TheShortStack

Having just come back from my first conference, I thought I'd post a few thoughts on here as I know there were a few questions posted on the forums about how useful they were.

Obviously, the conference has been overshadowed by various events but I wasn't there for that and so would rather focus on what everyone was really there for.

Given recent events at CAP, I know a lot of people from here were going to boycott the conference. From my point of view, I'm still new to this affiliate lark and seeing as the conference was right on my doorstep it seemed stupid not to go.

All in all, I had a great time. There were some really useful presentations on SEO and landing page optimisation which I was able to take learnings from and it was also good to put some faces to names as far as Account Managers go. What struck me most was how open everyone was despite the fact that I was still a relatively new affiliate on some of the programs.

Similarly the guys who were presenting were approachable and were quite prepared to have a chat through any questions that cropped up.

Also a big shout out to Graeme (Dealer Dan) and John (ThisisVegas) who were both awesome. It was great to put some faces to names and the two of them were brilliant by chatting through their experiences in the industry and introducing me to various other people at the conference.

For new affiliates like myself, I'd certainly suggest going to a conference if you get the opportunity. I don't know how much value there would be for a new affiliate in spending money to go to more than conference a year, but if one comes to town then I'd definitely recommend going along as it's a good source of information ... and it's always good to meet up with the people you spend so much time swapping ideas with on here!