On Tuesday I attended my first ever LinkShare Symposium, representing our clients: Nick Jr. Boost and Shockwave ! Overall, it was a great event with a perfect balance between education, networking, and fun.  Since it was my first time, I just wanted to reflect on everything I experienced, as well as provide a brief overview for those who couldn’t make it.

To kick off the event, several members of the LinkShare team (including CEO Yaz Iida) welcomed and thanked all of the attendees. They introduced us to some of the great developments that LinkShare has been working on:

• Deep Linking Controls (For advertisers that do not allow linking to certain pages, but would like to allow deep linking on all other pages)
• WordPress Deal Feed Plug-In (LinkShare would like to make it easier for publishers of all sizes – including bloggers – to plug & play. They’ve seen over 5,000 installations thus far!)

And…the most exciting development (in my opinion) is the ALL NEW Advertiser Dashboard! The new advertiser interface is a lot cleaner and simpler, making it easy to find everything you’re searching for:

• New Trend Chart with Year over Year Trending Reports
• It is now easier to enter dates when pulling a report
• Link Section enables you to see just how well your creative is performing
• Publishers are a lot easier to locate

After we learned about all these new developments, Sucharita Mulpuru (Vice President of Forrester Research and Symposium 2010 Keynote Speaker) talked to us about how eCommerce can succeed in every economic condition. Some key notes (ha.. no pun intended):

• Consumers shop online because it’s convenient (#1 reason: it saves time and #2 reason: deals & coupons -> Remember this important stat, advertisers!)
• Successful brands compete up or across! Instead of fighting over whose value/dollar menu was the best, McDonald’s challenged Starbucks by highlighting a new product: McCafe.
• React to people power: Get your customers involved! Social web activity is a global phenomenon. EventBrite allows customers to share information about their tickets via social media.
• Expand your IT team – new technological developments & innovation breed success.
• Multi-Channel: Many buyers are now on more than 1 device – embrace the mobility revolution.

Next up: Panel Discussion! This year’s panel included: Siva V. Kumar (TheFind.com), Diana Gee (The North Face), Jeff Nobbs (ExtraBux), David Lonczak (Drugstore.com) and Kenneth Dayley III (crocs). This discussion was interesting because it allowed us to get perspectives from both advertisers and affiliates! It was great to hear their thoughts on these topics:

• Conversion Rates: Some affiliates (including ExtraBux) are going to have dynamic featured ads that will change to fit the customer. It’s also important to make sure there are clear Call to Actions. Additionally, don’t include too much info! We wouldn’t want to overwhelm visitors.
• Data Feeds: What’s missing? Unique identifiers: Sku #s, Bar Codes, Brand & Model #. Tax and Shipping information is also a plus for TheFind.com!
• Coupons & Discounts: crocs found that product-specific coupons performed much better! Siva from TheFind pointed out that virtual discounts (e.g. Facebook Credits) are great for those advertisers who are brand sensitive and prefer not to offer coupons.
• Mobile Commerce: TheFind also found that their peak mobile day was Black Friday due to customers comparing online deals to in-store.
• Global Plans: Try to develop sites that are accessible to those around the world.
• Getting Ready for Q4: Prepare ahead of time and make sure you keep your affiliates posted on your deals. Ideally, letting affiliates know when a product is out of stock would be great too (especially to help conversion rates)!

After all this great learning, it was lunch & Golden Link Award time! The Golden Link Awards were hosted by the Upright Citizens Brigade who certainly kept things fun.  I especially liked their piece on the creator of the Pop-Up Ad – “Mr. Popup.” The Golden Link Awards were really nice because they rewarded all of the innovative and successful players in the affiliate marketing space. Congrats everyone!

Next came “DealMaker,” a place for affiliates and advertisers to walk around and chat. Some had booths with great giveaways (Erica won a hat from KarmaLoop.com) and some just had great information.  This was one of the most successful parts of the Symposium because I was able to meet a lot of our clients’ awesome partners in person!

Lastly, the after party at the Biergarten at the Standard Hotel – who doesn’t love free beer & pretzels? The photobooth also made things really interesting.

This concludes my successful trip to LinkShare Symposium. I learned a lot, and got to connect with all kinds of people – merchants, agencies and affiliates alike! Thanks everyone for this great experience.

Valerie Russo

Media Coordinator – Affiliate