04

Aug

Wearing Both Publisher and Merchant Hats at the Affiliate Summit Conference

Posted by: Jeremy Reither

Affiliate Summit is a great internet marketing conference in many ways, but ironically affiliates themselves are actually severely under-represented at this show. The majority of attendees are affiliate networks (trying to attract new merchants or publishers) or merchants (trying to learn about new methods of attracting publishers or running their programs). The smallest group at Affiliate Summit is actual affiliates – which is surprising, because the ones who do show up are treated like royalty. And if there was ever a time to negotiate the terms of an affiliate relationship, it’s at this conference.

We know this because we’ve represented both merchants and publishers at the conference – this will be our 4th – and we’ve found it a great source of leads for both sides of the business. We’re proud that one of R3R’s key differentiators as a web business consultancy is that we have a strong functional and business-side understanding of our our clients’ technical and marketing projects – from our experiences as both owners/operators of web business and as trained professional service providers. The value of a balanced perspective translates well in the world of affiliate marketing, too – the best advertisers (aka: merchants) understand and consider what makes an affiliate program succesful by understanding how their affiliates (aka: publishers) operate.

So, as Affiliate Summit, rapidly approaches, we’re looking forward to again being among the few attendees who play both sides of the field – by wearing both our Publisher and Merchant hats. Depending on which hat we’re wearing when we meet, you may even get one of two different business cards.