In town for Affiliate Summit and looking for some Christian Fellowship?

I am super excited to announce that tickets for “The CAMA Cruise” are on sale now!

Just what is The CAMA Cruise? It is the premier Christian networking event in the Affiliate Marketing industry and if you are a follower of the CAM Blog, you should check it out.

The CAMA Cruise will be held on Sunday August 10th on the paddle cruiser Lexington. We are departing from the World Trade Center dock just outside of the Seaport hotel, the site of the Affiliate Summit. We’ll meet at 8:30 am, board at 8:45 AM and depart at 9:00 AM for a 2 hour site seeing cruise featuring an awesome Breakfast Buffet as well as relaxed networking with other believers in the affiliate industry. We’ll see historic Boston from the harbor side, then return to the Seaport Hotel at 11:00 AM, giving attendees plenty of time to prepare for the Affiliate Meet Market or the afternoon sessions that start at noon.

Who should come? Anyone and everyone. Whether you are an affiliate, merchant, service provider, consultant, network representative or outsourced manager… or even if you just want to get involved in affiliate marketing and want to meet some great folks with Faith in common, we’d love to have you on the Cruise. This event is all about casual networking and fellowship and the connections you will make are awesome!

The cost of the Cruise is $50 per person if you register by 7/16 or $60 per person if you register between 7/17 and 8/3.

Space is limited, so register early to make sure you don’t miss out.

Do you have a Christian business with an affiliate program? Would you like to have your program spotlighted in front of 75-100 top affiliate industry folks?

Are you a secular company that is looking to do business in the Christian niche?

The CAMA Cruise at Affiliate Summit East in Boston offers you a great chance to get in front of affiliate marketing industry performers for 2 hours of “captive audience” networking. Here’s what we’re doing:

The Christian Affiliate Marketing Association is sponsoring a 2 hour harbor cruise on Sunday morning August 10th. We’ll be leaving from the dock right outside the Seaport Hotel at 9:00 am and returning by 11:00 am.

Sponsors will have a banner link placed on the CAMA blog, will receive a write up in the event program, will be allowed to briefly address the crowd, and be able to distribute sample product and information.

Here’s what our Platinum Sponsor oneNetworkDirect had to say about why they are supporting the CAMA Cruise:

“OneNetworkDirect is excited to participate in the CAMA cruise. The cruise brings together thought leaders, away from the hustle and bustle of the Affiliate Summit exhibit hall, to enjoy a delicious brunch, industry conversations and networking opportunities. Our participation in the CAMA cruise is an important part of our commitment to bringing the best solutions to affiliate marketing.”

- Theresa Miller, Corporate Events Manager, Digital River, Inc.

Sponsor packages start at $500 - please contact me (Wade Tonkin) at 360.540.0730 if you are interested in sponsoring.

If you’d like to register, just click on the link below. Early registrants will save $10 on their tickets if they register by July 16th.

God Bless,

Wade

I had the pleasure today of sitting down for a chat with one of my oldest friends in the business - Rachel Honoway - the VP of Marketing at Affiliate Classroom. Rachel and I go back to about 2001 when I joined Kowabunga Technologies as the original manager at Team Affiliate - KB’s outsourced program management division. Rach was awesome to work for and is one of the sharp minds in the business.

We talked quite a bit about the Affiliate Classroom Live event coming up on the Saturday preceding the Affiliate Summit East in August. I attended the initial Affiliate Classroom Live event in Las Vegas and it was well put together in terms of speakers and was well organized as well. My only complaint was that there were no tables for laptops and notebooks and that the chairs were not the most compfortable. Rach has promised more comfortable accomodations. The event was a full day event with more classroom content than networking time and was definitely intended as a pre-sell for the Affiliate Manager Certification that Affiliate Classroom was releasing at the time.

Rachel mentioned that this event will be more networking focused. There will be some classroom sesstions this time lead by Heather Paulson and Rebecca Madigan as well as a number of Round Table discussions lead by industry luminaries like:

• Peter Figueredo
• Trisha Lyn Fawver
• Lee “The Lead Man” Gientke
• Sam Harrelson
• Lisa Riolo
• Brad Waller
• Karen Garcia
• Wade Tonkin

Lisa Riolo’s presentation sounds really interesting as she is focusing on how to sell an affiliate program internally as this can be tricky. Affiliate marketing and the techniques involved can be a bit tricky to sell in some companies and I am sure that Lisa will have some awesome metrics that we can use to help make the case to either launch an affiliate program for the first time with a client, or to help garner more resources for the affiliate channel.

You can find more information and register for Affiliate Classroom Live at www.affiliateclassroomlive.com

 

 Rachel Honoway of Affiliate Classroom [18:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (203)


I took some time last week to site down with Shawn Collins of Affiliate Summit and talk for about 25 minutes.

We covered a ton of topics including:

• Recap of Affiliate Summit West where a record number (~3000) of affiliate industry folks gathered in Las Vegas
• Look ahead to Affiliate Summit East in Boston in August including discussion of some new educational tracks that are being offered.
• Talkin’ Baseball - Shawn and I are both degenerate baseball fans and we’re excited to be in Boston and hitting a game in Fenway Park
• Talked at length about some new innovations including the new Amazon MP3 Widget and MyWedding Favors video integration with Qoof.com
• Quick discussion of Shawn’s video review site at WeViews.TV
• Talking a bit about how to get started in video blogging
• More talk on Affiliate Summit and what newbies to the business can expect out of the show.
• Talked about Affiliate Summit Twitter Giveaway
• Talked about the “Jim Kukral is ruining Twitter” controversy
• Shawn’s wife’s new blog at AsktheMama.com that has outpaced Shawn’s traffic out of the gate.

Read more »

 

 CAM Blog Podcast #5 with Shawn Collins: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (269)

It’s been announced that Affiliate Summit East 2008 will be held in Boston, August 10-12 at The Seaport Hotel.

The hotel looks like a pretty nice one and I’m stoked to be going to Boston.   Anyone who knows me knows that the closest thing toa secondary religion with me is Baseball and Fenway Park in Boston is one of the shrines that I am due to make a pilgrimage to.

We’re looking for feedback on ideas for a CAMA fellowship activity for the Sunday morning of the show.   If you are from the area, or just have some ideas, we’d love to hear from you.

Please get in touch using the contact form if you have any ideas.

God Bless,

Wade Tonkin