The affiliate marketing world has never really had any barriers online, all one big community working together towards a common goal, however we are all individuals all with our own preconceived ideas and notions, and many of us tend to stick to our own home market often due language barriers and very little understanding of the markets and demographics elsewhere in the world.

Yesterday went a little way to bringing down some of geographical barriers when the inaugural Affiliate Summit UK was held at the Olympia Conference Centre in London.

You could say that the event started some fifteen hours earlier when Buy.at held the Affiliate Summit pre-party at the Firehouse in Cromwell road. If you have never been to a Buy.at event you have never lived, they are legendary, if there is ever an award for the most sociable affiliate network they will win hands down, as it is they have been nominated for 2 awards at the forthcoming a4uAwards. Any way I digress, the Buy.at party was once again and eclectic mix of socializing and networking, a special mention should be made regarding the staff at the Firehouse who seemed to appear like magic every time the level of champagne in my glass got a little low.

On to the main event, being my first Affiliate Summit I made sure of getting to Olympia in plenty of time, registering around 9.30 the delegate I spoke to first had traveled over from Sydney Australia, setting the scene for what was to turn out to be a truly international event. Where I found myself passing the time with attendees from all over the globe, mainland Europe was well represented as were the US and Canada.

David Hall of Affiliate Window opened the event with an introduction which focused on working together towards the common goal.

Affiliate Summit founders Missy Ward and Shawn Collins gave us the ‘Affiliate Marketing View From The US’ which touched on utilizing and embracing new marketing methods and channels, such as video ads and optimizing sites to cater for the massively growing number of users who access the internet using mobile devices.

The opening keynote speech was by Linus Gregoriadis of E-Consultancy who gave a fascinating insight into Affiliate Marketing from the merchant perspective backed up with statistics from the recently published Affiliate Marketing Merchants Report 2007.

The next session I attended was ‘SEO For The New Google / Yahoo / MSN’ presented by Wil Reynolds of Seer Interactive, I must admit this was the highlight of the Summit for me, even though Wil’s reputation had preceded him I’d never seen him in action so to speak. I don’t want to go into too much depth about this one, you had to be there, suffice to say that Wil focused on the changing face of SEO touching on search engine algorithms and SEO methods past (what doesn’t work anymore) present (what can and does work now) and future (what could happen if the SE’s used all the data they have available).

The lunch break gave me an opportunity to catch up with a few old friends and acquaintances mainly from the a4uforum and a chance to pick up a few goodies in the exhibit hall.

The afternoon for me commenced with the ‘Super Affiliate Panel’ chaired by Todd Crawford of Digital River’s oneNetworkDirect the panel comprised of Keith Budden from E-Business Assist, Richard Yendall, of Rpoints and Sri Sharma of Net Media Planet, Todd kept the session flowing by throwing a number of questions to the panel, who I am happy to recall were not in 100% agreement on every point.

The final session I attended was ‘Optimal Domain Name Strategy For Better Performance On SEO and SEM’ presented by Matt Bentley of Sedo, this talk did exactly what it says on the label, Matt highlighted some interesting methods of using domain names to drive traffic, and put prominence of the importance of having the right domain name in the first place.

The day finished with a networking cocktail hour with an open mike policy, and although a few people took the opportunity to introduce themselves to the assembled throng, many of us showed British reserve (or is that shyness brought on by lack of alcohol).

I feel that I must extend a hearty congratulations to organizers Shawn Collins and Missy Ward for bringing Affiliate Summit to the UK, I am certain it will be back next year all guns blazing, bigger and better, and I offer a special thanks to Jess Luthi of Affiliate Program Advice who ensured I attended the Summit when I was dithering about it (Jess is also nominated for a couple of gongs at the a4uAwards so get voting).

All in all it was a tremendous event and I was happy to have been a small part of the first UK Affiliate Summit.

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