Ad:Tech San Francisco 2007 Reflections
I guess that by now got most visitors of Ad:Tech San Francisco home again.
I was not attending any sessions and was not even at the show for very long. Shawn bribed me with free beer to hop over for a couple hours. It was domestic U.S. big brewery beer. I should have known that. Damn it. Just kidding, I knew or better expected it
I drove on Wednesday 3 hours from Fresno to San Francisco and spend the afternoon and evening in town and drove back to Fresno the same night (I returned around 3:00 am).
It was nice to meet people I came to see, like Brook Schaaf, Shawn Collins, Missy Ward and Stefannie Yang (eHealth) and also to meet people that happened to be there, such as Brian Littleton from ShareASale , Deborah “Loxly” Carney ex-Cafepress AM, now on her own (congratulations again) and David Wolf, the founder of Syntryx. Are you looking for affiliate recruiting software? There you got it. I heard only good things about their “Affiliate Recruiters” product. I will get a demo of it next week and will share my experiences with you.
San Francisco was full of marketers from all over the country and everybody was ready to network and use as many as possible of their business cards (that’s what they are for, aren’t they?). I was waiting for 30 minutes at the hotel bar of the hotel where Shawn and some others stayed while they made themselves fresh and ready to have dinner. I picked up three business cards from three very different people within that time.
One was from a CPA Network, another from an In-House affiliate tracking solution and the third from a search agency. I did not know the network nor the in-house solution provider yet and actually never heard of them before either. I learned that this does not mean too much, because even me, who is always looking and checking to keep my resources site up to date can’t possibly know everything that started out in the space in the last 1-2 years. Affiliate marketing is growing vertical, while a lot of the old and big players stagnate and only show little change.
I then headed out to have dinner with Shawn, Missy, Deborah, Brian and another woman that worked for Shawn at the Affiliate Summit booth (Caroline?..?). Gosh, I can’t remember her name, even if my life would depend on it. I am so horrible with remembering names and she did not give me her business card. I remember faces though and If I ever say hi to you as if we know each other without addressing you with your name, we will probably know each other and I simply can’t remember your name 
.
It was a very nice and interesting dinner, which ended with Brian homing his artistic skills by drawing on the paper table cover some, mmhhh.. let’s say “fishy” things. Brian will probably talk about this more at his blog soon. We took multiple pictures of the final piece of art and nope, I will not show it to you. We had a lot of fun with it and others will have a lot fun with it soon too.
I was driving over 6 hours to be with some fellow marketers for about 5 hours. Am I regretting this?
No!
Am I thinking that the 6 hours driving and the 2 tank fillings of gas that cost over $3.00 per gallon was not worth the short time I got as a result from it?
No!
Meeting people ONE-TIME in person can not be replaced by 100 emails, IM chats, forum discussions or Blog comments, especially in this industry, which has to do a lot with trust and partnership and too often deals with the lack of just that, are such events very important and irreplaceable.
If you have not attended any show in your industry yet, trust me when I say that you should register for the next event that comes up and is affordable for you to attend (including travel expenses and time).
Check who of your business partners is going and exchange cell phone numbers with the ones you want to meet. Btw. the next affiliate marketing event coming up is the Affiliate Summit 2007 East on July 8th to July 10th at Miami, Florida.
If you register for Affiliate Summit through 4/30 (3 days left), you will save $500 on a full conference pass (pay $949 instead of $1,449 afterwards) and $100 on a exhibit hall only pass (pay $199 instead of $299 afterwards). So hurry and register or pay money later you could have saved now. I will be there too and are looking forward to meet people I already know and people I did not meet yet.
Thanks again for the dinner Shawn and Missy. You refused my invitation to pay for it and insisted to pay for mine. … Mhh.. I wrote the stuff about Affiliate Summit while I was thinking about my rib eye steak that was paid by Shawn and Missy. Is that considered now a paid ad or not?
I mentioned already in the past that I work for food, gadgets and perks hehe. I make it simple, consider it to be what you want and if you don’t register and hear afterwards what you have missed, don’t blame me.
Cheers!
