The Novotel and the Fox (venue for the Ice Party on the Wednesday evening), and I managed to book a room for just £49.95 per night - Yup, less than £50 a night in London! We stayed there last year, and it’s a pretty basic hotel - The Ritz it aint. But it’s got a bed, TV, Internet access, it’s clean, you can get a good breakfast, and best of all you can stay there for three nights cheaper than you can stay one night in the Novotel. And I can tell you from last year’s experience - you won’t be spending much time on your hotel room as there’s far too much networking to be done!

Step Three: Get your travel sorted early - Cost £60 - I don’t know about other regions, but here in the Westcountry if you buy your train tickets well in advance, then they are considerably cheaper than buying them a week or two before you travel. A return to London bought three months in advance costs just £60, as opposed to more than £200 bought on the day. Just another way to save a few quid..

“I still can’t afford it!” - If you can’t raise £210 to attend the best learning and networking opportunity of the year, then perhaps Affiliate Marketing isn’t for you. If you’re determined to succeed and really can’t scrape together a few hundred quid to lay some really solid foundations for your Affiliate Marketing business, then why not attend one of the a4uexpo roadshows being held around the country? They’re completely free to attend, and once you’ve been to one, you’ll see why you just HAVE to be at expo this October, and you’ll find the money somehow.

See you in October?

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If like me, you watched all the countdowns to the end of the initial a4uexpo earlybird discount period (which was the 31st May) and thought to yourself “I must remember to do that when I get 5 minutes”, only to wake up on Sunday 1st june and think to yourself “bugger!”, then you’re in luck - The guys at a4uexpo have handed forgetful people like yours truly a lifeline, and extended the earlybird discount (which knocks a cool £100 off the ticket price) for another month.

That means that as long as you buy your pass before midnight on the 30th June 2008, you’ll pay £100 less than if you wake up on the 1st July and try to buy one (in which case, you’ll be thinking “bugger!” again..). That means that at the discounted rate, an affiliate pass to a4uexpo will cost just £199 (saving you 1/3), and a merchant/network/agency pass will cost just £299 (saving 25%).

Included in the price of your pass is a pre-event party, apost-event party, a cruise up the Thames with complimentary food and drink, lunch and refreshments on both days, and of course, the whole point of it all - two days of fantastic networking, exhibitions and superb conferences.

New this year is a “networking pass”, which gets you into the pre-event party and the main exhibition hall. I’m sure there must be a call for this type of pass, but as an affiliate who left the 2007 a4uexpo with pages upon pages of notes from the conferences, I really can’t see the benefit of going for this cheaper option - The conferences alone are worth the entrance fee, but I guess there will be some people who don’t feel they have anything left to learn and just want to network.

I do hope this type of pass isn’t abused by aggressive merchants/networks snapping up 20 of these to get their entire sales force into the event to give it the hard sell, as the lack of pushy affiliate managers last year was a real bonus, and is what will keep affiliates coming back year after year (well, that and the top notch conference sessions and networking opportunities!)

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Part Two of “A Day in the Life of…” shows us a typical day for Helen Southgate, Affiliate Director at DGM. I’m grateful to Helen for agreeing to give us this insight into her daily workings, and indeed to everyone who has agreed to let us spend a virtual day with them.

We have some really interesting people lined up, who all play their part in the Affiliate Marketing Industry - If you would like to take part, then please email me johnATbigideamediaDOTcom. Over to you Helen…

8am - 8.30am - Arrive at work, cup of tea, bowl of cereal and stuck in to my to do list for the day which normally never gets realised as adhoc issues arise throughout the day.

8.30am - 10.00 am - Sift through emails from the previous evening and any any emails that I still need to deal with. I get masses of emails everyday so either have to deal with them myself or pass on to members of account management, affiliate management, sales & marketing and often to tech! We have an internal SLA to respond to all emails with 24 hours so nothing gets left. I also check whether any of the account managers have added an affiliate to the grey list, I often have to investigate affiliate activity and take action if we believe they are in breach of DGM and / or our clients terms, a painstaking job sometimes but we want to make sure everyone is towing the line.

10.00am - 11.00am - Catch up with the affiliate management team to get an update on current activities, any issues and opportunities to be working on for the rest of the week. This is the time when I get a real overview of what everyone is doing and what is happening across the network so I like to do it every Monday.

11.00 - 11.30 - Meeting with Chris Russell-Smith our Marketing Dierctor to discuss upcoming events for affiliates, the A4U Expo and other marketing activity we are doing for DGM to the affiliates market.

11.30 - 12.30 - Working on new ideas for business development of affiliates. The market has changed massively in the last few years and it’s important to look at new partnership and new models that we can work with to help affiliates drive more volumes and attract them to the campaigns we work on. This includes a spec for a new referral system that we are putting together for affiliates.

12.30 - 1.30pm - I take a break for lunch and try to get a quick work out in. I’ve been roped into doing a 10k run with Chris Frost so starting to panick that my training schedule is non-existent 6 weeks before the big race. I come back red faced and get taunted by the team and called Violet Beauregarde. There is continuous banter in the DGM office but not enjoying being on the end of this one!

1.30pm - 2.30pm - I am working on a pitch for some new business with the sales team so I work on my part of this. I’m not sales person material but when I really believe in something that I think will work well for a client I love this part of the job. I’ve been doing this for over 5 years now but I still get excited about the prospects of a new campaign especially as the industry is always changing and there are so many factors to consider.

2.30pm - 3.35 - An affiliate of ours is in the area so drops by unexpectedly to DGM Towers. We have a catch up across the road at the infamous DGM haunt The Vine. We chat about some campaigns they are working on, some new business that they are looking at and opportiunities that we can work on. It’s a great meeting and I’m excited about getting stuck into some new ideas with this affiliate.

3.30 - 5.30 - dgmAffiliates team meeting. This involves everyone from account management, affiliate management and the technical solutions team. It’s one of my favourite parts of the week as we discuss new ideas, things that have gone well, opportunities etc and as everyone is so passionate about what they are doing it can be great fun and sometimes get heated as we all have our own opinions and like to share them! Normally, we have to tell Kevin Sutton to shut up at some point.

5.30 - 6.30 - I work a bit later to get the wheels in motion from some new ideas in the team meeting. At 6.30 I dread the hour journey back home so break it up by meeting a friend for dinner, the training plan is failing at the first hurdle …..

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