Hi,

I have so much to blog on here in the next couple of days with a wealth of video and insights gained from Affiliate Summit. I have to say that from what I was able to experience, this was probably the best Summit I have hit to date. The sheer scope of it (3000+ attendees) was awesome.

I was held back a bit because I came down with the flu and missed most of Sunday and Monday’s events and all of the parties.

I did runs into lots of great folks once again who were believers that I didn’t know about previously and got awesome feedback on the Gospel Brunch event.

Stay tuned for video featuring Joel Comm, Geno Prussakov and Colin McDougal as well as my own observations.

God Bless,

Wade Tonkin

I had the chance to speak with Clark Douglas Walton who spoke on legal issues in Internet and Affiliate Marketing. He touched on some of the common errors and omissions committed by affiliate programs that can have a major impact on your brand and the bottom line.

I got the chance to speak with Ned Ferra of Zappos.com on the important of affiliate marketing to Zappos. It was one of the tools that allowed Zappos to move from a 1 million dollar per year company in 1999 to a company that is expected to post sales revenues of 1 billion in 2008.

Just got into Vegas and checked in at the pleasantly not-burnt-to-a-crisp Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino

Heading to the Rio here shortly for dinner with some other early arrivers and looking forward to seeing the “Family” again.

Armed with my trusty Flip Cam, I shot some video in my cab on the way here to talk about what I’ll be up to and blogging on tomorrow. It’s goign to be a busy day with the Affiliate Fit Club 7:00 am walk, the Affiliate Classroom Live affiliate manager training day, service at the SinglesofFaith.com Workday, and a couple of parties (ThePartnerMaker and BuyAt)

I’m also meeting Geno Prussakov to get a copy of his new book, which I’ll be interviewing him on later in the week.

It’s going to be a busy few days in Sin City… stick around!

God Bless,

Wade Tonkin

Have you always wondered just what all those affiliate guys do at Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas?   Well - you are in luck.  This year, I’ve been granted a press pass that will allow me to blog live from Affiliate Summit.   I have access to all of the instructional sessions and  speakers and will do my best to bring you a view into the personalities that make the affiliate business tick.

Do you have someone you’d like me to interview?  Send me a suggestion and I will do what I can to track them down and get your questions asked.  Feel free to send me suggested questions as well.

I’ll also have my Flip in hand at the networking events and parties, so you’ll have a view of that side of the event as well.

Keep your eyes on CAM for Affiliate Summit coverage.

God Bless,

Wade Tonkin

wow… Affiliate Summit really snuck up on me this year. I’ve been so busy with planning the Gospel Brunch and working on building my new company, GTO Management and helping to ramp up the sales and marketing effort at ThePartnerMaker, I looked up today and realized it’s just over 48 hours until I board my flight for Vegas. So much cool stuff is happening… what am I looking forward to? Quite a few things.

The Affiliate Meet Market- for the first time in the 5 Summits I have attended, I’ll be working for myself. That is both awesome and a bit scary and I am totally looking forward to joining my partners Karen and Joel Garcia at the GTO Management table. I think we’ve done an awesome job of branding and I look forward to seeing how it comes off. Come and see us at Table 42 if you are there. We’re just a couple of tables away from the Shareasale Block, dead center aisle in the room.

The 2nd Annual CAMA Gospel Brunch at Affiliate Summit- A labor of love.. some on ABW might argue an obsession for me. I am really stoked to see this all come off for a couple of reasons. The event is a sellout again with 55 folks from all over the world (Singapore, South Africa, etc) joining together for food, fun, fellowship and amazing Gospel tunes. Selling out last year was easy… it was a free event after all. This year we really stepped it up in terms of organization and program with charter bus transportation to and from the event and a private reception for the attendees. This of course ramped up the price tag and this year, we sold out with prices for tickets ranging from $45-55 each. Wow… thanks to all who attended last time who shared their testimonials and helped let people know that the price is a steal for what you get attending. The other thing I am excited about is the launch of the “CAMA Certified” badge. We’ll be announcing a program where affiliates and merchants can have their sites, programs and or offers reviewed and certified by a board at CAMA.

This will let merchants know that an affiliate is safe to work with and will let affiliates know which “Christian” programs are “Faith and Family” friendly and Gospel promoting and help them make wise decisions on who to work with and attach their name and reputation to.

Thanks to the Gold Sponsors oneNetworkDirect.com, Andy Rodriguez Consulting, IBSDirect.com, and to Silver Sponsors GTO Management, Manna Marketing and the United Sharing Network

Meeting the folks who bought their Summit pass through my affiliate link - Honestly, I so appreciate this. It was amazing how many people came to sign up for Summit through this nlog that is just over a year old. If you bought through my link, drop me a note and I’ll buy you a coffee or something.

The SinglesofFaith.com Workday- Las Vegas is honestly starting to wear on me more as my faith develops. I used to be a big fan of the philosophy “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” and really enjoyed the Strip and all of glitzy Vegas. I’ve been to Vegas for various shows and a vacation now about 4 times in 18 months and I’m starting to see more there. When you get off the Strip you can see a lot of peopel who are hurting and struggling and need the love of God and other people. Mike from SinglesofFaith.com has organized a work party where members of the SinglesofFaith christian dating site and other local volunteers spend 4 hours on Saturday 2/23 sharing God’s love with people in need. If you are in town an interested, please contact Mike at mike@singlesoffaith.com I’ll be there an hope you will as well.

AffiliateClassroomLive Affiliate Manager Course - this full day course tought by some of the best in the business (almost all friends of mine) looks like an awesome kickoff to the Affiliate Classroom Affiliate Manager Certification. I’m going to sit in as a refresher after spending a lot of the last 3 years selling management services and to see if their online certification and training of affiliate managers is something I can get behind here. I am a firm proponent of the value of quality affiliate management in any affiliate venture.

ThePartnerMaker Kickoff Reception- I’ve been working with Jeff Molander and David Delisle on getting ThePartnerMaker off the ground and we’ve had some initial success, and we’re poised for much bigger and better things. To really kick off this product, we’re hosting an invite only reception on Saturday with some of the best and brightest in the Industry.

The Affiliate Bash - this years big party is being held at Tao and features entertainment by The Blue Man Group. I have always wanted to see these guys and getting a chance to do it at a club (Tao at the Venetian) that a chubby middle class guy from Sedro Woolley, WA might not otherwise be able to get into is a kick. It should be awesome.

More to come….

If you are still on the fence about attending Affiliate Summit, the time to jump off the fence is now. As of today, there are 50 or less passes remaining for Affiliate Summit West.

The show is going to be awesome on a variety of levels and if you are really looking to make 2008 a big year in affiliate marketing, I would heartily recommend that you go.

If you’d like to sign up, you can save 10% on your pass by entering the coupon code “CAMA” when you register.

Click here to register for one of the last remaining passes for Affiliate Summit West 2008

I am beyond stoked at the new look and feel of the site.  It’s a combination of a couple of things coming into play.  The Theme is based on XplosiveReloaded with the new logo/header done by a Christian brother in Australia, Ryan of DesignGuruRyan.com.

If you are in the market for landing page design, graphics work, sales letter page design, Ryan is a great guy to chat with.

I still have some work to do from recovery from the recent crash, but I hope to have that done soon with all links functional again.

Partial thanks to BlogBackUpOnline.com which saved my content, but didn’t upload well in terms of restoring the linking and time date info.

I was going through my email box today and an email from Search Marketing Standard caught my eye.  If you aren’t familiar, Search Marketing Standard is a magazine that  focuses on the world of paid and organic search.  Today’s email had an offer for a free whitepaper from one of their advertisers that caught my eye and I thought I would check it out.

Seven Ways to Stop and Prevent Click Fraud  is of course a pitch for the services of ClickForensics, a Search Engine Auditing firm that provides services to help merchants optimize their paid search.   They site some interesting numbers in their report including:

72.4% of all sites in the Yahoo Publisher Network and Google Ad-sense are parked domains or Made for Ad sites

That translates to “low quality sites- nothing to qualify or compel high quality visitors” in my book.

They also talk about the different sources of click fraud including “botnets” and competitors and some steps you can take to maximize ROI on your paid search campaigns.