Affiliate Summit 2007 East Day Three

Affiliate Summit 2007 East is now one for the history books. It’s been an educational and exhausting marathon of affiliate marketing that began for me on Thursday, July 5 when I arrived to prepare for the conference.

The final day of Affiliate Summit began with a keynote chat moderated by Emcee Lisa Riolo with Rob Kniaz, Product Manager at Google and Mark Papia, VP of Performance Marketing at FOX Interactive Media. The wide ranging discussion answered lots of questions affiliate marketers had about Google and MySpace.

The keynote was followed by a new session, Elevator Networking, where attendees of Affiliate Summit had a chance to ask questions and have a think tank of people work out an answer for you.

There were a number of tables set up and headed by a moderator with a background in a given topic. The people at the table were given the opportunity to give an elevator speech about their company (maximum 30 seconds) and then ask a question about a problem they had.

This was followed by the moderator and others at the table trying to solve their problem.

Based on the feedback received via paper forms ad text messages, the session was a big success.

The afternoon on the final day of Affiliate Summit featured a number of educational sessions, and culminated with the “Lessons Learned” class, where a succession of affiliate marketing thought leaders and visionaries shared their topline tips from the conference.

Each speaker took the stage for a minute or two and provided attendees with some useful and innovative take aways to wrap up the conference.

This was the biggest affiliate marketing conference on the East Coast to date with approximately 1,850 registered attendees.

I always have this same feeling on the last evening of the Affiliate Summit events – a mixture of exuberance and optimism from the things I’ve learned, combined with the realization that the whole thing has come to an end this time around.

Affiliate marketing is about relationships, that’s no secret, and it’s vividly exhibited every time the community gets together to share, learn, smile and move forward.

So long to all the old and new friends. It’s time to apply this great stuff that’s spinning around my head from the past bunch of days.