Shawn Collins' Blog

Affiliate marketing and other stuff from Shawn Collins, co-founder of Affiliate Summit.

  • Home
  • About Shawn
  • Contact
  • Learn Affiliate Marketing
  • Disclosure
  • Archives

Affiliate Summit Sort of Started as a Spite Store

May 5, 2023 by Shawn Collins

In April 2003, I attended an affiliate marketing event on a cruise ship out of Miami. This was the third year it took place on a ship after an inaugural version on land.

Shawn Collins at the first Affiliate Summit

Over those years, I met Missy Ward at these events and became conference friends. While sitting at a bar on the ship in 2003, we realized we were both unhappy with the event’s direction.

We had provided much help to make it happen, and I was the top affiliate referring attendees. The last straw for me was when the organizer got up in front of the crowd and thanked me for telling him he wouldn’t have to pay me the many thousands of dollars I had earned through referrals because the numbers were tight for him to make the cruise happen.

I never had that discussion with him, and I was counting on the money as the sole provider for my expanding family (Kerri, baby #3, was due later that year).

I was furious, and he said he could do nothing about it because he didn’t have the money to pay me.

So anyway, Missy and I were chatting about it, and in the fog of many drinks, we decided we’d create a competing event that was bigger and better.

The one hitch was that we had neither the experience to start a conference nor any money to put into it, but we wanted to make it happen.

In May 2003, we chatted on the phone (one of fewer than a dozen we would have over the next couple of decades) and decided to make it happen.

On May 19, 2003, AffiliateSummit.com was registered. We didn’t have funds to incorporate, get a professionally designed site, etc. So, we did it all ourselves because we were ambitious and passed off.

Thinking back, it’s like the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode in 2020, where Larry David has a run-in with a guy who operates a coffee shop, and he decides to open a competing coffee shop next door.

The original plan was to do a cruise conference in 2004 to compete head-on, but I suggested we do a smaller, cheaper event in 2003 to get the name out there and build some momentum.

Affiliate Summit 2004 Promo

Our site was ugly, and we didn’t have a payment processor (we used my PayPal account), couldn’t afford to incorporate, and had no money to rent a space. But we were stubborn, and it was going to happen.

As it turned out, a friend mentioned that the marketing department at Baruch College, a few blocks from my office then, allowed people to run events in their space for free in exchange for allowing some of their marketing students to attend for free.

I reached out and struck a deal with them that included free A/V and everything – we just had to pay to bring in lunch for the attendees.

We decided to set a low price ($75 for the whole day, including lunch) and then called in favors to get friends to staff it, and our industry friends stepped up as sponsors and speakers.

Our little venture was immediately profitable, and people liked what we did. We were sold out a month before the conference.

Shawn Collins, Andy Rodriguez and Missy Ward

That first event was a big hit, and we rolled the success into the 2004 cruise. The people in the industry had shifted to our event, and the guy with the other event ended up canceling and screwing many other people out of money.

In the span of a year, he went from being the main event in the industry to going out of business. He topped out at around 200 attendees. At the end of our run, we were pushing about 8,000 in Las Vegas, and he is long gone from the industry.

There is a lesson in there for you… treat people with respect and honor your obligations, so you don’t get obliterated by a spite store.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Affiliate Summit Tagged With: Affiliate Summit, Baruch College, Missy Ward, Shawn Collins, Spite Store

I Miss Affiliate Summit West at This Time of Year

January 6, 2021 by Shawn Collins

Affiliate Summit started in NYC in 2003, but the longest-standing location over the years was Las Vegas. We held Affiliate Summit West 2006 over January 8-10, 2006 at Bally’s Las Vegas.

That was the first year of fifteen straight for affiliate marketers to converge on Vegas shortly after the new year.

We jumped around a lot of hotels in Las Vegas over those fifteen years – Bally’s to the Rio to the Wynn to Caesar’s Palace and then a long residence at Paris.

While the scenery changed from time to time, one thing was consistent and that was the great people who would come from all over the world.

We smiled, we learned, we drank, we laughed, we sang, and we built deeper relationships with each other that have lasted all of these years.

Along the way, we also lost some friends way too early, but we have such rich memories that will last forever.

We started these events with a couple of hundreds of attendees and as we reached the end those numbers were seven-thousand-something. As more and more unfamiliar faces joined in with us, we all made new friends, too. People from about 80 countries getting together for shop talk and fun.

It was very fitting that we wound up Affiliate Summit West 2020 at Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill – a beautiful going away party drinking bubbles with all of these true, important friends. That night with the people there is something I will always cherish.

My last Affiliate Summit party

We had some great times, didn’t we?

This year marks an end to those experiences and memories with our people… well, at last for our annual get-togethers in Las Vegas in January/February.

We’ll just have to make other plans in the future to catch up and laugh and cry and have a blast.

I think Jim Morrison said it best about our shared end of an era…

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I wanna have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames.”

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Affiliate Summit Tagged With: Affiliate Summit, Affiliate Summit West, Las Vegas

Affiliate Summit – The Family We Chose

February 3, 2020 by Shawn Collins

We just celebrated the 50th Affiliate Summit event over 17 years and I am still trying to process all of this.

Affiliate Summit Friends

Back when we started all of this in 2003, I don’t think Missy and I could have imagined what it would become. We just wanted a place for the industry to get together to learn and network. Also, we thought most of the conferences out there were lame, so we wanted to create something that didn’t suck.

Missy and I were conference friends for a couple of years before Affiliate Summit, but still, we didn’t know each other that well, and we didn’t have any money or knowledge of running events.

But we believed in it and we were sure we could create something useful, fun, and different.

Along the way, we met more and more amazing people in the space. Over time I recognized that these people weren’t just colleagues, they were friends… and family.

Our family, that we discovered at Affiliate Summit, would often remark that attending was like going to a family reunion, but one where we got to pick the family.

I felt the same, but I never had my heart swell up with love as I did at Affiliate Summit West 2020 when so many people came together to recognize Missy and me. Two different events with so many awesome people and drinks and cake and awards and pictures and cards and videos and hugs. I was so overwhelmed that I was speechless.

Wayne Porter Award for Service to the Affiliate Industry

Affiliate Summit is such a family that it’s where my brother came and introduced me to his wife Victoria for the first time and they’ve been to lots of Easts and Wests.

Mike and Victoria notes

It was amazing and I’m still on a high from it.

AS picture collage

Deb Carney, Warren Corpus, Angel Djambazov, Liz Fogg, Bhavik Modi, and everyone else who made those days so special – I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It was amazing and perfect.

And so great to end it all with drinks at Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill – something that started small in the days we were doing Affiliate Summit at Bally’s (2006 maybe?) and grew to a grand goodbye party for all of us.

Poet Rod McKuen once wrote…

We come into the world alone. We go away the same. We’re meant to spend the interlude between in closeness or so we tell ourselves. But it’s a long way from the morning to the evening.

That reminds me of all of us – so many of us were living in places where other people didn’t get us. Then we’d get together and all speak the same language. We made sense to each other and we liked being with one another. We didn’t just share the latest tips and tricks. We shared our lives.

This was supposed to be a business thing, but yet I would always be so excited to see everybody and I had this sad feeling in my heart when it would end each time.

That closeness we all shared was just a couple of times a year, but when it happened it sure was awesome. Thanks to all y’all for all of these years, and cheers to the times ahead.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Affiliate Resources, Affiliate Summit Tagged With: Affiliate Summit, Angel Djambazov, Bhavik Modi, Deb Carney, Liz Fogg, Missy Ward, Shawn Collins, Warren Corpus

The First Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas was a Little Bumpy

December 2, 2019 by Shawn Collins

The first Affiliate Summit West took place on June 13-14, 2005 at the long-gone Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, NV. But we didn’t call it Affiliate Summit West back then because it was our only event that year.

Affiliate Summit West 2005

Before arriving in Las Vegas for this show I’d never been there before, and we were still pretty new to organizing conferences. That plus not a whole lot of money in the bank meant we were handling everything ourselves – the outsourcing of things didn’t happen until later.

So the day before the conference check-in was opening we enlisted the help of a bunch of friends to stuff the bags for the 550 or so attendees. We were in a suite at the Riviera all day with drinks and an assembly line going.

One of my favorite pictures from that conference was Missy laying on the hundreds of bags after we’d finished up.

Missy and the attendee bags at ASW05

After the last bag was stuffed, I went on an odyssey in Las Vegas that included taking a nap on the Strip and various versions of how I ended up back in my room at some late hour. You can hear the gory details in my video recap of the conference.

The check-in process was way more primitive back then, but we had smaller crowds and it worked.

ASW05 check-in

Affiliate Summit West 2005 was the first time we had an exhibit hall, but that may be too generous of a term for what was going on there – we had 15 booths in a room. You can see the “exhibit hall” and other entertaining Affiliate Summit relics in the Affiliate Summit West 2005 program, which was lovingly created in Microsoft Word.

ASW05 exhibit hall

While we were at the Riviera there was also a group of rugby fans, and one of the things many people remember from that conference was that a boozer from the rugby crowd threw up in the pool and it had to be closed.

Towards the end of Affiliate Summit West 2005, there was a big scare after a panel on blogging. One of the panelists, Wayne Porter, collapsed and had to be hospitalized shortly after the panel.

Blogging panel at ASW05

Thankfully, Wayne recovered from that fall and was later anointed as the first Affiliate Summit Legend.

It’s hard to believe Affiliate Summit West 2020 will be the 16th year in a row that Affiliate Summit is in Las Vegas. Looking forward to seeing lots of the old-timers who were there at the start, as well as the youngbloods.

Check out the pictures from Affiliate Summit West 2005.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Affiliate Summit Tagged With: Affiliate Summit, ASW05

James Martell is a Legend in Affiliate Marketing

August 14, 2019 by Shawn Collins

It was an honor to say some words about James Martell as we honored him as an Industry Legend at Affiliate Summit East 2019. Accepting the award were Arlene Martell, Justin Martell, and Kimberly Juchnowski.

James Martell and Shawn Collins

I had a hard time getting the words out that I’d written about James. Here they are for anybody who couldn’t be there…

There are lots of awesome accomplishments and distinctions we can talk about when it comes to James Martell.

He taught tens of thousands of business owners how to effectively market their businesses online through his books, courses, live trainings, webinars, podcasts, and speaking engagements.

He was a true Internet pioneer, thought leader, and influencer who knew how to bring success online.

James had more than twenty years of online business experience, and was successful in online marketing, blogging, podcasting, coaching, outsourcing, and video creation. He authored several business books, and developed twelve popular marketing courses.

He also authored of one of the first and best-selling eBooks on affiliate marketing, and was a host of the longest running affiliate marketing podcast, starting in 2003, with listeners in more than one hundred countries. That is crazy to me – I got into podcasting in 2006 and thought I was breaking new ground – the reality is that James was there and so many other places first.

I think this testimonial I gave to James for his site many years ago does a good job to say what I thought of him…

“James is a one of a kind – an Internet marketing rock star. When he has spoken at Affiliate Summit, his sessions always receive a 10 out of 10. In a space with many imitators and pretenders, James is the real deal.”

But James was more than an awesome business guy – he was a husband, father, grandfather, and so much more.

James had a giant personality and an even bigger heart.

His presence, guidance, and stewardship to so many in affiliate marketing and the in the real world will forever be missed.

James was a big Elvis fan, and I was going to try and pick out an Elvis song and sing a little bit in his honor. I came across a song by the King called Memories, and that choked me up:

“Memories, pressed between the pages of my mind
Memories, sweetened through the ages just like wine
Quiet thoughts come floating down
And settle softly to the ground
Like golden autumn leaves around my feet
I touched them and they burst apart with sweet memories
Sweet memories”

Goodbye, James – you’re a legend.

Thank you to Liz Fogg for recording the award ceremony for James.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Affiliate Summit Tagged With: Affiliate Summit, Affiliate Summit East 2019, ASE19, James Martell, Legend, Pinnacle Award

Remembering Jim Bouton and His Keynote at Affiliate Summit

July 22, 2019 by Shawn Collins

Jim Bouton, former New York Yankees pitcher, author of Ball Four, creator of Big League Chew, sportscaster, activist, and a bunch of other things, passed away on July 10, 2019, at 80 years old.

Shawn Collins, Jim Bouton, and Missy Ward

I discovered his book, Ball Four, in the 1990s, and I just loved the book. So much that one of my first affiliate sites was BallFourBook.com, which I started in 2000 to promote the book with Amazon links. Jim’s site still has me listed as one of the fansites.

In the late 1990’s I interviewed Jim for a zine I was publishing at the time called Velocity NYC. The interview also ran on NJ.com, the online version of the Newark Star-Ledger, where I was the weekend sports editor for years for the online edition.

Bouton updated Ball Four every decade, and in the 2000 update, he mentioned my affiliate site in his book. I was out of my mind excited.

BallFourBook.com

So anyway, I was in touch with him over the years and as Affiliate Summit was taking off I thought he’d make an awesome keynote speaker. We had him come in and keynote Affiliate Summit East 2006 in Orlando.

I loved his keynote, but even better we chatted for a couple of hours before the keynote and he had me in stitches with his old baseball stories. It was amazing to hear first-person accounts of times with Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, and other legends from the 60s.

It was one of my favorite days, and I will always cherish it.

RIP Jim.

“A ballplayer spends a good piece of his life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.” – Jim Bouton

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Affiliate Summit Tagged With: Affiliate Summit, Ball Four, Jim Bouton

The 20 Hottest Cloud-Based Tools for Websites and Businesses from Affiliate Summit East 2017

July 8, 2019 by Shawn Collins

This was a conference session titled The 20 Hottest Cloud-Based Tools for Websites and Businesses at Affiliate Summit East 2017, which took place July 30 – August 1, 2017, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.

Evan Weber at Affiliate Summit East 2017

Session speaker(s):

  • Evan Weber, CEO, Experience Advertising

Session description:
Learn about the most exciting, functional, and business building cloud-based tools for businesses and websites. All levels welcome!

Experience Level: Intermediate
Target Audience: Affiliate/Publisher, Merchant/Advertiser
Niche/Vertical: Web Tools

Slides: The 20 Hottest Cloud-Based Tools for Websites and Businesses

If you liked this video, be sure to register for the next Affiliate Summit.

Note: the companies and positions listed above were current as of the time of the conference. Some of this information may have changed since then.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Affiliate Summit Tagged With: Affiliate Summit East 2017, ASE17, cloud-based tools, Evan Weber, tools

3 Reasons Blogs & Influencers Avoid Your Affiliate Program from Affiliate Summit East 2017

July 1, 2019 by Shawn Collins

This was a conference session titled 3 Reasons Blogs & Influencers Avoid Your Affiliate Program at Affiliate Summit East 2017, which took place July 30 – August 1, 2017, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.

Mike Nunez at Affiliate Summit East 2017

Session speaker(s):

  • Mike Nunez, CEO, AffiliateManager.com

Session description:
Learn the three biggest mistakes advertisers are making with their affiliate program with regards to content sites, bloggers, and influencers, and how to fix those issues.

Experience Level: Intermediate
Target Audience: Affiliate/Publisher, Merchant/Advertiser, Network
Niche/Vertical: Influencers

Slides: 3 Reasons Blogs & Influencers Avoid Your Affiliate Program

If you liked this video, be sure to register for the next Affiliate Summit.

Note: the companies and positions listed above were current as of the time of the conference. Some of this information may have changed since then.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Affiliate Summit Tagged With: Affiliate Summit East 2017, ASE17, influencers, Mike Nunez

Managing Micro-Influencers on a Performance Plus Basis from Affiliate Summit East 2017

June 24, 2019 by Shawn Collins

This was a conference session titled Managing Micro-Influencers on a Performance Plus Basis at Affiliate Summit East 2017, which took place July 30 – August 1, 2017, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.

Alison Chew at Affiliate Summit East 2017

Session speaker(s):

  • Alison Chew, Global Director, Strategic Partners, Acceleration Partners

Session description:
Alison Chew will review strategies for identifying the best influencers for your brand and will demonstrate new payment models that close the loop on tracking engagement to clicks, orders and sales.

Experience Level: Beginner
Target Audience: Merchant/Advertiser
Niche/Vertical: Micro-Influencers

Slides: Managing Micro-Influencers on a Performance Plus Basis

If you liked this video, be sure to register for the next Affiliate Summit.

Note: the companies and positions listed above were current as of the time of the conference. Some of this information may have changed since then.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Affiliate Summit Tagged With: Affiliate Summit East 2017, Alison Chew, ASE17, influencers, micro-influencers

Double Your Blog Traffic In 90 Days… and Monetize It! from Affiliate Summit East 2017

June 17, 2019 by Shawn Collins

This was a conference session titled Double Your Blog Traffic In 90 Days… and Monetize It! at Affiliate Summit East 2017, which took place July 30 – August 1, 2017, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.

Debbie Bookstaber, Anne Parris, and Kelby Carr at Affiliate Summit East 2017

Session speaker(s):

  • Anne Parris, Owner, Midlife Boulevard
  • Debbie Bookstaber, Owner, Element Associates
  • Kelby Carr, President, Type-A Parent

Session description:
We’ll go beyond editorial calendars and SEO to show you the techniques and tools bloggers use to grow their traffic using Facebook, Pinterest and more. Plus best practices for monetizing!

Experience Level: Intermediate
Target Audience: Affiliate/Publisher
Niche/Vertical: Blogging

Slides: Double Your Blog Traffic In 90 Days… and Monetize It!

If you liked this video, be sure to register for the next Affiliate Summit.

Note: the companies and positions listed above were current as of the time of the conference. Some of this information may have changed since then.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Affiliate Summit Tagged With: Affiliate Summit East 2017, Anne Parris, ASE17, blogging, Debbie Bookstaber, Kelby Carr

Next Page »

Social

  • View shawncollins’s profile on Facebook
  • View shawncollins’s profile on Twitter
  • View shawncollinsatx’s profile on Instagram
  • View affiliatetip’s profile on Pinterest
  • View shawncollins’s profile on LinkedIn
  • View affiliatetip’s profile on YouTube

Blogroll

  • Affiliate Manager
  • Austin FC
  • Austin, TX Airbnb
  • Bose Hearing Aids
  • Extra Money Answer

Return to top of page

Copyright © · Shawn Collins Consulting ·

 

Loading Comments...