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Well, it’s been a few days since we’ve returned from Affiliate Summit East on the shores of beautiful Boston Massachusetts and I figured it was time to reflect a bit on my initial reactions to the summit.

The Good:

• Met a ton of great people; both from affiliate networks and merchants and other affiliates themselves. Everywhere we turned, there was another opportunity for networking!
• Lots of free food and drink. From companies having kegs and cocktails in their booths during the expo, to drinks from affiliate managers and during the many company-sponsored parties and happy hours. Sunday night (the first night of the summit) there was even a party on a yacht — sponsored by Share-A-Sale — which featured an open bar and an open buffet of oysters, crab legs, and more.
• Lots of other fun free stuff. I brought home so many pens, t-shirts, bags, and all sorts of other trade show trinkets, I’m still trying to find places (and uses) for them all.
• Helpful Hints Galore. I think maybe people are more willing to share their secrets (or helpful hints at least) in person then they are over the Internet. We got lots of hints and suggestions from both affiliate managers (or would-be managers) and fellow affiliates. Some of them we’ve already put into practice with what looks like it will be good success.
• Had a Expo-Only pass. I know this sounds weird but I think the expo-only pass is definitely the way to go. As has been stated all over the place, the full-conference pass seems to be a waste of money (and it’s a LOT more money than the expo hall pass) and doesn’t really include any information you can’t find on the top affiliate blogs. As everyone else seems to be saying — and I agree — all of the important networking and deal-making happens on the expo floor anyway. I’m glad we didn’t waste our precious and limited resources on the full-conference pass!

Things to Improve for Next Year:

• Network More! While we did meet a lot of good people and go to a lot of good parties — especially being Summit N00bs not knowing fully what we were doing — I definitely wish we could have met some more people, especially other affiliates and bloggers. If you’re reading this, make sure and introduce yourself next year!
• Plan ahead. This is a two-part improvement; first, we need to plan ahead for what to do during the day. We need to set up specific appointments with managers and companies ahead of time so we have have more one-on-one time and have a plan of attack for everything else during the day so we’re not wandering around confused and wasting time. Part two: find out ahead of time where the parties are. While it was pretty clear what was going on on Sunday night, Monday night was left very up in the air and, since we didn’t plan ahead or firm anything up, we were left high & dry for a good chunk of the night.
• Stay on site. Since the conference was in Boston and Nate lives in a Boston suburb, we were able to save a good amount of money by crashing at his place rather than at the Seaport Hotel (where the Summit took place). And don’t get me wrong, it was great to save money but I think we missed out on a good bit of the “atmosphere” of the summit by not staying on site and having to trek back across town at the end of the night. And, most importantly, not staying right there left us without a place to nap during the day (doesn’t sound like that much of a hardship but if you’ve been to Affiliate Summit, you feel our pain!).

In Conclusion:

Affiliate Summit was definitely a great time and definitely worth it. I know we’re fully expecting to attend the 2009 East version of the show and I’m already excited for it. It also serves as a great goal (time-wise) because we know how much we’re making right now (not much… yet) and how much we want to be making a year from now. So it serves as great motivation for putting in the duediligence and getting our profits up there for next year.

I would absolutely recommend going to Affiliate Summit to whoever can make it out; I think it’s a great resource for newbies and experts alike (maybe Newbies most of all). Hopefully we’ll see you all next year!