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On September 14th was Affiliate Day, where we were to celebrate the power of affiliate marketing.

There were several promotions put on by some of the networks, like Market Leverage, Clickbooth, and of course Affiliate Summit, who came up with the idea..

For some you prizes you had to answer some questions about the respected network and some you just had to enter contests. For prizes that were donated by some networks, individuals, and others to Affiliate Summit, all you had to do is Tweet using a hastag and you were automatically entered to win.

So when it was all said and done, I won some pretty cool things from Buy.at, Shuga Buds – digital stereo ear phones with a storage case and studded with Swarovski crystals. Iridescent Optical Mouse – AOL branded, heart shaped optical mouse with a 1GB USB memory stick. I will also get to have lunch with Buy.at’s Sr. Account Manager Kim Salvino during Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas. I’m really looking forward to that.

So today my ear buds and mouse/USB drive arrived:

Thanks to Affiliate Summit for drawing my name and of course Buy.at for donating a prize. I also want to thank Amy Ely for contacting me right away and shipping out the prizes so fast. Kudos!

I did win another very cool prize, but just waiting for confirmation and getting all the details worked out, as my schedule may not allow me to participate. Either way I will be keeping you updated on it soon.

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Well the final day of Affiliate Summit didn’t start out as planned. I planned on getting up and attending Peter Shankman’s keynote. I stayed up working until 6:30AM and set up a wake-up call for 9:00AM and figured that would leave enough time to get ready and head downstairs, but I hung up on the wake-up call and we missed the keynote, which I heard was great. I haven’t had a chance to watch the video yet, but will shortly.

So what time did I finally get up? Around 11:30am after working til 6:30am. A little bit after I awoke Logan Thompson came up to the room, we were going to store his luggage in our room for the day since he had a plane to catch later.

So David, Logan, and myself headed out to Ray’s pizza to grab some food, our original plan was to head to Carnegie Deli, but the line was way too long to wait.

After lunch we all headed back to the exhibit hall real and to make some last minute connections. Had a great conversation with Murray Newlands and about his interview with eBay. Then had a long conversation with Eric and Brittany form Clickbooth, and the EpiAngels from Epicenter.

Ran back upstairs to grab Logan’s luggage and then David and I headed to Geekcast.fm Live, were we had a good time. The session was very entertaining, I’ve thought about starting a podcast, but just don’t know if I have the time to do it. After Geekcast Live we headed over for the Affiliate Summit Triathlon, where I cheered Eric Schechter on, but he didn’t win, but according to the reports, the New York Boys and Girls club did.

Next up was the NYC Meetup202 held at the Williams Beaver House which was in lower Manhattan, took a look at a couple apartments that they were selling at around 2.5 million for a 1300 square foot place, no thanks. Like Murray said, we can do what we do from almost anywhere, why do it from the most expensive real estate in the country.

Next everyone headed up to the roof to see the views of Manhattan, The Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island. It was definitely spectacular up there. Then everyone headed to a bar across the street and with about 15 – 20mintues or so, I was done, it was getting hot and loud. A couple of the guys were going to head out to get some food and we decided to join them, but they said they were going to head to Brooklyn, we decide to stick and get some food around there.

B-line Revenue, David and I headed down to South Street Seaport, but most places were closed or to pack to it, as Marty and his son, from B-Line had to catch a bus to head to NJ. After looking around we headed up taking a cab back to near the Hilton to a great place, Ellen’s Starlight Diner, we had a good time there, great food and great entertainment. All the waiters and waitress sing songs from the 50s – 70s. I want to thank Marty and B-line for taking us there and paying for dinner, in Vegas it’s on me.

We headed back to the room and did some more work, yep even on vacation you still need to plug away. After a little bit I was thirsty and headed downstairs to the cart across the street where I ran into Shawn Collins, Shannon Paul, and Jim Krukral, they said I should come up to the blogger room, where Brian Littleton was playing piano and there was a small group hanging out and singing. That was a blast and the perfect ending to a perfect summit.

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After being up most of the night I was able to make it to Chris Brogan’s keynote. Unfortunately for me it was a little….…well……boring, I’m not saying I didn’t get anything out of it, it just seems like I was just watching a conversation between 2 people, that second person being Julian Smith, co-writer of Chris Brogan’s new book Trust Agents (it was nice to get an advanced copy of it in my swag bag from Affiliate Summit). I thought Julian was more entertaining and personal than Chris. That’s just my 2 cents worth.

My first session of the day that I attended was Seven Deadly Sins of Landing Page Optimization wit Tim Ash. Although it was geared towards merchants there was a lot of information that affiliates could use on their own landing pages. I plan on implementing some of his strategies soon. So what are the 7 Deadly Sins?

1. Having no clear call to action
2. Too many choices
3. Asking for too much info
4. Too much text
5. Not keeping your promises
6. Visual distractions
7. Lack of trust

After that I heading back to the hall for a short little while and did some more networking. Next there was a Meetup202 in the Sutton Complex within the Hilton Hotel, where I ran into some of my good buddies, Jasper Pangilinan, Jimmy Ramos, Ian Fernando, Ryan Pamplin, Emily Thomson and some others. I haven’t seen some of those guys since Ad:Tech SF, so it was nice catching up with them.

The next session up for me was Advertising on Facebook, where for some reason I totally fail at. So I was interested in seeing what would be shared. The panelist included, Dennis Yu as the moderator, Shoemoney, Zac Johnson, and Alex Shultz from Facebook. They gave out a little info, a lot I already knew, but some things I may start implementing on some new campaigns. Afterwards I had a nice conversation with Zac about Facebook and life in general. Zac was the first one to help me out with some stuff and also gave me a pass to my first Affiliate Summit and I have always appreciated that.

After talking with Zac I had to run upstairs and change quickly because next up was a Cocktail Party at Latitude Bar and Grill put on by the great folks at Azoogle. I meet up with my affiliate manager, my previous affiliate manager and a couple affiliates I’ve never met before. Had some great conversation and looking forward to talking with some of the guys soon.

I had to leave a little early from there to head to a dinner with Clickbooth at Tony’s DiNapoli Restaurant. Eric Schecter for Clickbooth was our host for the evening, along with Sr. Affiliate Strategist Brittany Kimmel. DiNapoli’s is a family style restaurant where you order a few dishes and everyone shares. Some of the portions where huge! All and all it was another dinner with some great food and even better company. I was there with the likes of Ian Fernando, Logan Thompson, Justin Barr, and Murray Newlands, along with some others whom I never got a chance to meet.

Next up a few of us headed over the Havana Club for the ClickBooth party, where they had a beer pong tourney going on. I don’t drink beer so of course I didn’t enter. After about an hour or so, I headed back to the Hilton where the Affiliate Summit Karaoke was happening. I had a great time along with everyone else, it was such a great success that they extended the time from midnight to around 1:00 am and the night ended with John Chow singing Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley, yep we were all Rick ‘n Rolled by John Chow.

It was another late night or should I say earlier morning.

The Final Days Recap coming tomorrow.

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