Full-Agenda


Thursday, March 8, 2012

7:30am-7:00pm

Exhibit Hall Open


7:30-8:30am

Registration & Breakfast


8:30-8:45am

Welcome Remarks:

Speaker: Geno Prussakov, Chair, Affiliate Management Day

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8:45-9:30am

Keynote:
How to Repel Affiliates With Horrible Landing Pages

The math is simple: when more of your affilates’ traffic converts, your affiliates make more money. So it’s surprising how many affiliates are forced to send traffic to horrible low-converting landing pages. Join landing page optimization expert Tim Ash (a former super-affiliate himself) as he takes you on a hard-hitting tour of your landing pages and shows you why you’re not converting more of your traffic into buyers . Fix these common landing page offenses and you’ll have a waiting list of affiliates eager to send traffic your way.

Speaker: Tim Ash, CEO, SiteTuners

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9:30-9:40am
Has Offers

Gold Sponsor Presentation

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9:40-10:15am

Break/Exhibit Hall

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10:15-11:00am

Track 1:
The Importance of Attribution Data for Performance Marketing

Todd Crawford will present the importance of understanding attribution across multiple affiliates and other media channels like paid search, email and display. The key to understanding the true value of each partner and media channel lies in knowing their influence over your customers and their role in driving sales or leads.

Speaker: Todd Crawford, Co-Founder, Impact Radius

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10:15-11:00am

Track 2:
Affiliate Marketing for Facebook

One of the biggest revenue growth opportunities for merchants and affiliate managers is monetization on Facebook. Set to reap over $5 billion from their upcoming IPO, Facebook’s 845 million visitors present opportunities for merchants to sell more products and services. Affiliate managers are challenged with identifying and implementing various social commerce programs for merchants. As Facebook’s platform moves beyond “likes” with new shopping actions such as ‘want’ ‘wish’ and ‘own’, merchant’s Facebook offerings will need to embrace social affiliate marketing. With F-Commerce still in it’s infancy, merchants are looking to implement programs on Facebook to expose their product feeds and generate customer wishlists. This session will provides insights into the social commerce opportunities for merchants, challenges faced by affiliate managers and give insights into how Facebook can be leveraged as a new affiliate system.

Speaker: Marc Phillips, CEO, Skumatic

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11:10-11:55am

Track 1:
How to Optimize Affiliate Landing Pages for More Conversions & Revenue

Are your affiliate program landing pages working hard or hardly working? Landing pages can be the hardest working part of your affiliate program or they can kill your conversion rates. Find out how to win the landing page testing game.

In this session you will learn how to get real lift in your conversion rates. It doesn’t happen by testing insignificant details like button color and headline size. Find out what to test, how to analyze your landing pages and how to get significant revenue lift quickly.

This session includes real case studies from companies like Electronic Arts, WineExpress, Merchant Warehouse, BabyAge.com, and more.

Speaker: Chris Goward, CEO, WiderFunnel

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11:10-11:55am

Track 2:
How to Find & Recruit Super Affiliates Into Your Program

This session will cover the fourteen best ways to recruit your top performing affiliates (seven free and seven paid methods). It will also outline some sample email outreach ideas and placement negotiation tactics to get better placements on affiliate websites.

Speaker: Sarah Bundy, CEO, All Inclusive Marketing

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11:55am-12:55pm

Lunch

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12:55-1:40pm

Track 1:
Using Web Analytics to Grow Your Affiliate Program

Dive into web analytics for both off site and on site factors that are helping or hurting your affiliate program. Learn how to use web analytics to strengthen your affiliate relationships, grow their conversion rates, and make your affiliate program the most affiliate friendly, conversion-centric program in your vertical.

The following topics will be covered:

  • Using analytics to separate out affiliate traffic.
  • Using online analytics tools to find new affiliates.
  • How to use data to attract key affiliate partners.

Speaker: Kevin Webster, Internet Marketing Manager, Forbes Custom Products

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12:55-1:40pm

Track 2:
Exploring the Pros & Cons of In-house & Outsourced Affiliate Program Management

In this session Karen Garcia will explore the advantages and disadvantages of managing affiliate programs in-house versus hiring and outside OPM agency.

Speaker: Karen Garcia, CEO, GTO Management

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1:50-2:35pm

Track 1:
No Affiliate Left Behind: Creating Mutually Beneficial Partner Relationships

Are you making the most out of your affiliate partner relationships? Lasting connections aren’t created overnight, but can pay off exponentially if you follow a few account management strategies designed to foster mutually beneficial relationships.

In this session, hear directly from the head of one of the largest affiliate networks in the world, who will share specific creative and strategic account management strategies and tips. Learn about communication channels, maximizing partner resources and tools, working with seemingly dissimilar business models and more.

By incorporating these actionable tips, you’ll be able to nurture long-term relationships while optimizing your affiliate activities for you, your partners and your clients.

Speaker: Julia Barrett, Director of Product Marketing, Wealthfront


1:50-2:35pm

Track 2:
Educating Internal Business Teams About Affiliate Marketing

You’d be surprised of how many people in your organization still don’t know what Affiliate Marketing is (even if you’ve told them before)! It’s up to us Affiliate Managers to evangelize the purpose, value, and strengths of Affiliate Marketing to internal business teams and leadership. Once your colleagues better understand what Affiliate Marketing is and what it’s capable of, optimizing and testing becomes easier and more effective. This session will provide examples of how Best Buy has succeeded in educating the company about its Affiliate Program.

Speaker: Ryan Diehl, Affiliate Manager, Best Buy

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2:35-3:05pm

Break/Exhibit Hall

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3:05-3:50pm

Track 1:
Trends & Innovations in Affiliate Marketplace

In his session, Google’s Ali Pasha will discuss new trends and innovations in the affiliate marketplace. He’ll share a few case studies highlighting:

  • Integration of mobile and social with affiliate
  • Alternative pricing models
  • Dynamic ad serving and optimization

Speaker: Ali Pasha, Product Manager, Google Affiliate Network

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3:05-3:50pm

Track 2:
The Latest Tricks, Traps & Techniques Black Hat Affiliates are Using to Cheat Your Affiliate Program

Black hat affiliates have grown increasingly sophisticated at masking their fraudulent activity from prying eyes. David Naffziger will review some of the latest techniques that affiliates are using to cheat affiliate programs while evading detection. He will also discuss approaches for identifying abusive affiliates including an assortment of free tools and demonstrate examples of this abuse on well-known brands.

Speaker: David Naffziger, CEO, BrandVerity

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4:00-4:45pm

Track 1:
Sellers Changing the Way They Do Business

While the “e” in e-Commerce has been replaced with today’s ‘buzz’ terms “f-commerce” and “m-commerce,” they won’t last forever. The ever-evolving nature of the e-Commerce industry has vendors constantly playing catch up as they attempt to monetize each new trend. Merchants must move beyond a strategy focused on one selling platform such as a Facebook fan page or mobile application. Instead, it would be better to implement a strategy which allows businesses to adapt to any and all changes the industry undergoes – with quick speed and agility. Establishing a flexible payment architecture will enable companies to quickly and easily modify their strategy and capitalize on any new trend that emerges. While it is impossible to predict what the next “big thing” in online commerce will be, unconstrained payment solutions will serve as the lynch pin.

This session will discuss the importance of building a flexible payment ecosystem. Specifically, this session will:

  • Provide real-world examples of companies using an open architecture payment platform to increase revenue streams
  • Discuss challenges and successes of deploying an open, multi-selling online platform
  • Explain how to leverage social media, mobile connectivity and online payment platforms to both attract new and retain current buyers

Speaker: Simon Jones, VP of Strategic Solutions, Plimus

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4:00-4:45pm

Track 2:
Types and Value of Affiliates – Keys to Running a Healthy, Profitable Affiliate Program

According to 2011 AffiliateBenchmarks Research Report, over 31% of merchants reported that their affiliate marketing efforts did not meet their expectations. This presentation will educate merchants on various types of affiliates and their values. More than the basics this presentation will help merchants avoid pitfalls and exceed their affiliate marketing objectives through appropriate affiliate partnerships.

Specific types of affiliates and relevant engaging case studies covered will include: content sites and personal blogs, comparison shopping sites (free, CPS, and hybrids), deal and coupon sites, PPC affiliates, directory sites, online shopping malls (datafeed affiliates), forums, reward & cashback affiliates, 3rd party services or sub-affiliate networks, cause marketing affiliates that rely on adware and toolbars, as well as many others.

Speaker: Kush Abdulloev, Affiliate Program Manager, VMInnovations

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4:55-5:15pm

Lightning Round of Silver & Bronze Sponsor Presentations

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5:15-6:00pm

Keynote:
Leveraging the “Offline” Channels

Did you know more than $300 billion is spent each year on advertising in the U.S., and only about 15% of that is online. The other quarter trillion is spent to drive not a click, but a brand impression, a store visit, or a phone call. Learn about the latest performance marketing trends affecting you and how today’s performance marketers are effectively leveraging the rapidly growing “offline” channels such as mobile to drive publisher adoption and increase revenue for their clients. This interactive session guarantees to get you thinking differently about customer acquisition and come away with simple next steps you can take to grow your programs and drive more revenue.

Speaker: Jason Spievak, CEO, RingRevenue

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6:00-7:00pm

Reception / Exhibits


Friday, March 9, 2012

7:30am-2:30pm

Exhibit Hall Open


7:30-8:30am

Registration & Breakfast


8:30-8:35am

Morning remarks:

Speaker: Geno Prussakov, Chair, Affiliate Management Day

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8:35-9:20am

Keynote:
Newest Adware & Affiliate Marketing Abuses

Noted expert on adware, spyware, and affiliate commission fraud, Ben Edelman, Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School will share his research on the newest affiliate marketing abuses. The worst abuses charge merchants for traffic they would have gotten anyway, or drain commissions that should have flowed to legitimate affiliates. In this session, merchants and networks will learn how to keep these violations out of their programs, improving ROI and assuring that honest affiliates get what they deserve.

Speaker: Ben Edelman, Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School

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9:20-9:50am

Break / Exhibit Hall

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9:50-10:35am

Track 1:
Branding and Performance Advertising

Branding and performance advertising? Yes! The combination of innovative publishers and their expertise in reaching niche markets, plus precise measurement, is ideal for testing branding campaigns. Join Performance Marketing Association’s Rebecca Madigan to discuss performance-based branding campaigns.

Speaker: Rebecca Madigan, Executive Director, Performance Marketing Association

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9:50-10:35am

Track 2:
Publisher Segmentation & Key Optimization Levers

Google’s Kristin Hall will discuss how publisher business models can be leveraged to build effective optimization programs tailored to publisher motivations. The session will inform affiliate managers about the importance of providing the right data, insight, offers and ads to build true partnerships with your affiliate publisher base.

Speaker: Kristin Hall, Head of Publisher Development, Google Affiliate Network

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10:35-10:55am

Break/Exhibit Hall

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10:55-11:40am

Track 1:
How to Monitor and Interpret Trends & Metrics

Every business is different. However, metrics, trends and knowing how they effect your business can be the difference between success and failure. This Will be an overview on what trends to monitor, How to monitor them and what these trends can mean in your niche.

Advanced Excel and analytic techniques will be discussed as well as how these can help you create an effective Marketing Calendar.

Speaker: Jared Saunders, Affiliate Program Manager, JensonUSA

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10:55-11:40am

Track 2:
How to Effectively Reach & Engage Bloggers

Bloggers love hearing that they can earn money for writing about merchant brands and products. However, once they receive the instruction manual for affiliate marketing, that includes the arduous tasks of joining affiliate networks, applying for individual merchant programs, and hard coding complex deep links into their site, they turn away. Its too technical and time-consuming for many bloggers, and therefore too hard to get them to engage. This session will teach you how to get in touch with these bloggers and make affiliate marketing a simple, approachable offer they can’t refuse. Jenny Williams will take you through a few case studies of merchants like Shopbop and Barney’s who we have worked with to make blogger recruitment and engagement simple and effective, so bloggers can focus on creating the content they love, and merchants like you can reward them for sending you high quality traffic.

Speaker: Jenny Williams, Merchant Manager, Skimlinks

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11:50am-12:35pm

Track 1:
Maximize Your Affiliate ROI with Checkout Optimization

Are you wasting your affiliate traffic? Checkout optimization is critical to identify and correct leaks, speedbumps and roadblocks that impact your conversion rate, revenue and profit. Join Linda Bustos of the Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog and explore why checkout optimization works, what to optimize from cart to post-purchase email, what to measure and how to get started with checkout testing, including how to optimize for your referred-by-affiliate segment.

Speaker: Linda Bustos, Director of Ecommerce Research, Elastic Path Software

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11:50am-12:35pm

Track 2:
Is Your Affiliate Program an Afterthought?

In many companies the affiliate channel is seen as merely afterthought. A necessary task and not an integral part of the overall marketing mix. Competition between SEM teams, SEM agencies and Affiliate Managers can create channel conflict. Channel conflict is something many businesses face and is as old as business itself and can put departments at odds with one another.

Promoting your program internally is just as important as promoting it externally. Understanding how to position your program with Executives and Colleagues is critical to running and growing a successful program.

In this session, Tony Pantano will present the major issues that affiliate managers may face in prompting their program internally and fighting for it up the corporate chain. We will also present ways to setup a program for success and ways to overcome any potential channel conflict to guarantee that your program is effective.

Speaker: Tony Pantano, CEO, Imwave

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12:35-1:35pm

Lunch

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1:35-2:20pm

Track 1:
The Global Push

Rather than online businesses thinking about moving internationally they should see themselves as a global business from day one. Ecommerce allows you to reach a global audience and by tailoring service and messaging to international customers retailers can appeal to these markets.

As businesses begin to ramp up their online presence overseas, Chris Bishop will examine the benefits – and challenges – of international Ecommerce. The session will be packed with statistics such as the US, UK and European markets which are worth about $221bn (£137.5bn), £57bn and €172bn (£145.9bn) respectively. And how brands are breaking into these conventional markets and emerging Indian, South American and Asian markets.

Speaker: Chris Bishop, Founder & Managing Director, 7thingsmedia

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1:35-2:20pm

Track 2:
Optimizing Website Real Estate & Customer Experience

In this session, Lena Siara Huang, a Senior Online Marketer who has worked for companies such as JC Penney, Marriott, and Rosetta Stone, will cover ways to improve your website real estate and online customer experience along the way – before they even get to the shopping cart, and aside from specific affiliate landing pages. The goal is simple: improve the overall user experience for better conversion rates, and thus increase your affiliate program sales.

Specifically, this session will cover best practices and examples on:

  • Customer engagement and experience-based differentiation
  • Basic website usability: guided navigation and page real-estate
  • Value-adds, product attributes and dimensions: make it easy for them to decide
  • Merchandising and dynamic recommendations
  • On-site Search: where you’re losing traffic, what you can capitalize on
  • Things to avoid, unless you really want to drive them away

Speaker: Lena Siara Huang, Sr. Manager, eCommerce and CX

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2:20-2:40pm

Break / Exhibit Hall

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2:40-3:25pm

Track 1:
Affiliate Marketing for Mobile Apps

The worlds biggest brands all have mobile apps. Many are already driving user acquisition through those apps, buying traffic through one or two ad networks, but advertisers are looking for new publishers and networks with mobile traffic, and they want to pay CPA. Learn the basics of mobile app advertising, the players involved and the tracking required with Peter Hamilton of MobileAppTracking.com

Speaker: Peter Hamilton, Partner & CMO, HasOffers

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2:40-3:25pm

Track 2:
Leveraging Online Video for Affiliate Programs

The nature of online video is changing dramatically. YouTube has recently announced a $200M development fund, which they are distributing to seed the creation of online video networks. I will discuss this trend, as well as the emergence of the four leading networks, Machinima, Maker Studios, Big Fra.me and Full Screen.

In addition to discussing the macro trends in IP video, John Greathouse will describe some of the tools and strategies affiliate managers can use to leverage the massive amount of available advertising inventory. One such tool, Coull, allows for the quick and easy insertion of clickable links into third-party videos.

Speaker: John Greathouse, Partner, Rincon Venture Partners

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3:35-4:20pm

Track 1: PANEL
Inside the Mind of a Super Affiliate

Every merchant and affiliate manager wants to know what’s inside the mind of a super affiliate. This is your chance! The panel discussion – brought to you by Geno Prussakov, the Founder and Chair of Affiliate Management Days – will have three accomplished affiliates (a datafeed one, a coupon & deals one, and a paid search one) share their thoughts on multiple burning issues, as well as answer audience’s questions.

Speakers: Siva Kumar (TheFind.com), Kim Rowley (KIMarketing.com), Tony Pantano (Imwave) – moderated by Chris Bishop

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3:35-4:20pm

Track 2:
Around the Corner: Best Practices for Mobile & Social Media Campaign Integration

This is a case studies-based presentation on how to successfully integrate mobile and social media campaigns into existing traditional affiliate programs. As merchants and vendors continue to realize the growing impact of traffic sources outside previously available channels such as display and brand advertising, these studies point to successful practices, tips and programs that have leveraged more democratized media (mostly mobile and social media) to provide healthy conversion boosts and community growth.

Speaker: Sam Harrelson, Publisher/Editor, PayPerTrends

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4:25-5:10pm

Keynote:
The Science of Influence & Persuasion: Getting What You Want, When You Want It

This keynote will focus on how affiliate managers can harness the power of the six basic persuasion principles outlined by Robert Cialdini and Guy Kawasaki.

John Greathouse will discuss specific examples regarding how each principle can be applied to a typical affiliate manager’s day-to-day operations, from persuading a publisher to expand the scope of a particular advertiser’s links to influencing a new advertising client to sign up an OPM agency.

The science of persuasion can also be applied to the hiring process, negotiating large purchases, as well as everyone’s personal relationships.

Speaker: John Greathouse, Partner, Rincon Venture Partners

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5:10-5:20pm

Closing Wrap-Up:

Speaker: Geno Prussakov, Chair, Affiliate Management Day

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